Saturday, August 9, 2008

Scripture Double Take

So I'm unpacking the office/baby room and start looking through some seminary/institute materials to decide if I want to keep them or not. One item is the "New Testament Video Guide" which discusses how to incorporate the Church's videos into lessons and make good use out of them. Among the suggestions for one video is a scripture marking exercise:
Give students the following case studies. Have them write down how they would handle the situation. Next have the students read the scriptures listed and decide what they teach about handling the situation.
...
Case Study 2: Val and Rob have had their summer fishing trip planned for months. At 10:00PM they check their gear and review their plans. Val realizes that he hasn't purchased his fishing license. They plan to leave at 5:30 the next morning. The sporting goods store doesn't open until 7:30. The only other place that sells fishing license is Tim's Bar, and it's open until midnight.

Scripture: 1 Thessalonians 5:21-22
Now I have a good guess what the scripture says. It's probably the one about avoiding the appearance of evil. No, they wouldn't be breaking the Word of Wisdom by walking into a bar to get a fishing license, but if there were someone struggling with avoiding alcohol who saw two such stalwart members of the Cornell Branch saunter into a bar, it might weaken their friend's faith; and just putting themselves in what might be a dangerous situation isn't such a hot idea either. Got it.

I decide to look the scripture up anyway to verify if my hunch is right. So I open up my scriptures and read the following:

"21. I charge thee before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, and the elect angels, that thou observe these things without preferring one before another, doing nothing by partiality.
22. Lay hands suddenly on no man, neither be partake of other men's sins: keep thyself pure."

Okay, that kinda goes along with what I was thinking. Keep yourself pure, don't partake, and ... uh, don't get into a bar fight? Okay. I wonder about the context, though. What's the next verse say?

"23. Drink no longer water, but use a little wine for thy stomach's sake"

WHAT!??!?

I double check where in the scriptures I am. Oops, I'm in 1st Timothy 5, not 1st Thes. *LOL*

1st Thes 5:22 is indeed about "abstaining from all appearance of evil." But what a place to accidentally turn to for that particular example!

"Sure, kids, go on over there, and have a brewski while you're at it. If your weak friend is going to see you and jump to conclusions anyway, you might as well be guilty...." *chortle*
Actually, the whole thing reminds me of the recent fast and testimony meeting when one of the characters in the branch got up and said, "So there I was in a bar on Saturday night...." Apparently he had a gospel conversation with a man who got suspicious there might be Mormons around when he saw 4 guys drinking Sprite while watching the Jazz.

It goes up there with the one about sister missionaries who accidentally told a new investigator to read 3rd Nephi 3:7 instead of 1st Nephi for his first reading assignment.....

3 comments:

Grandma Jule said...

Well, 3 Ne 3:7 *is* what we'd like folks to do - - - "Yield yourselves up . . and unite with us, and be partakers with us in all our substance . . ." just without the bad, ssecret combination part . . . .

hehehehe

Just shows, I guess, that there's a FINE LINE between god and the Devil sometimes, and you have to look VERY CAREFULLY to make sure you stay on the side you WANT to be on!

Lexi said...

ha ha ha ha ha ha! I laughed SO hard when I read 3 Ne 3:7 as well as your mix up. It's funny how context can make or break a spiritual moment and can turn into something hilarious. Honestly, who knew the scriptures could be so funny?

Sapphire Sting said...

My favorite scriptures-taken-out-of-context blend: Ruth 4:7-8, Ether 14:23