Use of Jesus' words and teachings

[Howard Beale]

Is it ethical for a Christian (including priests, ministers etc,) to tweek the words and teachings of Jesus to make a point they believe is important.

 

[Dave-W]

Within certain bounds, absolutely.

The ancient rabbis did it.
The writers of the NT did it.
Even our Lord did it.

 

[Jenniferdiana]

Not if the point come across as the same. It's perfectly fine..

 

[2PhiloVoid]

Is it ethical for a Christian (including priests, ministers etc,) to tweek the words and teachings of Jesus to make a point they believe is important.

It depends.

I won't presume to be able to discern 'extra' meanings and contexts in the words of our Lord or of His Apostles. I'll just have to settle for doing the hard, academic work involved in the application of Hermeneutics.

 

[Radagast]

Is it ethical for a Christian (including priests, ministers etc,) to tweek the words and teachings of Jesus to make a point they believe is important.

No. If that's what they are actually doing.

But it is quite acceptable to translate the Greek in ways that might be unfamiliar to you.

 

[Howard Beale]

No. If that's what they are actually doing.

But it is quite acceptable to translate the Greek in ways that might be unfamiliar to you.

We all have something to learn, but before you read further,, please take a look at my post Hi to all in the "Introduce Yourself" heading of the forum.

I just had a brief discussion on this forum about Luke 17:21 regarding the misrepresentation of the Greek term entos being rendered as “in your midst”. At no time in the Greek language thru Ancient Greek to the time of Jesus has the term entos ever been used to mean “among” or “in the midst”. In the entire NT the Greek term mesos is used to indicate “among” or “in the midst”. I went on to address the citations in Strong’s and Thayer’s which were used to support that meaning of entos as “among” or “in your midst” and showed unequivocally that the citations were erroneous used and twisted the meaning of Jesus words and teaching.

The misrepresentation of that term has been used to support a belief that Jesus is the Kingdom, something he never claimed. I do not think this is acceptable.

This is fascinating for me. It seems from what I read here and elsewhere that we have come to a place and time where we Christians believe that Jesus, the Divine Incarnate, was unclear in his words and teachings and that we modern day Christians think that we can tweek or even misrepresent those words and teachings to fit our personal, social or ideological agendas; that the words and teaching of the Divine Incarnate are malleable and we, in our brilliance, can use our intellectual mallets how we please to “clarify” what He meant to say but I guess was too addled in mind to say clearly.

With love
Howard