Be Strong In Trump?

With the attempted assassination of Donald Trump all eyes were on the Republican National Convention. Everyone was curious about how Trump would be after a near miss of being killed . Generally speaking, it was like a lot of other conventions. Famous people came out and gave their support to Trump being the nominee for the next presidential election. Everyone from Dana White, Tucker Carlson, Kid Rock, Russell Brand to Hulk Hogan stepped up to give their endorsement of the former president. But there was one interesting speaker that captured my attention. It was a pastor from the city of Detroit. Pastor Lorenzo Sewell was asked to speak before the Republican voters. His reason for being there was to show the African Americans how Trump is there for the black community more than the Democratic party is. He said, “[Trump] came to the hood because he cares about average everyday Americans.” And while that is why the good pastor was called up, that is not why I want to focus on him. It was something else that Sewell said. He said, “Do you know that Trump was shot at 6:11 (6:11 PM)? And did you know that Ephesians chapter six verse eleven says, ‘Be strong in the Lord and in His  mighty power.’?”

While on the surface this may seem compelling, in reality it is a very poor use of scripture. This reference was  what is referred to as “reading a meaning into the passage”. It is very careless to use bible verses this way. This is not how scripture works. Using the bible this way, you can make it say whatever you want! By doing this, Pastor Sewell is making us think that there is some spiritual significance to Trump, his near death experience and his run for president. That God was speaking to us in a unique way through Trump’s near death experience. But this is just numerology applied to the bible. We should never be interpreting scripture in this manner. You must properly interpret the passage in the context in which it was written. If we do not have boundaries in our interpretation, anyone can make the bible say anything they want! And unfortunately too many already do!

I had a friend who would say to me, “The bible says ‘Vengeance is mine…’!” as if to say she was ok to expel vengeance on people because the bible said she could. But that was grossly taken out of context and not what God really said. And this is exactly how Pastor Lorenzo is using Ephesians 6:11. We need to be rightly handling the word of truth (2 Timothy 2:15)! We must be good stewards of God’s word. And most importantly, if we use the bible in this flippant manner we will miss what God is really trying to tell us. Who are we to add meaning to the bible? Who are we to alter what God has said?! God has warned us, “You shall not add to the word that I command you, nor take from it, that you may keep the commandments of the LORD your God that I command you.” (Deuteronomy 4:2)

Now, does the bible tell us to be strong and courageous? Yes. Does scripture inform us that we are in a spiritual war? Yes. Are we taught to be strong in the strength of God? Absolutely. But Lorenzo could have said that without putting an extra significance on the passage that isn’t there. You can’t just grab a verse randomly with no context. Or else you could be like the guy that wanted to improve his devotional reading. You all know the story:  the man whose devotional reading consisted of cracking his Bible at random and reading the first verse his finger touched. One morning this was his verse for the day: “And Judas went out and hanged himself.” That can’t be it, he thought. So he tried again. Flipping through the pages he stopped at  “Go thou and do likewise” was his second hit. Chagrined, he thought, The third time's a charm! It wasn’t. It read: “What thou doest, do quickly!” So now is he supposed to go and hang himself? Of course not! But this is exactly how this pastor is treating scripture.

It is careless and reckless to read into the bible instead of having the bible read you. What I mean is that we are to approach the bible with a meekness (James 1:21) and allow it to transform us and our thinking (Romans 12:2). But this only happens when we read the bible in its proper context. Don’t you think that we should have God speak for Himself? Then why are we twisting things to make it say what we want it to? It is a prideful and arrogant way to read the bible. It is no different than the devil using scripture to try and tempt Jesus! So when we read the bible: we need to read more than one verse, we need to look at it in the context of the whole passage and the whole bible and then realize what God Himself is trying to say. Taking random verses, sentences and words from all over the bible you can make them say whatever you feel like. But that is not what we are to do. We are to let God speak for Himself. We are to see what He has to say. We start with Him, not us. Do we need to be strong in the Lord? Absolutely! Does it have anything to do with Trump and his presidential run? Absolutely not.