How to read it

When I was a boy I remember a preacher quoting a verse in the New Testament (Ephesians 4:28) that instructs those who have stolen to cease from their thieving ways and find gainful employment. He quoted it like this - "Let him that stole steal no more; let him labor" and then played with the punctuation to get "Let him who stole steal, no more let him labor." The pastor's point was that the meaning of the passage can be changed by punctuation. Thankfully the Greek is not so difficult to decipher. The passage would have to be twisted purposefully to be misunderstood, but we do tend to make mistakes in how we read other parts of God's revelation. This is why context is so important to help us catch mistakes in reading.

The King James version of Ephesians 4:28 reads- "Let him that stole steal no more: but rather let him labour, working with his hands the thing which is good, that he may have to give to him that needeth." Even if the punctuation was messed up and a few words left out to confuse for a moment the rest of the verse would cause one to consider other meanings that are probable for the verse. The same is true for the rest of God's revelations- when taken together they explain the message. This is why I cannot discredit something a scientist tells me simply because it disagrees with how I read the Bible. It is possible that I misread Scripture because of a bias and missed the point. Here is a great video to further illustrate how re-reading something can bring out other meanings- http://www.wimp.com/freakymessage/