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Verses Often Misquoted

Have you heard someone in church say "it's my cross to bear", or "where two or three are gathered, Jesus is here"?

Some verses are better known than the paragraphs they come from. A line is printed on a poster or quoted to open a meeting, and over the years the slogan takes the sentence's place. Usually the cost is that the verse ends up promising less than it did. Sometimes the slogan lays a weight on believers that the verse never laid: fast harder and the demon will go; you are a Christian, and you may still be demonized. Jesus said of the scribes and Pharisees, "They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on people's shoulders" (Matthew 23:4, ESV). A verse misquoted to bind a believer's conscience does that in Jesus' own name, and it is spiritual abuse.

In one sentence: Each of these eight verses means what it meant in its own paragraph, and read there every one gives you more of Jesus than its slogan does — the Lord enthroned in your heart, the Lord present with His church when it deals with sin, the Son who frees, the Spirit who will raise your body, the God whose name you carry, the Master who calls you to follow Him with your cross and promises you life — and the two slogans that bind believers are burdens He lifts.

Key Takeaways

(This section follows the Key Takeaways format — see that page for what each part is for.)

Lessons about Jesus

  • Jesus Christ is the LORD of hosts. Peter takes Isaiah 8:13's command to sanctify the LORD of hosts and names Christ as the one to sanctify (1 Peter 3:15).
  • Jesus is present as God is present. "Where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them" (Matthew 18:20, ESV) speaks of His own presence the way later Jewish teaching spoke of the Shekhinah, God's dwelling presence.
  • The Son makes slaves into sons. "If the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed" (John 8:36, ESV).
  • Jesus carried His own cross first. "He went out, bearing his own cross" (John 19:17, ESV), and He calls you to follow Him on that road and promises that whoever loses his life for His sake "will save it" (Mark 8:35, ESV).
  • The risen Jesus has flesh and bones (Luke 24:39), and your raised body will be like His (Philippians 3:21).
  • Jesus drove out the spirit the disciples could not, with a word (Mark 9:25). His people are "delivered ... from the domain of darkness" (Colossians 1:13, ESV) already.

Memory verses

✝️ 1 Peter 3:15 (ESV)

15 but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect,

✝️ John 8:36 (ESV)

36 So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.

Be Transformed

  • Think. Before you quote a verse, read the paragraph it sits in and ask what it meant there. The eight below each changed when read that way.
  • Attitude. Hold a slogan loosely and the verse tightly. Where a teaching makes you carry something the paragraph never gave you, put it down.
  • Do. Read the chapter of a verse you often quote, then pray it as its paragraph means it (John 8:31-32).

Prayer

Father, Your word is truth, and every sentence of it means what You meant by it. Thank You that Your Son Jesus is Lord in our hearts, present with His church, the one who sets us free, and the first of many who will be raised. Give us grace to deny ourselves and follow Him with our cross, trusting His promise of life. Keep us from laying on one another burdens You never laid, and from carrying burdens You have lifted. Teach us to read Your word where You placed it. In Jesus' name. Amen.

Study outline

  • "Did God actually say?". The serpent's misquotation of God in Eden, the devil's "If you are the Son of God" and his use of Psalm 91 at the temple: the pattern behind every slogan below.
  • How to read a quoted verse. The shape of each entry, and the two kinds of misuse.
  • Verses made smaller. 1 Peter 3:15, Matthew 18:20, John 8:32, 1 Corinthians 15:44, Mark 8:34 and Exodus 20:7: six verses whose slogans say less than the text.
  • Burdens added. Mark 9:29 on fasting and Mark 5:15 on "demonized": two slogans that bind a believer's conscience.
  • Discussion questions.

"Did God actually say?"

In the garden

The first misquotation in the Bible is the serpent's. God had told the man, "You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat" (Genesis 2:16-17, ESV). The serpent asked, "Did God actually say, 'You shall not eat of any tree in the garden'?" (Genesis 3:1, ESV). He turned a generous permission with one limit into a ban on everything, and made God sound mean. The woman's answer drifted too. She left the tree unnamed and added "neither shall you touch it" (Genesis 3:3, ESV). Genesis does not say whether she added it or the man passed it on to her that way (NIV Biblical Theology Study Bible on Genesis 3:3). Then the serpent contradicted God outright: "You will not surely die" (Genesis 3:4, ESV).

In the wilderness

The devil tried the same thing on Jesus. At His baptism the Father had said, "This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased" (Matthew 3:17, ESV). The tempter's first words in the wilderness were "If you are the Son of God" (Matthew 4:3, ESV), and he said them again at the temple (Matthew 4:6). God had spoken, and the devil put a question mark against it (NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible on Matthew 4:6). Jesus answered each temptation with "It is written" and a verse from Deuteronomy (Matthew 4:4, 7, 10; Deuteronomy 8:3; 6:16; 6:13).

At the temple the devil quoted Scripture back:

✝️ Matthew 4:6-7 (ESV)

6 and said to him, "If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down, for it is written, "'He will command his angels concerning you,' and "'On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone.'" 7 Jesus said to him, "Again it is written, 'You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.'"

The words are Psalm 91:11-12. The meaning was the devil's. The psalm promises God's keeping to the one who "dwells in the shelter of the Most High" (Psalm 91:1, ESV) when trouble comes, and the devil made it a dare to jump and force God to catch Him, as though a verse being in the Bible settled what it allowed. Jesus did not dispute the words. He set Deuteronomy 6:16 beside them and let Scripture govern how Scripture is read. How to Read the Bible works it through.

And in church

Every slogan below follows that pattern on a small scale. A word of God comes loose from what He said, and doubt and confusion come in through the gap. Most church sayings are nobody's deliberate deception. They are well-meant shorthand that drifted over the years. Some misuse is designed, as it was in the garden and the wilderness. Peter warned that "the ignorant and unstable twist" Paul's letters "to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures" (2 Peter 3:16, ESV).

This shows that God means what He says, and wants to be heard as He said it. So put your mind to understanding His word where He placed it. The next section is how.

How to read a quoted verse

Every entry below follows the same shape: the verse (ESV), how it is often used, what it says in its paragraph, keywords for both readings, and the full study on this site. The method behind it is on How to Read the Bible: what a text meant to its first readers comes before what it means now, and the paragraph is the unit of meaning.

The misuses fall into two groups. Six verses are quoted in a way that makes them smaller: the slogan is true enough, and the verse says something larger. Two are quoted in a way that adds a burden: the slogan tells a believer to do or fear something the text does not ask. The second group is the one that does harm.

The companion page, Verses Quoted Well, takes three verses that keep their meaning when quoted alone and asks why.

Verses made smaller

1 Peter 3:15: "Always be prepared"

✝️ 1 Peter 3:15 (ESV)

15 but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect,

How it is used. As the Bible's command to study apologetics: learn the arguments so you can answer the sceptic and win the exchange.

What it says. Verse 15 has one imperative, ἁγιάσατε (hagiasate, G37), "sanctify", which the ESV renders "honor ... as holy." "Prepared" is ἕτοιμοι (hetoimoi, G2092, "ready"), an adjective with no verb of its own; it describes the believer the command produces. Peter builds the sentence from Isaiah 8:12-13. "Have no fear of them, nor be troubled" (1 Peter 3:14, ESV) is Isaiah's warning against fearing what the people feared, and where Isaiah went on to the LORD of hosts, Peter puts Christ. (The later Byzantine manuscripts read "God" here; the earlier text reads "Christ". The full study covers the variant.) His readers had walked out of their old way of life, and their neighbours were maligning them for it (1 Peter 4:4). The defence Peter asks for is an account of "the hope that is in you", and God gave that hope "through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead" (1 Peter 1:3, ESV). So the readiness grows out of worship: set Jesus apart as the LORD of hosts in your heart, and you will have a hope to explain when your neighbour asks, and the gentleness to explain it with.

Keywords. As used: apologetics, debate, arguments. In context: lordship of Christ, deity of Christ, hope, suffering, gentleness and respect.

Full study: Be Prepared: A Reason for the Hope That Is in You.

Matthew 18:20: "Where two or three are gathered"

✝️ Matthew 18:15-20 (ESV)

15 "If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. 16 But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. 17 If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. 18 Truly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. 19 Again I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. 20 For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them."

How it is used. To open prayer meetings and call services to worship, often with the suggestion that Jesus arrives once two or three are present, or that prayer carries more weight with God when two or more pray it.

What it says. Matthew 18:20 closes a paragraph about a brother who sins. Jesus lays out the steps: go to him alone, then take "one or two others", then tell the church. The "two or three witnesses" of verse 16 come from Deuteronomy 19:15, the law's rule that one witness is never enough to establish a charge. Verse 20's "two or three" picks up those witnesses. The "anything" of verse 19 is πρᾶγμα (pragma, G4229), a matter or case, the word Paul uses for a lawsuit between believers in 1 Corinthians 6:1. When the church gathers in Jesus' name to deal with a brother's sin, heaven stands behind the decision it reaches on earth, and Jesus stands among them as they make it. Paul's instruction for a discipline case in Corinth sounds like an echo of the same promise: "When you are assembled in the name of the Lord Jesus and my spirit is present, with the power of our Lord Jesus" (1 Corinthians 5:4, ESV). The ESV Study Bible and the NIV Biblical Theology Study Bible both read verse 20 in this setting.

What is contested. Whether verses 19-20 also state a general promise about prayer. The NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible allows that "the principle that God answers prayer is broader" and still ties the two or three to the witnesses; the NLT Life Application Study Bible reads verse 19 as believers praying together in general. Nobody disputes that Jesus is present when a few believers pray: He promised His disciples, "I am with you always, to the end of the age" (Matthew 28:20, ESV). The small meeting can rest on that verse. The verdict: saying Jesus is with a gathering of believers is fair, and rests on Matthew 28:20. Treating "two or three" as the threshold for His presence, or as a multiplier on prayer, is out of context: Jesus prayed alone and commanded private prayer (Matthew 14:23; 6:6).

What the slogan loses. Jesus is speaking the language of God's own presence. A saying in the Mishnah, attributed to Rabbi Hananiah ben Teradion in the second century, runs: "if two sit together and there are words of Torah [spoken] between them, then the Shekhinah abides among them" (m. Avot 3:2, trans. Joshua Kulp). The saying is later than Matthew; it shows how Jewish teachers spoke of God's presence. Jesus puts Himself where that saying puts the Shekhinah, the presence of God dwelling with His people. That is a claim to deity, made about the work of church discipline. The paragraph's aim is "you have gained your brother" (Matthew 18:15), and Peter's question about forgiving seventy-seven times follows straight on (Matthew 18:21-22). So when your church has to confront sin in love, the Son of God is in the room, and heaven stands behind the outcome.

Keywords. As used: small groups, prayer meetings, attendance, presence. In context: church discipline, reconciliation, witnesses, binding and loosing, Shekhinah, deity of Christ.

Full study: Where Two or Three Are Gathered.

John 8:32: "The truth will set you free"

✝️ John 8:31-32 (ESV)

31 So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, "If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, 32 and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free."

How it is used. As a motto for learning, carved over libraries and schools: knowledge, or facts brought into the open, liberate.

What it says. Verse 32 is the second half of a conditional sentence. The condition is "If you abide in my word", and the truth is known by disciples who stay in what Jesus says. The ESV Study Bible notes that the verse "is frequently quoted out of context." The freedom is defined two verses later: "everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin" (John 8:34, ESV). The word is ἐλευθερόω (eleutheroō, G1659), "to set free", and Jesus says who does it: "So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed" (John 8:36, ESV). Between those two verses stands the household: "The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son remains forever" (John 8:35, ESV). God frees you from sin by bringing you into His house as a son, through His Son. Paul calls it adoption, in the same terms: "you are no longer a slave, but a son" (Galatians 4:7, ESV). The truth that does it is Jesus Himself and His word.

Keywords. As used: education, knowledge, transparency. In context: discipleship, abiding, sin as slavery, adoption, the Son.

Full study: Know the Truth.

1 Corinthians 15:44: "A spiritual body"

✝️ 1 Corinthians 15:42-44 (ESV)

42 So is it with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable; what is raised is imperishable. 43 It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power. 44 It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body.

How it is used. As evidence that resurrection life is immaterial: we will be spirits, and the body is left behind for good.

What it says. "Spiritual body" means a body animated by the Holy Spirit. The two adjectives are ψυχικός (psychikos, G5591, "natural"), from ψυχή (psychē, G5590, "soul, life"), and πνευματικός (pneumatikos, G4152, "spiritual"), from πνεῦμα (pneuma, G4151, "spirit"). Both describe what powers the body. Paul used the same pair of adjectives in 1 Corinthians 2:14-15, where the "natural person" and the "spiritual person" are both flesh and blood and differ in who governs them. The risen Jesus settles it: "Touch me, and see. For a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have" (Luke 24:39, ESV). And Paul names the agent: "he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you" (Romans 8:11, ESV). The Spirit who lives in you now will raise the body that was buried and fill it with His life.

Keywords. As used: immaterial afterlife, disembodied heaven, ghosts. In context: bodily resurrection, glorification, the Holy Spirit, the last Adam.

Full study: We Shall All Be Changed.

Mark 8:34: "Take up your cross"

✝️ Mark 8:34-35 (ESV)

34 And calling the crowd to him with his disciples, he said to them, "If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. 35 For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel's will save it.

How it is used. As "my cross to bear": a hardship you did not choose and cannot escape, such as an illness, a difficult relative or a job you dislike, carried with a sigh.

What it says. Jesus had just told His disciples plainly that "the Son of Man must suffer many things ... and be killed, and after three days rise again" (Mark 8:31, ESV). Peter rebuked Him for it, and Jesus rebuked Peter (Mark 8:32-33). Then He called the crowd and said this. Everyone in that crowd knew what a man carrying a cross was doing. A condemned man carried the beam of his own cross to the place of execution (NIV Biblical Theology Study Bible on Mark 8:34). John uses the same picture of Jesus: "he went out, bearing his own cross" (John 19:17, ESV).

The sentence has three commands, and the follower does all three: deny himself (ἀπαρνέομαι, aparneomai, G533), take up his cross (αἴρω, airō, G142), and follow. Luke adds "daily" (Luke 9:23). In Luke 14:27 Jesus uses βαστάζω (bastazō, G941), "bear": "Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple" (ESV). The English phrase "my cross to bear" comes from that verse. Its meaning has turned round.

What the slogan loses. In the slogan the cross happens to you, and it centres on you: my trouble, my patience. In Jesus' saying you pick the cross up because you are following Him, and it starts with denying yourself. It is a life spent "for my sake and the gospel's", and it carries a promise: whoever loses his life that way "will save it" (Mark 8:35, ESV). Paul says where the road goes: "I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me" (Galatians 2:20, ESV). The verdict: calling a hardship your cross is fair when you suffer it for following Jesus. Using it for every unwelcome burden is out of context, and it drops the promise of life.

Keywords. As used: hardship, misfortune, suffering, putting up with it. In context: discipleship, self-denial, following Jesus, the cross, losing and saving your life, the gospel.

Exodus 20:7: "Don't take the Lord's name in vain"

✝️ Exodus 20:7 (ESV)

7 "You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain, for the LORD will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain.

How it is used. As a rule about language: don't say "God" or "Jesus" as a swear word.

What it says. "Take" is נָשָׂא (nasa, H5375), to lift up or carry. "In vain" is לַשָּׁוְא (lashshav, H7723): for emptiness, for nothing, for a lie. Deuteronomy's Ten Commandments use the same word for a "false" witness (Deuteronomy 5:20). Psalm 24:4 puts the two words together for the man who may stand in God's holy place: he "does not lift up his soul to what is false and does not swear deceitfully" (ESV). So the commandment is about carrying God's name falsely, and its first target was the oath: "You shall not swear by my name falsely, and so profane the name of your God" (Leviticus 19:12, ESV). The ESV Study Bible and the NIV Biblical Theology Study Bible both read it first as invoking God to back a lie.

Israel also carried the name. After the priestly blessing God said, "So shall they put my name upon the people of Israel, and I will bless them" (Numbers 6:27, ESV). Prophets who said "Thus says the LORD" when He had not spoken were "prophesying lies in my name" (Jeremiah 14:14, ESV).

What the slogan loses. The commandment reaches every place you put God's name: a promise made "before God", a "God told me" He never told you, a church that bears His name, and a life lived under "the honorable name by which you were called" (James 2:7, ESV). Paul turned Isaiah 52:5 on his own people: "The name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you" (Romans 2:24, ESV). Jesus' answer is speech that needs no oath to be believed: "Let what you say be simply 'Yes' or 'No'" (Matthew 5:37, ESV). The verdict: keeping God's name out of your swearing is right, and Paul rules out "corrupting talk" anyway (Ephesians 4:29). Stopping there is out of context. The command is to carry His name truthfully, in what you say and how you live, and the LORD "will not hold him guiltless" who carries it emptily.

Keywords. As used: swearing, profanity, cursing, blasphemy. In context: oaths, honesty, false prophecy, "God told me", bearing the name, Christian witness.

Burdens added

Mark 9:29: "This kind ... by prayer and fasting"

✝️ Mark 9:29 (ESV)

29 And he said to them, "This kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer."

How it is used. As a rule that some demons, or some stubborn problems, yield only to fasting. The burden follows quickly: if the answer has not come, you have not fasted enough.

What it says. The KJV reads, "This kind can come forth by nothing, but by prayer and fasting" (Mark 9:29, KJV). The ESV, NIV, CSB, NASB and LSB have "prayer" alone, because the critical Greek texts (NA28, SBLGNT), which weigh the earliest manuscripts most heavily, end the verse at ἐν προσευχῇ ("by prayer"); the Byzantine text and the Textus Receptus add "and fasting". The unfoldingWord ULT records the same split. The story itself names the disciples' problem. Jesus called the scene a "faithless generation" (Mark 9:19, ESV), the father cried "I believe; help my unbelief!" (Mark 9:24, ESV), and Matthew gives Jesus' answer to the disciples plainly: "Because of your little faith" (Matthew 17:20, ESV). Jesus then drove the spirit out with a word (Mark 9:25). The lesson is dependence on God, and prayer is what dependence sounds like.

Isaiah 58:6, "to loose the bonds of wickedness ... and to break every yoke" (ESV), is often read the same way. In context the bonds and yokes are the ones the fasters had fastened on their own workers (Isaiah 58:3), and the fast God chooses is setting those workers free.

Fasting is real and good: it is humbling yourself before God, and Jesus expected His disciples to fast (Matthew 6:16-18). What God gives in answer He gives because He hears, and Daniel was heard "from the first day" (Daniel 10:12, ESV).

Keywords. As used: spiritual warfare, strongholds, breakthrough. In context: textual variant, faith, dependence, humility.

Full study: Fasting.

Mark 5:15 and the word "demonized"

✝️ Mark 5:15 (ESV)

15 And they came to Jesus and saw the demon-possessed man, the one who had had the legion, sitting there, clothed and in his right mind, and they were afraid.

How it is used. Deliverance teaching often distinguishes being "possessed", which it agrees cannot happen to a Christian, from being "demonized", which it says can. The believer who struggles is then told the cause may be a resident spirit that needs to be cast out.

What it says. There is one Greek word behind both English terms: δαιμονίζομαι (daimonizomai, G1139), which the ESV renders "demon-possessed", "possessed with demons" and "oppressed by a demon" (Mark 5:15, 18; John 10:21). It occurs 13 times in the New Testament, all in the Gospels. Twelve describe people brought to Jesus for healing; the thirteenth is the crowd's argument over whether Jesus Himself is one (John 10:21). None describes a disciple. Acts and the letters speak of spiritual conflict often and use other vocabulary. When Paul describes his own torment by "a messenger of Satan to harass me" (2 Corinthians 12:7, ESV), the verb is κολαφίζω (kolaphizō, G2852), "to strike with the fist", the word used of the blows Jesus took at His trial (Matthew 26:67). The one time the New Testament describes a believer under Satan's attack, it describes blows from outside. A believer's body is "a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God" (1 Corinthians 6:19, ESV), and God "has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son" (Colossians 1:13, ESV).

What is settled and what is argued. The thirteen uses of the verb are a matter of record. That a demon cannot indwell a believer is argued from the wider teaching on the Spirit's indwelling and on God's ownership of His people, which the full study sets out.

What the burden costs. A believer told that their sin or sorrow is a resident spirit is pointed to a ministry session for what Christ finished at the cross. "He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world" (1 John 4:4, ESV). You belong to the Son; resist the devil, firm in your faith, and he will flee (James 4:7; 1 Peter 5:9).

Keywords. As used: demonized, deliverance, generational spirits, oppression. In context: indwelling of the Holy Spirit, the kingdom of the Son, spiritual warfare, resisting the devil.

Full study: Christians and Deliverance Ministry.

Discussion questions

  1. Language. In 1 Peter 3:15 the one command is "sanctify." How does reading "be prepared" as a description, with no command of its own, change what you would do to obey the verse?
  2. Context. Matthew 18:20 closes a paragraph about confronting a brother's sin. What does it mean to you that Jesus attaches His presence to that conversation in particular?
  3. The text in its context. Jesus called the crowd to take up the cross straight after Peter rebuked Him for foretelling His death (Mark 8:31-34). How does that order change what "my cross to bear" should mean?
  4. Christ. Three of these verses say something about who Jesus is: the LORD of hosts, God present with His people, the Son who frees slaves. Which of the three did the slogan hide most completely for you?
  5. The hard part. Matthew 18:19-20 may also carry a broader promise about prayer. How would you hold the discipline setting and the broader promise together without letting one erase the other?
  6. You. Is there a burden you have carried because of a verse quoted to you — fasting, a fear of demons, or something else? Read its paragraph. What does the text actually ask of you?
Group study sheet for a 40-minute group: two A4 sheets, or one with the guided path

The point, the passage, the questions and the response, from this study. Print on both sides of two A4 sheets, flipping on the long edge. While this block is open, printing the page prints the sheet; close it to print the study.

Group study · 40 minutes

Verses Often Misquoted

Exodus 20:7; 1 Peter 3:15; Matthew 18:20; John 8:32; 1 Corinthians 15:44; Mark 8:34; Mark 9:29; Mark 5:15

The point Each of these eight verses means what it meant in its own paragraph, and read there every one gives you more of Jesus than its slogan does — the Lord enthroned in your heart, the Lord present with His church when it deals with sin, the Son who frees, the Spirit who will raise your body, the God whose name you carry, the Master who calls you to follow Him with your cross and promises you life — and the two slogans that bind believers are burdens He lifts.

0–5min

Ask: what comes to mind when you hear Verses Often Misquoted? Hear a few answers before anyone reads.

5–12minRead it aloud BSB

Exodus 20:7 7You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain, for the LORD will not leave anyone unpunished who takes His name in vain.

1 Peter 3:15 15But in your hearts sanctify Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give a defense to everyone who asks you the reason for the hope that is in you. But respond with gentleness and respect,

Matthew 18:20 20For where two or three gather together in My name, there am I with them.”

John 8:32 32Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

1 Corinthians 15:44 44It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body.

Mark 8:34 34Then Jesus called the crowd to Him along with His disciples, and He told them, “If anyone wants to come after Me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me.

Mark 9:29 29Jesus answered, “This kind cannot come out, except by prayer.”

Mark 5:15 15When they came to Jesus, they saw the man who had been possessed by the legion of demons sitting there, clothed and in his right mind; and they were afraid.

12–25minLook closer
What does it say?
What did it mean to them?
What does it mean for us?
Page 1 of 4 · print double-sided, flip on long edgeScripture: BSB, public domain · ESV® © 2001 Crossway, used by permission

Verses Often Misquoted

The study in brief
  1. "Did God actually say?". The serpent's misquotation of God in Eden, the devil's "If you are the Son of God" and his use of Psalm 91 at the temple: the pattern behind every slogan below.
  2. How to read a quoted verse. The shape of each entry, and the two kinds of misuse.
  3. Verses made smaller. 1 Peter 3:15, Matthew 18:20, John 8:32, 1 Corinthians 15:44, Mark 8:34 and Exodus 20:7: six verses whose slogans say less than the text.
  4. Burdens added. Mark 9:29 on fasting and Mark 5:15 on "demonized": two slogans that bind a believer's conscience.
Notes
Page 2 of 4 · print double-sided, flip on long edgeScripture: BSB, public domain · ESV® © 2001 Crossway, used by permission

Verses Often Misquoted

Step 1 · "Did God actually say?"
Step 2 · How to read a quoted verse
12–27minStep 3 · Verses made smaller

1Language. In 1 Peter 3:15 the one command is "sanctify." How does reading "be prepared" as a description, with no command of its own, change what you would do to obey the verse?

2Context. Matthew 18:20 closes a paragraph about confronting a brother's sin. What does it mean to you that Jesus attaches His presence to that conversation in particular?

3The text in its context. Jesus called the crowd to take up the cross straight after Peter rebuked Him for foretelling His death (Mark 8:31-34). How does that order change what "my cross to bear" should mean?

4The hard part. Matthew 18:19-20 may also carry a broader promise about prayer. How would you hold the discipline setting and the broader promise together without letting one erase the other?

Step 4 · Burdens added
27–35minTalk it over

5Christ. Three of these verses say something about who Jesus is: the LORD of hosts, God present with His people, the Son who frees slaves. Which of the three did the slogan hide most completely for you?

6You. Is there a burden you have carried because of a verse quoted to you — fasting, a fear of demons, or something else? Read its paragraph. What does the text actually ask of you?

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Verses Often Misquoted

35–40minBe transformed
  • Think. Before you quote a verse, read the paragraph it sits in and ask what it meant there. The eight below each changed when read that way.
  • Attitude. Hold a slogan loosely and the verse tightly. Where a teaching makes you carry something the paragraph never gave you, put it down.
  • Do. Read the chapter of a verse you often quote, then pray it as its paragraph means it (John 8:31-32).
Memory verse

but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect,

1 Peter 3:15 (ESV)
Pray together

Father, Your word is truth, and every sentence of it means what You meant by it. Thank You that Your Son Jesus is Lord in our hearts, present with His church, the one who sets us free, and the first of many who will be raised. Give us grace to deny ourselves and follow Him with our cross, trusting His promise of life. Keep us from laying on one another burdens You never laid, and from carrying burdens You have lifted. Teach us to read Your word where You placed it. In Jesus' name. Amen.

Notes
The whole study, with every verse a tap awayhttps://the-way.lewy.au/scripture/verses-often-misquoted/
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Group study · step by step

Verses Often Misquoted

Exodus 20:7; 1 Peter 3:15; Matthew 18:20; John 8:32; 1 Corinthians 15:44; Mark 8:34; Mark 9:29; Mark 5:15

Open Ask: what comes to mind when you hear Verses Often Misquoted? Hear a few answers before anyone reads.

Read it aloud Exodus 20:7; 1 Peter 3:15; Matthew 18:20; John 8:32; 1 Corinthians 15:44; Mark 8:34; Mark 9:29; Mark 5:15

Step 1"Did God actually say?" — The serpent's misquotation of God in Eden, the devil's "If you are the Son of God" and his use of Psalm 91 at the temple: the pattern behind every slogan below.
Step 2How to read a quoted verse — The shape of each entry, and the two kinds of misuse.
Step 3Verses made smaller — 1 Peter 3:15, Matthew 18:20, John 8:32, 1 Corinthians 15:44, Mark 8:34 and Exodus 20:7: six verses whose slogans say less than the text.

1Language. In 1 Peter 3:15 the one command is "sanctify." How does reading "be prepared" as a description, with no command of its own, change what you would do to obey the verse?

2Context. Matthew 18:20 closes a paragraph about confronting a brother's sin. What does it mean to you that Jesus attaches His presence to that conversation in particular?

3The text in its context. Jesus called the crowd to take up the cross straight after Peter rebuked Him for foretelling His death (Mark 8:31-34). How does that order change what "my cross to bear" should mean?

4The hard part. Matthew 18:19-20 may also carry a broader promise about prayer. How would you hold the discipline setting and the broader promise together without letting one erase the other?

Step 4Burdens added — Mark 9:29 on fasting and Mark 5:15 on "demonized": two slogans that bind a believer's conscience.
Talk it over

5Christ. Three of these verses say something about who Jesus is: the LORD of hosts, God present with His people, the Son who frees slaves. Which of the three did the slogan hide most completely for you?

6You. Is there a burden you have carried because of a verse quoted to you — fasting, a fear of demons, or something else? Read its paragraph. What does the text actually ask of you?

Be transformed
  • Think. Before you quote a verse, read the paragraph it sits in and ask what it meant there. The eight below each changed when read that way.
  • Attitude. Hold a slogan loosely and the verse tightly. Where a teaching makes you carry something the paragraph never gave you, put it down.
  • Do. Read the chapter of a verse you often quote, then pray it as its paragraph means it (John 8:31-32).
Page 1 of 2 · print double-sided, flip on long edgeScripture: BSB, public domain · ESV® © 2001 Crossway, used by permission

Verses Often Misquoted

The point Each of these eight verses means what it meant in its own paragraph, and read there every one gives you more of Jesus than its slogan does — the Lord enthroned in your heart, the Lord present with His church when it deals with sin, the Son who frees, the Spirit who will raise your body, the God whose name you carry, the Master who calls you to follow Him with your cross and promises you life — and the two slogans that bind believers are burdens He lifts.

The whole study, with every verse a tap awayhttps://the-way.lewy.au/scripture/verses-often-misquoted/
Page 2 of 2 · print double-sided, flip on long edgeScripture: BSB, public domain · ESV® © 2001 Crossway, used by permission
  • ESV Study Bible (Crossway) — ESV verse text throughout; notes on Exodus 20:7, Genesis 3:2-3, Mark 8:34, Matthew 18:16-20, John 8:32 and 1 Peter 3:15-17.
  • NIV Biblical Theology Study Bible (Zondervan) — notes on Exodus 20:7, Genesis 3:3, Mark 8:34 and Matthew 18:16-20.
  • NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible (Zondervan) — notes on Matthew 4:6 and Matthew 18:19-20, including the Mishnah parallel.
  • NLT Life Application Study Bible (Tyndale) — note on Matthew 18:19.
  • Mishnah, Avot 3:2 — trans. Joshua Kulp, Mishnah Yomit, via Sefaria (CC-BY).
  • MACULA Greek (SBLGNT) and unfoldingWord ULT/UGNT — occurrence counts and word alignment.
  • KJV — quoted once, for the Mark 9:29 reading.

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