Trevin Wax shares some “urban legends” that preachers have been guilty of sharing. For the record, I have been guilty of #2. You’ll have to click through to Trevin to see that one. Otherwise, I think I’m okay, at least as far as this list is concerned.
Trevin Wax:
Those of us who are entrusted with the task of expositing the Scriptures in a local church must take care to verify our sources, illustrations, and stories. No matter how helpful an illustration may be, it is dishonoring to God if it is untrue.
Here are a number of urban legends that get repeated in sermons. Some are more pervasive than others, even appearing in commentaries and scholarly works.
1. The “eye of the needle” refers to a gate outside Jerusalem.
“It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God,” says Jesus in Mark 10:25. Maybe you’ve heard of the gate in Jerusalem called the “eye of the needle.” The camel could pass through it only after stooping down and having all its baggage taken off.
The illustration is used in many sermons as an example of coming to God on our knees and without our baggage. The only problem is… there is no evidence for such a gate. The story has been around since the 15th century, but there isn’t a shred of evidence to support it. . . .
3. Scribes took baths, discarded their pens, washed their hands, etc. every time they wrote the name of God.
As a way of getting across the reverence of the Jewish and Christian scribes toward God, preachers like to describe the honor given to God’s name. Unfortunately, there’s no evidence that scribes did these sorts of rituals every time they came across the name of God.
4. There was this saying among the sages: “May you be covered in your rabbi’s dust.”
This is one of the most pervasive and fast-spreading stories to flood the church in recent years. The idea is that as you walked behind your rabbi, he would kick up dust and you would become caked in it and so following your rabbi closely came to symbolize your commitment and zeal. Joel Willitts explains:
This is powerful stuff isn’t it? Well the only problem is that it just isn’t true… The context in which it is given in Mishnah Aboth 1:4 is expressly not what is assumed by those who promulgate this idea.
Read the whole thing here.
Here’s another I just recently encountered. Maybe you can check its veracity. The claim is that the headcloth that Jesus was wrapped in was folded neatly because of a Hebrew tradition wherein a master would fold his napkin when only temporarily leaving table so the servants would know he was not finished but coming back soon – hence this wondrous inside secret meaning to Jesus’ “folding of the napkin” that shows He is coming soon. I cannot find any evidence of this, so I don’t believe the story. I still believe Jesus is coming back – I believe because Jesus said he was coming back, not because of the “napkin folding” story.
My problem with all these apocryphal tales is that they smack of a fascination for “insider” understanding, which will tend to puff up. It’s neat and/or prideful to be in possession of understanding that the typical believer doesn’t know.
I do not believe God intends to promote this sort of secret insider business by embedding secret messages in the scriptures. I believe the most important meaning of the scriptures is always the straightforward interpretation. Sure, we need to understand things like the agrarian orientation of the times when scripture was written, and we need to realize that translations tend to be incomplete in their transmission of the full meaning of anything written in any language, but in our Christian information overload, we need to shun every form of eisegesis, and cling for dear life to pure exegesis.
Chris, it doesn’t really bother me when preachers share things like that. It’s when they use illustrations so unbelievable they have to be apocryphal…and pass them on as having really happened. Grrrr.
Man, I’m left with NO illustrations at all!!!!
Tom, I think I have heard that one debunked too. Amen on the exegesis thought.
There will be enough incidents at Lake Geneva to supply you with illustrations for a bit.