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Welcome to Stuff I Learned Yesterday. My name is Darrell Darnell, my favorite song to sing loud to in the car is “Livin’ On a Prayer” by Bon Jovi, and I believe that if you aren’t learning, you aren’t living.
As a child growing up in the 80’s there were a lot of great TVs shows to enjoy. One of my favorite shows was Who’s the Boss? Tony Danza, Judith Light, Danny Pintauro and Katherine Helmond were all great, but I watched the show for Alyssa Milano. As best as I can recall, she was my first TV crush. Who’s the Boss? Was my introduction to Alyssa, but it wasn’t my introduction to Tony. My introduction to Tony came from the TV show, Taxi.
Apparently I wasn’t the only person who appreciated the work Tony did on Taxi. After all, Elton John wrote an entire song about him. You know it, so sing it with me, “Hold me closer Tony Danza, count the headlights on the highway…”
Wait, what? Those aren’t the right lyrics? Elton is saying “tiny dancer?” Oh, that explains the title of the song then. My mistake.
Maybe you’ve never sung the wrong words to Tiny Dancer, but I bet you’ve flubbed up other songs. Here are some other often misquoted lyrics. Let me know in the comments or social media if you’ve been guilty of flubbing up any of these.
- Starship’s ‘We Built This City’ – Wrong lyric: “We built this city on sausage rolls.” Correct lyric: “We built this city on rock ‘n’ roll.”
- Queen’s ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ – Wrong lyric: “Saving his life from this warm sausage tea.” Correct lyric: “Spare him his life from this monstrosity.”
- Jimi Hendrix’s ‘Purple Haze’ – Wrong lyric: “Excuse me while I kiss this guy.” Correct lyric: “Excuse me while I kiss the sky.”
- The Eurythmics’ ‘Sweet Dreams (are made of this)’ – Wrong Lyric: “Sweet dreams are made of cheese.” Correct lyric: “Sweet dreams are made of this.” Or maybe you said, “Sweet dreams are of THESE?” Yup, that’s still wrong.
- Taylor Swift’s ‘Blank Space’ – Wrong lyric: “All the lonely Starbucks lovers.” Correct lyric: “Got a long list of ex-lovers.”
- R.E.M.’s ‘Losing my religion’ – Wrong lyric: “Let’s pee in the corner, let’s pee in the spotlight.” Correct lyric: “That’s me in the corner, that’s me in the spotlight”
- Bon Jovi’s ‘Livin’ On A Prayer’ – Wrong lyric: “It doesn’t make a difference if we’re naked or not.” Correct lyric: “It doesn’t make a difference if we make it or not.”
So how’d you do? For me, while I can hear all of these wrong lyrics, I’ve actually been singing all of these correctly except for The Eurythmics song. That’s one I sang wrong for years before I realized she was singing “this” instead of “these.” Talk about putting emphasis on the wrong syllable.
So imagine this: it’s the year 2000. My wife and I were celebrating our first wedding anniversary, we had just survived the Y2K apocalypse, Coldplay released their debut album, Sony released the Playstation 2, Survivor aired its very first season, Disney released The Emperor’s New Groove, and three kids from England named Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, and Rupert Grint were announced as the leads for the upcoming Harry Potter movie franchise.
My wife and I were living in Lubbock, Texas at the time of this story, although we moved to Wichita Falls, Texas later that year. When we moved to Lubbock we visited several churches trying to find one that was faithful in teaching the Bible and where we could get involved. After visiting several, we finally landed at a church of several hundred situated on the south part of town.
I got involved with the choir, and we found a Sunday school class for young married couples that we enjoyed. One morning the teacher of the class showed up and told us he was going to teach us something about a well-known verse that he bet we’d never heard before. He had us turn to the Old Testament book of Isaiah and he read a verse that was indeed very well known. I’d heard preachers preach about that verse several times before, and much to my surprise, his take on it was indeed something new.
I was really impressed with his insight and how he’d brought something new to the verse. I found his take on the verse to be very interesting and insightful. In fact, a few weeks later I found myself back in Oklahoma City attending a youth event at my old church, and I asked the youth leader if I could lead a devotional. The truth was, I wanted to show off to my old youth leader. I wanted to take this verse and reveal the new spin that I’d learned from my church in Lubbock. I wanted to be looked upon with the same sense of spiritual maturity and insight as I had for my teacher at my new church.
To my surprise, the youth leader agreed. So when the time came, I stood up in front of the group, had them open their Bibles to that passage, told them they’d probably heard the verse taught one way, but I was going to teach them something new. I then proceeded to tell them “my” new insight. After a few minutes of teaching, I handed it back over to the youth pastor.
No one, not even the youth pastor cared about what I’d said. The kids just wanted me to shut up and get it over with, and the youth pastor had basically checked out. He’d taken a new job at a new church, and this was his last weekend at that church. Hoping to get my ego stroked, I got…nothing.
The fact is that pretty much everything I did that night was wrong. I showed up not having fully prepared. That is, I didn’t rehearse, study, or think ahead of time about what I should say. I didn’t meet with the youth pastor to discuss having me teach in advance nor did I share my “new revelation” with him. I allowed myself to be motivated by my ego. Worst of all, I hadn’t studied the scripture for myself to see if this new teaching was even in line with the truth of what that passage was saying.
Some of you are wondering if I’m ever going to tell you what the passage in question is. Yes, of course I am. It’s Isaiah 40:31 which says, “But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.”
Most people who teach this passage focus on the first phrase of the verse and really focus on the word “wait.” That was also the focus of the new teaching as well. The thing is, translation is a tricky thing. Just as in English, words can have multiple meanings. We derive intended meaning by looking at the context of what is being said. I touched on this recently in episode 592.
When it comes to studying the Bible, we don’t just have context within the passage to help guide us but we have other books and resources. For the most part, the original languages of the Bible are Hebrew for the Old Testament and Greek for the New Testament. Fortunately, we don’t have to speak Hebrew or Greek to be able to look at those original words and derive their intended meaning.
Learning Hebrew and Greek will always be best, but for those who aren’t original language scholars, we can tap into resources that Biblical language scholars have created for us. I knew this and had access to these resources, but didn’t consult any of them.
In today’s internet age, a great resource is biblehub.com. Using this resource, I can tell you that the original Hebrew word in that sentence is qavah (pronounced kaw-vaw). Its definition is: to wait for. I can also see where this exact Hebrew word is used in other Bible passages, and see how it was translated in each of them. This allows me to understand better context for the usage of the word itself.
As I look at other examples of this word, I see things like: wait, hope, expect, long, look eagerly, and patience.
Every teaching I’d ever heard about this passage taught it with those meanings in mind. I’ll read it again with those words and you’ll see how learning the word’s usage across the Old Testament helps make its meaning clear.
But they that [wait, hope, expect, long, look eagerly, and wait patiently] upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.”
So what was this new teaching? The new teaching looked only at the English use of the word “wait.” Of course, we use the word wait in the intended context of the passage, but that’s not the only way we use the word. If you saw the thumbnail for today’s episode then you were given a clue. We also use the word wait when referring to the staff who help us at a restaurant. That person is often referred to as a wait staff, a WAITer, or a WAITress.
Using this definition of the word, the idea is that if we will serve God, he will renew our strength, we will walk and not faint, we will run and not be weary, etc.
There are two fancy sounding words that come to mind here. Those words are exegesis and eisegesis. While these words may sound like they have something to do with Jesus, they do not. Exegesis is spelled EXEGESIS and eisegesis is spelled EISEGESIS. Exegesis is the explanation of a text based on a careful study and objective analysis. The word exegesis literally means “to lead out of.” That means that one draws conclusions by following the text.
The opposite approach to interpreting scripture is eisegesis, which is the interpretation of a passage based on a subjective, non-analytical reading. The word eisegesis literally means “to lead into,” which means that one injects their own ideas into the text, making it mean whatever he wants. I think it’s clear that what the guy at my church taught, and that which I then parroted was an example of eisegesis, not exegesis.
Here’s what I learned.
Fortunately, what I thought ABOUT God was true. That is, as we serve God, he will give us strength and help us. However, that is not what this specific verse is saying, and therefore, what I taught was false. As a Bible teacher, I am held accountable by God for what I teach. The book of James teaches us that, “teachers are held to a higher standard and are responsible for their work.”
Responsibility doesn’t just fall upon teachers of the Bible though. The book of Acts tells us about a group of people who lived in Berea that, “were more noble than those in Thessalonica in that they received the word with all readiness of mind and searched the scriptures daily whether those things were so.” That is, we are better when we take time to study scriptures for ourselves to make sure that what others are teaching us is accurate.
It’s one thing to get song lyrics wrong, it’s something else entirely to get scripture wrong. In the third chapter of the Bible in the book of Genesis, Satan said to Eve, “Did God really say…?” That cunning tactic is one that he is still using today. In more ways than I or any of us realize, he creeps into teaching and into people’s lives, takes what has been understood as truth and whispers, “Did God really say…?”
I firmly believe we live in an age where it has never been easier to know the truth about God and his teaching, while also having never been easier to be deceived and led astray about God and his teaching. We hear something new, something that’s easier to swallow, less offensive, seems loving, or seems to bring a shiny new meaning to a passage that has been taught a certain way for generations. And too often we fall for it.
Federal agents in the US, Canada, and I’m sure other countries around the world identify counterfeit currency by first studying real currency. They touch, tilt, look at, and look through real currency. They study it, find out what qualities are true about real currency at a deep first-hand level. By studying the authentic money, they are equipped to spot the fake stuff. As Christians, this should be our approach to studying scripture too.
I know not all of you are Christiains, and I’m truly grateful that you listen to these episodes and that you’ve made it this far into what is a longer than normal episode. My hope for you, is my hope for us all. That is, that we will all take the opportunity to study the Bible and lean into Jesus’ promise that, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
I’m Darrell Darnell, and this has been Stuff I Learned Yesterday.
I want you to be a part of the next Monday Mailbag on September 30th! Monday Mailbag is your opportunity to Share what YOU’VE learned, so that other listeners and I can learn from YOU. It can be a message as short as 30 seconds or several minutes long. It really doesn’t matter just as long as it’s something that will benefit others. You can send in questions or responses to my SILY episodes, and I’ll respond to them via Monday Mailbag episodes. You can participate in Monday Mailbags by visiting the Golden Spiral Media listener feedback page