June 22, 2026 - Good Morning! It’s Monday, June 22.
Last week I watched a documentary on my TV and a movie in a theater, and both shows left me with thoughts about religion and faith. Join me tomorrow as I look at the movie, but today I’ll focus on the documentary. It’s called “Jefferson’s Bible”, and it looks back at a revised version of the Word that Thomas Jefferson created. He deleted the entire Old Testament and much of the New. His “Bible” focused only on the teachings of Jesus found in the four Gospels. But Jefferson edited out the virgin birth, ignored Christ’s miracles, and, in the end, left Jesus in the Garden Tomb. I was left with three thoughts.
First of all, some of our Founding Fathers practiced a faith that most of us today would not consider Christian. There certainly were early American leaders who were devoted believers, although few of them would feel at home in a 21st century evangelical church. But others, like Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin, practiced a faith called deism, which featured a deity who had no interest in the personal lives of human beings. He was referred to by names like Creator, Providence, and Nature’s God. Jefferson used all three of those names in a little document he wrote . . . called the Declaration of Independence.
Secondly, Jefferson’s “cut and paste” approach to the Bible flies in the face of strict biblical warnings. His version doesn’t include Deuteronomy or Revelation, but within those books we are warned about tampering with scripture. The words of Deuteronomy 4:2 are echoed in the final paragraph of the Word - “If anyone adds to this book, God will add to them the plagues that are written in this book; and if anyone takes away from the words of this book, God shall take away his part from the Book of Life”. (Revelation 22:18)
Finally, I don’t think you or I are planning to create our own version of the Bible. We would never think of tearing out even a single page. But perhaps we’ve been guilty of ignoring some pages, some books, some verses. Maybe, too often, we “cherry pick” our favorite scriptures, those that are easy on our ears, those that comfort our hearts. 2 Timothy 3:16 tells us that “ALL scripture is breathed out by God”. Yes, some scriptures are harder to understand than others, harder to discern, harder to digest. But, as students of the Word, we’re tasked to study all of the Word, to test it, to wrestle with it, and to “rightly divide” it.
Meet you back here tomorrow,
David
cindertex50@yahoo.com
