John MacArthur's Church's Civil Disobedience Justifications Evaluated in Light of James Sire's Scripture Twisting: 20 Ways Cults Misread the Bible
Forty year ago, James Sire's book Scripture Twisting: 20 Ways the Cults Misread the Bible provided me with my first lessons in hermeneutics and sound exegesis. The book shows not only how the cults misread Scripture, but how everyone does. Yesterday while working through the statement put forward by the leadership of John MacArthur's Grace Community Church (henceforth, the "MacArthur Statement") that provided their biblical rational for refusing to comply with Covid 19 restrictions, I was reminded once again of Sire's book, and spent a considerable time digging though my three-book-deep bookshelves, book bins, and book piles trying to unearth a copy. Finally I did. The reason I did is because the Church's statement provides several good examples of the kinds of misreadings Sire describes, including: Misreading 4: Ignoring the Immediate Context Misreading 10: Saying but not Citing Misreading 11: Selective Citing Misreading 12: Inadequate