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Originally posted by: Starboy
It's a great travesty when the bible is read verse by verse rather than as a whole because it gets misquoted, misused, misunderstood, and then you get comments about "contradicitons in the bible" from people who have never read it and so forth.

Yes that's true, which is why I refuse to believe in verse-by-verse evangelising, like "the Romans Road" which is (I think) 3:23, 6:23a - 5:8 and 9:11 (reality of sin, result of sin, Christ our substitute and salvation by faith). Yes, I remember that - however it's a useless piece of information because it's picking and choosing between verses, taking them out of context - as if they are somehow more important than the rest of Romans, or the rest of the Bible.

But for the purposes I was using, which is to show why quoting "It is easier for a rope to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God" is conjecture. If you can change one word per verse, imagine the implications it could have on what you are reading. You may as well pick any 4 other verses:

Genesis 6:5
The LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.

Genesis 19:26
But Lot's wife, behind him, looked back, and she became a pillar of salt.

Matthew 5:20 (Jesus Says)
For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

Mark 14:21 (Jesus Says)
For the Son of Man goes as it is written of him, but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It would have been better for that man if he had not been born."

Heck using the method of verse-by-verse rubbish you can misrepresent it thus:

Matthew 5:20 (Jesus Says)
For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

Matthew 19:11
But he [Jesus] said to them, "Not everyone can receive this saying, but only those to whom it is given.

Matthew 19:25-26a
When the disciples heard this, they were greatly astonished, saying, "Who then can be saved?" But Jesus looked at them and said, "With man this is impossible

Starboy it is important, because misquoting yields so much nonsense. For instance:

1 Timothy 6:10a
For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils.

Have you ever heard someone:
a. Claim Jesus said it?
b. Misquote it "money is the root of all evil"?

Misquoting changes the meaning. It's not THE root of all evil, and it isn't money it's the love of money. And everything aside, Jesus never said it (that we know of). The closest he ever came to saying it is when he talked about the rich young man in the verse previously quoted (Mark 10:25).

Well that was a long way of agreeing with you SB... carry on indeed...