Pastor Ed’s Blog

The Most Misquoted Verse in the Bible

Do you know what the most misquoted verse in the Bible is? I believe that it’s Roman 8:28. Many people quote it like this:

“All things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.”

That’s not a statement of faith. That’s a statement of optimism. It’s saying, “Don’t worry, it will all work out for the best.” Optimism is a good quality to have (it’s certainly better than pessimism), but optimism  has little to support it other than positive feelings. Paul is not saying, “Don’t worry, be happy!”

Some people get a little closer to correctly quoting this verse by adding two important words:

“GOD CAUSES all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purposes.”

That upgrades this verse from a statement of optimism to a statement of hope. Biblical hope is more than just optimism based on positive feelings; biblical hope is the confident expectation of good, based on the character and nature of the God we serve. We can expect all things to work out for good, not because “things have a way of working out,” but because we serve a good God, who is also a sovereign God who carefully orchestrates all things to accomplish His purpose. “God causes” all things, even adversity, to work for our benefit and to accomplish His purpose in our lives.

Then there are those who correctly quote this verse:

“And WE KNOW that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.”

Optimism (”It will all work out.”) is based solely on positive feelings. Hope factors God into the equation (”God causes”), and therefore has a greater confidence. But this verse here is a personal affirmation of faith (”We know”), and has an even greater certainty to it.

The certainty of faith comes from consistent experiences of trusting God and seeing God’s faithfulness in our lives. As we step out in faith and trust God, we see His faithfulness; as we see His faithfulness, our faith grows. Faith begets faith. Time after time, Paul had seen God bring good consequences out of bad circumstances, and use seemingly random events to accomplish His purpose in his life. He not only had the confidence of hope in a sovereign God, he had the certainty of faith in a God who had demonstrated His faithfulness over and over.

Does your faith have a “We know” element to it?