FILTHY RAGS?

Just about every time you listen to Christian YouTubers build a biblical case - either for their own particular theological paradigm or against someone else's - you can bet that proof texting will play a major role.

Broad doctrines are often built (or rejected) on the flimsiest of premises: one or two verses ripped out of context and read as woodenly as possible.

There are certain proof texts that just drive me mad these days - ones that are cited time and again but are NEVER examined in context.

For instance, I am sure that you have heard preachers point out that "our righteous acts are like filthy rags in God's sight". 

Isaiah 64:6 says so!

And then the preacher expands upon the verse, saying "God is so holy and you and I are so incredibly sinful that even when we try to do something good, God is simply disgusted by it."

I've heard this applied to non-believers and believers alike. 

Apparently, God is impossible to please. Try to do good and you only succeed in ticking Him off. 

But take an extra 30 seconds to look back even a single verse for context and then ask "Who is the 'our' in this verse?" and here's what you read:

5You come to the help of those who gladly do right,
who remember your ways.
But when we continued to sin against them,
you were angry.
How then can we be saved?
6All of us have become like one who is unclean,
and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags;
we all shrivel up like a leaf,
and like the wind our sins sweep us away.

So, who is the "we/our" in this context? 

God's people, but currently in rebellion against Him!

Picture a cheating husband, caught in the act, who tries to smooth things over by buying his wife a bouquet of roses. The wife has every reason to throw those flowers back in his face.

This does not indicate that the wife, in happier times, did not find a gift of roses to be absolutely delightful and romantic. 

"All of us have BECOME like one who is unclean" indicates clearly (to anyone who knows how to read) that this is not describing a perpetual state of God's displeasure with all humans, in all places, across all of history. 

Imagine the harm the misreading of this verse has caused over the years! Christian teachers should be ashamed.