Thy Word is a Lamp Unto My Feet

From Psalm 119, which extols the power of God's Word:
105 Your word is a lamp to my feet And a light to my path. 106 I have sworn and I will confirm it, That I will keep Your righteous ordinances. 107 I am exceedingly afflicted ; Revive me, O LORD, according to Your word. 

Yesterday, you heard a portion of a conversation about how phrases from God's word have been incorporated into our language:  When the Boston Globe profiled a work by linguist David Crystal in November of 2010, it opened up with: 

In the past week or so, anyone following the news might have read that Jon Stewart is “a thorn in the side of politicians”; that Senator Harry Reid of Nevada won reelection “by the skin of his teeth”; and that people in the newspaper industry “see the writing on the wall.”

In the book, “Begat: The King James Bible and the English Language,” Crystal identifies 257 familiar idioms, that he credits to the stature and popularity of the King James Bible.

A relatively familiar phrase from the Scriptures is found in Hebrews 13:2 - 'Be not inhospitable to strangers, lest they be angels in disguise..."

Author Eric Metaxas, in a recent column entitled, "Does Anyone in the Media Ever Read the Bible?", he cited a misappropriation of that Bible verse in an obituary for a bookstore owner: 

"[George] welcomed visitors with large-print messages on the walls. 'Be not inhospitable to strangers, lest they be angels in disguise,' was one, quoting Yeats."

Eric said,

Yeats!? Did you catch that? I choked on my toast. Did the Times actually just say that "Be not inhospitable to strangers, lest they be angels in disguise" was from Yeats? Unless I had fallen down a rabbit hole, that quote was from the Bible. It’s from Hebrews 13:2 and it’s quite famous. If you didn't catch it, don't feel too badly, because you are probably not The New York Times. You are probably not America's "paper of record", proud owner of 106 Pulitzer Prizes in Journalism -- more than any other newspaper.

The Times issued a retraction.   Eric made 2 observations...first, regarding the fact that multiple news sources ran the story with the errant attribution:

First, have you ever heard the old adage, "a lie goes around the world, before the truth can get its boots on." Here's yet another example of the truth in that statement, especially in this hyper-electronic age.

Second, it's no secret that Manhattan and Hollywood cultural elites are deeply secular. There's a reason many of them consider the middle of America "fly-over country". Since at least H.L. Mencken, many secular elites think those who actually read the Bible need to be educated away from such nonsense. So the ignorance they often show about religion can be staggering. I remember two prominent instances.

The first was when I heard that patting-ourselves-on-the-back anthem "We Are the World" on FM radio 25 years ago. In his solo, Willie Nelson warbled: "As God has shown us, by turning stone to bread..." Did Willie really sing that Jesus had turned stone into bread? Yikes. Um, that's not quite what happened, Willie. What actually happened was that Jesus refused to turn stone to bread. And do you remember who tried to get him to turn stone to bread? That's right, Willie: it was um, Satan, as in Lucifer. As in it was a bad idea...

The second was when a secular Manhattan friend revealed that he didn't know who had come up with the Golden Rule. When told it was Jesus (Matthew 7:12) he didn't believe it. And this is a brilliant man, who knows just about everything there is to know. But in the world of Manhattan cultural elites, the Bible is mostly thought of as a quaint and useless artifact, like that old colonial butterchurn near the fireplace in your country home. Did it really ever make butter?

So, how well do we know the Bible?   Do we recognize the incredible effect it has on the way we speak?   Hopefully, it will be a powerful governing agent of the way we think and act.