Written by: David Hood

This is part 2 of a 3 part series. Read part 1 here.

In these posts, I am asking the question what kinds of Christians do we need right now in these tumultuous and volatile times? In this post, I would humbly suggest we need Christians who use Scripture properly. This past year has revealed that a lot of Christians don’t know how to properly read, understand, interpret, and apply their Bibles. I will give two more prominent examples.

First, early on in the pandemic a lot of Christians were quoting Psalm 91 as the reason why they didn’t need to stay home or distance or close their buildings or follow any public health advice. Currently, this Psalm is being used to justify why Christians do not need to get the vaccine. Psalm 91 states:

Whoever dwells in the shelter of the Most High
will rest in the shadow of the Almighty…
You will not fear…the pestilence that stalks in the darkness,
nor the plague that destroys at midday.
A thousand may fall at your side,
ten thousand at your right hand,
but it will not come near you.
You will only observe with your eyes
and see the punishment of the wicked…
no harm will overtake you,
no disaster will come near your tent.
For he will command his angels concerning you
to guard you in all your ways;
they will lift you up in their hands,
so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.
You will tread on the lion and the cobra;
you will trample the great lion and the serpent (NIV).

However, Psalm 91 is not about COVID or any other historic pandemic. It is recalling the events of the Exodus when God sent 12 plagues on Pharaoh and the Egyptians as part of His plan to supernaturally and dramatically rescue His people Israel from slavery and oppression. The plagues were God’s direct judgment on Pharaoh and the Egyptians for their infanticidal and dehumanizing imperialism. The plagues afflicted only the Egyptians, not the Israelites. The Israelites were entirely spared the gnats, flies, frogs, locusts, blood water, darkness, hail, boils, etc… Why? Because they were God’s chosen people. The Psalmist is recalling these events in his poem and is declaring that those who love and trust in God need not fear when God punishes the wicked. God’s judgments will never come near their tent. When God judges the wicked, as He did the Egyptians, those who love and trust in and belong to God will be spared, as was Israel. God will spare those who are His.

As Christians, we can echo this Psalm because Jesus has taken all of the judgment that we deserve for our sin on the cross. As Paul declares, There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ (Romans 8:1). If we entrust ourselves to Jesus as Saviour and Lord, when He judges the world in righteousness, we will be spared, and will instead be ushered into His eternal bliss.

This Psalm is not teaching that no earthly disaster will ever befall Christians. This is manifestly false. Christians have been killed by plagues and pestilences, poisonous snakes, ravaging lions. Christians get sick and die. They die at the hands of their persecutors. They die in wars, acts of random violence and terrorism, natural disasters, accidents. They’re robbed and murdered. Christians have died of COVID-19. The plague did come near their tent. Harm does come to Christians, but no ultimate harm!

Can God protect us from getting sick? Yes, absolutely. Does that mean we should put ourselves or others deliberately in harm’s way? No. Ironically, the devil used this Psalm to try to tempt Jesus to test God by throwing Himself off the temple. Would God send angels to lift Jesus up and keep Him from striking His foot against the stones? Jesus refused to test God in this way, and yet testing God is what a lot of Christians have done and have shamed and pressured others into doing this whole pandemic, using this Psalm, misinterpreted and misapplied.

When it comes to viral outbreaks, we would do well to follow Martin Luther’s advice, who lived through several plagues: You ought to think this way: “Very well, by God’s decree the enemy has sent us poison and deadly offal. Therefore I shall ask God mercifully to protect us. Then I shall fumigate, help purify the air, administer medicine, and take it. I shall avoid places and persons where my presence is not needed in order not to become contaminated and thus perchance infect and pollute others, and so cause their death as a result of my negligence…If my neighbor needs me…I shall not avoid place or person but will go freely…See, this is such a God-fearing faith because it is neither brash nor foolhardy and does not tempt God.

A second example is the infamous mark of the beast in Revelation 13. In a series of visions, many believe of the future, the apostle John sees a cosmic and spiritual war being waged by the devil and his demons against the church that plays out in human history on the world stage. In one of the visions, a beast rises out of the sea that is given power and authority over the nations by the devil and who compels everyone to worship the devil. This beast requires people to get his mark on their hand and forehead without which they can’t do business or essentially be functioning members of society. Those without the mark will be marginalized and persecuted.

As you can probably already tell, Revelation is notoriously difficult to interpret. It is apocalyptic literature and so is rich in metaphors and imagery. For decades now people have been trying to figure out who this beast is and what the mark is. At one time, people thought it was debit and credit cards. Currently, several Christians are claiming that the COVID-19 vaccine is the mark and, therefore, Christians should not get it. By extension, every Christian who gets it is in essence an apostate who is aligning himself or herself with the devil. This is not an accurate understanding of the text. The mark is not just anything that goes into or on your body.

Paul Carter writes about this and quotes William Hendrikson’s commentary: In order to understand the expression ‘mark of the beast’, we must remember that not only cattle but slaves also were branded and marked. The mark meant that the slave belonged to his master. … So ‘receiving the mark of the beast’ seems to mean ‘belonging to the beast and worshipping the beast’…The forehead symbolizes the mind, the thought-life, the philosophy of the person. The right hand indicates his deed, action, trade, industry, etc. Therefore receiving the mark of the beast on the forehead or right hand indicates that the person so characterized belongs to the company of those who persecute the Church; and that – either preeminently in what he thinks, says, writes or more emphatically in what he does – this antichristian spirit becomes evident.”

I don’t know if this interpretation is exactly it, but the point is the mark is something people know they are getting or is symbolic of something they know they are doing that allies them with the devil against the church. The mark is not something that will happen to people unbeknownst to them or that Christians will receive unknowingly. It will be a deliberate choice and act.

I know in the evangelical world not everybody agrees with me on the morality, effectiveness, and necessity of vaccines in general, and this vaccine in particular. I believe vaccines are a common grace gift from God, and that this vaccine is a way we can love our neighbours, especially our more vulnerable ones, and help our society progress past this pandemic and the resultant isolation, mental health crisis, and economic disruption. However, I also understand why some Christians, and others, are hesitant or object. I don’t believe Christians and churches need to divide over this. We all need to decide for ourselves what to do and can have a happy fellowship regardless (If you’re wrestling, I found these articles here and here to be very helpful from a Christian perspective). However, I will say emphatically, do not refuse this vaccine because of Psalm 91 or Revelation 13 or anything in eschatological/apocalyptic literature. Don’t base your decision on Biblical texts misinterpreted and misapplied.

The Bible is a challenging enough book to get our secular, post-Christian society to take seriously without us mishandling it in public, especially in ways that endanger lives. How seriously will our neighbours take us as Christians and our faith if we don’t know our own “holy book” or how to read it and make sense of it and live it out in our complex world. We need Christian pastors and teachers who are going to do the hard work of properly interpreting and applying God’s Word in all of its richness and complexity, not weaponizing it to create panic and not ripping verses out of context to serve an agenda. We need Christians who, like the Bereans in the New Testament book of Acts, are going to search the Scriptures to see whether what a lot of what we’re seeing on YouTube, hearing in podcasts, and reading on blogs is true. Be aware, there are a lot of false teachers out there (people who deliberately distort the Bible to exploit), but there are also a lot of foolish teachers who mishandle God’s Word to the detriment of many and our witness.