Rewriting Quotes

I recently read this post on Facebook:

A.W. Tower once said, “If a hundred pianos were merely tuned to each other, their pitch would not be very accurate. But if they were all tuned to one tuning fork, they would automatically be tuned to each other. Similarly, unity in the church isn’t the result of running around adjusting to everyone else. Rather, the key to unity is becoming more like Jesus Christ.”

It is a beautiful thought, and very valid – if we are to be unified in the body of Christ, we need to focus on Him. We need to learn of Him and be aware as we learn what is and is not accurate. Such as this lovely quote. Being the skeptic I am, it didn’t look quite right. Can you see off hand where it began to go wrong?

So, I spent some time googling and discovered this quote:

Has it ever occurred to you that one hundred pianos all tuned to the same fork are automatically tuned to each other? They are of one accord by being tuned, not to each other, but to another standard to which each one must individually bow. So one hundred worshipers met together, each one looking away to Christ, are in heart nearer to each other than they could possibly be, were they to become 'unity' conscious and turn their eyes away from God to strive for closer fellowship.
A.W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God: The Human Thirst for the Divine

Quoting someone should be very important. That’s a good reason for including the scriptures I reference in the blog, along with the version. As I’ve stated before, my personal preference is the King James Version. I’m used to it. It is understandable in spite of words not regularly used in English today. Modern versions have been marketed as better translations, more easily read. Frankly, I find it odd that would be necessary. This is a book where we find:

let your yea be yea; and your nay, nay (James 5:12b)

Yes, that is a partial verse taken out of context. Go ahead and look it up in context if you think it doesn’t fit. However, I believe that God is not the author of confusion (1 Corinthians 14:33) and good old King James has been used for centuries to help people know God. Still works pretty good, too.

Yesterday I quoted Jesus:

For had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me: for he wrote of me. But if ye believe not his writings, how shall ye believe my words? (John 5:46-47 KJV)

There are other writers who wrote to be believed:

These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God. (1 John 5:13 KJV)

I am not called to be as Tover, teaching people how to live as Christians. I am called to get people to read their Bibles, to get people to know God, to understand He is interested in their lives, to join in with praying they find Him close when they seek Him:

But if from thence thou shalt seek the LORD thy God, thou shalt find him, if thou seek him with all thy heart and with all thy soul. (Deuteronomy 4:29 KJV) 

And it’s repeated:

I love them that love me; and those that seek me early shall find me. (Proverbs 8:17 KJV) 
And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart. (Jeremiah 29:13 KJV) 

That they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, though he be not far from every one of us: (Acts 17:27 KJV)


Are you ready to look for Him? Are you ready for the unity offered through Jesus? Or do you ignore Him because of the many people who ignore Him, too?

When I applied mine heart to know wisdom, and to see the business that is done upon the earth: (for also there is that neither day nor night seeth sleep with his eyes:) Then I beheld all the work of God, that a man cannot find out the work that is done under the sun: because though a man labour to seek it out, yet he shall not find it; yea further; though a wise man think to know it, yet shall he not be able to find it. (Ecclesiastes 8:16-17 KJV)