There is No Innkeeper- And Why It Matters

 Where in the Bible are these statements?

Cleanliness is next to godliness.

God helps those who help themselves.

The Seven Deadly Sins

God moves in mysterious ways; His wonders to perform.

This, too, shall pass. 

The Three Kings

None of these quotes are from the Bible. 

Unless John Wesley, author of statement 1, wrote Scripture.  (The phrase was first recorded in a sermon by Wesley in 1778.)

Or Ben Franklin was divinely inspired. (‘God helps those who help themselves’ first appeared in Poor Richard’s Almanac in 1757.)

Proverbs 6:16 says there are 7 things God hates.

‘God moves in mysterious ways’ form a lyric for the 19th-century hymn by William Cowper.

Possibly a Persian Sufi poet predicted that ‘this too shall pass.’

The men who visited Jesus were Magi, not Kings.  Matthew never says there were 3.  The number may have been greater.

These are serious misperceptions. The creation of a Bethlehem innkeeper is more egregious. 

Dr. John MacArthur illustrates the problem. In fifth grade, he was picked to be in the church Christmas play.  He drew the role of the innkeeper’s son.  Luke never mentioned an innkeeper and no this phantom clerk now has a son- who turns out to be . . . Barabbas!  Just as his mean father turned baby Jesus away so the bully Barabbas had no room for Jesus.  Unbelievable!

What is the biblical record?

Luk 2:7  "And (Mary) gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn." 

Notice that there is no search for places to stay, no heartless innkeeper. Nor is there even a friendly innkeeper who permits them to rest in his stable.

This is because these 'facts' are simply preconceptions.  

 

There is a more probable scenario.

The word ‘inn’ is better understood as a guest room, not a building. One other time Luke uses the word. Luke 22:11-12 “Tell the master of the house, ‘The Teacher says to you, where is the guest room, where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?’ And he will show you a large upper room furnished; prepare it there.” The “inn” of Bethlehem is a room. Young's literal translation uses guest-chamber in Luke 2:7.

(A different Greek word describes the building that lodges travelers.) 

Bethlehem, the town of Joseph’s family was a small town, likely full of people.  Most homes in Israel had two parts, one for the family and another for the household animals. The family house of David, Luke 2:4, had no room for Joseph and Mary.  The young couple moves to the first-floor stable area and there Jesus is born.  The contrast is not about those who make room and those who don’t, but about the King of Heaven being born in the lowly place of earth.

When we claim something to be Scripture when it’s not, 3 problems develop. We

·                Miss the main point

·                Make God a liar

·                Bring doubt about inspiration

Mark Twain claimed, “It ain't the parts of the Bible that I can't understand that bother me, it's the parts that I do understand.” 

Let’s make sure we leave the ‘bothering’ to what the Bible actually says.