I saw an interesting thing on Ron Edmonson’s blog today where he lists the 6 most misquoted movie lines. It was funny because I’ve personally misquoted a number of those lines, each time being absolutely convinced that it sounded right. I never really went back to the movies to confirm because it was close enough to what I thought was right that i just went with it.
Perhaps most surprising was that the line “Beam me up, Scotty” was never used in any Star Trek tv episode or motion picture! Yet is is a line that even non-Trekkies recognize and associate with the franchise.
I remember putting together this quiz for my students when I was a youth pastor in Philadelphia, where i put a bunch of quotes on the page and asked them to identify whether each was from the Bible or Shakespeare. To further fool them I put some lines in that were from neither source but many of them swore that lines like, “God helps those who help themselves” was from the BIble. I guess to them it just sounded right…sounded biblical.
Paul commended the Bereans in Acts 17:11 because (according to the NLT), “They searched the Scriptures day after day to check up on Paul and Silas, to see if they were really teaching the truth.” Misquoting a movie line does not carry any serious consequences, but each time we say something that “sounds” biblical but is even a little off, we are propagating an error that can have serious negative impact on people’s lives.
