Add thou not unto his words, lest he reprove thee, and thou be found a liar.
Add nothing to God's words, for whoever does so will be reproved by Him and be found a liar. The prohibition rests on what His words are in themselves, pure and true and complete, and on what they are to the believer, a shield to everyone who puts trust in Him.
Adding includes supplementing what God has revealed with human speculation about things He has withheld. It includes claims that undermine His revealed word and alter what He has spoken. His word must be spoken faithfully without alteration, so to join human assertions and inventions and theories and teachings to it is to violate the prohibition.
Teachings out of harmony with the truth Christ came to reveal are false and deceptive and fall under this warning. The same warning forbids supplementing or diminishing God's words with human rules, for God Himself has established the regulations for worship and people are not free to add human customs to divine authority, a course that can lead to apostasy. In the writings of the Old and New Testaments this means no additions and no subtractions and no changes of expressions, and no putting in of human words and ideas to suit a human standard of how Scripture should appear, so that even to replace God's expressions with one's own on the ground that it is a wonderful improvement brings His disapproval and reproof.
Add nothing to God's words, for whoever does so will be reproved by Him and be found a liar. The prohibition rests on what His words are in themselves, pure and true and complete, and on what they are to the believer, a shield to everyone who puts trust in Him.
Adding includes supplementing what God has revealed with human speculation about things He has withheld. It includes claims that undermine His revealed word and alter what He has spoken. His word must be spoken faithfully without alteration, so to join human assertions and inventions and theories and teachings to it is to violate the prohibition.
Teachings out of harmony with the truth Christ came to reveal are false and deceptive and fall under this warning. The same warning forbids supplementing or diminishing God's words with human rules, for God Himself has established the regulations for worship and people are not free to add human customs to divine authority, a course that can lead to apostasy. In the writings of the Old and New Testaments this means no additions and no subtractions and no changes of expressions, and no putting in of human words and ideas to suit a human standard of how Scripture should appear, so that even to replace God's expressions with one's own on the ground that it is a wonderful improvement brings His disapproval and reproof.