The perils and pitfalls of online debate over the Bible, often among professing Christians, are well known. For all the blessings of this connected internet age (and I wouldn’t want to lose most of them!), there are some clear banes: like not needing to take a few seconds to think about what we’re about to write.

In the midst of online debates, both healthy and otherwise, I take notice of how we use Scripture. In the first place, it makes great sense to quote Scripture. Paul says that “All Scripture is inspired of God, useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that God’s people may be equipped for every good work” (2 Tim 3:16-17). Or, in the letter writer to the Hebrews (Paul?), “The word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart” (Heb 4:12, TNIV).

And so, quote away!

With one caveat. Proof-texting doesn’t prove a point. The most recent example I saw of this was in response to someone who was thoughtfully considering the place of the spiritual disciplines in the life of the Christian. That person said some things about the place of the Bible which wasn’t altogether unhelpful, but I think it just slightly missed the mark. A commenter probably saw the same thing, or thought it was just plain wrong, and wrote, “Careful, Steve [or whatever his true name was]…” and then quoted two texts from the Bible about playing fast and loose with it, with the implication that the original poster was, if not already, on the verge of denying Scripture.

That got me thinking about how Scripture gets used in debate. Sometimes it’s pretty unfair. The assumption in the above example was: “You’re misinterpreting Scripture and by misinterpreting you are mishandling. Therefore you need to hear the warnings of Scripture to not do that and listen to me, I mean, the word of God.” The sad thing was, the original poster was the one with the thoughtful post and well reasoned arguments (right or wrong in the end), and the responder was the one who thought he or she was providing proof of their own position, but they hadn’t provided any reasoned dialogue to confront the original position.

I’ve seen it elsewhere too and have had Scripture quoted at me as though it proved the other person’s point. But that fails to account for various interpretations and the possibility that that person could have gotten it wrong. It seems to me that we so often miss our own hermeneutical biases and fail to take them into account.

So, the caveat I suggest is this: Yes, quote Scripture. It is God’s. But do so in a way that respects the other person and provides arguments for why you think that Scripture confronts what the other person says.