Bad Teaching #1 - Adam & Dirt

Imagine this....

You attended a bible study today and you left with new information that you didn't know before.  So you go home armed with this new information and you begin to disseminate it to all of your friends and loved ones.  But little did you know, the information you received from the perhaps well-intentioned teaching IS FALSE.  Instead of going home and looking it up or researching it for yourself, you took that information and began giving it out to anyone who'd listen.  What does that make you?  Well, at best it makes you a bad teacher, at worst, it makes you negligent and untrustworthy.  Ouch!

Bad Teaching #1: The name ADAM and the word DIRT are the same word IN HEBREW.

Incorrect!

While I'm not going to expect you to go out and learn Hebrew, I'm going to expect you to be able to tell the difference between 2 examples.

Adam in Hebrew:  אדם

Dirt in Hebrew:    אדמה

Adam is 3 letters: aleph, dalet, mem-sofit.

Dirt is 4 letters: aleph, dalet, mem, hey

Adam is pronounced as you'd expect it to be and Dirt is pronounced Adam-ah.  That ה at the end of dirt is the EXACT breath of God that God breathed into Abram to call him Abraham and the EXACT breath of God that God breathed into Sarai to call her Sarah.

Genesis 17:5 - "No longer shall your name be called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham; for I have made you a father of many nations."

Genesis 17:15 - Then God said to Abraham, "As for Sarai your wife, you shall not call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall be her name."

It would have been perfectly true to say: The name Adam comes from the word Dirt in Hebrew.  It was not ok to say that they were the same word, because that is false.

It's this kind of small thing that leads to bigger things.  Always listen carefully to what you're taught and if ever you find yourself confused, please remember there are trustworthy teachers around to help you in your search.

I'm not a linguistics expert and you don't need to be either.  I know that I asked you to "imagine" at the beginning of this blog, but it's clearly obvious that the words aren't identical. Adam and Dirt are NOT the same word, they are however directly related.  It's no surprise that God gave Adam a name related to what he was made from - THE DIRT!

Genesis 2:7 - And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being. 

Acts 17:11 - These were more fair-minded than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness, and searched the Scriptures daily to find out whether these things were so.

As I have continued to ask for many years now, please share this Blog with someone you care about.  The corrections of false teachings and bad teachings has been the cornerstone of my Discipleship Ministry for many years now.  The more this blog grows, the more teachings I can bring!  I had someone tell me last week that a YouTube channel might be in my future....  Time will tell.