Check me on this.

Look, I like Pete Hegseth. I really do. The man is a combat veteran, a vocal Christian, and he’s been one of the most faith-forward Defense Secretaries we’ve had in a long time. He holds prayer services at the Pentagon. That alone is worth celebrating.

But I have to be honest with you about something that happened this week, because if we can’t be honest with each other, what’s the point?

During a worship service at the Pentagon on Wednesday, Secretary Hegseth stood before the room, bowed his head, and read what he called “CSAR 25:17,” telling the audience it was “meant to reflect Ezekiel 25:17.”

Here’s what he read:

“The path of the downed aviator is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he who in the name of camaraderie and duty shepherds the lost through the valley of darkness, for he is truly his brother’s keeper and the finder of lost children. And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to capture and destroy my brother, and you will know my call sign is Sandy 1 when I lay my vengeance upon thee.”

Sound familiar?

If you’ve seen Quentin Tarantino’s 1994 film Pulp Fiction, you already know exactly where that came from. It’s the famous monologue delivered by Samuel L. Jackson’s character Jules Winnfield, right before he, well, does things I won’t describe on a Christian website.

Hegseth explained that the prayer was recited by “Sandy 1” combat search-and-rescue crews before missions, including a recent operation to rescue downed U.S. Air Force crew members over Iran. And I’ll give credit where it’s due: the military adapted the speech with purpose. They swapped “the Lord” for “Sandy 1” and made it about brotherhood and rescue missions.

But here’s the problem.

That speech was never actually in the Bible. Not even close.

The real Ezekiel 25:17 in the King James Bible says this:

“And I will execute great vengeance upon them with furious rebukes; and they shall know that I am the LORD, when I shall lay my vengeance upon them.”

That’s the whole verse. One sentence. No “path of the righteous man.” No “tyranny of evil men.” No “shepherd the weak through the valley of darkness.”

Tarantino actually lifted most of that fake passage from a 1973 Japanese martial arts movie called Bodyguard Kiba. The movie borrowed the Ezekiel attribution, and Tarantino ran with it. It sounds biblical. It feels biblical. But it’s Hollywood through and through.

And the Pentagon’s response? Spokesman Sean Parnell said the prayer was “obviously inspired by dialogue in Pulp Fiction” but argued that both the prayer and the movie “were reflections of the verse Ezekiel 25:17.”

With all due respect, no they weren’t.

Here’s why this matters to us as Christians.

This isn’t about attacking Pete Hegseth. I genuinely believe the man’s faith is sincere. He didn’t write the CSAR prayer. He was sharing something meaningful to the rescue crews, and I respect the heck out of the mission those men and women carry out.

But we live in a time where Scripture is being twisted, diluted, repackaged, and sometimes just flat-out invented. AI chatbots are now selling “conversations with Jesus” for $1.99 a minute. People are getting their theology from TikTok clips and Instagram quote cards that may or may not contain a single word from the actual Bible.

If the Defense Secretary of the United States can stand at a podium during a prayer service and read something from a Quentin Tarantino movie thinking it reflects Ezekiel, what does that say about how well we know our own Book?

I’m not throwing stones. I’m asking the question.

Do you know your Bible well enough to spot a fake?

Because the world is full of things that sound biblical. “God helps those who help themselves.” Not in the Bible. “Cleanliness is next to godliness.” Not in the Bible. “Money is the root of all evil.” Close, but wrong. It’s the love of money (1 Timothy 6:10).

The enemy doesn’t always come at you with obvious lies. Sometimes the most dangerous deceptions are the ones that sound almost right.

“Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.” (2 Timothy 2:15, KJV)

That one’s real. I checked.

Sound off in the comments below. Did you catch the Pulp Fiction connection right away, or did it fool you too?