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The Importance of Context, Part 1

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“Pinky, are you pondering what I’m pondering?”

“I think so, Brain, but Lederhosen won’t stretch that far.”

The cartoon Animaniacs got a lot of mileage out of this joke.  The two mice would find themselves in a pickle of one sort or another.  Brain, the genius, would intuit a solution and ask his famous question.  Pinky, the dolt, would take him out of context and say something so ridiculous that the joke never got old.

The joke isn’t funny, though, when Christians live it out in their Bible study.

Do you know what Jesus was talking about when he said, “Where two or three are gathered in my name, there I am among them” (Matt 18:20, ESV)?  Hint: it wasn’t about prayer groups.  If you pray alone, Jesus is still with you (Matt 6:6, 28:20).  Observe the context in Matt 18:15-20.

Who was God assuring when he said, “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope” (Jer 29:11)?  Hint: it wasn’t Christians who were struggling with a big decision.  Observe the context in Jer 29:1-3.

What did Paul intend by his infamous “Love chapter” in 1 Corinthians 13:1-13?  Hint: it was a rebuke, not a Hallmark card.  Observe the context in 1 Cor 11:17; 12:31b; 14:20, 40.

Every Bible passage has a context.  If we lift individual verses from their context, we endanger interpretation.  At best, we might still hit on biblical truth; we just look foolish to the watching world when they see that a passage doesn’t mean what we think it means.  At worst, we run into error, heresy, or unbelief, or we lead others into those things.  Jehovah’s Witnesses and Mormons use the Bible to support their doctrines, too.

Why Does Paul Mention Muzzling Oxen?

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Justin Taylor at The Gospel Coalition recently posted a great article on the New Testament use of the Old Testament.  He examines how Paul quotes Deut 25:4 in both 1 Cor 9:9 and 1 Tim 5:18.  Moses commanded Israel not to muzzle their oxen while threshing.  Paul wants people to pay their pastor.  How does the first support the second?

From Paul’s use of Deut 25:4, Taylor argues two key principles to keep in mind when a New Testament author quotes an Old Testament passage:

  1. Never ignore the original Old Testament context
  2. Be slow to assume that the New Testament writers are quoting things out of context

These are great principles for Bible study, and Taylor ably demonstrates them from this example.  Check it out.

Interpretation and Truth… in Politics

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The ideas we talk about here at Knowable Word—interpretation, context, the author’s main point—underlie all forms of communication. They don’t often bubble to the surface in our culture’s mass media, however.

This morning, they did. On NPR’s Morning Edition program, a story by Ari Shapiro called Does Truth Matter? began with the common observation that politicians tend to quote their opponents out of context. More interestingly, Shapiro went on to explore whether there’s any use in talking about what the misquoted politician actually meant.

The story provides a secular perspective on some of the key ideas we talk about here, so you might want to check it out.

How’d You Do That? (7/4/12)

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In yesterday’s post, I tried to demonstrate an important principle for how to study the Bible: correlation.  Correlation is the process of linking different passages together to understand what the Bible has to say about a topic or idea.

When it comes to correlation, it can be pretty easy to make a number of errors:

  1. Cross-referencing too soon: Sometimes when we read a passage, we immediately jump to all the other passages that come to mind.  As we jump from place to place in the Bible, we can feel like we’ve had a good Bible study.  The danger, however, is that we can jump so much that we failed to understand any of the specific passages in their context!  Numerous cults use this technique to justify their teaching, while making it seem biblical.
  2. Isolating a text from the whole Bible: Sometimes we can get so focused on one passage that we develop an imbalanced understanding of a certain topic.  Without connecting this passages to other passages, we might over-focus on one side of an issue to the exclusion of the complete biblical perspective on it.  I find it really easy to commit this error when I’m having a disagreement with someone, and I want to over-emphasize my perspective.
  3. Connecting passages unhelpfully: Sometimes we can connect different passages for no other reason than that they use the same word.  When we do this, we miss the fact that different authors might use the same words in different ways.  We read a certain meaning into various texts rather than drawing meaning out of them.  We often commit this error if we search for a single word in a Bible search engine, and then assume that every verse that turns up must apply to the particular question I’d like to answer.

How do we correlate various Bible texts accurately?

  1. Make sure you understand the passage at hand in its context.  That means identifying the author’s main point before you jump to any other texts.
  2. Once you’ve identified the main point, then look for other passages that speak to the same main point (which may include using the same words, but it also might not).
  3. As you look at other passages, make sure you understand the main points of each of them in their own contexts.
  4. Allow each passage to nuance your understanding of the idea.
  5. Make changes in your life to obey what you have learned from God’s Knowable Word!

How’d You Do That? (5/3/12, continued)

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Here are two more Bible study principles I employed in last Thursday’s post:

2.  Read the Bible as Literature

Every book of the Bible is a book.  Each of these books was written by a person to a group of people.  We ought to read these books like we read other books.  That means they have a beginning, a middle, and an end.  The ideas flow from one thought to the next.  This is why I’ll work through Proverbs 1-9 section after section.

3.  Pay Attention to Context

This point flows right out of the previous one.  When we forget that the Bible is a collection of books, it’s easy to read a verse here and a verse there as we feel inspired.  However, each of those verses has a context.  There is a literary context (the thoughts written before and after) and a historical context (the person who wrote the book, and the circumstances under which he wrote it).

Here’s an example.  If I told you that on May 3, The New York Times quoted Tobias Meyer as saying, “I have all the time in the world,” what would you think of?  Does the quote inspire you or frighten you?  Do you share the sentiment, or do you envy it?

It’s impossible to evaluate such questions when the quote is isolated from any context!  So let me fill you in with more details.

Tobias Meyer is an auctioneer.  A few days ago, painter Edvard Munch’s famous work, “The Scream,” came up for auction.  Once the bidding reached $99 million, the participants paused, likely in anticipation of the $100 million milestone.  At this moment, Mr. Meyer exclaimed, “I have all the time in the world.”  As you know, auctioneers are not known for taking time or for drawing things out.  This moment was one to be savored.

The bidding continued, and the painting finally sold for $119.9 million, becoming the most expensive piece of art in history.  See the full article here.

Now that you know the facts in their context, does the quote take on new significance?

Let’s do the same whenever we study the Bible, making sure we understand it rightly in its context.  I will seek to do it in Proverbs by focusing on Solomon’s main points and flow of thought.  You can do it as you read the Bible, too.