Thus says the Lord: "Stand by the roads, and look, and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way is; and walk in it, and find rest for your souls.
But they said, 'We will not walk in it.'" --Jeremiah 6:16

 

7 August, 2005   comments: (0) Back To The Bible   A Shocking Example Of "Context" Ignored I wont soon forget the time I was driving home from the store, listening to the local Christian radio station. A pastor was speaking about the importance of using proper rules for interpreting the bible. He gave a shocking example of what can happen if we're not careful to practice one of the most important rules of biblical interpretation, and that is the consideration of the surrounding "context" of a verse. The example he gave was from one of those "inspirational" wall calendars, that often have some awe inspiring scenery accompanied by a bible verse. This calendar however, had this for one of it's bible verses: "If thou therefore wilt worship me, all shall be thine." Luke 4:7 Now anyone who would actually take the time to check the context of this verse (which the person who made the calendar obviously did not do) would see that the person speaking in this verse is none other than the devil! Here's the rest of that verse: "And the devil said unto him, All this power will I give thee, and the glory of them: for that is delivered unto me; and to whomsoever I will I give it." It is so common in modern times, for Christians and even well intentioned pastors, to rip bible verses completely out of their context. This often has the effect of giving a verse a completely different meaning than what the bible had intended. Case in point, the modern best seller The Purpose Driven Life, by pastor Rick Warren. Just one of the examples of this book's use of out-of-context verses is the author's partial-quoting of Proverbs 16:4 (NLT) "The Lord has made everything for his own purposes". When we examine this verse's context (in this case, simply the rest of the verse) we see some additional information that the author neglected to mention: "The LORD has made everything for its own purpose, even the wicked for punishment." The art and science of rightly interpreting the bible is called Hermeneutics. This is a great time for me to give a plug for an incredible video series that made a profound impact on my own ability to understand the bible. It's called "A Workman Approved By God" from CrossTV.com. In fact, show 10 in this series is all about "context". If only we could persuade the maker of that calendar to watch this video! "A Workman Approved By God" videos are easy to understand, professionally done, and great for anyone wanting to better understand their bible. Find out more at this link: http://oldtruth.com/Hermeneutics-Bible-Interpretation.cfm Posted by: Jim B.   Link: http://www.oldtruth.com/blog.cfm/id.2.pid.23   Be the first to post a comment about this article        Home  |   About  |  Videos   |  Calvinism