How important is context when reading the Bible?

How important is context when reading the Bible?

Ask some preachers like Steven Furtick, who seems to make every verse about him personally, and you might get the answer "not very".

Ask Joyce Meyer, who claims that believers can bring things into existence from nothing, and you might get the same answer (by the way, she is butchering Romans 4:17 where it says that God brings things into existence from nothing, not human beings).

Ask cult leaders who take verses out of context, and even use their "here a little, there a little" hermeneutic to connect them, and you may get the same answer.

As someone who has been fooled by such teachers in the past, I caution you against it. Get a good study bible, like the ESV Study Bible or Zondervan NIV Biblical Theology Study Bible, and carefully study the context of each book and section of Scripture. As well, get a book on the "big picture" of the Bible, such as Stephen Nichol's book Welcome to the Story: Reading, Living and Loving God's Word, and understand the storyline of Scripture, so that you aren't fooled by amateurs posing as teachers.

What is the storyline of the Bible? Who is the author of the book? Who is his audience? What is the occasion for the writing? What cultural factors does the passage involve? What do the verses surrounding it say?

I found a story that illustrates the importance of context:

A few years ago...

A friend of mine told me a story about how one Sunday morning, around 7:00 am, he was riding a subway into New York City. It was to preach at a church that was not too far away from its center. Being that it was a Sunday morning and that it was early and quiet, not very many people were riding in the car that he was in; just an elderly lady that was was crocheting something out of her bag, a Jewish Rabbi who was reading the newspaper, and a young business type who was probably going in to work to finish something not quite completed on Saturday.

As the subway was quietly moving along, it stopped at a station and in stepped a father with three small children. Immediately the morning calm was broken. As the unshaven and disheveled father slumped into his seat, all three of the children went running madly up and down the subway car, shouting, playing tag –making a real ruckus, and totally disrupting the quiet harmony of the morning.

After, a few minutes of this, the young business man turns to the father, and yells, “why don't you control your children?” All eyes were then turned upon him, as the father looked up and said, “Yes, you are right. They just came from the hospital where they lost their mother early this morning to her battle with cancer. I guess they don't really know how to handle it, and I am afraid, I don't either.”

In a moment everything changed.

The Elderly woman pulled the little girl over and they began an animated conversation with the lady showing her how to crochet; the Rabbi pulled one of the young boys over and together they began to read the comics --laughing at all the jokes and characters; the young business man, well, pulled the oldest one over and let him play on his gameboy. While the father was sympathetically given a little space so that he could grieve. It seemed in seconds, everything had changed, and a new peace prevailed.

But what had changed?

Context.

By knowing the context, everyone could now correctly deduce what the truth was. Without the context, everyone was left angry and disillusioned. So it is today, you will be asked to accept Scriptures on face value, without checking the context, or the intent of the passage. You will be asked to "just come along," which will mean forgetting the characters in the passage, and the audience or even the author who is speaking. You will also be asked to accept a number of things on face value, and you will even be asked to accept the words of teachers, ministers, and if possible, “prophetic angels of light.” Don't you do it!

You test out everything.

First, you test out all thoughts in the light of the Gospel. Then you test out what is being said, read or believed in the light of the harmony of scripture. Next, --well you get the idea, keep going don't just accept anything on face value.

I know that I am preaching to many in the choir, but let me solemnly warn you, --it is this accepting biblical things at face value that has led to more cults and heresies, than I believe any other factor, including false friendships. My prayer is that each of you grow in spirit and in the truth of the Lord Jesus
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For an example of Joyce Meyer and her misuse of context:


It might be interesting to hear the contextual factors that you consider when reading Scripture.

Hi UWC, your question is so elementary and obvious, i almost feel foolish by replying.
But, all the same, ....categorically yes!!!!
On the surface, to comprehend the overall gist of the Gospel of Christ, it's rather straight-forward. But, after that, it requires extremely disciplined and stringent hermeneutics, and wise and practical exegesis. Yes, context is everything, whether it be on a secular level (as you demonstrated), or on a spiritual level. Meaning, no matter what the discipline, interpretation requires both appreciating and understanding the context, whether it be the historical, cultural, dispensational, principle or authorial context. For to disregard it, is either a naive and precarious recipe for error and heresy, or a pretext for deceit. Again, this goes without saying.
On that same note, i never try to correlate passages, mostly from the Old Testament to the New Testament, unless an inspired writer does so themself. It's much too easy to read things into 'out of context' passages in the Tanakh, and apply them to the Gospels & Epistles. Be restrained and sober when interpreting spiritual revelations and insights. Avoid eisegesis. Study to show thyself approved.
Thank UWC!

Hi DB7,

I agree that there is a need to be careful in correlating passages from OT to NT, but I think some sectors (particularly dispensationalists) are excessively restrictive in this practice. As a result, they have a poor understanding of biblical theology.

However, I do acknowledge that some can come up with wild conclusions in this regard and it's not for amateurs.

I haven't read the books yet, but GK Beale and DA Carson have excellent resources in this regard:

https://smile.amazon.com/Commentary...0&pf_rd_r=P4XCY0TPEBVMBWGWEM88&qid=1573724005

https://smile.amazon.com/New-Testam...0&pf_rd_r=1EYE13Q3KXQZST7ZSYNZ&qid=1573724036

https://smile.amazon.com/Handbook-N...0&pf_rd_r=1EYE13Q3KXQZST7ZSYNZ&qid=1573724036

The first volume is basically a commentary of all Old Testament references and how the apostles viewed the Old Testament and used it.

Since I am not a dispensationalist, I am not going to be at the level of their rigidity, but at the same time, I don't make wild claims about connections that do not exist.

I was discussing one obvious shadow/type with a dispensationalist pastor, though, and he basically told me I couldn't infer a shadow/type without an explicit statement in Scripture. At that point, I knew there was something fishy about dispensationalist hermeneutics. God expects us to use our brains sometimes to see deeper truths in Scripture.

I know that I irk some dispensationalists but I definitely don't agree with their hermeneutic in this regard. And I have many dispensationalist friends

In fact, the church I attend is dispensational, basically. It's about as close as I can get to a sound, balanced place around here though. There are some Reformed Baptists but I don't really care for their worship style.

Very well said, agreed, ...but, on a personal level, in such cases, i would just hesitate on being dogmatic about my own types and anti-types (for example, i may precede with a disclaimer prior to expressing them to another)!

Right..caution is definitely indicated. However, sometimes the parallels are just way too strong to deny.

That being said, a cultic group I belonged to claimed that one of the goats involved in the Leviticus 16 account was Satan (the freed goat). I later learned that was totally bogus, and actually blasphemous, as it is Jesus who bore our sins away.

That was an awesome example, and makes the point well. I have one from the bible that I learned just recently illustrates this point so well. The parable of the Prodigal Sons. In this parable I always see it preached with the focus on the younger son that waste everything, by the way that is what "prodigal" means wasteful, then turns back to his father for salvation. It was always presented to me as a story that shows Gods love and forgiveness to those of us that turn from "our way", a way that leads to desires like eating pig slop, and turns us back to the Source and Provider of everything, our Father. But check this out, when we see that Jesus was speaking to the Pharisees who were just in their self righteousness calling out Jesus for eating with, and hanging around sinners. For the audience Jesus was speaking to, the center of His point was not the younger brother at all, it was the older brother who would not go into the Fathers house because of his self righteousness. We see the Father was good and went out to the older brother too, Telling him "you've been with me all this time, whats mine is yours, but your brother has been returned, but then the parable ends never saying if the older brother went in to celebrate the return of his brother to life, or if he turned up his nose and turn his back on everything because of self righteous envy.

When you reread it knowing this it's as clear as can be, the whole younger brother scenario is so far out there as to be laughably impossible in the time and culture they were in, that the request for your inheritance to your living father would have been met with a backhand and public shaming more likely than not and was SOOOOO disrespectful, that would have never been let alone squandering it all on perversions and ending up in a pig pen envying the food they ate. That was so far out there to be cartoon like, but was for a purpose to make a point. Anyone in the flesh can sympathize with the older brother, but these truths were not to teach us the things we already felt, but to reveal the nature of the Spirit. This parable was to the judgmental pharisees, and was about the older brother letting his idea of the law and rules cloud his love for life and truth, a warning to those that we never learn the fate of.

Ecclesiastes 1
The words of the Preacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem.
2 Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity.

It's funny UWC, my first reaction was to say 'how in the world did they ascertain that?', but after giving it some thought, simply for the sake of it, I believe that it can be construed as being analogous to the demise of the devil and of those who follow him. They will be sent off into isolation for their sins, ostracized from the Kingdom and left to inhabit desolate and barren areas. I don't accept this explanation as being intended by the author, but I say this just to demonstrate the precarious aspect of unbridled interpretation.
Is it more analogous to Christ's work of redemption, depends on one's soteriology? If one accepts either the scapegoat or penal substitution theories, then yes, otherwise not necessarily either.

I guess in essence, there are enough qualified and certified typologies in the Bible that one does not need to be deficient in their understanding of correct Christian theology, and thus, private interpretation needs to be both tempered and used only as an implicit supplement to an argument, not as the definitive or critical proof-text for their conclusion or doctrine.
Which, if I'm not mistaken UWC, that you already stated to a certain degree.

Since this seems to lining-up to be little more than a slam against certain teachers, the OP's question is negated. What should be looked at is to ask about whoever and whatever we choose to bring into question, was the issue, in fact, something that was actually taken out of context, or did they just not speak the way we would have preferred them to?
When a preacher says you can pray and an answer may come right out of nowhere, right out of nothing...… is that not a Biblical fact — just not expressed the way we want it to be said? All they are saying is that it is not necessarily dependent upon our own personal efforts to see God move in a situation.
They are not saying that if you wish for an ice cream sundaie, it will magically appear on your table.

...VOLUTED".

I made a few cosmetic changes to the original quote.

HEY!!!!! You can't just take it out of context like that. LOL

Classic example of taking it out of context.

Obviously..... "Projection." LOL

I'm thinking context does not matter to Calvinism anyway

I agree....The last name or designation of Jesus was Christ.....not Calvin!

Am I missing something? Who brought up John Calvin or Calvinism? I read every comment and don't see anyone talking about that. Where did this-
-even come from? Then DC you jump right on that with-
I would hope anyone would agree with this, but who in the world was suggesting this even in the smallest way? I might just be blind but these two comments seem out of place in the conversation, they don't seem to have anything to do with any of the comments made before it. Did anyone even bring up Calvin, let alone say he has more authority than Jesus?

I truly hope I don't come across too harsh or anything, I don't mean it in a harsh way, I just cannot see how these two comments fit with anything said here. I'm more than happy to listen to what I might be missing though. Regardless I hope you all have a great day.

The poster might have been simply expressing what he saw as a striking example of being out of context — the building of an entire doctrine of belief that way. (I dunno, just speculating.)

The OP is a hyper Calvinist and all the posts made are along that line of reasoning. It is an indirect method of creating credibility for the other threads.

Context is essential for understanding of any passage of scripture. Many create a pretext to support a preconceived conclusion before reading the scripture. We must rightly divide the scriptures to arrive at the truth. I hope we all agree that we need to arrive at the truth.

For the cause of Christ
Roger

yes you are missing something

do a search on Calvinism...say the last 2 months or so....and edumacate yourself on what has been going on here