Lazy, Fantasied Bible Study by Motte Brown on 03/08/2007 at 11:27 AM

In this week's Boundless Answers column, Candice challenged us to "study God's Word, as God's Word," to work through passages of Scripture that are obscure or offend our modern sensibilities. Yesterday, Steve from Stand to Reason Blog makes clear how important it is to consider context as well as the whole counsel of Scripture for "good Bible study."

Imagine hearing a typical pastor preach in topical style. He focuses on lots of single verses spanning thousands of years, different cultures, and different literary genres and links them to points not flowing directly from the text. But this Sunday, instead of focusing on nice verses like II Chron. 7:14, Phil. 1:6, and Jer. 29:11, he focuses on four phrases from Psalm 109:

"Let another take his office." (v. 8a)
"Let his children be fatherless and his wife a widow." (v. 9)
"Let the iniquity of his fathers be remembered before the LORD." (v. 14a)
"And let strangers plunder the product of his labor." (v. 11b)

He then gets to the point of his sermon: we should hope and pray for harm to come to neighbors that offend us.

Steve follows with the obvious that no pastor would ever do this. He says the severity of such Scripture forces us to consider carefully its context while remembering the truth about God's character. I'm having to do this now reading Joshua. My finite mind has difficulty reconciling a kind, loving and just God who commands the destruction of "both men and women, young and old."

We wrestle with Scripture that makes us question the very character of God and easily accept prosperity verses as a right because "we are both lazy and prone to fantasy." Steve writes, "We're lazy because we'd rather not do the hard work of interpretation every time we sit down to read the text. And we fantasize that God wants all of the nice Scriptures about blessing and good things to apply to us."

When we take verses out of context, we are in danger of missing God's intent entirely. That's why we need to be careful with verses of blessing. If a single verse of Scripture says exactly what we want to hear, we tend not dig any deeper.

Lazy, Fantasied Bible Study by Motte Brown on 03/08/2007 at 11:27 AM

In this week's Boundless Answers column, Candice challenged us to "study God's Word, as God's Word," to work through passages of Scripture that are obscure or offend our modern sensibilities. Yesterday, Steve from Stand to Reason Blog makes clear how important it is to consider context as well as the whole counsel of Scripture for "good Bible study."

Imagine hearing a typical pastor preach in topical style. He focuses on lots of single verses spanning thousands of years, different cultures, and different literary genres and links them to points not flowing directly from the text. But this Sunday, instead of focusing on nice verses like II Chron. 7:14, Phil. 1:6, and Jer. 29:11, he focuses on four phrases from Psalm 109:

"Let another take his office." (v. 8a)
"Let his children be fatherless and his wife a widow." (v. 9)
"Let the iniquity of his fathers be remembered before the LORD." (v. 14a)
"And let strangers plunder the product of his labor." (v. 11b)

He then gets to the point of his sermon: we should hope and pray for harm to come to neighbors that offend us.

Steve follows with the obvious that no pastor would ever do this. He says the severity of such Scripture forces us to consider carefully its context while remembering the truth about God's character. I'm having to do this now reading Joshua. My finite mind has difficulty reconciling a kind, loving and just God who commands the destruction of "both men and women, young and old."

We wrestle with Scripture that makes us question the very character of God and easily accept prosperity verses as a right because "we are both lazy and prone to fantasy." Steve writes, "We're lazy because we'd rather not do the hard work of interpretation every time we sit down to read the text. And we fantasize that God wants all of the nice Scriptures about blessing and good things to apply to us."

When we take verses out of context, we are in danger of missing God's intent entirely. That's why we need to be careful with verses of blessing. If a single verse of Scripture says exactly what we want to hear, we tend not dig any deeper.

Comments

[1. John M. said the following at 1:14 PM on Mar 8:]

1

Oh, I totally agree. I hate it when we hopscotch around the bible pulling verses to support whatever idea we want to get across. It robs the bible of it's sweep and impact. Take one book or passage and dig into it, I say.

[2. Blair said the following at 1:30 PM on Mar 8:]

2

I agree with the Motte. I think we have to be very carful not to take scripture out of context, to look at it in its entirety. I am a firm believer in the authority and inerrancy of the Bible, but when we take a verse or group of verses and interpret them without seeing how they fit in with the rest of scripture we can run into some serious trouble, here is an example. About once a week for the last few months I have been approached by a member of a religion that uses the Bible, but is not in line with the teachings of the Christian faith (I consider this religion to be a cult). It has been very difficult to have a conversation with this person about the differences in our teachings because the passages they use are taken out of context. She is using the same scripture I claim to be truth but the interpretation is very different. It's as if her beliefs are based on a cut and paste version of the Bible. I think we are all in danger of using scripture to further our own causes when we use the cut and paste approach.

[3. Jamie said the following at 2:45 AM on Mar 9:]

3

But since the Bible is our primary way of knowing God's character, doesn't it make sense to allow scripture to guide our thoughts about God, rather than trying to make scripture fit into what we already believe is true of Him? After all, surely God is so big that we cannot understand all of Him. Therefore, new insights in scripture have the potential to shape our understanding of God in new ways. But I don't think that we should ever try to read the Bible with a specific interpretation already in mind; otherwise, we risk preserving the mistakes of others.

[1. John M. said the following at 1:14 PM on Mar 8:]

1

Oh, I totally agree. I hate it when we hopscotch around the bible pulling verses to support whatever idea we want to get across. It robs the bible of it's sweep and impact. Take one book or passage and dig into it, I say.

[2. Blair said the following at 1:30 PM on Mar 8:]

2

I agree with the Motte. I think we have to be very carful not to take scripture out of context, to look at it in its entirety. I am a firm believer in the authority and inerrancy of the Bible, but when we take a verse or group of verses and interpret them without seeing how they fit in with the rest of scripture we can run into some serious trouble, here is an example. About once a week for the last few months I have been approached by a member of a religion that uses the Bible, but is not in line with the teachings of the Christian faith (I consider this religion to be a cult). It has been very difficult to have a conversation with this person about the differences in our teachings because the passages they use are taken out of context. She is using the same scripture I claim to be truth but the interpretation is very different. It's as if her beliefs are based on a cut and paste version of the Bible. I think we are all in danger of using scripture to further our own causes when we use the cut and paste approach.

[3. Jamie said the following at 2:45 AM on Mar 9:]

3

But since the Bible is our primary way of knowing God's character, doesn't it make sense to allow scripture to guide our thoughts about God, rather than trying to make scripture fit into what we already believe is true of Him? After all, surely God is so big that we cannot understand all of Him. Therefore, new insights in scripture have the potential to shape our understanding of God in new ways. But I don't think that we should ever try to read the Bible with a specific interpretation already in mind; otherwise, we risk preserving the mistakes of others.