Bear with me here as this is a concept I am still trying to ‘flesh out’ myself, but I hope you can take something from it.
I was having a ‘Ministry’ chat with a friend of mine the other day and I really started thinking about some important things. Two of which relate to how we ‘perceive’ the Bible in today’s world and the ‘context’ in which the Bible was written.
DISCLAIMER: I want to start out by saying, yes, I know that the Bible is just as applicable ‘Today’ as it has ever been in the past…and I do think that God can ’show’ us, through his word, wisdom for our life and current state of affairs. I am not challenging any of those ideas or thoughts.
1) CONTEXT - How often to we read the Bible trying to find a proof-text for a certain attribute of God, or wisdom concerning certain decisions, or even to enhance a message…especially to make it fit into whatever ’series’ we are going through at church. Truth be told, alot. I do it all the time (not that it’s wrong) but it can become unhealthy. Lately I find it very beneficial to take a verse and the chapter before and after, just to get a basic sense of the context in which it was written…often times I find that the message being conveyed is not 100% about what I thought it was about. I would say what we do is similar to a newspaper or magazine interview article, where the writer picks a handful of quotes from the interview and formulates the idea he/she wants to convey with the article…it isn’t always a fair representation of the entire conversation.
PERSPECTIVE (To Be Continued…)







