Reading Scripture in Context
Opening the Door for Dialogue
by Michael D. McGehee
The most common mistake made by people who read the Bible is "taking things out of context." By this I mean selecting a part of the Bible--what is selected can sometimes be as small as a single word but usually is a verse--and then getting a message out of this selection without any consideration of what went before it or what comes after it.

To see how absurd this approach is, we only need to consider what Jesus said in Luke 14:26: "Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple." Not for a minute do I believe that Jesus is teaching here that Christians are supposed to hate their parents and families. Instead, his statement in verse 26 must be seen in the broader context of the verses surrounding it. Likewise, in 1 Corinthians 15:33 where Paul says to eat, drink, and make merry because tomorrow we will die, he is not explaining how Christians are to behave. Rather, he is quoting a slogan made by certain ancient philosophers in his development of a logical argument about the resurrection of Christ. Paul rejects the Epicurean view, and anyone who reads the whole of chapter 15 can easily see that he does.

These two examples are extreme, and I have yet to hear Christians seriously propose taking these two verses in the way just described. Yet Christians regularly select words, phrases, and verses they like and then ignore the surrounding material as they focus on the idea that came to them while they were reading a particular word, phrase, or verse. The resulting theological interpretations can be as strange as taking literally Jesus’ remark about hating your parents. The only way to avoid this error is to look at the context of the passage. But that is not as easy as it sounds.

Although taking individual words and phrases out of context seems to have no logical explanation, the problem of taking verses out of context has, at one level, a rational basis. The Bible is usually presented in such a way that it is easy for us to misunderstand what we are reading. Most of our Bibles are printed with numbered chapters and verses running through every paragraph on every page. The mistake we make is looking upon these numbered verses as individual units of theological information. Each verse is assumed to have a significant meaning. After all, why would it have been given a unique number unless it had some special meaning that the reader was supposed to discover? Yet, even though some verses do have that kind of freestanding and unique meaning, most verses can be understood only in their context.

Instead of reflecting on isolated verses, a reader who wants to understand an author’s message should look at each verse in its context. There is a word to describe a unit of biblical material that is not taken out of context. That word is "pericope" (pronounced per-ICK-oh-pee). The word itself comes from two Greek words that mean "to cut around." A pericope is a unit of biblical material that can be marked off (cut around) so that when it is read there is a beginning, an end, and an overall meaning. There are times when a single verse counts as a pericope, as in Proverbs, but usually a pericope is a larger collection of verses. For example, the verse about hating your father and mother fits into the pericope of Luke 14:25-33, in which Jesus explains the importance of the Christian life. The overall point seems to be that in comparison with our devotion to the gospel, all other affections are insignificant.

Recognizing that the context of a verse is crucial to interpreting anything in the Bible allows Christians a way to start a reasonable discussion on matters about which they disagree. If you have ever heard someone quote Paul’s phrase in Galatians 5:10, "I am confident about you in the Lord that you will not think otherwise," out of context and use it in support of what they were saying at the time, you will understand how hard it can be to discuss any difference of opinion. There is great value in seeing that Paul’s remark was part of an emotional appeal within the overall context of his argument for the validity of the gospel. Paul’s statement cannot be used legitimately as a sort of religious land claim, with whoever quotes it first concluding that they have staked out the boundaries of the truth.

As long as we Christians continue to disagree with one another by quoting isolated Bible verses at one another, we will never be able to engage in dialogue. This kind of behavior is often called a "verse war." It makes about as much sense as the children’s card game of "War." There is no logic, skill, or intelligence involved in the play. What matters most is the cards you were dealt. The winner in the card game of "War" is usually whoever can sit there the longest, flipping up card after card, and the winner in a “verse war” is usually whoever can fire off the most verses.

But when we go beyond single verses and start to explore the message of a given pericope and say why we think that such-and-such interpretation is the best one, we will be able to talk. That does not mean that talk will lead to agreement. But it does suggest that we will be able to begin to understand the viewpoint of others.

From The Bible Doesn't Have to Be Hard to Read, by Michael D. McGehee.

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