Monday, June 26, 2023

It All Hangs Together (The Importance of Context)

Context is king. This means that you can never be so naive as to think that you can take a word or phrase out of the Bible, isolate it from its context, and declare "Thus says the Lord." A childish illustration is Psalm 14:1: "There is no God." You cannot take those words out of their context and say that the Bible teaches atheism. What Psalm 14:1 actually says is that those who say there is no God are fools. In other words, what this verse is affirming is not atheism but the folly of atheism. 

Never forget the old spiritual:

The knee bone's connected to the thigh bone,

The thigh bone's connected to the hip bone,

The hip bone's connected to the tail bone,

Now hear the word of the Lord.

It all hangs together.