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Bible Study Toolbox: The Importance of Context
Bible Study Toolbox
The Importance of Context
Sadly, we can make the Bible say whatever we want it to say. If you want to believe something bad enough, there’s a verse for it! If you want the Bible to say baptism is unnecessary for salvation, you can use Romans 3:28, “For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from works of the law.” If you want permission to speak disrespectfully to your parents, you can use John 2:4 where Jesus said to His mother, “Woman, what does that have to do with us?” If you’re a Jehovah’s Witness and you want the Bible to say the earth is going to last forever, just use Ecclesiastes 1:4, “A generation goes and a generation comes, but the earth remains forever.”
The problem is, these verses are all ripped from their context. Context refers to both the immediate and overall setting of a verse. Imagine picking up a book for the first time and randomly opening to page 76. If you read the first paragraph, you’d know what it says because you can read, but you wouldn’t know what it meant until you understood the context of that paragraph. What kind of book is it; fiction or non-fiction? What can I learn from p. 1-75 about the characters in this paragraph? Is the language in this paragraph used anywhere else in this book? How does this paragraph fit with the paragraphs immediately before and after it, and how does it contribute to the overall story in the book? Long distance Bible reading and outlines help us answer these questions about Bible verses; they help us keep verses in context.
Satan ripped verses out of context when he told Jesus to prove His trust in God by jumping off the pinnacle of the temple. He quoted Psalm 91:11-12 to assure Him it would be fine: “He will command His angels concerning you to guard you, and on their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.” (Luke 4:10-11). Two problems: First, Psalm 91 praises God for His protection from outside enemies, not from suicide. “He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will abide in the shadow of the Almighty…You will not be afraid of the terror by night, or of the arrow that flies by day…no evil will befall you, nor will any plague come near your tent.” (Ps. 91:1,5,10). Second, this Psalm was written by someone who already trusts God, yet Satan quotes it to encourage Jesus to prove to Himself that God is trustworthy. Like the Psalmist in Psalm 91, Jesus had no need to test God’s trustworthiness, so He responded to Satan with a Scripture in context, “You shall not put the LORD your God to the test.” (Deut. 6:16; Lk. 4:12). Keeping verses in context isn’t just good academic practice; it’s a matter of life or death.
