The Necessity of Contextualization or Rethink your Facebook Verses

A good friend of mine is doing several blog entries concerning the story line of scripture. (You can read his blog here...it is way better than mine.) Anyway, I began to think about the necessity of understanding the grand scheme of scripture, and that brought me to another line of thinking.

Try and follow me here...if we are inerrantists(the bible is the sovereign word of God), and we affirm that Scripture is a grand story line concerning God's plan, then we can come to the conclusion that Scripture is revealed in a way that makes the ORDER of the Books and stories a necessity. The same way you cannot take a novel and remove parts of the story, you cannot take out pieces of the meta-narrative($10 word that means story of everything) and still have it make sense.

Scripture is placed in a certain order for a reason, and it was placed this way by God's design. Still tracking? Good...let's move on.

Now this drew me to the conclusion that it could possibly go deeper than this. If we assume the stories are placed in a certain order, then we can affirm that the verses themselves are placed in a specific order to tell the story.

Now why does this matter? I think that the loss of context among Christians is a problem. This is nothing new under the sun, but I want to add my two cents.

It came to me today sitting in class that there are a few very specific verses that seem to be prime targets for decontextualization.(taking them out of context) For example, In Jeremiah Chapter 29 the Lord says to the people of Israel "For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord. Plans to prosper you and not to harm you. plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call to me and come and pray to me and I will listen to you" (Jer. 29:11-12 NIV)    Does this verse sound familiar? It litters peoples refrigerators, facebook profiles, and anywhere else people write down favorite scripture. Heck, I like it a lot in that format. But let us take a step back and see what it is really saying.

This is a line from a letter that Jeremiah is writing to the people in exile. These people were taken from Israel into Babylon. There are false prophets everywhere saying that the Lord will deliver the people soon. Jeremiah writes this letter out of instruction from the Lord, telling the people what to do.  

These people are IN PUNISHMENT and DISCIPLINE when Jeremiah writes this to them. This is not a happy verse. The Lord is saying this to these people in a negative context. He is saying that this (the exile) is the plan I have for you. I am putting you through trials in order that you may learn to trust me better. There is NO OTHER way to go except my way and I am demonstrating this to you now. When you learn this, then you will come and pray to me and you will find me where I have always been, leading you down the straight and narrow path. 

The Lord shows us here that there is only his way, the way the Scripture demonstrates it to us, the way of the Gospel. When we look at the context of these snippet verses, we see that they are not always what people think they are. Examine Scripture closer, you will be amazed at what you can find. 

Wow....that was a long one. I hope you liked it, and I hope it made sense. Mine don't always do that...

-B