Dear Friends,
I stood at our back window looking out. I was waiting for the coffee to finish brewing. Despite my years of attempts, I have yet to develop a perfectly brewed cup of coffee without having to wait. With nothing better to do I gazed across the yards between the houses the next street over.
To my shock I saw a concerning site. The middle school had just let out for the day. I watched a group of boys surge forward against another then disappear out of sight, hidden by a house. A few moments later the group returned, this time chasing a single boy. Thoughts raced through my head as to what might be happening. Was this bullying at its worst? Were two groups breaking into a fight? Then another surge as one group pushed back. In the few moments I watched the battle I wondered if I should quickly drive over to the next street to see what was going on or just call the police. It was then that I saw it. The thing that would change everything. A boy ran through the gap, chased by a dozen others, holding a football.
What I had thought was a fight was only a pick-up game of America’s favorite sport. What had prevented me from seeing the truth were the houses on either side of my field of vision. If I had been able to magically blast them away I would have known the true context of the battle between these boys on this day. I would have known this was not a neighborhood falling into pre-gang violence but a community united. What I lacked was the full context.
When we read our bibles we can too often be guilty of the same thing. We can read a few verses without seeing what is around. The results can be devastating. There can be many houses which block our vision: chapter and verse markings, headings, and pages to be turned. Left unmoved we can fall victim to the same errors I made watching football.
During a class I took in seminary I endured a near daily drill from Dr. Ben Witherington, “A text without a context is a pretext for anything you want it to be.” And a football game without a Good Year blimp overhead becomes gang warfare. Whenever we read our bibles it is a good exercise for us to step back and read the surrounding verses, chapter and book. This is also why it is a good practice to occasionally commit to read your bible through (yes, from Genesis to Revelation). The practice will help implant into your mind a general context of scripture as a whole.
Blessings,
Pastor Stephen
P.S. Did you know you can read through your whole bible in a year by reading 3 chapters on week days and 5 chapters on weekends?