Let's Respect God's "Weave"

According to Webster’s Online Dictionary, the word, “context” comes from the Latin term, contextus, “connection of words,” from contexere, “to weave together.” The imagery for this term is that of a woven fabric. Lifting a thread out of that fabric tears the weave, ruins the fabric, and leaves the thread a weak version of its former self.

To illustrate, a clothing salesman once gave a woman a pair of pants that had been altered. As she looked at the pants, she noticed a thread dangling from the pants leg. Wanting to be helpful, the salesman, reached for a pair of scissors to cut off the thread. A saleswoman screamed from across the room, “Don’t cut that thread!” The salesman didn’t realize that the pants were woven, and the thread that he was about to cut was an integral part of the weave. Had he clipped the dangling thread, it would have continued to unravel, ruining the pants. Luckily the saleswoman was there to save the situation.

And so it is with Bible contexts. A verse out of context weakens its meaning. There is a true saying regarding Bible interpretation, “A text without a context is a pretext for a proof text.” We see this illustrated in the story of a man who, seeking God’s will for his life, prayed that God would speak to him through the Scriptures. Opening his Bible, his eyes randomly fell on the passage that says, “he [Judas] cast down the pieces of silver in the temple, and departed, and went and hanged himself” (Matthew 27:5 KJV). Troubled, he randomly turned to another passage that read, “Go thou and do likewise” (Luke 10:37 KJV).

Such is the danger of taking passages out of context. When we speak of context, we are speaking of the verses preceding and those following the verse we are examining. From there, we look at the overall context of the chapter, and then the overall context of the book we are studying. Finally, we have to consider the context of the entire Bible, remembering that no one verse can contradict the teachings of the rest of Scripture. We also have to consider the historical and cultural contexts. If this sounds like a lot of work – it is! The popular claim that all you have to do is pick up the Bible, read it, and immediately understand it with little or no effort, is foreign to the Bible (cf. 2 Timothy 2:15 ASV).

Let us remember that the verses of the Bible are not pieces of a jigsaw puzzle that can be removed and put back together as we wish. They are word “threads” (or contexts) woven together by the Holy Spirit (2 Timothy 3:16; 2 Peter 1:20-21). Let us never be so arrogant as to think that we are wiser than God as to how they are to be arranged (cf. Deuteronomy 4:2; Proverbs 30:6; Revelation 22:18). Knowing this, let us put the necessary effort into the reading and understanding of God’s word (Acts 17:11; Ephesians 5:17; Colossians 1:9).

The next time we quote a verse to someone, let’s make sure that we can explain (in plain terms – John 11:14; John 16:25), the correct meaning of the verses before it and the verses after it. If we can’t, maybe we haven’t studied the context well enough. Let us never be guilty of pulling “threads” out of the fabric of God’s word. Let’s respect God’s “weave.”

—Mike Riley, Gospel Snippets