Rightly Understanding God’s Word: Context, by Craig S. Keener

Part of the Rightly Understanding God’s Word series by Craig S. Keener.

As appearing in Pneuma Review Spring 2003.

 

 

Chapter 1: Context, Context, Context!

One of the most important resources for understanding the Bible is in the Bible itself: context. Some readers want to skip to verses elsewhere in the Bible (sometimes with the help of references in one’s Bible’s margins, but these were added by editors, not as part of the Bible itself). But we can make the Bible say almost anything by combining different verses; even verses that sound similar may in context address quite different topics. Using this method, one would think that “one is justified by faith without works” (Rom 3:28) and “one is justified by works, and not by faith alone” (James 2:24) contradict each other. By contrast, each passage makes sense in a special way if we read it in its context: the flow of thought from what comes before and after the passage we are studying. In context, James and Paul mean something quite different by “faith,” and both affirm that a person is made right before God only by a sort of genuine faith that is expressed in a fairly consistent life of obedience (see our discussion below).

If we ignore context, we will almost always misunderstand what we read in the Bible. Advanced students may wish to skip to later chapters of the book, but because many students assume that they have understand context better than they actually do, we would urge readers to at least sample the next chapter before moving further.

 

The Importance of Context

Context is the way God gave us the Bible, one book at a time. The first readers of Mark could not flip over to Revelation to help them understand Mark; Revelation had not been written yet. The first readers of Galatians did not have a copy of the letter Paul wrote to Rome to help them understand it. These first readers did share some common information; in this manual we call this shared information “background”: some knowledge of the culture, earlier biblical history, and so on. But they had, most importantly, the individual book of the Bible that was in front of them. Therefore we can be confident that the writers of the Bible included enough within each book of the Bible to help the readers understand that book of the Bible. For that reason, context is the most important key to Bible interpretation. (Background, what the writer could take for granted, is also essential; we will return to that subject in a later chapter.)

Often popular ministers today quote various isolated verses they have memorized, even though this means that they will usually leave 99% of the Bible’s verses unpreached. One seemingly well-educated person told a Bible teacher that she thought the purpose of having a Bible was to look up the verses the minister quoted in church! But the Bible is not a collection of people’s favorite verses with a lot of blank space in between. The God of the Bible is not a God of isolated verses without their context; using verses out of context one could “prove” almost anything about God or justify almost any kind of behavior—as history testifies. But in the Bible God revealed Himself in His acts in history and through the inspired records of those acts and the inspired wisdom of His servants addressing specific situations. Too often we take short-cuts to understanding the Bible by quoting random verses or assuming that others who taught us have understood them correctly. When we do so, we fail to be diligent in seeking God’s Word (Prov 2:2-5; 4:7; 8:17; 2 Tim 2:15).

After one begins reading the Bible a book at a time, one quickly recognizes that verses isolated from their context nearly always mean something different when read in context. We cannot, in fact, even pretend to make sense of most verses without reading their context. The method of isolating verses from their context disrespects the authority of Scripture because this method of interpretation cannot be consistently applied to the whole of Scripture; it leaves many verses left over when it is done. Preaching and teaching the Bible the way it invites us to interpret it—in its original context—both explains the Bible accurately and provides our hearers a good example how they can learn the Bible better for themselves.

If we read any other book, we will not simply take an isolated statement in the middle of the book and ignore the surrounding statements which help us understand the reason for that statement. If we hand a story book to a child learning how to read, the child will probably start reading at the beginning. That people so often read the Bible out of context (I will offer examples below) is not because it comes naturally to us, but because we have been taught the wrong way by others’ examples. Now we must accept the opportunity to begin teaching the next generation the right way to interpret the Bible. It is important that we not get so wrapped up in the details of the text (or worse yet, the point for which we wish to use it) that we miss the larger picture of the context. Just as we would feel misrepresented if someone quoted us out of context, changing our meaning, we should avoid quoting the Bible out of context.

Many contradictions some readers claim to find in the Bible arise simply from ignoring the context of the passages they cite, jumping from one text to another without taking the time to first understand each text on its own terms. For instance, when Paul says that a person is justified by faith without works (Rom 3:28), his context makes it clear that he defines faith as something more than passive assent to a viewpoint; he defines it as a conviction that Christ is our salvation, a conviction on which one actively stakes one’s life (Rom. 1:5). James declares that one cannot be justified by faith without works (James 2:14)—because he uses the word “faith” to mean mere assent that something is true (2:19), he demands that such assent be actively demonstrated by obedience to show that it is genuine (2:18). In other words, James and Paul use the word “faith” differently, but do not contradict one another on the level of meaning. If we ignore context and merely connect different verses on the basis of similar wording, we will come up with contradictions in the Bible that the original writers would never have imagined.

 

Levels of Context

Most of us agree that we should read the Bible in context, but how far should we read in the context? Is it sufficient merely to read the verse before and the verse after? Or should we be familiar with the paragraphs before and after? Or should we be familiar with the entire book of the Bible in which the passage occurs? While in practice the answer of this question depends to some extent on the part of the Bible we are studying (context is shorter in Proverbs than in Genesis or 2 Corinthians), as a general rule we should think of each passage first of all in its immediate context, but also in the context of the entire book of the Bible in which it appears.

Some scholars have spoken of various levels of context for any text. First, most texts have an immediate context in the paragraph or paragraphs surrounding them. Second, we can look at the context of the entire book of the Bible in which they appear, the one unit of text we can be sure the first writers expected the first readers to have in front of them. Third, we sometimes need to look at the whole context of that writer’s teaching. For instance, though the Corinthians could not consult Paul’s letter to the Galatians, they were familiar with a broader backdrop of his teaching than what we find in 1 Corinthians alone, because Paul taught them in person for eighteen months (Acts 18:11). Whatever we can learn about Paul’s broader teaching may help us, provided we give first priority to what he tells his audience in the particular letter we are trying to understand.

Fourth, there is the context of shared information—the background that both the original writer and readers shared. Some of this background may be available for us in the Bible (for instance, Paul could expect many of his readers to know the Old Testament), but background may also require of us extra research (though the first readers, who normally already knew it, could take it for granted). Finally, we can look at the context of God’s entire revelation in the Bible. But this should be our final step, not our first one. Too often we want to explain one verse in light of another before we have really understood either verse in light of the immediate context in which they occur.

2 Timothy 3:16-17 declares that “every Scripture is profitable for doctrine, reproof, correction, and instruction in righteousness.” Every Scripture communicates a meaning that is essential for the Church—as we have noted, there must be no “blank spaces” between our favorite verses. To apply this principle properly, however, we must determine what unit of the Bible Paul is talking about (what he means by “Scripture”). Paul obviously does not mean simply the individual words in the Bible; although individual words in the Bible are important because they contribute to the meaning of the text, an individual word, isolated by itself, could not communicate much meaning. (We need the word “and,” but by itself it does not communicate any specifically and universally Christian meaning.) This is the danger of focusing on words by themselves rather than their function in sentences and passages.

Obvious as this principle is (that individual words are not the primary unit of meaning), readers of the Bible sometimes ignore it. I once read a devotion on Ezekiel 28 that focused on the word, “wisdom,” and explained how wonderful wisdom was (based on its meaning in a Hebrew dictionary). The writer explained in detail the need for wisdom and never bothered to point out that Ezekiel 28 refers to the evil prince of Tyre, whose boasts of wisdom represent mere worldly wisdom. In other words, this expositor was not really preaching from Ezekiel 28, but from a Hebrew dictionary! Those who trace a meaning of a word through Scripture and then spend a whole sermon on their results may do a little bit better, but essentially they are preaching from a concordance rather than from the Bible itself. God did not inspire the Bible in concordance sequence; He inspired it book by book.

Even focusing on a verse read in its immediate context may be problematic (although less problematic), because that verse may not represent a full unit of thought. The verse references were not added to the Bible when it was being written, but only after it was finished; the unit of thought is often much larger than a verse, and it cannot make proper sense apart from its context. For example, that Jesus wept might be useful instruction for some people who think tears a sign of weakness. But remembering the context gives us a more generally useful principle. “Jesus wept” because He wept with friends who were suffering grief: this example teaches us that it is important to weep with those who weep, and that Jesus Himself cares for us enough to share our grief with us.

We may usually take a paragraph as a whole unit of thought, but even paragraphs often do not represent the complete unit of thought in the text. Paragraphs vary in length but we identify them as distinct paragraphs precisely because they are whole thoughts by themselves. Yet these thought-units often connect with other thought-units in such a way that it is difficult to separate them from surrounding thoughts. While most paragraphs will contain at least one nugget or principle, that nugget is sometimes too short to be used as the basis for a whole sermon by itself. As much as I prefer expository preaching (preaching from a paragraph or passage), some texts do not lend themselves easily to this approach.

For instance, when Paul bids farewell to his friends in Acts 20:36-38, their obvious love for one another (evidenced in their sad parting) yields a crucial nugget: We ought to have that kind of love for and commitment to one another in the body of Christ today. But we can articulate that principle more fully if we read these verses in light of Paul’s preceding farewell speech (Acts 20:18-35). And we could find enough material on that passage for a lengthy sermon or Bible study only if we traced that passage’s theme of Christians’ love for one another throughout the whole book in which it appears (e.g., 2:44-45; 4:32-35; 14:28; 28:14-15). Most congregations would like more than a single point to learn from, or at least more than a single illustration of the point! Commenting on unity in John 17:23 may be difficult to flesh out unless we see how John emphasizes unity in terms of loving one another (13:34-35) and the kinds of barriers unity must surmount (Jesus crosses a major ethnic barrier when he ministers to a Samaritan woman in John 4). Reading this verse about unity in the context of John’s entire Gospel summons us to cross cultural and tribal barriers to love our fellow Christians.

One preaching professor in the U.S. told me that he was skeptical that all the Bible’s was God’s Word; he doubted that one could preach from a passage like the one where David’s servants brought him a concubine to keep him warm (1 Kgs 1:2-4). So I pointed out that these verses were part of a much larger context. After David sinned, God announced that judgment would come on his house even from those close to him (2 Sam 12:11). This was fulfilled in the revolt of Absalom, possibly David’s eldest son after Amnon’s death. But now another son of David, the next eldest after Absalom, is seeking to seize the throne (1 Kgs 1:5). The verses about David not being able to keep warm reveal how weak and susceptible he was to this new revolt; the mention of the concubine helps explain why Adonijah later merits death by asking to marry her (1 Kgs 2:21). To marry a concubine of the former king was to position oneself to become king (1 Kgs 2:22; cf. 2 Sam 16:21-22)—Adonijah still wants to overthrow Solomon’s kingdom! Without having read the entire story, one may miss the purpose for the individual verses. But there is certainly a purpose for them, as we realize when we read the full story.

Some paragraphs do not yield much personal application or preaching material unless placed in a larger context. For instance, Paul’s plans to come to the church in Rome (Rom 1:10) may indicate Paul’s love for the church there, but the content of his edification for them cannot be understood apart from his message which he explains to them in the rest of his letter. Paul wants to impart a spiritual gift to them (1:11), but he clarifies the essential outlines of his teaching that he expects to edify them in the rest of his letter (1:13-17). (Because Acts tells us how Paul got to Rome, one could also examine his statement in the larger context of God’s working in history: God did get Paul to Rome, although hardly by the method Paul expected—Acts 19:21; 23:11; 28:16. But it will complicate matters less for the moment if we stick to the immediate context of the book of the Bible; we will deal with situational and historical context [“background”] later.)

Ultimately, context extends beyond words, verses, and paragraphs to the entire structure of each book of the Bible. This is probably what Paul means when he says, “Every Scripture is inspired.” The Greek word for “Scripture” here is graphē, which means “a writing.” In most cases, each book of the Bible would be written on an individual scroll as an individual text; different books of the Bible were usually written as whole books to address different situations in ancient Israel or the church. Although these books often consisted of earlier materials (e.g., stories about Jesus that circulated before writers of the Gospels wrote them down), we have them as whole units in our Bibles, and should read them as whole units. For instance, God gave us four Gospels instead of one because He wanted us to look at Jesus from more than one perspective. (Jesus was too great for merely one Gospel, with its distinctive emphasis, to teach us enough about Him.) If we simply mix pieces from different Gospels without recognizing what is characteristic of each Gospel, we often miss the perspectives God wanted us to get from each one. While we could preach from an individual narrative in the Gospels and explain the text faithfully, we would do even better if we understood how that particular Bible story fit into the context of that whole Gospel in which it appears.

In other cases, the book context is absolutely necessary, not just a nice addition. Paul’s letter to the Romans, for instance, is a tight-knit argument; reading any passage in Romans without understanding the flow of logic in the whole book leaves us with only a piece of an argument. Admittedly many people read Romans this way, but because Romans is so tightly connected, Romans makes a far less immediately edifying Bible study passage-by-passage than Mark does. We need to know that all people have sinned (Rom 1-3), but one could easily spend many weeks analyzing that part of Romans before getting to justification by faith or power to live a righteous life. In Mark, by contrast, one comes up with new issues for study in nearly every paragraph, and a Bible study group could easily take a passage or chapter every week without feeling like they would not understand Paul’s point for a few more weeks. Paul wrote Romans as a letter to be read as a tight-knit argument, all at once! Even in Mark, however, the Gospel continually foreshadows Jesus’ impending death and resurrection, and moves like a whole unit toward that end. Ancient readers would also often read a biography like Mark in one sitting. Until we understand the function of a passage in light of the general argument of the book it occurs, we are not fully respecting the way God inspired it.

If God inspired each Scripture—meaning at least each “writing” or book of the Bible—to be profitable, we must grapple with each book of the Bible as a whole to fully understand it. (In some cases, where independent units of thought have simply been placed together in a book randomly—for instance, psalms in the Book of Psalms, most proverbs in the Book of Proverbs, and many laws in the legal sections of Exodus and Deuteronomy—this principle is less important. But it is very important as a principle for reading most of Scripture, and especially for tight-knit arguments like Romans or books of interdependent symbols like Revelation.) This principle has serious implications for our Bible study. Instead of reading verses in the Bible first of all with a concordance or chain-references in our Bible, we need to learn to read books of the Bible straight through. Preferably we should read the smaller books like Mark in one setting; at least we should focus on a particular book for a particular period of time. Merely skipping from book to book without returning to a particular book is unhelpful.

I should deal here with one objection to context that arises in some circles. Some people quote Scripture out of context and then claim they are right because they have special authority or a special revelation from God. But if we follow this practice, we call people to heed us rather than the Scripture. In this case, we should be honest with people: if we merely want to say something that the biblical text does not say, we should tell them that we believe we are right but admit honestly that the biblical text does not teach this point. (Any view can be supported based on proof-texts out of context; any theology can make its reasoning sound consistent. To actually read each text in context with an honest heart, however, is more essential.) Cults regularly take Scripture out of context. Sharing Christ with Jehovah’s Witnesses, I caught them taking many verses out of context to fit their system of beliefs; in time I recognized that often we Christians have done the same thing. We dare not base our faith on other people’s study of the Bible rather than on the Bible itself.

We should be very careful what we claim the Bible teaches. Claiming that “The Bible says” is like claiming, “This is what the Lord says.” In Jeremiah’s day, some false prophets falsely claimed to be speaking what God was saying, but they were in fact speaking from their own imaginations (Jer 23:16) and stealing their messages from each other (Jer 23:30) rather than listening to God’s voice for themselves (Jer 23:22). I do not doubt that God could speak to people through Scripture out of context, just as he can speak through a bird or a poem or a donkey; if God is all-powerful (Rev 1:8), He can speak however He pleases. But all claims to hear God’s voice must be evaluated (1 Cor 14:29; 1 Thess. 5:20-21), and listening to someone else’s claim can get us in trouble if we do not test it carefully (1 Kgs 13:18-22). Paul warns us: “If anyone thinks himself a prophet or spiritual, let him acknowledge that what I write is the Lord’s command. If one ignores this, he himself will be ignored” (1 Cor. 14:37-38). The one revelation to which all Christians can look with assurance is the Bible; what we can be sure it means is what God meant when he inspired the original authors to communicate their original message. This is the one revelation all Christians agree on as the “canon,” or measuring-stick, for all other claims to revelation. Thus we need to do our best to properly understand it, preach it and teach it the way God gave it to us, in context.

In the following chapter, we will survey examples of verses in context—partly to illustrate how poorly we often use context, despite the fact that all of us profess to believe in it. After examining “immediate context,” we should move to whole-book context; this includes learning to recognize the structure of argument (in books with tight-knit arguments like Romans) and developing themes (in books more like Mark). Then we will turn to issues like the situational or historical context—”background”—making sure that we address the same kinds of issues the biblical authors were addressing. We will also turn to the different kinds of writing in the Bible (styles, genres, and forms like parables).

 

PR

 

Editor’s Note
Professor Craig S. Keener originally designed this course on Hermeneutics for use in Nigeria and not for traditional publication. Desiring to make it available to a wider audience, he has granted permission to publish this course in the Pneuma Review. Dr. Keener grants permission for others to make use of this material as long as it is offered without cost or obligation and that users acknowledge the source.

Portions of this course follow these recommended works: How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth by Gordon Fee and Douglas Stuart (Zondervan). Revelation, NIV Application Commentary by Craig S. Keener (Zondervan, 1999).