Context, Context, Context

When we were on vacation a few weeks ago, and I was snorkeling, I picked up a conch shell in the ocean.  It’s a big shell with a big snail like critter that lives inside it.  People eat the critter, so I thought I give it a shot.  I brought the shell back into the beach, and my curious 3 year old, Joshua, wanted to know what I had.  I showed him the shell and told him there’s an animal curled up inside.  He was so excited and stared at it trying to get a glimpse of the animal.  I grabbed my son’s sand bucket, filled it with sea water, and put the shell inside.  A few minutes later Joshua was pouring the water out of the bucket, so I told him not to do that because we needed to keep the animal fresh until we can cook him and eat him.  Joshua said, very excited and curious, “We’re going to eat mine animal?”  I said, “Yes.”  When we got back to the condo, I began to boil the shell.  Joshua said, “Let’s eat mine animal.”  I said, “I have to cook him first.  So, I finished boiling it, pulled the critter out, cleaned it, and sautéed it in butter.  Joshua was right on the spot ready to eat it.  I gave him a bite, which he quickly swallowed.  I chewed on it for a few minutes and spit it out because it was like tasteless tire rubber. 

Joshua is always saying, “Remember when,” and then he tells us of some event he remembers, from an hour ago, a day ago, or even weeks ago.  The next day we were at the beach, and a lady walking her dog came along.  Angie is trying to teach Joshua to ask if he can pet a person’s dog, rather than just rushing up to them.  So, Angie says, “Joshua if you ask this lady, and her doggie is nice, maybe she’ll let you pet him.”  The lady heard what Angie said, started coming toward Joshua, and said, “He’s nice.  You can pet him.”  Joshua gets this excited, kind of scary look on his face, and says in a loud voice, “Me eat mine animal!”  The lady looks a little freaked out and steps back, thinking that Joshua might have been referring to a dog or even her dog with his animal comment.  We ensured the lady that his comment was some other event he was remembering and nothing to do with dogs.  After she left we were cracking up.  We all had context to kind of understand Joshua’s comment.  We think he was just remembering the conch from the day before at that moment, because we were on the same beach.  But, the lady’s context only related to her dog.

I tell that whole story, one, just because it was funny, but two, because it reminded me how important context is for proper understanding.  Joshua ripped a memory from the previous day’s events and inserted it in an inopportune moment.  People often do that with Bible verses.  They rip a verse out of its context and insert it into a conversation or apply it to a current situation, without regard for what the verse means - what the author meant for it to communicate in the context he wrote it in.  There is an old discourse that goes like this: “What are the first three rules of Bible interpretations?”  Pause for an answer or thought.  “Context, context, context.”  Just like when we speak or write, we have an intended meaning, the authors of the Bible had a certain intended meaning to everything they wrote.  It’s our job to try to discern what their meaning was, before we try to apply the truth to our lives.  The danger inserting a verse (quoting it) into a new context (our situation), if we have interpreted it wrong or more likely not tried to interpret it properly at all, is that we can give people wrong understandings of proper Christian belief, and we can reinforce those sometimes wrong beliefs in our own minds. 

So, do memorize and quote scripture.  But, make sure you study the verse in its context and determine its proper meaning before quoting it.  And actually, I have found that understanding is a superior method to just rote repetition, to aid memorization.