One of the most important questions to ask ourselves when studying, or even just reading, Scripture is "what is the context?" This means getting a handle on the background of what is going on in that particular passage. This could mean understanding the historical setting, or the timing of when it was written, or who it was written to, or why it was written, or the who, what, why of the person speaking, or some combination of all of these. The thing to remember is that for the most part, the Bible wasn't actually written to us, but to some other folks 2,000 to 3,000 years ago.

   Now this doesn't mean that we can't learn from and glean great understanding and comfort and peace and knowledge from Scripture. But, we do need to remember that for the most part, it is someone else's mail we are reading when we read the Bible. Just imagine how confused you would be if you took a letter I had written to a wayward cousin about specific issues he needed to address in his life, and, without knowing anything about the erring cousin, tried to make a literal application to your life from what I had written. You could get into all kinds of trouble! For instance, suppose I told him that he needed to get away from that woman in his life and move back home with his parents. Now does that mean that you should go and divorce your spouse and move back home with your parents? Well, taken out of context you could sure end up with that kind of interpretation. But, if you understrand that I am addressing a specific person in a specific situation, and then look at the letter with the sort of corrective lens that this context gives you, it will make a lot more sense. You can still derive a helpful principle from what is written without getting yourself into trouble.

   You've probably heard people remark that you can make the Bible say anything you want it to. Well, unfortunately this seems to be the case, especially when we ignore context and just jump into the middle of a passage without looking at the what, when, and who, of the situation. You can take just about any idea, no matter how far out, and go chasing through the Bible and find a verse, taken out of context, that proves your point. So, it is always important to look at what comes before and after a particular passage, and at what the historical background is, before we jump up and go running off with some wild assumption about what God is actually saying.

   I have a good preacher friend who is so careful about staying in context when he teaches that he once said he would like to have "IN CONTEXT" engraved on his tombstone when he passed on. Now, he might have been joking, or he might not, kind of hard to tell without knowing the context, I guess.