Taking Things out of Context

I think there's a very important thing that's talked about in the church that is regarded as a highly dangerous activity in regards to the efficacy of the Bible, and why it's so important to refrain from taking things out of context. The thing that seems to have taken the church by storm is that this concept is usually used by "non-believers" to argue the justice of God, or used in a situation where someone is taking Paul's letters out of the context of what they originally meant. Personally, I don't care for the concept and think it's a bunch of bolognas to claim you can avoid taking the Bible out of context especially if you plan on preaching it. Look at how the Pharisees used the Bible, people who the church today often forgets includes Jesus. They took principles, not phrases, usually out of the context of the original verse. However, there were many times that when Jesus quoted scripture He would also be pointing to something in the original passage that should have been known by the people who He was quoting them to. 

I once asked God about how to not take things out of context, perceiving that it was a legitimate issue. He responded, "it's very hard to. Especially if you want to work in a niche ministry that doesn't affect a ton of people." So I asked what He meant by that and He said: "well you either have to put everything into context within the entire Bible and when discussing an issue visit every passage that ever mentions the subject, directly or indirectly, or you allow me to fill you up with my word and refrain from quoting things from scripture as what you say will contain the shadows of my word that I want to express through you." Yesterday I was talking to Him more about this concept, and He simply said "try putting your life INTO the context of the Bible, rather than trying to extrapolate OUT of the Bible." 

I think that when we alienate the text of the Bible to something we cannot at all relate to is far more dangerous than when we take verses or concept out of context. Why not bother putting every situation you encounter into scripture, for the purpose of seeing what God says about it? We need to make a focus of rather than extracting, of inserting. I think we, as a church, should be some of the most influential and effective empaths. We should be able to empathize with Barabbas, Peter, David, Bathsheba, Deborah, Joshua. Often times there is a cultural divide to get over, but if you can't get over the cultural divide then you really got issues to work out. 

I'm talking mostly to you Americans who have never bothered to get to know your Mexican or Black brothers and sisters who live in the same neighborhood as you or bothered to try to understand their culture. There's an infinite amount of contexts that you can choose from, but try to at least have an emotional language to express with them to put their and your situations into an emotion both of you know well. 

This Morning I Woke Up

It started what felt like midway through a dream. A voice with a note of aggressive hatred toward me telling me "you are worthless, never will be. In fact, you're good for absolutely nothing. You suck." In the dream, I heard and felt myself mumbling the words that were trying to express the thought of "get out in Jesus' name!" After I mumbled this and felt myself lurching out of sleep I looked around and opened my eyes. Had I just woken up from a dream? Was what just happened real? I hadn't felt that sort of faithlessness that I felt for the first couple minutes after I woke up for a long time. Almost as if I was left completely bare just to be thrown down against my bed in a panic-inducing sort of feeling that could only tell me "your entire life leading up to this point has been a lie, you're not being protected, and you are completely left open to whatever creatures desire access to you." I stared at the ceiling for a while, asking myself what had just happened truly. 

Then I realized that the creature had resorted to yelling because I was beginning to give it pushback to the whispered lies that it tried to tell me throughout the day, and that my submission to it was beginning to slip from its fingers. I pondered writing this down right after it happened but didn't know whether I wanted to document such a happening. It was scary, life-drawing, and I was a bit bitter that something like this had happened at all. This is coming after a couple weeks of what has felt like a real and true breakthrough, with my relationship with God, with the people around me, and with my own personal struggles that I have been walking through. It has come after a couple ecstatic experiences looking and seeing glimpses of the holy true light. Yet I can't help but wonder if it's something on the land rather than on me. 

I haven't had issues with that specific thing since the other night, but I also haven't bothered to clear out spiritually visible iniquity of my little spot in the house. When I get back there, I guess I know the first thing I'm going to do. 

Killing Brothers

Reconciliation is tough and in the wake of happening in the media, our world, and the generalized breakdown of society as a whole it has only become harder. This is due, in part, to the unfortunate dust that has never settled in our relationships with our brothers. We need only look at Genesis 4 to see how God feels about the murdering of the people whom we were supposed to be taking into our homes and dining with. Cain was not only cursed to permanent unreconciliable death work to the ground for plants but was forever doomed to never experience a live-giving community as a stranger and a wanderer forever. To me, that is a curse far more than I can bear, as it was for Cain. 

But this is the curse we are asking for when we fail to inhibit justice, and in fact, only bring death to the relationships with those who are supposed to be eating with us at our table. This is already what's happening with the crops in America's soil, and as such the stuff you hear about crops having gradually de-escalating nutritional value is 100% deserved. This is why I'm against abortion, stem cell research, and in more general terms, violence specific to races. 

Yet there is an even deeper thing happening here, we are failing to take responsibility, systemically, to love our neighbors as we love ourselves. This has caused more illness, death, and the speed of entropy to take place far more aggressively in our culture than others. You want to know why Italians live forever? Because they take time to eat dinner around a table with their multi-generational homes. Why is it that French people look so much younger than Americans? Or Asians for that matter? Sure they have different facial and bone structures, but I think it's because they are getting the most out of their life-giving relationships and taking responsibility to honor their fathers and mothers. 

Is putting the group of people who are old and disabled into a home where you visit them twice a month truly honoring? Absolutely not. People are talking about "disadvantaged groups" and ensuring we're not staying silent toward the injustices against them, I'm going to stand up for the elders of our generation. It's horrible what we do to them if you were to reverse time and put them in the shoes of a child in a home you would define it as "neglect". It's horrible. This is a problem we only have in America, and people wonder why our average age of death is dropping. 

If you really want to learn about Entropy, learn it from the master Himself. Psalm 90 is a great starting point, but an entire study on how slowly everything eroded for the Israelites during their trek through the Desert would be good too. 

Quit killing brothers and fathers and mothers. Love your neighbor as you love yourself. Capeesh?