Alan Shlemon writes about “How Creating a Context Vacuum Sucks Us into Overwriting God’s Word.”
What happens, then, when you read a Bible verse but don’t read the context? Two unfortunate consequences occur. First, you ignore the words the Holy Spirit provided to help you understand the meaning of the verse. You may miss out on what God is trying to communicate. Second, you create what I call a context vacuum. When there’s no context, your mind instantly fills the void with something from your experience. It’s an automatic process.
Shlemon gives a number of examples to illustrate the process. And he’s exactly right. We ignore the context to our peril. When we read or memorize isolated verses, our personal experience will become the filter through which we view and interpret those verses. Thus we fail to hear God’s voice in the Scripture.
I’m especially struck by the example of the woman who heard the command to “put on the new man” (Eph 4:24) as God’s guidance to divorce her husband and run off with another lover. Let us help others to avoid such tragic and reckless abuse of God’s word.
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