Ever wondered how snippets taken out of context can distort the truth and lead to widespread misinformation? Join us as we explore this crucial topic, drawing from nearly 20 years in ministry and insightful experiences on TikTok. We'll dissect a recent viral incident involving a misinterpreted court appearance to underscore the importance of understanding the full context before forming opinions. By delving into the Bible collectively and holistically, we can avoid misusing its messages and appreciate the enduring wisdom it offers.
This episode invites you to engage more deeply with scripture by challenging you to read entire passages and consider the broader context. Discover how reading Paul's letters to the churches in one sitting, as they were originally intended, can help us fully grasp their messages. This approach will not only lead to a more informed and respectful engagement with scripture but will also steer us away from using isolated verses in debates. Get ready to transform the way you read and interpret the Bible, fostering a more comprehensive understanding of its cultural and spiritual significance.
Ever wondered how snippets taken out of context can distort the truth and lead to widespread misinformation? Join us as we explore this crucial topic, drawing from nearly 20 years in ministry and insightful experiences on TikTok. We'll dissect a recent viral incident involving a misinterpreted court appearance to underscore the importance of understanding the full context before forming opinions. By delving into the Bible collectively and holistically, we can avoid misusing its messages and appreciate the enduring wisdom it offers.
This episode invites you to engage more deeply with scripture by challenging you to read entire passages and consider the broader context. Discover how reading Paul's letters to the churches in one sitting, as they were originally intended, can help us fully grasp their messages. This approach will not only lead to a more informed and respectful engagement with scripture but will also steer us away from using isolated verses in debates. Get ready to transform the way you read and interpret the Bible, fostering a more comprehensive understanding of its cultural and spiritual significance.
Speaker 1:
Hey everyone. So once again, welcome to my YouTube channel. As I said, I'm not entirely new to this. I've had a podcast for a couple of years, but this is the first time I've kind of stepped in the YouTube world and I'm just going to go give it a go. So I just want to kind of have just a quick discussion today, and one of the purposes of, hopefully, the videos I record and listen I realize there's a lot of content out there I'm just some guy from West Virginia who lives in West Virginia.
Speaker 1:
I'm from Ohio. There's a distinction there but I think it's important to try to inform people as much as I can. And, as someone who I've been in ministry now for almost 20 years, I've had several different roles. I enjoy teaching, I enjoy, like I said, helping people try to understand their faith better. I enjoy trying to help people who are struggling through doubt, and I think there's a lot of that.
Speaker 1:
And so really just the hope right now is just to offer some ideas and thoughts and maybe just some awareness, and one of the things that I just want to talk about today is the importance of context. Context is essential for everything that we do. You think about it. You know, I do have a TikTok channel and I upload like bits and pieces of my sermons that I do throughout the week Just trying to share some encouragement and share some thoughts. But context is important because if you spend just a little bit of time on TikTok you realize that it's really easy to take like a 30 second clip of someone saying something. It doesn't matter what it is. But normally what happens is people take a 30 second clip of someone saying something out of context the larger context of what's being discussed and then all of a sudden it blows up right, it becomes this viral thing and there's accusations about what happened.
Speaker 1:
We saw this recently. There was a gentleman who and I don't know a whole lot of the information, but I remember I saw it on TikTok that he was going to court. He appeared on a Zoom call going to court while driving a car and apparently he had a suspended license, and so everyone's like how crazy this is. This guy was, you know, has a suspended license and he's driving and you know he's in the car and he appears on the Zoom call with the judge and the judge is like what? Like what just happened? Right. And so you know, we basically spent a week or so talking about this and everyone's talking about how crazy it is and just the missing. You know, just how could you do that? Why would you do that? And, like, a couple of weeks later maybe not even a couple of weeks come back and realize that all of us were wrong, that he actually didn't have a suspended license, there was a miscommunication, there were some court documents that were misfiled, but I mean, we literally were ready to lay this guy out in front of the world and we did as a society, we made a mockery of him and then come to realize that we're wrong.
Speaker 1:
So that's why context is really important. I realize that in this case there was a misunderstanding, but still, that's why context matters, because you could take anything out of anywhere any snippet of a video, a sermon, an idea, a thought and make it say something that it doesn't because you failed to look at the context around it. One of the things that was really important when I was going through school is context. I had a professor in college who would always tell me context is king, and so, when it comes to the study of scripture, it's really important that we read stuff in context, not only the cultural context of the day that's important. Not only the cultural context of the day that's important.
Speaker 1:
But when you read bits and pieces of scripture you're supposed to. It's meant to be read collectively, understood collectively. The letters that we see that Paul wrote in the New Testament were written together. They were written to an audience. They were read together. There was an understanding. The gospels are written together, the history that we find in the Old Testament. It's written together. The Bible as a whole is meant to speak in and of itself, to itself.
Speaker 1:
So when we start nitpicking things and we pull verses out of context and we use a single verse to bash someone over the head or to justify behavior, we're not being good stewards of the biblical text. It's important, as Christians, to understand and properly read the text as it is, before any other outside sources come into play. We have to learn how to embrace the context of the Bible and the truth that it gives. Because here's the thing that I've noticed we credit ourselves as being like the smartest generation, and I feel like that's probably every generation. We have more technology, more knowledge than we ever had, and I'm not saying that that's not true in some cases, but the Bible's been around thousands of years. It's taught, it's helped people understand, it's brought people to the knowledge of God and all of a sudden, now, as we've grown into it, as we study it more, you have a lot of people who are misusing it, misrepresenting it, misinterpreting it, and we act like previous generations were just stupid. And listen, they weren't.
Speaker 1:
But if you don't put stuff in proper context, it's really easy to make things say what you want it to say. And listen. We see it all the time. All over Facebook, all over TikTok, people quote a verse and they run with it, and I think that one of them. I'll just give you an example real quick of why this is important.
Speaker 1:
Right, philippians, chapter four, paul was writing this letter to his audience and, if you don't know, paul is an apostle and Jesus would establish him in order to go into the Gentiles. That was his goal, right, that's what his plan was. And so he would write letters to the early churches and offer them advice, and then he would offer them correction and sometimes discipline, and so one of the more popular verses that was floating around. It's fairly popular among athletes, but really it kind of blew up, you know, when you had the whole LeBron James, steph Curry, you know, kind of the battle for the NBA finals and all this stuff. And one of the things that you know became a really big popular verse was Philippians 4.13.
Speaker 1:
Because I can do all things through Christ, through him, who strengthens me by the way, that's the ESV version. I believe the NIV version says through Christ. And so you know, we would see this popping up everywhere and everyone's, like you know, talking about it in the realm of sports and all of a sudden it kind of becomes this rally cry that I can do anything that I want to do through Christ. I can be an NBA star, I can make a ton of money, I can have the nicest cars, I can be an NBA star, I can make a ton of money, I can have the nicest cars, I can overcome everything. And, like I said, we see it in the context of the world we live in. This one verse is almost used to promote this idea that, no matter what, I'm going to accomplish things, I'm going to overcome things, I'm going to be strong, I'm going to be the best of the best of the best. And once again, I don't think that's inherently wrong, but in context of what Paul was saying, that verse has more power.
Speaker 1:
So if you go back just a little bit, in chapter four, paul talks about what it means to be able to do this things in Christ. So Philippians 4, starting in verse 10, says and I know how to be to abound in any and every circumstance. I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. And then he says I can do all things through him who strengthens me. In context, we understand that Paul. Paul believed that, no matter what he was going through, whether the good or the bad, that he was going to be able to overcome those things in Christ, whether he had more than he needed or whether he was struggling just to have enough, that his reliance on his faith in Christ was immovable. That's what was going to sustain him.
Speaker 1:
Right, and I say that because there's a lot of times and I'll probably talk about this in later videos there's a lot of misunderstanding, I think, in Christianity right now. Christianity right now and the fact that if you are someone who's a Christian, that everything's going to be peachy all the time, you're always going to have a lot of money, you're always going to be healthy. There are churches, there are people that teach this undeniably. They believe that if you have Jesus, that life is going to be perfect always. You're never going to have a struggle, nothing bad's ever going to happen to you. And listen, I'm just my personal opinion.
Speaker 1:
When I look at scripture, I don't see how that's a true statement, because if you read from Genesis on, you see that those who follow after God, those who follow after Christ, a lot of times have more suffering than other people. I mean, jesus even talks about this that the world hates us because they hated him, that there will be trials, there will be tribulations, there will be suffering, that this stuff isn't going to be easy for us as believers, as Christians. Right, and so Paul was someone who realized this. I think he goes and of course I could be wrong and I'll come back and correct it if I am but several of his letters, and I think one in Hebrews in particular he talks about you know the letter to the Corinthians. He talks about that he's been shipwrecked, that he's had problems, that he's been imprisoned, that he's been beaten right, that he went through the ringer to be a follower of Jesus. His life was suffering. That's what happened. That's what he did. He got to a point where he was eventually killed for his faith.
Speaker 1:
Right, a lot of the early apostles, a lot of the early disciples experienced that there's a lot of people in other countries who are Christians, who are constantly in suffering and they're being tortured and they're being abused. And so when you sit there and tell them hey, listen, if you really are a Christian, your life's going to be good and you're always going to have enough money and you're always going to be healthy and you're never going to have any problems, then I think you're setting people up for failure because they expect that and when it doesn't happen, they blame God, whereas Paul in his letter to the Philippians and when he gets to verse 13, says I can do all things through Christ, who gives me strength. Prior to that, he lays out for them that listen, whether I have enough or I don't, whether I'm in suffering or I'm not, whatever has come my way, whatever I'm going through, I have the ability to overcome those things, to get through those things because of Christ. So, philippians 4.13 is not a rally cry for your success. It's not something you throw on a shirt or a shoe and you champion and you say I'm going to accomplish everything I've ever set out to do through Christ. And once again, I'm not trying to take away from that mentality completely, because we do. You know, god uses us to do a lot of great things and he is part of our life and he does help us.
Speaker 1:
But in context that verse comes back to no matter what's going on in my life, whether the good or the bad, I can do these things. I can get through these things because of Jesus. And to me that changes that, because when I'm going through suffering, I have Jesus. When I have enough money in my bank account, it's because of Jesus. When I don't have enough money in my bank account, I can get through it because of Jesus. When I'm suffering, when I'm in want, when I'm in need, when I'm hungry, when I'm well fed, when all of these things happen, if I remain faithful to Christ, I will overcome them. It doesn't mean that I'm always going to be winning. It doesn't mean that everything I touch is going to be successful. It just means that I understand, like Paul did, that no matter what I'm going through in life, as long as I have Jesus, I'm going to be okay. So that's just one example.
Speaker 1:
Like I said, there's so many scriptures that I think we take out of context and I'd love to ask you that. So, if you interact with this, what are some of those scriptures that people take out of context all the time that maybe we need to address it? How do we address it? How do we help people understand it? And then ask yourself, when you are reading the Bible, when you are reading scripture, is context important to you? Are you reading the chapter before? Are you reading the chapter after? Are you trying to understand the whole picture, Not just one part of it? But when you look at the whole picture, it all makes sense and, like I said, context is king.
Speaker 1:
A professor told me that. I believe it. I stand by it, that you've got to learn to read scripture within its own context, to study it within its own context. That's important. So I just want to challenge you to do that.
Speaker 1:
So, if you see someone who's quoting a verse, read the context, read what's going on, try to understand, ask some bigger questions, help people. If we can help people engage in that way, I think we're going to have a better understanding of not only the scripture, but we're going to have more in tune people with what the Bible is trying to say to us as a whole, as a culture, and we're going to stop, hopefully, stop trying to beat each other over the head with a scripture or two, and start reading it within the context and studying it and the way that it was meant to be. The letters, like I said, that Paul wrote to the churches were meant to be read in one sitting, always. I think we should make a better habit of doing that. So, all right, you guys, have a good day. I'll talk to you later. Bye.
