Yesterday, I posted a portion of a picture and challenged readers to guess what the image is. I posed the same question to my Hermeneutics class and received the following suggestions: 1) a keyhole, 2) a stylized eight, or 3) an image of a laptop’s power button. As you can see from the picture in this post, the middle answer is correct. The image depicts the number “eight” on a clock.
The application of this exercise is that without a proper context, a piece of information may not make much sense. The same is true when it comes to the Bible. We must not take an individual verse and try to pry meaning from it without looking at the surrounding verse. Failing to consider the context of a text often leads to misinterpretation.
For example, look at the following verses:
1) Luke 18:22: Sell all you own to have treasure in Heaven
(Context: vv. 18-27)
2) Revelation 3:20: I stand at the door and knock (Context: vv. 14-22)
3) James 5:1: The cursing of the rich (Context: vv. 1-6)
Each of these texts are grossly misunderstood when one does not consider the surrounding verses. Tomorrow, we will examine each of the above passages to determine their proper meanings.
Good point - but that was a hard test!
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