Things must be interpreted in the context of their existence. Calling someone fat in America is rude and insensitive while in Africa it's a term of beauty. If we continued to place an American context on this African mans statement there would be hurt feelings and division. Instead, we understood the different culture and language use and the young woman took it as a compliment and we had a wonderful time.

We need to treat Scripture in the same way as we treat a treasure map. The Bible is a look at a different culture and a different time. As things are different in other countries, compared to ours, things are different during the penning of Scripture also. It is imperative that we take what we've seen and interpret it in the proper context. The move to interpretation is key because you can take a Scripture, find passages, and you can make them justify anything you want to justify.

I am an expository preacher and I’m teaching you the expository way of Bible study. The expository method is going to the text with the explicit intent to see what the text is actually saying. If we are going to magnify God, we need to magnify His voice. If we are going to maximize what God IS saying, we must minimize what God is NOT saying.

The trend in preaching today is a reverse. We minimize what God is saying and maximize what man is saying; and what God is saying falls into the shadows. For example, you can go to the Christian book store and find, at least, a few books on leadership through the book of Nehemiah. There are a few problems in this. First, Nehemiah is a book about what God is doing in the people of Israel. It’s how God takes His people who are burdened, and going through difficult times, and He takes them and builds them up.

There are the books on how Nehemiah is God’s textbook on leadership. So, what we’ve done is taken the book of Nehemiah and said, “If you want to be successful, do these things. Nehemiah did these things and if you follow him you will be successful also.” We’ve taken a very God centered book and made it man centered; and bypassed the whole point of the book.

When we do that and say that Nehemiah is a good platform for leadership, we encounter a few problems in Nehemiah.

23 In those days I also saw Jews who had married women of Ashdod, Ammon, and Moab. 24 And half of their children spoke the language of Ashdod, and could not speak the language of Judah, but spoke according to the language of one or the other people. 25 So I contended with them and cursed them, struck some of them and pulled out their hair, and made them swear by God, saying, “You shall not give your daughters as wives to their sons, nor take their daughters for your sons or yourselves
Nehemiah 13:23-25

That doesn’t sell a lot of leadership books. When the leaders mess up, get right up in their face and yell at them. If that doesn’t work, take their hair and rip it right out of their head.

You might say, “Obviously, we are not going to use that as a leadership principle”. Be careful, it’s at this point that we pick and choose what to follow; we decide what leadership principle we aren’t going to use and which leadership principles we are going to use; and your maximizing what you wanna say and minimizing what God wants to say.

The reason we have so many denominations is because people have taken Scripture, they have taken this verse and that verse, and used it to fashion a god that they can follow and yet continue in the life they desire. Mormons have places in Scripture that they can go and look and find support for baptizing for the dead. You got a prosperity message that takes this verse and that verse; and twist’s them to part people from their money for the sole purpose of trying to become rich. You got churches who handle snakes, in rural area’s of the states, and they justify their worship by the Word. I think it’s important for us to know if the Word is actually telling us to do that or not.

So, how you do make sure that you understand what the Word means? In the real estate world, the motto for the best place to buy is “location, location, location”. In the Bible world, the motto should be “context, context, context”.

What is context? Context is that which goes with the text. Do you understand what context is now? The definition is not to clear but you will have a great understanding by the end of this blog.

There is a dilemma created by context. The Bible communicates eternal content. What that means is, what is within the pages of this book has eternal effect. The Bible is relevant to our country, our time, our culture. Yet, the Bible also communicates through a specific context that is not the same as the context of our country, time, and culture. There is a 1st century context that the New Testament communicates and that is different from the context of the Old Testament; and it’s different from the context of today. So, the question becomes, “How can we take from the ‘there and then’ and bring it to the ‘here and now’?” In order to make that jump, we need to have a grasp on context and its importance.

We need to work to step into the author’s shoes and determine his ORIGINAL INTENT of the writing. That’s key. We want to go to the Word and discover what did this Word ORIGINALLY mean. Because a Biblical text can NEVER mean what it never meant. Follow with me here. It can’t mean today, what it didn’t mean then. Biblical text can never mean what it never meant. We need to step into the authors shoes and recreate his ideas and his experience; put ourselves in his shoes and try to think through how this was being communicated, how it was being read, what does this mean. That’s what we’re looking at when it comes to interpretation.

The reason this is so important is because context SHAPES meaning. This involves everything that surrounds the text. The surrounding text itself, the culture of the text, the historical background, the original meaning behind the word; context shapes meaning. Let me give you a couple examples.

You're driving down the road and you come up to a stop sign. What do you do? You stop, look both ways, and continue on. Let’s say you're walking through an antique store and you walk up to a stop sign. What do you do? Do you stop, look both ways, and continue on? No. You're walking down the sidewalk looking at your phone (a dangerous thing to do, I must note) and you scroll up to a picture of a stop sign. Are you going to stop and look both ways? You're saying things to your spouse that are bothering them, annoying them even, and they say “stop”. You're probably not going to look both ways; you're going to look down. Let say you're saying all kinds of lovely things to your spouse, beautiful things, and they say “stop”. What are you going to do? You're going to keep going.

This is what I mean by “context shapes meaning”. Saying “stop” in different situations means different things. We have to look at the context to understand the meaning.

Let me give you another practical cross cultural example; one like we find in Scriptural context versus ours.
My wife and I have a friend in Kenya, who was born and raised there, and he has an orphanage with about 20 children. We help them from time to time and we saw a video where the children were kicking around a make-shift ball. So, we decided to buy some toys and send them over. We bought a ball, some jump ropes, and a couple frisbee’s.

A couple months later, Edwin receives the package and post a video of play time after their church service. He posted some pictures of the children eating, videos of them playing with the ball, and videos of them jumping rope. I immediately noticed that I did not see any video of the children playing with the frisbee. I thought about the contents of the package and the pictures posted - eating, ball, jump rope. I then realized, frisbee’s are an American past time. Now, I had this picture in my head of Edwin opening the package and saying, “Look children, a ball, some jump ropes, and a couple plates.” Context shapes the meaning, even cultural context.

So, what’s the rules of context? Context RULES! If we ignore the context of the Bible, we can twist Scripture to mean all kinds of different things. We’ve got to know the context. And there’s really only two context that we have to know - there’s OUR context and THEIR context.

Let’s take a look at the two context’s; starting with OUR context. In this, we are going to look at what WE bring to Scripture.
When we come to the Bible, we bring our context to the Scriptures. There are two different types of context we bring: pre-understandings and presuppositions.

Our pre-understandings are PRECONCEIVED NOTIONS that we unconsciously or consciously bring to the text. There are many different reason we bring preconceived notions to the text.

The first reason we bring preconceived notions is because of our PRIDE. Especially when we are studying a familiar text, we tend to start the text with the idea that we know what it means before we even start reading the words. Pride is a pre-conceived notion that we know what the text means before we ever start listening to the text. We have to avoid pride, and come to the text humbly.

Another reason we bring preconceived notions is because of an AGENDA. Sometimes, we come to the text with a theological agenda; a theological slant. When we come to the text in this manner, we will pull text from the context to make it say what ever we want it to say to support our theological slant.

We’ve got two options. We can either stand over the meaning of the text or we can kneel under the meaning of the text. True Bible study is when we kneel under the meaning of the text. We don’t want to find Scripture that fits our agenda. We want to let Scripture determine our agenda.

Sometimes we skip over text because of FAMILIARITY. Don’t skip over a text because it’s a familiar text. Sometimes it takes several readings in order for the Spirit to uncover the gold He want’s you to have. Look at this familiar passage:

But he was pierced for our transgressions,
he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed.
Isaiah 53:5

We often use this passage as a promise of physical healing. When we do, we make two very large errors. First, we use this yet many Christians are sick and die and it makes the non-believer think that this is all fake. Or, when they are not healed, there are accusations that arise about their faith; either by others or about themselves. Second, and this is important, we make God a liar. It’s evidently clear, Paul had an eye sight problem. This is why he had people write his letters. Epaphroditus was sick to the point of death.

We have to look at the context of the passage. What is the context of the space around this passage? Before this statement, Isaiah is talking about transgression and Iniquities; which is sin. After this statement, Isaiah is talking about those gone astray, going their own way, and iniquity; which is sin. No where before or after the statement of healing is Isaiah talking about physical sickness.

What is the context of the author? Look at the author and how he writes

Why should you be stricken again? You will revolt more and more. The whole head is sick, And the whole heart faints.
6 From the sole of the foot even to the head, There is no soundness in it, But wounds and bruises and putrefying sores; They have not been closed or bound up, Or soothed with ointment
Isaiah 1:5-6

It’s evident by the context of the manner in which Isaiah perceived sin that it was a sickness. He referred to sin as a sickness. It’s obvious by the context of the passage and the context of the author that this passage is talking about being healed from the sickness of sin.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m NOT saying that God does not heal - the Bible shows this as well. Yet, if we just skip over this text, because it seems familiar, we miss a key point about sin... it’s a great sickness in which we need to be healed from.
Another thing that causes us to bring pre-conceived notions to the text is our CULTURE. In fact, our culture has a HUGE effect on how we Study Scripture.

If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also. 40 And if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well. 41 If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with them two miles. 42 Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.
Matthew 5:39-42

We come to Matthew 5:39-42 and say, “Ok, I hear what He’s saying; BUT, if someone strikes you on the cheek and you keep turning your cheek they are going to run over you. If someone sue’s you for your shirt and you give you coat, they’ll take everything you got. So, obviously that’s not what it means”. At that point, we just imposed a very self-centered, American, materialistic culture that says, “I need to do what protects myself rather than anything else”: on a Scripture passage that is intended to say exactly what it says.

What are some things we need to keep mind about in avoiding bringing to the text?

We bring our LANGUAGE. Our culture involves OUR meaning of words. When some of the words were used in the 1st century, they had a far different meaning than they do today. We need to know what the word meant THERE; in the 1st century.

We also have different CUSTOMS. We have different STORIES and jokes based upon our culture. Even today, we can tell a story or joke in a different country and they wouldn’t understand. We could possibly even offend people in other cultures, if we don’t understand that culture.

Our FAMILY context is different. We can see this even within our own country. If you go to the north east portion of the US, among the Italian decedents, family bonds are much closer than other areas of the country. Family bonds in middle eastern countries are almost tribe like. Not so in the US.

There are many facets of our culture that we bring to the table. We bring our VALUES, ECONOMICS, POLITICS, ETHNICITY, GENDER, RELIGION, ARTS, and IMAGES. If you think about politics, we have a hard time relating to the rituals surrounding a king; especially a king in the 1st century. When we don’t look at this context, we miss out on the importance of Christ being our King.

We don't mean to but we bring many tings to the table of Biblical interpretation and we need to be careful of it. Yet, we can’t be completely objective. We all bring subjectivities to a certain extent; but we need to minimize that as much as possible.

There are some subjectivities that are good. These are PRESUPPOSITIONS. Some good subjectivities are the fact that we have faith in God. We have faith in His power and His existence. We believe the Bible is inspired, reliable, and unified. We believe the Bible does not contradict itself. We believe the Bible is diverse and supernatural. This means that God is bigger than us; so, there are some things in the Bible that we don’t completely understand. The Bible has tension and mystery to it. We believe the Bible is purposeful; and that purpose is to bring us into the image of Christ.

The question is, “How can we best understand their context?" The way that we study the Bible must honor the way, and time, God chose to communicate the Bible. Never forget that Scripture was God’s Word to other people before it became God’s Word to us. This book was NOT written to us. It was God’s Word to THEM and it was preserved throughout history for us; and all the men and women through history. This means two things. God cared deeply about them and God cares deeply about us.
When we are looking at their context, we need to understand that there are several different types of context.

You can continue this portion of Study Tips with TYPES OF CONTEXT