MyInwardJourney

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March 12, 2004 7:26 AM

[In.Context]

Something that is a pet peeve to me is our ability to either pull Scripture completely out of context or to over-spiritualize passages that weren't meant to be. For example, our pastor a couple of weeks ago preached on fasting and used Isaiah 58:3-7 as the passage. He went on to describe verse-by-verse the "How To's" of fasting. The problem for me is that he was going against what that very Scripture was talking about. God is saying through Isaiah that the people's fasting was worthless because they were allowing social injustices to take place. His heart was that they would reach out and loose the oppressed, feed the hungry, etc. Our pastor actually tried to 'spiritualize' the passage and said that we are freed from the chains of oppression (to habits, sin, etc.) by fasting. There may have been some truth to what He was teaching, but He wasn't getting it from Isaiah.

I've been wondering lately if we have committed a gross misuse of the Word of God when we allow ourselves to read it, soak it in, and try to allow it to shape us - all out of the context of the community of the people of God. This is something that I'm going to look into a little more, but I wonder how much of the Bible was actually God's Word given to individuals vs. community. Just looking at the New Testament I can only see five books (1-2 Timothy, 1-3 John) that were written to an individual in his/her immediate context. The rest were letters and books written to a group of Christians. Can we take something that God was speaking to a group of people & only apply it to our individual lives. Just seems like we're moving beyond what God has given to us. Not that we can't receive anything from Scripture on our own, but shouldn't the main context be within the community? Just a thought - will look more into it ...

Posted by Kristo on March 12, 2004 at 07:26 AM | Permalink