Context is Everything

5. The devil stands ready to fall upon them, and seize them as his own, at what moment God shall permit him. They belong to him; he has their souls in his possession, and under his dominion. The Scripture represents them as his goods, Luke 11.12. The devils watch them; they are ever by them at their right hand; they stand waiting for them, like greedy hungry lions that see their prey, and expect to have it, but are for the present kept back.

--Jonathan Edwards, Sinners in the Hands of an Angy God

9 And I say unto you, Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.
10 For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.
11 If a son shall ask bread of any of you that is a father, will he give him a stone? or if he ask a fish, will he for a fish give him a serpent?
12 Or if he shall ask an egg, will he offer him a scorpion?
13 If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children: how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?

--Luke 11:9-13, King James Version

I've been a church musician for 20 years. I've heard a lot of sermons in my time, everything from Baptists, Charismatics, Methodists, Brethren, Presbyterians, Episcopalians, Catholics, etc. Pretty much everything from across the spectrum of Christianity. I'm familiar with most of the denominations' interpretations of various points of Scripture, and have heard any number of sermon illustrations used to, well, illustrate the point.

Out of all of those sermons, Jonathan Edwards' Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God stands out to me as the one that wins first prize in the Let's Take Scripture Out of Context contest.

Edwards does, of course, use a lot of Scripture references in his sermon. That's normal; that's The Way It's Done. What bothers me is the way he uses the Scripture.

Sometimes, he names the passage and then quotes from it, as in:

"... and when he does fall, he falls at once without warning: which is also expressed in Psalm 73.18-19: 'Surely thou didst set them in slippery places; thou castest them down into destruction: How are they brought into desolation as in a moment!'"

This is a perfectly normal and reasonable use of Scripture.

The problem comes when he names the passage, but then doesn't quote from it. Case in point, the quote at the top of this post. When I got to that point in the reading, I wrote in my book, "WTF? How the heck does Luke 11:12 'represent them [sinners] as his [the devil's] goods'???" Edwards has taken this passage in which Jesus is reassuring his audience that God loves them and would do anything for them, and has twisted it into ... something that doesn't even make sense here!

It all reminds me of a story I heard (ironically enough) in a sermon preached at a Brethren church in which the pastor was admonishing the congregation not to take Scripture out of context. He told the story of a Puritan preacher way back in Cromwell's time who, for whatever reason, didn't like the ladies' hairstyle of the time, the top-knot. He decided to preach against it and chose as his text Matthew 24:17, and asserted that Jesus himself had decried the hairstyle, saying, "Top-knot come down!"

Of course, the problem is that Matthew 24:17 really says, "Let him which is on the housetop not come down to take any thing out of his house." It's in the middle of a passage warning about the coming trials and tribulations of the Jewish people. Nothing about hair or hairstyles at all. ScriptureReferenceFAIL!

Context is everything.

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I mentioned to one of my classmates that I had included in my journal a pic representing Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God done in Lego. This, of course, led to me promising to provide a link to the Brick Testament. I especially recommend Genesis and Revelation as being extraordinarily well-done.

NOTE: The Brick Testament is not a parody, nor does it make fun of the Bible or religion. it is simply an attempt to illustrate scenes from the Bible in Lego. From the site's "about" page:

Rev. Smith has stated that the goal of The Brick Testament is to give people an increased knowledge of the contents of The Bible in a way that is fun and compelling while remaining true to the text of the scriptures. To this end, all stories are retold using direct quotes from The Bible.

Also: the Lego pic above is *not* from The Brick Testament.

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