Context... The Big Picture

Context... The Big Picture

One of my favorite words when it comes to studying The Bible is Context; that is in fact what The Minute Bible is all about.  Context is 1 : the parts of a discoursethat surround a word or passage and can throw light on its meaning  2 : the interrelatedconditions in which something exists or occurs :environment, setting(Merriam-Webster dictionary).  

Information that is presented out of context can be very misleading and The Bible in particular has been abused (intentionally and unintentionally) throughout history by taking certain verses out of context. When you read The Bible it is important to ‘zoom out’ and look where the verse or verses you are reading fit into the big picture so that you get the proper understanding of what you are reading. Let me give one of my favorite examples to illustrate context…

In my Eleventh grade American Literature class we had a research paper due at the end of the year, no surprise there.  We could pick our topic, but we were required to turn our ‘thesis statement’ in for a grade early on in the process.  Being the procrastinator that I was, I waited until the last minute to research and decide on my thesis statement.  Following a halfhearted research effort, I decided on the following statement “Gliders Make Good Reconnaissance Aircraft During World War 2” (yes, I was on odd child).  I submitted my thesis statement and it was approved.  There was only one little problem… When I actually didstart to do the research, I found out that my thesis statement wasn’t true at all; what to do.  Options: 1. Tell my teacher I made a mistake not knowing what the consequences might be. 2. Just pick a new thesis statement and hope that he didn’t notice, or 3. Prove the thesis statement with the same erroneous information that mislead me in the first place… option 3 it is.  I was required to have a certain number of quotes from a certain number of different books, so let the fun begin.  

Long story short, I turned in my research paper with the proper number of quotes and books listed in the bibliography knowing full well that it wasn’t true (sorry Mr. W.) and got a B on it.  Somewhat dishonest? I guess so, but it did give me a lifelong sensitivity to information presented out of context, and I have noticed it happens a lot, particularly with The Bible.  

Many stories in The Bible tell stories of people who did things wrong, so if you read the story without the proper context that points out how wrong they actually were and the negative consequences, you can really get the wrong idea.  The book of Ecclesiastes is a great example of this. In Ecclesiastes, Solomon spends the entire book telling about things he tried to find fulfillment, but that didn’t work; hard work, philosophy, wine, women and songs etc.  It is only in the last few verses that Solomon concludes that the whole duty of man is to fear God and keep His commandments.  If you read Ecclesiastes out of context, without realizing that most of the book is listing BAD examples, you can really get the wrong idea

So the bottom line is DON’T let yourself be fooled, especially if someone tries to convince you of something that doesn’t make sense.  Try and ‘zoom out’ a little and look at the surrounding verses, maybe even an entire chapter or two.  Trust me, if you want to know the truth, you’ll be glad you did.

Here is The Minute Bible summary of The Book of Ecclesiastes in exactly One minute…

  

I hope you have found this helpful.  I’ll be honest, I need your feedback to keep motivated, so if you have any questions, or comments or you just found this helpful, please leave a little comment... And don't forget to check out my website http://theminutebible.com

Thanks

The Minute Bible Guy

Baby Steps

Baby Steps

As believers it should be our purpose in life to do God’s will.  That’s all well and good if you know what God’s will is, but personally I have never opened my eyes to see an angel, a burning bush or even a talking donkey telling me what God wants me to do.  In reality, even in biblical times, this was not all that common, though it might seem so due to the fact that The Bible spans somewhere in the neighborhood of 4000 years.  In my experience, God is usually much more subtle in His directing and we also tend to have much greater expectations as we look for his guidance in our lives.  I am not going to pretend that I know what God’s will is in your life, I barely know what I believe it is in mine. What I will say is that God will let you know what His will is if you let him.   We want God to speak from the burning bush like he did to Moses, but in my experience, He is much more likely to speak as He did to Elijah, after the great wind, after the earthquake, and after the fire, God spoke to Elijah in a low whisper.  The closer we are to God; studying His Word, spending time in prayer etc., the more likely we are to hear his whispers.  

We also want Him to lay out the roadmap for the next 10, 20 or 40 years, and sometimes He does, but that has rarely been the case in my life.  I felt called to ‘the ministry’ at a very young age.  At the time I understood that to mean being a Pastor, a missionary or some other formal (and lifelong) vocation; but that doesn’t seem to be the case for me.  Whenever I started to head in that direction the doors seemed to close for me.  Hmmm what to do now?  God had other plans for me, and He tends to let me in on the plan one step at a time rather than a mile, or a year or a decade at a time. One thing that I came to understand when God laid the idea for The Minute Bible on my heart was a realization that God made me weird because He had some special projects in store for me. Some people might not like the use of the word weird, feel free to substitute unique, different, or peculiar (1 Peter 2:9 KJV) if you prefer.  My point is that sometimes God does let us know what His long term plan is for us, and sometimes He does speak through a burning bush, an Angel, or some serious life event. I believe, more often than not, that He speaks to us in a low whisper when we are close to Him and that He only illuminates the next step (or two or three) on the path and wants us to have enough faith to just take that next baby step and leave the route and final destination up to Him.  That would not be my preferred method, but then again, I am NOT the creator of the universe.

Job certainly didn't know what God's plan was for him, but he continued to trust God even with all he went through and in the end God blessed him for his faithfulness.  Below is a link to the Minute Bible summary of The Book of Job in exactly one minute.

I hope you have found this helpful.  I’ll be honest, I need your feedback to keep motivated, so if you have any questions, or comments or you just found this helpful, please leave a little comment... And don't forget to check out my website http://theminutebible.com

  

Thanks,

The Minute Bible Guy

Who Does God Use?

Who Does God Use?

I love it in James 5:17 where James says that Elijah was a man just like we are… that’s HUGE as far as I’m concerned.  We have a tendency to place Biblical characters on a high, untouchable pedestal in glowing robes with backlit hair to show off their glowing halo; I am convinced that is wrong for several reasons.

First of all, the glowing pedestal perspective implies that Elijah, Moses, David, Peter, etc. had special “powers” of their own rather than revealing the power of God working through them, and that, after all is the most important thing that we should see and remember.  Elijah was a man JUSTlike we are, it was God’s power that made him special.

The second reason I think it is wrong to place Biblical characters on a pedestal is that in doing so, it makes it too easy for us to believe that God could never use us because we’re not Joshua or Elisha or even James; what blessings we miss if we believe that.  Some of my favorite stories in The Bible are the ones where God chose the LEAST powerful people so that HIS power would show through.  Let’s take a quick look at The Bible from the 30,000 foot level to see a beautiful recurring theme that runs through both Old and New Testaments.  Read about Gideon, the least in his family, who were the least in their tribe, that was the least of all the twelve tribes of Israel, how he lead 300 men against 130,000 soldiers and won.  Read about a little boy that killed a giant that the entire Israelite army was afraid of; if you think that story showed little David’s prowess with a sling, you miss the point that the stone was powered by God. Shadrach, Meschach, and Abednego in the fiery furnace, Daniel in the lion’s den etc. etc.  It was their willingness to take a step in faith, to be faithful to God even though they knew that they couldn’t do it themselves.  Even the Israelite people themselves were chosen NOT because there was anything special about them (though Abrahams righteousness did have something to do with it) but they were chosen to be a city on a hill to show God’s greatness through them.

Finally, unless we recognize the “humanness” of these folks we can’t see the story through their eyes.  I have always loved history.  Not because I love dates, times and events, but because I love to know what other people have gone through and experienced.  When we recognize that the individuals in The Bible were real people, that they lived, loved, laughed, that they got embarrassed, that they had good days and bad days just like us, then you can get a whole new perspective as you read through The Bible.

Ultimately God uses those who have enough faith to allow themselves to be used by Him.

I hope you have found this helpful.  I’ll be honest, I need your feedback to keep motivated, so if you have any questions, or comments or you just found this helpful, please leave a little comment... And don't forget to check out my website http://theminutebible.com

  

Thanks

The Minute Bible Guy

Speaking of Elijah, Here are links to The Minute Bible's  summary of First AND Second Kings

First Kings:

Second Kings: