Context matters.
For circumstances can drive and dictate actions.
And life has a habit of challenging us with layered situations that don’t always have a comfortable resolution. More often the scenario has become convoluted because of our disobedience or reluctance to act, and therefore leaves us with options and second order effects that are none too palatable.
Thus we wade into seemingly nebulous situations looking for guidance to handrail our actions. However, we aren’t searching for unbounded guidance. Rather we find ourselves probing for actions that aren’t too uncomfortable and leave us with a sense of personal justification. This search for comfort is the place where the ill-informed or ill-intentioned steal a snippet of teaching and errantly apply it broad-brush to fit their own narrative. Worse yet, some take it out of context for use as a weapon.
“One final word of counsel, friends. Keep a sharp eye out for those who take bits and pieces of the teaching that you learned and then use them to make trouble. Give these people a wide berth. They have no intention of living for our Master Christ. They’re only in this for what they can get out of it, and aren’t above using pious sweet talk to dupe unsuspecting innocents.”
Errant application is what leads people to say the Bible justifies or even directs actions we all know to be counter to the underlying message: love God and love others. Messages that run counter to this simple truth must be questioned and carefully considered. For the teaching has not been a veiled ‘read between the lines’ secret, but direct and consistent.
So next time someone brings up teaching that causes you to pause, check it against the simple litmus test of love. We were given a wonderful ability to reason and daily blessed with the opportunity to apply it. If something sounds wrong, it probably is.