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“commit adultery.” It’s in the Bible.  Of course the context of the sentence tells you that there’s more to the equation, specifically, “Thou shalt not commit adultery.”  My English teacher pointed this one out to me in high school

Now surely the Christian church never does this kind of non-contextualized argumentation, right?  Well, not necessarily.  It’s probably not as blatant as “commit adultery”, but sometimes it runs close.

Part of the problem lies within our numbering system for the Bible.  In order to arrive at the correct part of Scripture, someone a long time ago decided that the books of the Bible should be subdivided into chapters and verses.  It honestly makes it easier to make citations - unfortunately, it also makes it easier to wrest verses out of their intended purpose and meaning.

Subdividing books of the Bible by chapter seems to have occured first in the 1200’s AD by a guy named Cadinal Hugo of St. Cher in a concordance (basically a book-long index of another book - usually the Bible - which helps you find other uses of things like the word “repent”).  It was not widely used in the manufacturing of Bibles until about the 1300’s.

Subdividing the chapters of the books into verses took longer.  It wasn’t until the mid 1500’s that this practice was used in the manufacturing of Bibles.  For example, Martin Luther, almost never used a verse citation in the production of any of his written works because the verses were not commonly agreed upon until after his death.

Today the subdivision of chapter and verse is common.  We know “John 3:16” is the most well-known verse of the Bible, but many people are surprised to find that this pithy and important saying of Jesus arose out of his conversation with a Pharisee named Nicodemus - a fact that wouldn’t be that surprising if you read the whole chapter.

While chapter and verse distinction is helpful for finding exactly the right verse that someone is citing, it can also lead to problems.  One of the problems that I’ve learned to watch out for is something I like to call “the White House effect”.

When I was putting together a webpage for my Alpha Phi Omega chapter in college, I thought it would be appropriate to put a link to the White House because one of Alpha Phi Omega’s most famous alumni, Bill Clinton, was in the White House at the time.  I put the link up, but put .com at the end of http://www.whitehouse If you’ve ever made the same mistake, you realize that this sends you to a porn website.  http://www.whitehouse.GOV is the correct link.

Once, while preparing a Bible study I did a word search in my favorite translation of the Bible’s website (the ESV).  I found a verse that I really liked and that I thought fit very well with the direction that I was going.  The verse was from the book of Job.  For some unknown reason (perhaps the guidance of the Holy Spirit), I decided to look at the context of the verse.  The verse was actually part of a diatribe being spoken by one of Job’s “comforters” (people who gave Job advice that was consistently antithetical to a true faith in God).  I realized that my “link” was faulty and went back to the drawing board realizing that the context of the verse proved that I was going in the wrong direction.

Addtionally, watch out for weird versions of the Bible.  While I’m not entirely opposed to paraphrases of the Bible like “The Message”, I get a little worried when people pick and choose the translation they cite.  People like Joel Osteen are pro’s at this bait-and-switch approach to the Bible.  They will cite any translation as it proves their point.  Watch out for any book or preacher that cites “RSV”, “NIV”, “The Message”, and then “ESV”.

Once while at home in St. Louis I watched a show that claimed to be Christian in background.  It was telling me that the Messiah that I knew, Jesus Christ, was just a forerunner to the true Messiah, “Yahweh Bin Yahweh,” (literally, God Son of God). They arrived at their points by telling you that you needed five books to “truly understand” the Bible.  You needed a Greek translation of the Bible, a Hebrew translation of the Bible, a Greek lexicon (a Greek-to-English dictionary), a Hebrew lexicon, and a English dictionary.  Through using 2nd and 3rd definitions of words, they could get the Bible to say….well…anything they pleased.

Lutherans like myself are no strangers to this kind of fooling with the Bible.  The early Lutheran reformers fought battles about the contextualized meaning of verses while their opponents were satisfied with quips and quotes that could be taken out of context.

I make it a point of giving only chapter citations to the verses that I quote.  I also make a point of asking, “what is the rest of that chapter talking about,” when someone only quotes a verse to me.  Unfortunately, I can’t tell you that I’m always very impressed with the contextual truth of what people are telling me a verse is about —- even from my own church body.

Watch the context.  Read the whole chapter.  You’ll be a better informed Christian because of it.

Image: what are word for? by Darwin Bell at Flickr