Content, Context and Corinthian Confusion

http://www.sydneyanglicans.net/ministry/theology/content_context_and_corinthian_confusion/

[sydneyanglicans.net] 31 Aug 2009--We must read the Bible in context. But what is the context in which we are to read it? And what is the relationship between context and content?

Last month as I preached through 1 Corinthians 12-14, I was reminded once again of the danger of ‘interpreting’ the Bible by context rather than understanding the content of the Bible.

There are two contexts that are often appealed to – one unconsciously, the other consciously. The first is the experience of the reader. The second is the assumed historical background of the original recipients. Both can dominate the content of the text to enable the readers to find whatever they want.

It is impossible to read without being influenced by our own experiences. Even the ability to read is an experience that we bring to the text. The experience of listening to literature read aloud is different to reading silently by oneself.

But there is a common problem of assuming our experiences are the same as the author’s. For example we experience ‘church’ long before we read about it in the Bible. It is hard then to leave our experience of church behind and genuinely hear what the Bible writers refer to when they mention ‘church’. Similarly translators are unhelpful when they retain words like ‘deacon’. It is not actually a translation but transliteration - turning the Greek letters into an English word. The Greek word means ‘servant’. As our churches have office bearers called deacons it is normal for modern readers to wrongly assume that the Bible is talking of these people and their role.

That leads to the second context problem – the historical background. The Bible was not written in a historical vacuum. It was written with historical particularity. God chose to write by human authors addressing particular historical situations that God had brought about to reveal himself.

This gives us the ability to read and understand what God said – for he spoke in human language. Yet we do not know everything about the historical circumstances in which the Bible was written. We know enough because there is a common human experience of life and because God created and revealed the context in which to speak. But we do not know everything and must be wary of guessing what precise situation of life is being addressed, if it is not stated in the text.

It is the combination of unconsciously reading our own context into the Bible and of guessing a particular historical context of the Bible that opens up the real possibility of twisting the Bible to our own destruction.