I hate when people spout off things from the Bible without establishing the context (aka understanding the tenants of the entire document instead of just one book/chapter/verse or two.)

What if I tried to give you an idea of what Romeo and Juliet was like by describing the scene when Mercutio and Tybalt are killed? Dudes meet out in public. Arguement arises. Fight breaks out. One dude stabs and kills another. Dead guy’s friend kills that guy. Doesn’t make much sense by it’s self if you want to know the main story of R & J, does it? How about if I described the Lord of the Rings trilogy by reading you the chapter in the Two Towers describing the Ent council? Talking trees talk about stuff for three days using various grumbly noises. Two small people are very bored by this. Totally what LOTR is about, right?

Then why do people insist on quoting odd verses out of Deuteronomy about weird Mosaic laws to discredit the value of the Bible? Or worse, untactfully and wrongly proclaim really harsh punishments snatched out of Levitcus on people who are doing things that they think are “unscriptural.” It’s bad on both sides of the ledger and I personally don’t get it, all prejudices aside.

Life, the Bible included, is rich with context that needs to be, and I repeat, MUST be acknowledged and understood for anything to make sense. Without context – without connecting all the dots – the entirety of human discourse would be a jumbled mess of non-connected statements that you could take in any direction you wanted. Truth in a broad sense would cease to exist and the very thought of transmitting any kind of information would be impossible. And I don’t know about you, but I’d rather not have that happen. Especially not with a book like the Bible that carries so much weight in the lives of so many, myself included.

So before you try to talk about it like you have a clue (even when it’s obvious that you don’t), why don’t you take some time and study it? Because when you study it, you’ll get a clue. And then, believe it or not, you might actually talk about it like you really have a clue instead of sounding like you’re just pandering off some vague piece of trivia you picked up for your own purposes.