I was taking my lunch out of the microwave and transporting it to my desk today when I noticed the label said "KEEP FROZEN." I thought of the irony of how I just cooked it to high temperature, and it reminded me of how some people attempt to interpret the Bible.
If you understood this label as some people try to understand the bible, you'd say, "No wait! You can't cook it! It says 'KEEP FROZEN'"! Ever stand there as you opened a jar for the second time and stared at the top that said, "Do not open if safety seal is up", wondering if anyone threw away their food after opening it once?
A hilarious example of this will be familiar to anyone over the age of, say, 30 or so. Back in the 70s, mattresses labels came with a stern warning not to remove them "under penalty of law." Everyone wondered what would happen if you removed the labels from your mattress and joked about the mattress police breaking into your home and checking all your mattresses. It provided much fodder for comedy sketches. The real story is that the warnings weren't meant for the consumer; they were meant for those involved in manufacturing and selling mattresses. It's a long story, but back a century ago or more, quality controls (and honesty) weren't that great, and laws had to be passed to tell the consumer what was in a mattress and to protect the labels that bore that information. It's one of these things where you have to know the history behind it to understand the rationale, but to the average consumer who knew none of these, it was a bizarre warning. (Today they add "except by consumer" to the warning.)
The point is, some texts can lead you to strange conclusions if you don't know the context. It's the same with the bible. When people come to you harping on a single text of scripture, you have to ask the question: What does the rest of Scripture say? Since most of us don't know the "rest of Scripture", it's easy for us to fall prey to those who insist they are "following God's holy Word". (Chances are, they don't even know what the rest of Scripture says, either.)
For example, consider the well-known canard of "Call no man your father on earth, for you have one Father, who is in heaven (Matt. 23:9) " you frequently hear from anti-Catholics. As it turns out, quite a lot of the Apostles and early martyrs had no problems calling men on earth "Father". They knew that Jesus's point was not to forbid uttering the title but to forbid people giving the honor due God alone to men on earth. Presumable people who bring this up still have their eyes and hands. If so they can appreciate Jesus's frequent use of hyperbole when speaking.
So the next time someone challenges you on some point of Scripture, keep in mind the mattress label, the curious jars, or my now-consumed burrito, and look into the context of it across all of Scripture before embracing it.
