Harvey the line about replacing scissors with habit got me. A Bible can stay physically whole and still get smaller when the same safe verses are the only ones read out loud. I see that most when Romans 13 is quoted by itself, with no room for the prophets confronting kings or Acts 5. That selective reading can train people to confuse peace with silence. It makes me want to ask, not just what a passage says, but what nearby passages we keep leaving out.
Exactly right, Jeff! And it's a case study in how a passage can be technically quoted while being effectively amputated from everything around it.
Paul wrote Romans 13 inside a letter that also contains Romans 12, which tells believers to bless persecutors, refuse vengeance, and overcome evil with good.
Pull out the “submit to governing authorities” verse alone and you get something that sounds like unconditional compliance. Read it in context and it looks considerably more complicated.
Your instinct to ask what nearby passages keep getting left out is one of the most useful interpretive habits I know. Thanks for that add!
It makes me angry that purported Christians would willfully use the bible as a weapon to advance their own agendas.
And since I have my own agendas, I need to take a good hard look at the parts of the bible that I neglect (intentionally or unintentionally) as I form my own belief system based on the bible. My only hope is for Holy Spirit guidance 🙏🏼
Thomas Jefferson also redacted lots of passages. I think we all do it in our own ways. I think it's impossible for one person to find everything in the Bible tolerable or acceptable because it's so incredibly diverse (or even contradictory). There are definitely parts I can't stand and just to read them makes me fume at God. It's definitely a multivocal book!
Harvey the line about replacing scissors with habit got me. A Bible can stay physically whole and still get smaller when the same safe verses are the only ones read out loud. I see that most when Romans 13 is quoted by itself, with no room for the prophets confronting kings or Acts 5. That selective reading can train people to confuse peace with silence. It makes me want to ask, not just what a passage says, but what nearby passages we keep leaving out.
Exactly right, Jeff! And it's a case study in how a passage can be technically quoted while being effectively amputated from everything around it.
Paul wrote Romans 13 inside a letter that also contains Romans 12, which tells believers to bless persecutors, refuse vengeance, and overcome evil with good.
Pull out the “submit to governing authorities” verse alone and you get something that sounds like unconditional compliance. Read it in context and it looks considerably more complicated.
Your instinct to ask what nearby passages keep getting left out is one of the most useful interpretive habits I know. Thanks for that add!
It makes me angry that purported Christians would willfully use the bible as a weapon to advance their own agendas.
And since I have my own agendas, I need to take a good hard look at the parts of the bible that I neglect (intentionally or unintentionally) as I form my own belief system based on the bible. My only hope is for Holy Spirit guidance 🙏🏼
Thanks for your honesty, Heng.
It’s easy to be angry at others who weaponize Scripture. It's much harder to turn that same scrutiny on your own reading.
The passages we unconsciously skip are often the most revealing ones, because we rarely leave out what costs us nothing.
That prayer for Holy Spirit guidance isn't a small thing. It's the only honest place to start.
Fascinating! Lots in here I didn't know.
Thomas Jefferson also redacted lots of passages. I think we all do it in our own ways. I think it's impossible for one person to find everything in the Bible tolerable or acceptable because it's so incredibly diverse (or even contradictory). There are definitely parts I can't stand and just to read them makes me fume at God. It's definitely a multivocal book!
The honesty that some passages make you fume at God is more biblically faithful than it might sound.
The Psalms are full of that, and the lament tradition treats that kind of raw engagement as genuine prayer rather than faithlessness.
Jefferson's approach was to cut what offended him; your approach sounds more like wrestling with it, which is what the text itself models.
Thanks, Tim!