Take a look at the following verse:
"For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them." ~Matthew 18.20~
I want to ask you a question: "Is God Omnipresent?" Or to the contrary, are there certain conditions to where God shows up or to whom God is with? Do you have to have two or more people with you in order for God to be present in your life?
Now of course, God IS Omnipresent and He is with you whether you are by yourself or if you are in the presence of others...So what's my point? Well many times, the aforementioned verse and a host of others, are taken way out of context. For instance, read alone and without a proper framework in which to understand it, Matthew 18.20 is sometimes used to say that we must have two or three gathered in order to know that God is with us...this is not in line with what the passage actually teaches, nor with what The Bible as a whole teaches. So what do we do?
To start, we must read in terms of a framework instead of simply pulling a verse out in isolation. Scriptural references and verse numbers are great, but think about it, in our own day-to-day conversations, we don't speak in sentence-by- sentence manner...we have a context of person, place, and time in which we say certain things.
In the same manner, when reading Scripture, we must read with the proper framework, and this framework is based around certain understandings of context, genre's, observations, etc.
In terms of context, we have the context of content and the context of culture. With content, we must read the surrounding paragraphs in order to understand the verse at hand. Our minds work in a whole-parts-whole manner, so we need to interpret the part in light of the whole. In terms of culture, we need to know the who, what, when, where, and why of the passage.
So going back to Matthew 18.20 noted above, we need to, at the very least, start at verse 15 and see that Jesus is speaking about a situation where a brother in the Church may need to be ex-communicated due to non repented sin and unchanging behavior. In this process, there needs to be two or three witnesses, and so Jesus is saying, if these witnesses and the Church are in line with Biblical teachings and find that this particular brother is turning his back on such teachings, then Jesus will agree with the two or three witnesses and "will be among them" in this ex-communication process.
In conclusion, here are a few more frameworks that anyone can implement in order to better understand The Scriptures:
> Use the two types of context: content and cultural
> Use OIA
• Observation (ask who, what, when, where, why?)
• Interpretation (what is going on then and there?)
• Application (How do we apply it here and now?)
> Understand the proper Genre of Scripture - just as we read newspapers, magazines, ads, announcements, articles, etc, we need to know Biblical genre's as well...is the genre historical narrative, law, wisdom, psalm, prophecy, apocalyptic, Gospel, or epistle (letter)?
> We need to interpret the New Testament in light of the Old Testament
> Be objective instead of subjective: Never ask, "what does this verse mean to you?" The better question is "what does this verse mean?"
Here are two really good books for gaining proper insight into God's Word:
How To Read The Bible For All Its Worth by Gordon D. Fee and Douglas Stuart
Never Read A Bible Verse - by Greg Koukl (FREE 20 page book from Stand To Reason)
Now of course, God IS Omnipresent and He is with you whether you are by yourself or if you are in the presence of others...So what's my point? Well many times, the aforementioned verse and a host of others, are taken way out of context. For instance, read alone and without a proper framework in which to understand it, Matthew 18.20 is sometimes used to say that we must have two or three gathered in order to know that God is with us...this is not in line with what the passage actually teaches, nor with what The Bible as a whole teaches. So what do we do?
To start, we must read in terms of a framework instead of simply pulling a verse out in isolation. Scriptural references and verse numbers are great, but think about it, in our own day-to-day conversations, we don't speak in sentence-by- sentence manner...we have a context of person, place, and time in which we say certain things.
In the same manner, when reading Scripture, we must read with the proper framework, and this framework is based around certain understandings of context, genre's, observations, etc.
In terms of context, we have the context of content and the context of culture. With content, we must read the surrounding paragraphs in order to understand the verse at hand. Our minds work in a whole-parts-whole manner, so we need to interpret the part in light of the whole. In terms of culture, we need to know the who, what, when, where, and why of the passage.
So going back to Matthew 18.20 noted above, we need to, at the very least, start at verse 15 and see that Jesus is speaking about a situation where a brother in the Church may need to be ex-communicated due to non repented sin and unchanging behavior. In this process, there needs to be two or three witnesses, and so Jesus is saying, if these witnesses and the Church are in line with Biblical teachings and find that this particular brother is turning his back on such teachings, then Jesus will agree with the two or three witnesses and "will be among them" in this ex-communication process.
In conclusion, here are a few more frameworks that anyone can implement in order to better understand The Scriptures:
> Use the two types of context: content and cultural
> Use OIA
• Observation (ask who, what, when, where, why?)
• Interpretation (what is going on then and there?)
• Application (How do we apply it here and now?)
> Understand the proper Genre of Scripture - just as we read newspapers, magazines, ads, announcements, articles, etc, we need to know Biblical genre's as well...is the genre historical narrative, law, wisdom, psalm, prophecy, apocalyptic, Gospel, or epistle (letter)?
> We need to interpret the New Testament in light of the Old Testament
> Be objective instead of subjective: Never ask, "what does this verse mean to you?" The better question is "what does this verse mean?"
Here are two really good books for gaining proper insight into God's Word:
How To Read The Bible For All Its Worth by Gordon D. Fee and Douglas Stuart
Never Read A Bible Verse - by Greg Koukl (FREE 20 page book from Stand To Reason)
