After almost half a century as a Christian, and after 47 years in vocational ministry making a serious effort to understand and teach the Bible, I realize more than ever that all wrong Bible interpretation stems from ignoring biblical and historical context. You can make the Bible say almost anything you want to by isolating verses from their context.
For example, I could easily persuade any new Christian—using the Bible alone—to become a Universalist, a Calvinist, a false- or hyper-grace proponent, or a flaming legalist. In every case, all I would need to do is take advantage of the new Christian’s ignorance of the whole Bible and point out selected proof texts.
Let me share an example of a very common scripture passage that is misused by Christians of many stripes, often to support less-than-balanced doctrines:
“For My thoughts are not your thoughts,
Nor are your ways My ways,” declares the Lord.
“For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
So are My ways higher than your ways
And My thoughts than your thoughts” (Isa. 55:8-9).
Countless times over the years I have heard this scripture quoted as if it applies to Christians: “God’s thoughts are not our thoughts, and His ways are not our ways. So don’t expect to make sense of my pet doctrine, based on five verses, that seems so strange.” Or, “God must have had some reason we can’t understand for allowing that terrible tragedy to occur. But His ways are higher than our ways.”
But was God, speaking through Isaiah, addressing people who were born again—or even people who were trying to follow Him? The prior verse gives us the answer:
“Let the wicked forsake his way
And the unrighteous man his thoughts;
And let him return to the Lord,
And He will have compassion on him,
And to our God,
For He will abundantly pardon.
For My thoughts are not your thoughts,
Nor are your ways My ways,” declares the Lord (Isa. 55:7-8, emphasis added).
Context changes everything. God is clearly speaking to backslidden people who are following wicked ways and thinking unrighteous thoughts. Therefore, Isaiah 55:8-9 does not really apply to people who are submitted to the Lord, learning and striving to follow His ways and think His thoughts—which He has already revealed to us from Genesis to Revelation. In fact, the passage didn’t even apply to faithful Israelites in Isaiah’s day who were studying and striving to obey the Law of Moses, since God “made known His ways to Moses” (Psa. 103:7).
This, of course, does not mean we understand everything or that there are no mysteries about God. There certainly are. Paul, writing to Christians, said, “For we know in part and we prophesy in part” (1 Cor. 13:9; see also 13:12). Still, followers of Jesus “have the mind of Christ” (1 Cor. 2:16).
God gave us 33,000 verses in the Bible. If our interpretation of any verse contradicts scores of other verses, that is a clear sign we are interpreting it wrongly. Can I get an “amen” out there?
