Context Changes Everything

[00:00:17] Well, hello, this is Shannon Williams, and you're listening to Grace and Grit mindset podcast. [00:00:24] And thanks for showing up. Thanks for caring enough about your mind and your mindset and the way that you think, because you realize how important it is. If you are a person who has struggled with, I don't know, maybe you struggle with depression, maybe you've struggled with anxiety, maybe you struggle with keeping yourself in a mentally healthy state. This is the place for you. Because that is the struggle of my life. So what I have done here is I just really felt impressed by the Lord to just share with the people who maybe struggle as well to share with you some things I've learned along the way, some tips, some tricks, but also the word of God. Because honestly, it has been the word of God that's fixed my mind, but it's been walking with the Holy Spirit. It's those two things in conjunction and learning how to think like Him. That's really what's brought about transformation in my life. And it's not that I'm perfect, and it's not that I do it right every single day, but it's that when I do mess up, when I do fall, which is less frequent than it used to be, it's a quicker rebound. [00:01:37] I don't stay down as long as I used to. So that's a good thing, right? [00:01:43] So that's progress, and that's what we're after, is progress. [00:01:47] And I just want you to know that the Lord wants you to succeed. He wants you to have victory in this area. It is your birthright as a believer to think like he thinks, so that you can accomplish the things that he wants you to accomplish, that you can experience peace, you can experience joy, that you can experience the life that he has planned for you, that you can do the good things and the works that he has called you to, that he planned in advance, like Ephesians says that he planned in advance for you to do long before you were even born. And you can't do those things if you have a crap mindset. That's the truth right there. So, listen, if I sound bad, it's because I just got over Covid. I'm still getting over Covid, as a matter of fact, so bear with me. It was violently awful, and so it had me down for a couple weeks, which is why I'm a little bit late on releasing this episode. [00:02:44] So all is well, though, and appreciate your prayers and. And I hope that you do not have it, too. [00:02:53] So, you know, we've been in this series, which is so near and dear to me, about studying scripture and understanding how important it is to know the Bible for yourself. So many people's minds have been hijacked by leaders and cults have been started, entire movements have been started and so many people have been taken captive by teaching that is not doctrinally sound. [00:03:23] And people's lives have been ruined. I've given multiple examples of this in some of the past couple of episodes. So go back and listen to those where I talked about some, some prophetic voices, quote unquote, that were out there, that were charlatans and wolves in sheep's clothing and the sheep's clothing and they destroyed people's lives with false prophetic words. [00:03:46] But also just teaching things that weren't biblically sound. [00:03:50] And that is, you know, that's been going on since the creation of time really. But the Bible talks about how that's going to be really evident in the last days. There's going to be so much deception. So one of the things that I felt called to do was to really teach about that and to be a light that shines and that says, hey, we've got to get back to the Bible. We've got to get back to the words of Christ. We got to get back to what our founding fathers taught us in scripture about what, what is truth? What is absolute truth? And not always just listening to the next cool platform minister that's, you know, trendy and cool. And they, they just are just like, oh my gosh, this person is amazing and charismatic and charming and that's great. I'm glad they have such a cool gift or whatever. But is what they're really saying true? [00:04:45] Because it's, you know, it can feel really good to your flesh. [00:04:48] It's like itching ears. You want to hear that so bad, but it may not be truth. And if you're building your life on things that are not truth, it's going to crumble eventually. [00:04:58] And so we want to make sure that what we're building our lives on is truth. And really only you and the Lord can determine what's truth. [00:05:08] And I just want to spend a little time today we've talked about some different things that I think are important. You know, I think the first week we talked just about the importance. I can't remember exactly what the title was, but just the in general over overarching theme of this whole series. But then last week we talked about just a couple of a simple sound way of studying scripture for yourself, which is basically the Inductive Bible study method, which sounds scary, but it's not. [00:05:40] It's one of my favorite ways to study the Bible. It's really the only way that I study and doesn't mean it's right or the only way. It's just the way that I prefer to do it. And the reason I like it is because it is a very inquisitive and interrogative way to study, which really is what we need, because we need to be asking questions when we read. [00:06:01] We need to be asking questions about who, what, when, why, where, almost like an investigator would do. I think I would have made a great investigative journalist because I really, my brain is wired to ask questions. [00:06:17] And that's a good thing. You know, just like, why is, why is this person saying this? What are they trying to say? Who are they talking to? When did they say it? Where were they when they said it? Those kinds of questions are so important because what we're going to talk about today is context. I hit on this last week, but I just want to really camp out here a little bit today because context changes everything. [00:06:46] So context changes everything. And here is the kind of. The big idea of today is most misinterpretations, they don't come from bad intentions. They actually come from ignoring context. [00:07:00] Like, you know, if you only heard part of my sentence, and you only heard me say a couple of words out of my sentence, but you didn't hear the rest of my sentence, you might completely not understand what I'm saying and just base it off of, like, the news clips that are out there, how they'll take a couple of words that someone said and twist it, and then before you know it, it's completely false what they're saying, what they're reporting that has been said or done or whatever, and it's not even true. That's the same thing that can happen when we're dealing with, you know, know, like pulling a verse out of contact, applying it immediately, but never stopping to ask what was actually happening when it was written. [00:07:41] And so I want. I want today to show why context will protect truth, because that's exactly what it does. [00:07:48] So and so one of the reasons Scripture gets misunderstood, it's not because people don't love God, because I think we do love God. Most people, you know, that are studying the Bible or saved or whatever have a relationship. It's they love God, but they're not reading verses with the complete surrounding. And you don't have to be a theologian or Bible scholar to do that. Does it help to be educated? Yes, but actually it can get in your way. And I'll give you an example of this. [00:08:18] Education is great, and I value it a lot. [00:08:23] But when I was younger and I first started writing music, songs and lyrics, I didn't know what I was doing when it came to music theory. [00:08:35] I just knew that I would hear lyrics, but I would hear sounds music. [00:08:41] And I would sit down either at the keyboard on my guitar, and I would just keep fighting, wrestling that thing out, and I would just make up these. These chords. I really wouldn't make them up, but I would string chords together that I didn't know what I was doing. That's the best way to say it. I did not know what I was doing, but I found that I was like, oh, that sounds really interesting together. And it was kind of this really cool, mysterious thing. [00:09:08] But I wanted to learn more and I wanted to understand what I was doing. [00:09:13] And so I decided, you know what? I'm actually going to learn music theory. So some of the classes I took in college were about music theory. And it was great because I did learn and I began to understand. When I would go to write music, I would go, okay, I'm actually going to be a little more strategic, and I'm actually going to write in this type of way and do these things with the chords. And that was awesome. But, you know, it kind of took some of the mystery and some of the fun out of it, too. [00:09:38] So education, although I think it's great, it can also make things a little more sterile and not as fun. So I don't think that we should always think that. Oh, my gosh. In order for me to really understand the Bible, I'm going to have to go to school. [00:09:55] That's not true. I think the Holy Spirit, along with our mental faculties of being able to ask questions and do some of the things that I'm talking about right now, slowing down being the main thing. Everybody can slow down a little bit when they read, right? [00:10:09] But slowing down, asking questions in conjunction, a connection with, partnership with the Holy Spirit will be what probably unlocks Scripture, just setting aside time for it. God honors time, and he wants you to understand the scriptures. [00:10:24] He wants you to understand it. He doesn't want it to be and remain a mystery to you. The reason that he spoke in parables is because he wanted his people to understand it. Not the people of the world who didn't, weren't seeking him. It was for his people. So he wrote in these mysteries and riddles. So that we could understand it. It was like a code almost. [00:10:45] So here's something to think about when it comes to understanding and context. The Bible wasn't written in sound bites, right? It was written in letters. Think about this, letters from Paul, great example. [00:11:00] In our Bible, they're split up into chapters, but they weren't for him. They were just one big letter. [00:11:07] It was written in narratives, right? People told a story. It wasn't necessarily chopped up into different bits and pieces. It was one big story. It was poetic. Sometimes it was a big long string of poetry that someone wrote, or it was prophecy that wasn't necessarily split up, or it's historical accounts. [00:11:29] Those weren't sound bites. They were full contextual passages in the Bible. [00:11:35] And sometimes it was necessary. [00:11:38] And I'm going to jump into this in just a second when you look at Jeremiah 29:11, for example, to understand really what was going on in their moment of time. So that I'm done just plucking up 2911 and just using it in my own little cute way of, you know, for whatever I want it to mean in that moment. [00:11:56] So here's something important to know, is that every verse lives inside of something else. [00:12:03] It's not a standalone, right? So a paragraph, well, actually a verse lives inside of a paragraph, and the paragraph lives inside of a chapter, and the chapter lives inside of a particular book in the Bible, that book lives in a covenant, either new or old, and then that lives inside of a historical movement. So all those things matter. You know, when I'm reading this, this particular verse, what chapter am I in, what book am I in, what covenant am I in, and what historical movement am I in? [00:12:38] Because when I remove it from those things, it's going to lose context and it's going to remove some of the meaning. The meaning is going to begin to shift and it can become about more about what I want it mean as opposed to what it actually means. [00:12:55] This is going to sound. [00:12:57] I don't know, I don't know how to, how to phrase this in a way, but I just hear me out on this. The Bible was written for us, but not to us necessarily. So, yes, it was written to us in the grand scheme of things and at the end of all. Yes, but really those words a lot of times were letters written to a specific group of people, and we were not those people. Right. It was Paul writing to the Church of Corinth. It was, you know, Moses writing down the book of the Law for the Israelites. And we are on the backside of that reading it, but really was written for them. [00:13:37] And we, you know, understanding their situation helps us understand the instruction of why they would have said the things they said. But, you know, once we start to understand why they would have said that, then it. [00:13:48] The context of that will reveal to us things about God's nature too. So then we can apply it correctly. But not everything in the Bible is written the same way. Because when you're talking about genre, when I say genre, I think about music. [00:14:02] And it's very similar when you talk about literature as well. Narratives. Let's talk about different genres in literature. So you have narratives which tell us what happened. Think of story. Poetry uses imagery, prophecy uses symbolic language in epistles or instruction, much like what Paul wrote. So when people treat poetry like it's a command or it's a narrative or a narrative like it's a promise, confusion can happen, right? So when we take a specific genre like poetry and we try to turn that into, say, an epistle, that doesn't work very well, right? Because really, poetry is using imagery to. [00:14:49] Probably, for me, I use poetry to paint beauty or illustrate beauty, to illustrate something about God. [00:14:59] But that's not an instruction for people. I'm not trying to instruct someone. I'm trying to point them to God and his greatness. [00:15:07] So you have to understand those distinctions and the type of literature and that's in the Bible. So let's talk about quick examples of misused scriptures and verses in the Bible. [00:15:21] So, yeah, yeah, okay, I mentioned this a minute ago, Jeremiah 29:11. [00:15:25] So first of all, let me paint this picture for you. It was written to the Israelites in exile. [00:15:31] Not a universal promise of personal success. How many times have you been sitting in a conference or a church service or listening to a podcast or whatever someone is throwing out 29 11, and they're saying, for I know the plans I have for you. Plans to prosper you, plans to give you a future and a hope. And those are beautiful words, and I do believe those at the core, that that is the heartbeat of God. [00:15:59] But man, think about what they were living through. [00:16:04] Think about. Put yourself in the situation of I am exiled. [00:16:09] I'm not living in my home country. [00:16:12] I'm not living anywhere remotely near the level that I should be in. I am detached, I am broken, I am a slave. [00:16:28] I don't understand this. This does not match what you said my life was going to be, Lord. [00:16:34] But God gives them this promise. [00:16:36] And so for us to just say, oh, well, this is just all about me being Getting whatever I want. And, like, God's a genie in a bottle, and he's going to just give me whatever I want. That's not what this is about. [00:16:49] So we have to be so, so careful. [00:16:53] Philippians 4:13. [00:16:55] You know, let me pull it up for you real quick. [00:17:00] I'm so sorry that I don't have it pulled up. And please don't, like, jump off because you have to wait two seconds. [00:17:06] I know it's so hard to have to wait two seconds, but I don't want to get this wrong. By the way, if you're ever in after you get out of Acts, Romans 1st, 2nd Corinthians, and you can't remember what comes first. Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians. One of my instructors told me, go eat popcorn. Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians. Go eat popcorn. That was free. [00:17:38] Philippians 4:13. [00:17:41] Don't turn that off just because I said that. [00:17:44] And this is for. I know that I can do all things. I'm able to do all things through him who strengthens me. [00:17:53] I'm able to do all things through him who strengthens me. And we all have said this before, but what was Paul really talking about? [00:18:01] It was about enduring hardship, not about achieving a goal. [00:18:06] How many times have you heard people misused that? [00:18:09] And then people get frustrated when the end result doesn't happen. For them, it's because they misused the Scripture or they misunderstood it, misapplied it. [00:18:18] Matthew 7:1. This is where Jesus says, judge not lest you be judged. [00:18:23] It's not about never judging, but it's a warning against hypocritical judgment. This is where Jesus is saying, you know, take the log out of your own eye before you judge someone else. [00:18:36] So he was saying, it's not that you can't ever judge something, an action, but it's. You need to look at yourself first. Right? So people misuse that, too, because now it is. Oh, you're not ever supposed to judge anything else or say anything or ever, ever, ever. You just need to be quiet, Right? That's. That's the world we live in now. Don't ever rock the boat. Just shut up, Christian. Don't say a word. [00:19:01] So context doesn't make scripture harder. It actually makes it clearer, which is what we want. We want to have clarity when we're talking about Scripture. Because I don't. I can't obey something I don't understand, right? I can't obey words that I don't really fully understand. Then I'm just kind of wondering aimlessly, you know, I think that we have to be so, so super careful that we are living in this clear space of understanding Scripture. And the only way we can do that is if we actually study it for ourselves, which is what this whole series is about. [00:19:41] But I'm going to just look a little bit closer at Jeremiah 29:11. [00:19:46] So, you know, for. I know the plans I have for you. It's often used as a universal promise that God will give everyone prosperity and success. Success. I know you've heard it that way, but the context was God was speaking to the Israelites in the Babylonian exile. They were about to remain in captivity for 70 years. [00:20:03] So it wasn't immediate rescue. It was a reassurance that exile would not be the end of their story. [00:20:09] And here is where I want to land. And this is what it can mean for us, because obviously we're not in exile, thank God. [00:20:17] So how can I take that scripture to. That they had to live through. They were about to be sent into exile, but God sent them with a promise, right? [00:20:27] I'm not going to leave you here forever. I know what. I know what the plans are for you. I want you to hold on to this word. They were going to. Some of them were going to die there before they ever even saw this. This would have been a word for their children. Right? [00:20:41] So here's what I want us to take from that and apply to our life. Or you can think this through and pray about it. But what I gather from this is that God's faithfulness still applies, but the verse here is not a blanket promise of personal prosperity. What I see in this verse is that God's faithful to see me through to the end, to see me through for his promise to be fulfilled in my life, whatever that might be. [00:21:13] There is always. What I see here is there's a promise that he gives sometimes, a lot of times. And you can see this through Scripture. You can see this through Joseph's life. You see this through David's life. You see this through a lot of people's lives where something prophetically is spoken into their life before the hardship, before the suffering comes. [00:21:37] But the end result is the fulfillment of this promise. And I think God gives that to us. And here's the teaching point. Here's why context matters, because it's not about getting what we want. I know the plans I have for you. Okay, well, let me just open my hands and I just want abundance and prosperity. [00:21:56] No, this is about me holding on to God, when things in my life completely fall apart. [00:22:04] This is about me trusting God's plan. [00:22:07] Just like the Israelites had to do when they were exiled. And they had to remember back when God gave them this promise before they were ever even exiled. He told us he has plan. He has a good plan for us. [00:22:21] That's what this scripture is here for. That's what we can pull from. It is, oh my gosh, he does have something. In the end, at some point this is going to turn around. At some point he is going to make all things new. At some point he has a better plan and it's going to start to make sense and it's going to start to turn around. [00:22:45] And let's look at Philippians 4, 13. It's often used, right? We just looked at this. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. It's often used for achieving goals, winning games, accomplishing anything. The sky's the limit. I've seen people do use this scripture and they've got their little, their little vision boards out. [00:23:05] I've seen people write books about this stuff and something. When I read this, really, when I would see these people do this and I would try to get on board with them, but something in my spirit would be like, this is not what this means. [00:23:18] This is not about me accomplishing my dreams. That's not what living this Christian life is all about. I actually am supposed to die to myself. [00:23:28] That's actually what Jesus says. He talks about dying to ourselves and carrying, picking up our cross and carrying him. I mean, not carrying him. Guys, I still have Covid brain picking up our cross and following him. [00:23:43] So, you know, because it's misused this way, people don't understand that Paul is actually talking about enduring both abundance and suffering. Because if you go back and look at the context, he talked about how he knows what it's like to have abundance, but he also knows what it's like to have nothing. [00:24:00] He knows what it's like to be beaten. He knows what it's like to be blessed. [00:24:06] But yet through it all, he can do anything because he knows that it's Christ who strengthened me. He just said that he had learned to be content in hunger, in hardship and abundance. [00:24:16] So this verse is about endurance, not unlimited achievement. [00:24:23] See, because when you think about unlimited achievement, what I think about. Or I. I was going to say works of the flesh. And that could be true, but it's really more like the pride of life. It's really more like, hey, human advancement. I can do anything I can make this happen like the Tower of Babel. I'm going to build this thing. We're going to do this as a civilization. We can. Nothing can stop us. [00:24:48] That's not the way the Kingdom of God works. If you've walked with God any amount of time, you know, because you've tried to build things and they fall apart, right? [00:25:02] And you know that this verse is true. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me, which means, hey, I know that he strengthens me when I have everything I need, when I don't. I know that he strengthens me when things fall apart. I know he strengthens me when things come together and they're okay. I know he strengthens me when things are successful, and I know he strengthens me when they're not. [00:25:25] That's what he's talking about, the endurance to keep walking something out, whether they look good or bad. [00:25:31] Doesn't that completely change the context of this Scripture? [00:25:35] I mean, it's just. [00:25:37] It's shocking to me how misapplied Scripture is and how the teaching that's out there is just. It's scary to me. [00:25:49] Here's another one that we talked about a second ago. Matthew 7:1, Judge not that you be not judged. That's what Jesus said. [00:25:57] So how it's often used is Christians should never make moral judgments, right? We don't have the right to say something is a sin, basically. [00:26:06] But Jesus immediately said after that, first remove the plank from your own eye. He's condemning hypocritical judgment, not discernment. So what? What does that mean? [00:26:18] Later in the same chapter, Jesus tells believers to recognize false prophets by their fruit, which requires discernment. So he's talking about not judging other people without first looking at yourself, like constantly in judgment of other people, but never reflecting at yourself, never looking at yourself in the mirror and saying, hey, I got my own issues. [00:26:42] Because later in the same chapter, he's talking about recognizing false prophets by their fruit. [00:26:48] So really what he's talking about is looking at the fruit of someone looking at our own fruit, examining my own fruit. Is my fruit rotten? And sometimes it's hard to do that. It's hard. You know, we have blind spots, which is why we need each other, which is why the body of Christ is so important, because no man's an island. We can't live disconnected apart from ourselves and be healthy. It takes the true body of Christ, and we need that accountability. But the point here is that it's okay to make judgment calls about whether or not something is sinful, whether or not someone is a false prophet, because we can do it based on fruit. We're not judging the value of a person, we're judging the actions of a person. But we first need to look at our own actions, which is what Jesus said. [00:27:37] Let's look at. We haven't talked about this one, but let's look at Proverbs 22:6. [00:27:41] And this is. This will be our final one here. This is the scripture that says, train up a child in the way he should go. And this is how people often use it. And I've heard this my whole life. [00:27:51] It's often used as a guaranteed promise that faithful parenting will produce faithful children. Have you noticed that before? [00:27:58] The Bible says, trade up a child in the way he shall go, he will not depart. [00:28:02] But the context is that proverbs were wisdom principles. [00:28:07] They were not unconditional promises. They were principles. Just saying, hey, you know, this is generally a principle. If you raise your child this way, this usually will happen. It's just like wise, like it's better. [00:28:22] Here's the way I see it. [00:28:24] Your child has a much better shot if you raise them this way versus this way. That's the way I see this principle. Not, hey, this is 100% guaranteed. Right? They describe patterns of life, not guarantees, which is what I just said. [00:28:37] Many godly parents have experienced the pain of children making bad choices. So you can't make this assumption that if you follow this rule, it's going to happen. Why? Because people have free will. [00:28:51] Right? We can't control our children's decisions and actions. [00:28:55] We can do our very best to give them the best chance to make the right decision by implementing the best decisions, the best patterns, the best wisdom that we can give them. But they have a choice to make. And we can do a lot of praying. For sure. We can do a lot of praying because that's probably going to be the most powerful thing we can do. [00:29:17] Actually, I do have one more, and this would be it. So this is third John one and two. And I've actually even made. [00:29:25] Made this statement before. So I've got to kind of. Yeah. Eat my own words here. I pray that you may prosper in all things and be in health. So how it's often used is that proof that God promises. Listen. Proof that God promises financial prosperity and perfect health. [00:29:43] But he doesn't. The context that he was making, that John was making when he wrote this letter is that this is. This is a personal greeting in a letter from John to Gaius. And basically what he's saying, it's similar to what we would say in that, hey, I hope you're doing well. [00:29:59] It's. It's not necessarily a doctrinal principle. He's just saying, hey, I'm hoping that you're prospering and even in your health and in every area of your life that you're prospering. [00:30:11] Because a lot of people, a lot of teachers teach this as a, you know, you should be prospering in all areas. This is a principle of God, and, you know, every area. And I think God does want us to prosper in every area of our life. I'm not saying that. But to turn this into this whole teaching that God promises this, I don't know that that's scriptural. [00:30:38] What do you guys think? Love to know what you think. [00:30:43] So I'm going to leave you with a simple illustration, and I want you to just listen to this and tell me if this makes sense to you. [00:30:50] So I want you to imagine someone walked into a room, heard one sentence of your conversation, and built an entire story around it. So here's the example. Someone hears you say, I told him he better not come back. [00:31:02] Then without the context of what you actually said, it sounds aggressive, right? [00:31:07] But maybe the real conversation was, I told him he better not come back without that pizza. [00:31:14] Same sentence, completely different meaning, right? Because it's. Now it's a joke. I told him he better not come back without that pizza. [00:31:21] Sounds way different than, I told him he better not come back. [00:31:25] That's what happens when we pull verses out of context. [00:31:29] So I hope that this episode brings a little more light into context and that you're gonna jump into your Bible and read it. But read it to understand, slow down, get some context, even go back and get some commentary, maybe do a little historical digging. Understand who was writing, what were they writing about, who were they writing to historically, what was going on, what covenant are you and what letter are you in? That matters, too. Where's the time frame here? [00:32:02] All that stuff matters, y'. All. I hope that this was a fun episode for you. I had fun making it. [00:32:07] And hey, I just want to tell you real quick, I have my friends and I call. We are the spiritually well woman. We have a ministry that we put together. [00:32:17] It's been a couple years, but we were doing these a couple times a year. We do these retreats for women that we focus on our triune being. Just like the Father, son, and the Spirit is a triune being. We are triune as well. So body, soul and spirit. [00:32:34] And we have one coming up in May. We are so excited about it and it's going to be about crossing over, crossing the Jordan. And we've never been this way before. [00:32:44] And that kind of came from there's a scripture in Joshua where the children of Israel are getting ready to cross over the Jordan and they actually say we've never been this way before. And there's kind of this okay, Lord, we need you to go before us. We need you to lead us. And you know, there's a lot going on in our world right now and the Lord is calling us to this level of okay, he's brought us out of bondage. He's bringing us out of the bondage of Egypt. And now we are living in a new way. [00:33:16] And what does that look like? Because it's different to live in freedom. It's a whole different life and you have to be taught how to live in freedom. And so we want to help you do that. So if you want more information about that, I will put that link in my show notes so that you can check us out. [00:33:34] But we are going to have a blast. It is about two two nights, first weekend of May. I will have more information for you in the show notes. But until next week, I hope you guys have a blessed. [00:33:58] I know the cloudy shifting he's bringing the light and no hate the fire is burning.