The phrase, “I know this is out of context, but…” is an interesting phrase you really only hear at bible colleges. Yes, sometimes you hear them outside of college, but rarely. But it’s really quite a unique saying. It essentially means:
After careful [or casual] research on this particular passage of scripture, I have come to the unavoidable conclusion it doesn’t mean what I want it to mean. I want it to have something to do with the point I’m about to make. This is because I want to appropriate some of God’s authority for this point. It’s a really good and valid point, but if I state it under my own authority, it’s all bullflop; but under God’s authority I can make you obey me, the great and holy Preacher Almighty. But it doesn’t actually mean that. So, as a caveat to the biblical scholars (and anyone else who might actually have turned their bible to this passage in order to verify what I’m saying) I will admit it doesn’t mean what I want it to, yet misuse it anyway. I know there are standards, but screw ’em. I have a message to preach, and I need to ram the point home with some scripture.
You might’ve heard the variations of this: “It doesn’t exactly mean that, but…” or “People have used this passage to mean…” or “Many have interpreted this passage this way…” or “The biblical principle behind this passage is…”
Oh yeah, you gotta love that phrase “biblical principle.” I’ve heard this so often it’s nauseating. You know what “biblical principles” are? Teachings of men that require extensive proof-texting before we can call them scripturally valid. It’s as if the bible were in secret code, and the very words aren’t as important as its hidden, mysterious “principle,” which you wouldn’t know about unless you had a wise, cabalistically-trained preacher to show you the way.
These phrases never really sunk in until I taught junior high. It was my first year, we were on a camping retreat with the students, a fellow teacher was slapping together his devotion for the evening (an hour before he had to present it; that’s another rant), and he asked me, “Where in the bible does it say, ‘Where there’s no vision, the people perish’? I’ m g onna talk about how the kids need to have a vision for their lives.”
“Somewhere in Proverbs,” I said. “Hang on, I’ll find it.”
He couldn’t find it because he had an
“I was gonna use that verse,” he said.
“You’re gonna have to find a better one,” I said. “It doesn’t mean what you want it to.”
He used the verse anyway.
He read from his translation, then he said, “In the King James version, it reads, ‘Where there is no vision, the people perish,’ and that means…” and he proceeded to go along with his mini-speech about how the kids need to make plans and set goals for their lives, otherwise those lives would suck. It was a complete disregard for what the scripture—in his favorite translation!—said.
I confronted him later. “Yeah, the verse didn’t say that,” he admitted, “but I was actually preaching the biblical principle behind it, which is still good.”
Biblical principle, my pasty white heiney. He didn't have time to do his homework, and has no verses to prove this idea (valid as it may be) is an actual biblical concept, so he twists a scripture into saying it. What’re the kids gonna think if any of them actually study this verse?
’Cause you know some of them will. How often have you heard this testimony: “In summer camp, a speaker said something that really struck me,” followed by a verse? Now, how often have you heard them add, “But later I found out it didn’t mean that, and I realized every preacher I ever knew had lied to me, so I stopped going to church and now I’m agnostic”? I’ve heard that second thing much less often… but I have heard it. Too often.
The kids are either gonna think it’s okay to likewise twist scripture, or they’ll think the teacher was trying to deceive them. If we’re lucky, they’ll rightly deduce he was full of crap. If we’re lucky.