We spend a lot of time talking about interpreting the Bible in context. But truth be told, the Bible is often interpreted out of context in some way. I’m not exaggerating. When you know what’s meant by “context,” it’s hard to think otherwise.
When most Bible-believers hear someone insist the Bible be interpreted in context, they usually presume the point is that whatever verse or verses they’re reading or the pastor is preaching about need to be interpreted in light of the verses that precede and follow. While that’s true, the verses before and after are just one context that needs consideration. Every biblical passage has multiple contexts. There is never just one context for interpreting the Bible.
The worldview of the biblical writers is a fundamentally important context in which the Bible must be interpreted if it is to be accurately understood. The proper worldview context for interpreting the Bible is not evangelicalism, Catholicism, the Protestant Reformation, the Puritans, or even the modern world. The proper context for interpreting the Bible is the context in which it was written—that of the ancient biblical writers. Every other worldview is foreign to the Bible. This means we must do our best to think as the writers thought.
Another context for interpretation is literary context or genre. A genre is a type of literature. Frankly, without knowing the genre, accurate interpretation of word meaning is impossible. For example, if we saw the word “descent” in a document, it would matter a lot if that document were a genealogy, a landscape architect’s plan, a flight instructor’s manual, or a doctor’s note about a grave illness. Those are all genres—kinds of writing. It’s easy to see how they dictate meaning. Just as today, there were many different genres used in the Bible by the writers.
Lastly, every word has its own context in relationship to other words. If you look it up in a dictionary, the word “run” has dozens of meanings. It can be a verb or a noun. We only know what part of speech it is when we see the other words around it in a sentence. That knowledge, along with other contexts, helps us comprehend the intended meaning.
All of the above and more is why I like to say we need to interpret the Bible in contexts. There’s more than one, and, collectively, context is king.