It’s All About the Context

As we listen to the rant and rave of news, reporters, talking heads, and headlines, we notice the snappy language being used to grab our attention. Regardless of the words that might arrest our forward motion, the context of the information is often left out of the story. For me, the heading should support the statement. Or, at the very least, it should summarize what the writing is all about. Connection! For me. It’s all about the context.

Equally, when I peruse the news online, it’s a mess when the stories seem to shout a heading, then do not reveal the words to support the headline. Or, multiple stories using the same phrase and its difficult to sort out the truth.

We do the same thing when we quote someone.

The words sound poetic, righteous, or even down right brainy. But wrap the paragraph, page, chapter, section, or even title of the writing into place, and you wonder how such sage sounding advice can be garnered from the whole. Whether you pick the bells tolling from John Donne’s writing, or the lovely woods from Robert Frost, you extract a phrase, or thought, and it speaks spellbindly solid.

Context

To understand context is to ask for the idea that is spoken, and then deciding if the resulting information equals the statement.

Context: the circumstances that form the setting for an event, statement, or idea, and in terms of which it can be fully understood and assessed.

If I take any saying from any communication and make it the central thought, does it support the whole? Or, am I simply extracting a nugget for use elsewhere and for different reasons? I may not want to take the author’s statement out of context and make it say something it was not saying, yet, I may take the statement and write something totally different, headed a different direction, and simply use the words as a framework for my own ideas.

After all. They are just words I found that speak to me a certain way.

But I cannot say this is what the author was intending on saying.
I don’t want to take it out of context.

We Take Things Out of Context

Quotables, and from which we want to build doctrine and framework to life. Such as John 3:16. We think of God as Love because of this scripture, but put it into context and we find that His coming to this world brings condemnation for those who love darkness. At that moment, there is no hope for many unless we can expose them to the Light of the World. (John 8:12) When this light is gone, then you and I become the Light of the World (Matthew 5:14)

So, for the world to know a God of Love, the context of reality is that His Love is found through you and me. We are not a candle under a bushel basket! Rather, we are on a candlestick where we can give light to all! (Matthew 5:15, Mark 4:21, Luke 11:33)

In a section of his writing to Ephesus, the Apostle Paul speaks of the unity in the body of Christ. At least, that’s what the heading in my bible says. To put that thought into context I must investigate all the words and analyze the heading with the body.

About mid-way through, the apostle pens these words.

but, speaking the truth in love…
(Ephesians 4:15 NKJV)

Think about it. The context of the heading must be supported by the body of work. If Unity is the subject, then one guiding light is to speak the truth in love.

If we speak, then we must listen.
Hence, we must listen to the truth with love. Context.

Now, pay attention to all the other words of the chapter. Don’t take this one idea out of context. In order to build a full framework of Unity sounding words and actions, there is more to the subject than these six words.