Dividing the Audience

...rightly dividing the word of truth. – 2Ti 2:15

In conscientious Bible study, it’s important to not only note who’s speaking, but also to whom they are speaking. Too much emphasis on a Bible speaker, without consideration to the immediate audience that he/she was speaking to, will only lead to wrong conclusions and applications from that passage.

The most notable example of this error of course would come from the teachings of Jesus.  There’re fanatical church (cult?) groups today that consider ONLY the words of Jesus to be inspired and as such, only read the ‘red letter’ sections of the New Testament. This, of course, is clearly ridiculous because one cannot crystalize comprehensive and substantial doctrines on Jesus’s words alone.

Nevertheless, we sometimes share in this extremism when we say things like, “Look at that verse, as you can see, it’s printed in red, so it has to be important.” Granted they may be important (ALL the words in the Bible are important), but we also need to ask, “Important to whom?” To someone deliberating suicide, the RED phrase, “What you will do – do it quickly!” (Jn 13:27) is clearly not a ‘word of Jesus’ that you want to quote.

Just as we cannot apply the words of Jesus spoken to Judas (ibid.) to ourselves, we must also factor the direct audience of every of His words; reminding ourselves as we read that his immediate audience were firstly Jews (Mat 15:24), people under the law (Mat 5:17-48), and most importantly, not Born Again (Heb 9:16,17).

The words of the epistles, however, have a more binding effect and relevance to us; because they were written to Believers and regenerated persons. This is why it is hard to find a cult that justifies its aberrant teachings exclusively from the Epistles.

Beloved, the Bible is not a repository of quotable quotes and sound bites. Each text and passage must be read in its original context, factoring the speaker as well as whom their words were originally directed to, and then applying the truth found therein accordingly.

AMEN.

More Blessings await you today; you’ll not miss them in Jesus’ Name.

GREG ELKAN