Just When You Thought It Couldn't Get Any Worse!

        RING! RING! . . . . . . . . . . RING! RING! . . . . . . . . . . RING! RING!

"Hello."

"Congratulation! You have just won $1,000,000 in the Publisher's Magazine drawing. We need your bank savings account number to deposit your winnings."

OR

"A distant relative has recently passed and you are the sole beneficiary to his $5,000,000 estate. All we need is $2,500 in a Gift Card or a Pre-paid Debit Card to pay the filing fees and registration fees so you can receive your legal inheritance."

OR

"We will be in your neighbor and can offer you 75% off our gutter cleaning service."

In addition to the innumerable spam, scam, robo or telemarketer calls, you now can expect a call from a friendly, neighborhood Jehovah's Witness looking to put in his door-to-door hours. But since Covid 19, JW's are not going door-to-door so they have resorted to texts, emails or phone calls. And what does the opening line of the text, email or call  sound like. Well it is similar to what a  Witness did say when you answered your door to their knock--Pre-Covid. For instance:

"I'm glad to write this text. I'm sharing with my neighbors an encouraging thought from the Bible."

OR

"I am calling to share with you a positive view of the future. I have found that the Bible is very helpful in his respect."  

No matter the opening, the objective is always the same, "I am writing this letter to offer you a free home Bible course. Here are some topics that we could discuss. Which one especially interests you?"

WHAT IS WRONG WITH A WT BIBLE STUDY? In a WT “Bible Study,” you will sit down, not with the Bible but with a WT book that you will read from cover to cover. Your Bible will be used as a reference book—to look up a verse now and then. As you progress through the WT book, page by page, the WT will tell you what the Bible teaches and then will direct you to read a verse that ‘proves’ what they have just told you. At the bottom of each page are some questions that you answer by re-reading the paragraphs on that page. After you have finished with the WT book, you are very familiar with WT doctrine but not Bible doctrine.

The Books of the Bible, of both the Old and New Testament, were originally written as continuous text, without chapters and verses. The early Christians eventually assigned the text to chapters and verses, to make referencing easier. The Jews found this innovation useful and followed suit in the Hebrew Bible. To properly understand the Bible, one needs to read it as it was written—as continuous text—not broken up into verses and parts of verses. The WT kind of study prevents one from reading the verse in its context. Why is context so important?

First, because a text (verse) taken out of context is a pretext to teach anything—no matter how un-Biblical. I remember this absurd example, but it shows the importance of reading and knowing the context of any Bible verse. If you read part of Matthew 27:5, Luke 10:37 and John 13:27 you get, “Judas hung himself--go and do likewise--whatever you do, do it quickly.” Is that what those verses teach? How would you prove otherwise? Simple. Read each book where each verse is found.

Second, the context of a verse determines its meaning. As an example, what does the word “trunk” mean?—the rear of a car, the long nose of an elephant, a big container for old clothes or part of a tree. The correct meaning of “trunk” will only be known when you know the words around it, for the words around “trunk” give “trunk” its correct meaning. A verse in the Bible is the same. If you pull a single verse out of its context, you will likely not understand its correct meaning. A verse is given meaning only by the verses around it.