No one wants to be left behind!....Or do they?

Two of my favorite themes in teaching is to consider, at all

times, context. Virtually all errant teaching that has entered the church has come from snippets of verses or an entire verse or two taken out of context and allowing it to shape our theology. But, as important as context is (some call it "king"), it goes hand-in-hand with knowing the full counsel, the entirety, of Scripture. Ignoring either can be devastating to our understanding of who God is and/or to our understanding who we are. 

Combine a lack of context, the absence of the full counsel and another pitfall, reading with preconceived notions about what it says, and we get potential disaster. 

Think not? Try this little experiment. Look at Mt 24, a great passage in which Jesus talks about the end times. All the familiar key words and images are there; tribulation, abomination of desolation, false prophets, Jerusalem surrounded by armies, flee to the hills. Then we see this set of verses:

Matthew 24:40 Then two men will be in the field; one will be taken and one left.

41 Two women will be grinding at the mill; one will be taken and one left.

42 Therefore, stay awake, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming.

Now, answer this question, honestly, "Do you want to be left

behind?" Take a minute to think about it....

Most people today will say, "No! We all know being left behind is a bad thing!" (with strains of DC Talk playing in the background and the whole series of novels on our bookshelves)..."You've been left behind!" We scream, "No! Wait! I want to go with everyone else!!" 

Not so fast there, Rayford.

Take a look at the preceding verses to see the context of the "left behind" verses:

Matthew 24:37 For as were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of Man.

38 For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark,

39 and they were unaware until the flood came and swept them all away, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. 

The first thing we notice is that the passage is about the flood...yes, that flood. These verses tell us the wicked people were the ones swept away in the deluge. Noah and his family were the ones left behind!  Reading on in the passage we see images of a thief coming to steal, take away, and a master returning to preserve and reward the faithful servants who will stay with him. So...for this passage, do you want to be left behind with the master...or taken away by the thief? Would you rather have been left behind with Noah, or swept away?  

Pop theology fits nicely onto a bumper sticker

We have to be careful not to let pop-theology have an undue influence on our understanding of Scripture. Then, we need to read far enough ahead of a passage, or continue reading beyond it, until we can determine context. Finally, we need to be, at least, familair with the full counsel of Scripture, not just our passage. The Bible is God's self-revelation to His children. If we're not familair with all of it, we're not familair with all He wants us to know about Him. 

If we don't make objective reading of the whole Bible, in context, a discipline, we are in danger of worrying that we don't get left behind when that just might be God's greatest blessing for us.