Do You Have An Open Mind?

Do you read things in context? Do you try to understand the heart that pumps the blood and life into an author’s work? Do you constantly criticize things while you’re reading them and match them up mentally to what you already believe and discard any thought that seems to threaten what you believe to be true?

One of the things I’ve been learning about lately is context. Specifically biblical context. I’ve always heard growing up ‘don’t take verses out of context.’ Sure, that’s all fine and dandy, but what does taking things out of context mean? Well, I’ve been learning about taking verses out of context by making an effort to read things *in context*.

As has been evidenced by some of the debates on my blog, I also have been learning the importance of what I term ‘interpretive framework.’ You come to anything you read with certain patterns of thought and certain philosophical assumptions that you take for granted. This is great and necessary, but highly dangerous when you don’t realize it’s happening.

It is important, I think, to come to anything you read with an open mind, ready to be taught. When you read a book, don’t read it critically (i.e. trying to find fault with it). Open your mind, open your heart, and try to get to the heart of what’s being said. What’s the message and heart of what’s trying to be communicated through the writing? Don’t get hung up on little things that are wrong, but read with grace, and read to understand and to broaden your own perspective.

I see a tendency in people to read things from an interpretive framework. I think people (myself included, though I try as much as I can to fight this tendency) compare what they read to what they already believe, and if it doesn’t match up with what they believe, they discredit it and criticize it. Most people aren’t after the truth. Even though it seems people like to think that the seek the truth, they don’t let anything shake their interpretive framework, transform it, or grow it. They’re ideologically stale. People don’t want to be wrong. I know I don’t.

What I’ve been trying to do is set aside my assumptions as much as I can and read things from the author’s interpretive frameworks. I try to understand what he’s saying and why he’s saying it. Now I know I’m still learning to do this, and it is, by the way, a very challenging thing to do. But I think it’s a healthy thing to do.

So what does this have to do with context? What I’m beginning to discover is that ‘reading the Bible in context’ entails reading it with an open mind. And I think everything needs to be read in context; in other words, everything you read you ought to read on the author’s terms. Try to see through the things you think you disagree with. Have an open mind ready to be taught and showed wrong.

You can take anything ‘out of context.’ If you’re quoting things apart from the intention of the author, you are taking something out of context. When you detach your eye from your body, it becomes lifeless and useless, and not able to fulfill it’s purpose. When you take a single verse out of the a book of the Bible without understanding the intention of the author in the book, it becomes lifeless and useless and cut off from it’s purpose. It loses it’s meaning and power. When you take a sentence or a paragraph out of a book or writing without understanding the author’s heart and message and intention, you do the same thing.

Obviously there’s a place for being critical. But that’s not my point. You could criticize this very post and say ‘well, but someone *could* be wrong and I shouldn’t just accept everything everyone says. Truth is objective, not relative.’ Amen and truly. But have you heard a single word I’ve written thus far? That’s not my point. Open up your mind. I’m no relativist. If you read my blog at all, you know that.

Do you have a heart that seeks after truth? Are you afraid to be wrong? Are you constantly critical as you read things while failing to make an effort to understand the underlying messages and intentions of the author? Are you closed to growth and transformation? Do you have an open mind?