Quoting Scripture

I keep returning to the concept presented by Dr. Fewell in my OT class, that the Bible can either be a tool or a weapon. The more I reflect on this statement, I am grieved by how many people use it as a weapon. I think back to our days in childhood, when Sunday School teachers and Bible Study leaders encouraged us to selectly memorize scripture - just a verse here or there and always absent from its original context. A friend and I have had an ongoing email conversation this week about what the ramifications of dwelling on the context of verses especially when applied to praise and worship songs written strictly from a pulled verse that leads to a praise song that isn't theologically or Biblically correct.

This issue really came to a head for me last evening when an aquaitence was throwing out verses about things she was passionate about, but at the same time was complaining about her very Godly parents. Her select verse memoirzation had apparently left out "honor thy mother and father."

But we are all guilty of this, pulling out verses to support what we think is correct, what we think is true, what we want to fight for and forgetting that the entire Bible has truth for us. That's why we need to spend time in it daily, not merely being sustained by memory alone.