Hi breakpoint listeners. If you've been considering applying for the Colson Fellows Program, there's good news. We've extended the deadline two weeks until July 31st. The Colson Fellows Program is a 10-month worldview formation program for busy men and women in all stages of life. The program takes a deep dive into Christian worldview to equip you to live like a Christian right where God has called you.
But don't wait to submit your application. If you've been on the fence about the program, now is the time to jump in. Don't miss this opportunity to deepen your faith and sharpen your mind with like-minded Christians around you. If you have questions, we've added two more live informational webinars on July 17th and July 23rd, hosted by Michael Craven, Vice President and Dean of the Colson Fellows Program. Find out more at colsonfellows.org.
That's colsonfellows.org. Uh Welcome to Breakpoint, a daily look at an ever-changing culture through the lens of unchanging truth. For the Colson Center, I'm John Stone Street. Recently on X, the Department of Homeland Security posted a video that featured immigration enforcement officers riding in Black Hawk helicopters and toting rifles to a cover of Johnny Cash's song, God's Gonna Cut You Down. A narrator then quoted Isaiah 6.8.
Here am I, send me. Democratic Congressman Jakeem Jeffries utilized a similar biblical hermeneutic just a few days later. Quoting from the Gospel of Matthew during his record-breaking speech attempting to delay the passing of President Trump's big beautiful bill, he said this, quote, for I was hungry and you gave me something to eat. I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink. I was a stranger and you invited me in.
I needed clothes and you clothed me. I was sick and you looked after me. I was in prison and you came to visit me. According to Jeffries, this passage is about government assistance programs. It's not just in U.S.
law, he said. It's right here in Matthew. As Christian statistician Ryan Burge recently pointed out in a post on X, there has been empirical work that demonstrates just how both the right and the left, and I quote here, emphasize Bible verses that reinforce their own political perspectives while conveniently ignoring the context of those verses. This kind of selective proof texting points to just how widespread and deep biblical illiteracy actually is. In addition to an ignorance of the actual content of the Bible, there's widespread ignorance about what the Bible even is and how Christians throughout the ages are to use it.
It's bad when this ignorance shows up in politics. It's even worse and sad when it shows up in our churches and Christian subcultures. Who hasn't seen a verse of the day calendar that overlays a single motivational Bible quote on a field of flowers or a sunset? Long before the DHS misused Isaiah 6.8, thousands of church conferences and short term mission trips have, with Here am I, send me printed on banners and T shirts. Often missing is Isaiah's near death experience and repentance beforehand, not to mention what God actually sent Isaiah to do.
which was basically to fail as a prophet before he was eventually sawn in half. But much of Christian publishing, Christian music, and maybe the majority of Bible studies today are inflicted with the same bad habit. Christian bookstores are full of Bible promise titles filled with decontextualized verses meant to directly apply to the reader. But how many books of Bible curses are there? though the Bible also includes those.
How many Americans in the habit of verse plucking will gladly claim Deuteronomy 28's national blessings, but won't read on about the national curses for disobedience that directly follow? How many Bible studies focus on the question, what does this verse mean to you, before ever truly wrestling with What does this verse mean? For years, I led a session for Christian school leaders entitled How Not to Read the Bible. But of course, the point was never to take the Bible out of anyone's hands. Rather, it's to help us know and understand this essential way that God has chosen to make himself known to us.
Rather than treat Scripture as a fortune cookie, we have what Peter called the prophetic word more fully confirmed. More confirmed than what?
Well, astonishingly, people Peter wrote that the word of God is more sure than his own experience with Christ on the Mount of Transfiguration.
Okay, a simple, effective way to understand scripture is to ask where the verse in question fits, within the chapter, within the book, within the Testament, and within redemptive history as a whole. Who was speaking and why? For example, it's best not to quote an observation about God or life out of the middle of the book of Job. Where Job's friends are, and I'm quoting God here, quote, darkening counsel using words without knowledge.
Now of course answering all those questions will always require that we read more than just a single verse. Also we should always ask where a passage fits within the four act drama of the whole story of Scripture. Seeing the Bible's larger movements from creation to fall to redemption to restoration, decenters ourselves and our stories from the text and re-centers God and His story. That will also require that we read the Bible not in isolation from other Christians and not in isolation from Christian history. God's Word, like the Christian faith it reveals, is personal, but as Peter goes on to say in the same passage, it is not private.
The Bible tells the story of God and his world.
So we must ask, where do I fit into it? Not so much, where does it? into my life.
Now none of this means that the Bible ought not be personally applied or for that matter brought into policy discussions. Rightly understood, the Bible speaks to all of life. What we have to be careful to do is to bring the Word of God to our discussions rather than bring our opinions masqueraded as Bible verses to them. After all, unlike our political class and way too many inspirational calendars, God has not revealed Himself. In Little Sound Bites.
For the Colson Center, I'm John Stone Street with Breakpoint. Today's Breakpoint was co-authored by Shane Morris. If you're a fan of Breakpoint, leave us a review wherever you download your podcast. And for a version of this commentary that you can print out and share with others, go to breakpoint.org.
