Context is Everything

I recently listened to a sermon where the pastor cited a verse from a Christian inspirational calendar.  "All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me."  A beautiful sentiment- especially for those prosperity preachers.  But there is a problem- that phrase comes from Satan in his temptation of Jesus.  (Matthew 4:9).  You see, if you don't know the context, then you may misunderstand the true meaning. 

    

The importance of context has really been driven home to me over the past few weeks.  You see, I have become a bit of a Reformation Geek.  And one of the tenets that has been driven into me is "God alone is Lord of the conscience."  You find it in the Westminster Confession of Faith, Chapter XX (or XXII depending), paragraph 2 and you find it in The Baptist Confession of 1689, Chapter 21, paragraph 2.  Again, this sounds great- God is the Lord of my conscience- and I can do whatever I feel God is leading me to do.  

But then we come to context. In this case, that phrase is only part of the first sentence.  "God alone is Lord of the conscience, and hath left it free from the doctrines and commandments of men which are in any thing contrary to His Word, or not contained in it."  (Baptist Confession.  The Westminster Confession substitutes, "or beside it in matters of faith or worship" for the underlined clause).  In other words, we must pray to God for guidance and rely on our conscience only where the teachings and rulings of humankind are contrary to the Word of God or in some way are not clear.

   

Now, this means that you have to believe that the Bible is the Word of God- and I'll get into that in a subsequent post.