It deeply distresses me when people read the Gospels lacking any notion of their historical context. Without a knowledge of the politics, society and culture of the world of Jesus, it’s impossible to truly understand them. If we approach the Gospels as if they’re free floating, unmoored in time and place, we reduce them to an ambiguous collection of wisdom statements that can be interpreted however we like. We’ve all run across the bigots who spout Bible verses out of thin air to support their own personal prejudices. “An eye for an eye,” in one breath, and “turn the other cheek,” in the next. Worse still is the scourge of presentism, the practice of viewing the past through the lens of the present, which is especially dangerous when interpreting scripture. Jesus becomes whatever we want him to be at the snap of a finger. He’s akin to an Instagram influencer dispensing personal advice on how to live our lives. To truly understand the scope of Jesus’s ministry and his teachings we require more than isolated pronouncements. We need context.
The Gospels Need Context
