Stop Cherry-Picking Scripture: When Bible Verses Taken Out of Context Become Doctrine
Updated: 2 days ago
We all do it. We pick verses. That in itself isn’t a bad thing. I’ve got verses tacked all over my office walls for references and research. The issue comes when a verse is cherry-picked, yanked out of its context, and treated as a complete thought or command, and is used to fuel an opinion, personal agenda, or doctrine that’s not Biblical. Then everything else around that verse is conveniently ignored. That’s the problem here.
How We Got The Two Testements
1445 — Mordecai Nathan
Jewish teacher who divided the Old Testament into either chapters or verses (can’t figure out which for sure). Long before that, though, scribes were already making divisions in the text to mark sections for teaching or public reading.
1205 or 1227 — Stephen Langton
He was a professor and an Archbishop, credited with the chapter system we currently use today. He added chapters to the Latin Vulgate.
1244 & 1248 — Hugo of Sancto Caro
He was the first person believed to have attempted to divide the Bible into chapters (thinking this was for the NT, by the sounds of it). He did this twice while revising the Latin Vulgate, and in 1236, he also gave us the first concordance.
16th Century — Back to Langton
His chapter arrangement was put into Greek manuscripts of the New Testament sometime during this period.
1551 — Robert Estienne
He was the one who numbered the verses within the chapters, and they were printed in his Greek New Testament edition.
1553 — Hebrew Bible — Robert Estienne
Here we get the complete French Bible (OT & NT) printed with chapters and verses.
1557 — Geneva Translation
First complete English New Testament translation with chapters and verses.
1560 — Geneva Translation
We get the full English Bible (OT & NT) printed with chapters and verses.
That is definitely not the complete history. But I’m not burning more brain cells on Google today.
Why The History Lesson?
Because it was people who applied chapters and verses only to assist in studying and teaching both the Old Testament and the New Testament. It was not done to permit people to pick one line, slap it on a bumper sticker, and die on that hill.
All the writers, all their words, were inspired by God. He wouldn’t hand us this incredible book just for us to slice it into isolated fortune-cookie quotes. And nowhere did Jesus ever say, “Yeah, just ignore the Old Testament now.”
The Old Testament didn’t die when Christ died. To prove that point, when Jesus was teaching and reading, guess what He was referencing and reading from? The texts we call the “Old” Testament. Also, so did the apostles after Christ died.
God’s Perspective
God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit are outside of time; humanity has time because we need it, God doesn’t. He doesn’t see “Old” and “New,” like we do. He sees only His words on paper.
Words that are interconnected between books written decades apart from each other. He saw what was written before His Son came and died for us, and what is written afterward.
His one complete message to us.
And We Should Too
The more I study, the more I come to see these complex interconnections within the entire Bible, and the absolute need to not die on any cherry-picked hill that leads to unbiblical doctrine or teachings. We are to lead the world to Christ by example. So when you’re busy out there cherry-picking, why can't an unbeliever? You just fed them their permission.
Think about what that looks like from the outside. An unbeliever watches one Christian quote a single verse to win an argument, then watches another Christian quote a different single verse to win the opposite one. Both walk away certain. The unbeliever concludes the book can be made to say anything, so why take it seriously? That is not a failure of the Bible.
It is a failure of the people handling it.
That history lesson above points to the fix. Chapters and verses are an index, a way to find your place on the page. They were never the message. The message is the whole book, one story from Genesis to Revelation, and God sees it as one.
So when you find a verse, read the paragraph above it and the paragraph below it. Then ask what the rest of Scripture says on the same subject. If the verse still says what you thought, good. If it does not, better to find that out now than to build a doctrine on it.
You cannot hang your entire theology on a handful of cherry-picked verses, use them to justify sinful behavior, unbiblical teaching, and personal agendas, and still expect to stroll through the pearly gates. The Bible is and always was one complete book. Read it that way, and let the people watching see you do it.
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