A conference and a challenge.

This weekend, Marj and I attended a Family Life Marriage conference at Northern Hills. I left with a lot of mixed feelings.

Let me first tell you that the conference was quite good. It dealt with communication and the road blocks that are put up that inhibit communication. The longest married couple had been married for 40 years, the newest for 10 weeks with at least one engaged couple there.

---

One thing that struck me as we were going through the material was how easy it is to pull scripture out of context. I'll use some examples here...

I remember seeing the picture of Jesus standing at a door, poised to knock. This is based on Revelations 3:20.

“Look! I stand at the door and knock. If you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in, and we will share a meal together as friends. (New Living Translation)

Typically, this is used as an evangelism tool. That is not, however, the use that was intended for that verse. In fact, it is quite the opposite. That verse is stuck at the end of a passage that John wrote to the church in Laodicea. This is asking the people of that church to get rid of their apathy.

The question I have been dealing with is the ethics of using a verse out of context. This is something I see being done all too often.