I was at Fuller Seminary, an evangelical seminary in Pasadena, CA. I got into a bible fight. This other pastor was spouting nonsense prosperity gospel things about Jesus. I looked at him and said, “Do you even know Jesus? You keep talking about this guy, and I don’t know him.”

This spawned a lot of emails exchanges afterward. He friended me on Facebook. And in his profile, there was a bible quote. “All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.” Makes sense for a prosperity preacher. Worship God, get healthy, wealthy, and wise.

This sermon is about context. If we want to understand the Bible and apply it faithfully, we have to read Scripture in its own context before we rush to make it speak to ours. God is still speaking, and often God speaks through Scripture by helping us see our lives, our assumptions, and our world more clearly.

The problem with that quote shows up the moment you put it back in context. I took a screenshot and asked where he got it. He said it was from the Bible, that he had heard it somewhere, liked it, and used it because this is what happens when you follow Jesus. For him he found leadership, community, blessing; who knows where God will stop? National leadership?!

Then I put the quote in context. We hear it every Ash Wednesday. After Jesus’ baptism, he goes into the wilderness to pray and fast. That is when Satan shows up to tempt him. In Matthew, this is the final temptation, and Jesus answers, “Away with you, Satan! For it is written, ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.’”

Luke places this temptation second and uses the word “devil,” which is another reminder that Scripture speaks with many voices.

The prosperity preacher was quoting Satan in his profile quote. That is why context matters. Just because words are in the Bible does not mean we can use them however we want. Scripture speaks truthfully when we listen to where the words come from, who is speaking, and what God is revealing through them.

And of course, he repented, said, “Oh wow, thank you!” and we’re best friends to this day. Okay. Sorry. I lied. He switched the quote to Deuteronomy 28:1[1], denied ever using the Matthew quote, and blocked me.

I just recently deleted the screenshot. Yet it brought a surprising yearning. I wish we could have followed Jesus’ instructions in today’s Gospel. Jesus knows there will be conflict, even among people trying to follow God. He says, “If your brother or sister sins against you, go and point out the fault when the two of you are alone. If you are listened to, you have regained that one. But if you are not listened to, take one or two others along with you.”

Then Peter asks a very human question, “How many times do we have to do this? Like 7? That seems generous.”

Jesus answers, “seventy times seven,” and then toss in a parable for good measure. A servant is forgiven an impossible debt, then refuses to forgive another servant who owes him far less. The forgiven servant is judged for withholding the mercy he had received. Jesus ends with the punchline: “So my heavenly Father will also do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother or sister from your heart.”

The point is clear: you have been forgiven, so forgive others. Treat others with the mercy you have received. In our context, we hear the slavery imagery differently from Jesus’ first listeners, and that difference matters. Our context does not erase the text’s meaning, but it does shape how we hear it.

Paul picks up this same theme of forgiveness: “Owe no one anything, except to love one another, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law.” He keeps reminding the church in Rome that grace is not just something they receive from God; it is something they practice with one another, especially across the old divide between Jewish and Gentile believers.

Paul writes, “let us walk decently as in the day, not in reveling and drunkenness, not in illicit sex and licentiousness, not in quarreling and jealousy. Instead, put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.”

In context, this is wise counsel. Out of context, it can become purity culture and self-hatred. “Make no provision for the flesh” has often been used to shame people for having bodies at all. But Jesus healed bodies, fed bodies, touched bodies, and even turned water into wine at a wedding. His own body was anointed with costly oil. So we have to remember who Jesus is before we weaponize Paul’s words.

Maybe in Rome there were patterns of excess: drunkenness, jealousy, quarreling, and relationships that caused harm. If so, Paul’s words make sense. But when we lift them out of that setting and turn them into abstract ideals, guilt can take the place of grace. Context helps us hear good boundaries without losing sight of love.

The same is true of our Psalm. Psalm 149 begins beautifully: rejoice in God, sing, dance, play the tambourine and lyre. Then suddenly the song turns into a revenge fantasy: praise becomes a two-edged sword, vengeance on the nations, punishment on the peoples, kings bound with fetters and nobles with chains of iron.

Yikes. And yet, in context, we can understand why oppressed people might pray that way. Israel knew the sword. Israel knew chains. Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Persia, Greece, and Rome all conquered or controlled them. The Psalm does not give us permission to crave revenge; it helps us hear the pain of people who longed for God to set things right.

And again and again, God frees the Hebrews. When a Pharaoh who did not know Joseph turned against the immigrant Israelites, Moses was called to lead the people toward the promised land.

Today we hear the instructions for Passover, a remembrance our Jewish neighbors still observe each year, and one Christians echo in communion where Jesus was observing the Passover meal. “This day shall be a day of remembrance for you. You shall celebrate it as a festival to the Lord; throughout your generations you shall observe it as a perpetual ordinance.”

Let’s put Passover in context too. And this may be the uncomfortable part: when we hear this story, we often instinctively place ourselves with the Israelites. And I understand why. We know what it is to long for liberation. We know what it means to cry out to God when life is hard. We want to believe that God sees suffering and comes to set people free.

But there is something uncomfortable about reading this story from where we actually stand. Most of us in this room are not slaves. We are not making bricks for Pharaoh. We are not immigrant laborers being exploited by an empire. We are, by and large, people who have benefited from the stability and prosperity of this country. We live in the empire. And so perhaps the harder question for us is not, “Where is Pharaoh?” Perhaps the harder question is, “Where am I Pharaoh?”

Where have I become comfortable enough with the way things are that someone else has to bear the cost of my comfort?

That is one of the disturbing questions this passage raises. The story tells us about the death of the firstborn, and we recoil from it. But perhaps we should also ask: Whose children are we willing to sacrifice for our comfort? Whose children can go hungry because our jobs pay well, and we don’t want our tax dollars going to people we have already judged?

Whose children can live with fear, poverty, violence, or exclusion because changing the systems that produce those things might inconvenience us?

Whose lives have we reduced to stereotypes so that we don’t have to see them as God’s beloved children?

I don’t think the invitation of Exodus is for us to congratulate ourselves because we know which side we’re supposed to be on. The invitation may be to let God lead us out of something, too.

Liberation means letting go of the assumptions we inherited. It means letting go of our stereotypes. It means letting go of the need to be right. It means letting go of a version of Christianity that keeps us comfortable but keeps someone else outside the circle of God’s love.

What if the thing God wants to pass over us is not judgment, but love? What if God is inviting us to release our grip on the things that keep us separated from one another?

Perhaps liberation is not only about God getting us out of Egypt. Perhaps it is also about God getting Egypt out of us. When we are willing to surrender the prejudices, assumptions, and comforts that keep others from experiencing fullness of life, we may discover something beautiful: There is enough freedom for all of us. There is enough love for all of us.

And the God who passed over the homes of the Israelites is still moving through the world, calling us toward a liberation in which no one’s child has to be sacrificed for another person’s comfort.

So this is what context teaches us: Scripture is not a weapon to prove what we already believe. It is a living witness that challenges us, corrects us, comforts us, and calls us into deeper love. When we read the Bible carefully, in its world and in ours, we become more able to hear what God is saying now. For our still-speaking God can be heard through the pages of Scripture, calling us out of fear, out of comfort, out of empire, and into the liberating love of Christ. Thanks be to God. Amen.

Footnotes

[1] Which reads “if you faithfully obey God and follow His commands, He will set you high above all the nations of the earth.”