For what reason do you cite this Scripture?

A very common phenomenon in online dialogue is to cite, or reference a Scripture with no further comment. You'll see it all over the place, and I often get it on the Bible Brain Facebook page. I regard this behavior as fundamentally flawed, because it is significantly less helpful than it might seem.

When I first wrote this post, I initially chose the comment blotted out by the red as my example. This comment was left on a post I made about Romans 11:25-29, and how it refutes Supercessionism. She didn’t address the argument I made. She didn’t make one of her own. She simply stated “From Romans 9:”, and proceeded to quote verses 6-8.

Now, as it happens, I’m familiar with the individual in question. I know what her position is, and I'm now painfully familiar with how passionate she is in its defence. I am also familiar with the position itself, and how its defenders typically interpret that verse. Basically, I knew exactly why she left that comment. But let’s suppose I didn’t. What would quoting the verse do?

I’ll put it this way: You cannot interpret Romans 9 in isolation. It must take Romans 11, which was the original topic of the post in question, into account. In fact, it must take into account all relevant Scripture. This is the shortcoming of many views. They’re based on a few scattered verses, but they fail to account for context. This is called “prooftexting”, and it’s how we end up with a wide variety of doctrines, denominations, and diversity of thought within them.

One problem with prooftexting is you end up taking it for granted. That is, you become so convinced that your favorite verse proves you just assume the mere citation (or in some cases, even just a reference) of the verse will instantly defeat any case given.

Scripture itself shows the flaw in this. Throughout His ministry, Jesus regularly referred to the Scriptures, but He also expounded. He never just took it for granted that merely referencing Scripture would solve the problem. Rather, along with the Scripture, He would explain how it suited the point He was trying to make.

The irony is, if I was unfamiliar with the person who made this comment, I could easily have assumed she was genuinely agreeing with, and adding to, my point. After all, I genuinely do argue (though for sake of this article, I won’t) that Romans 9, in light of chapter 11, genuinely does support the points I made about Romans 11. On the other hand, if I just randomly assumed she was disagreeing with me, I wouldn’t have a clue exactly how. The verses she cited wouldn’t affect the points I made, nor would they provide an alternative view.

To drive this point home, consider the other three examples. Unlike red girl, I was entirely unfamiliar with the others. I didn't have a clue who they were, what they believed, or what point they sought to make. In fact, for some of them, I don't even remember the content of the posts from which I took the screenshots. I don't remember what we were talking about, or why we were discussing those particular Scriptures. So, literally the only thing it makes sense to say in response to a Scripture quote is “amen”.

Which of course, I typically do. When it comes to the Bible, there are only two possibilities: A. I already believe it, or B. I want to. But we need to understand the concept of bias. Even from the outset, no one is truly neutral. You can be more neutral, but there is a minimum amount of bias with which we will interpret any text. So, by human nature, even if a person is completely wrong about Scripture, the mere citation of it isn’t going to suddenly undo that bias. Correcting an erroneous view of Scripture requires a coherent flow. “Here’s how this word ties to that one.” “Here’s how this verse shapes the outcome of that one.” “Here’s where translation issues make a difference.” “You’ve added an anachronism here”, “you’ve re-defined a term there”, “your particular denomination is hanging far too much weight on this particular phrase”. So on and so forth.

Basically, fill in what’s missing, cut out what’s added, match case with case, and connect the disconnected. Otherwise, all you really end up doing is pitting Scripture against Scripture. For obvious reasons, that’s a wee bit problematic… And this goes for anything, not just the examples I've used. I’ve often wanted to make this post, because one of the most common questions I’ve ever had to ask running theology pages is “for what purpose have you cited this verse”? It hinders progress that could easily be made if it had been answered in the first place.

AI usage

Photofox AI was used to create the background behind the screenshots in the header image.