preaching become the norm, and character studies treat the heroes and heroines of the Bible as isolated examples of how to live. The old adage about a text without its context being a pretext needs reexamination. It is stating an important truth, but it urges upon us the question of what the context of any text is that stops it from becoming a pretext. The answer is not simple, but the bottom line is undoubtedly that the text is part of one unified word from God. The whole Bible is the context of
Page 16