Dear Lord; Happy Wednesday Father!<\/p>\n
Today Father, I\u2019d like to spend our time together talking about a topic You\u2019ve placed on my heart a lot lately\u2026<\/p>\n
Context.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Some time ago, I was interviewed by a local TV station.\u00a0 They were doing a story on a recent computer virus outbreak, and wanted to get my perspectives and recommendations to assist their viewers in recognizing and dealing with the threat.\u00a0 The reporter and cameraman came to my office, and we spent the better part of a half-hour discussing ways to protect against these digital infiltrations.\u00a0 Later on that evening when I turned on the TV to view the results of that interview, I was shocked by what I saw\u2026<\/p>\n The story had been \u201cchopped\u201d to less than thirty seconds of footage, which when removed from the context of our discussion made absolutely no sense whatsoever.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Needless to say Lord, I was a bit upset.<\/p>\n We live in a culture of \u201csoundbytes\u201d<\/em> these days Father; grabbing the \u201cflashy bits\u201d<\/em> in speech and print, and from them deriving uninformed, lazy, and blatantly errant opinions and positions.\u00a0 We\u2019ve lost the importance of context<\/span><\/em><\/strong> Lord, and that perspective has truly damaged us in many ways\u2026<\/p>\n Including the way we read and apply Your Word.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Since You opened my eyes to this Father, I\u2019ve begun to see how deep the rabbit hole really is.<\/p>\n The Internet, the media, the press and even the pulpit are filled with painful examples of this each and every day.\u00a0 In an attempt to make a point, defend an opinion, or stand in judgment of what we perceive as wrong, we search Your Word until we find and quote a verse or two that fits our needs\u2026<\/p>\n Without digging deeper to understand Your intended Truth in those words…<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Without YOUR<\/span> context.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n I fear we miss the Message for the words Lord\u2026 Much too often.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n And I won\u2019t lie Father\u2026 I\u2019ve been guilty of this myself.<\/p>\n While I try to spend as much time as possible reading, researching and absorbing Your Messages in Scripture Lord, I also know I\u2019ve used \u201csoundbytes\u201d<\/em> of Your Word outside their proper contexts<\/span><\/em><\/strong> more than once\u2026<\/p>\n It\u2019s a practice I\u2019ll be diligently striving to avoid in the future Father.\u00a0 \ud83d\ude42<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Help us Lord;<\/p>\n Open our hearts and minds to seek Your WHOLE Truth<\/span><\/em><\/strong> in Scripture, not simply the \u201cquotes\u201d<\/em> that suit our earthly viewpoints.\u00a0 Fill us with that Holy Message Father; make us vessels of Your Will, and ambassadors of Your Love.<\/p>\n In Jesus\u2019 name we pray,<\/p>\n Amen.<\/p>\n ~Phather Phil<\/p>\nPin It<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
![Pin It<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dear Lord; Happy Wednesday Father! Today Father, I\u2019d like to spend our time together talking about a topic You\u2019ve placed on my heart a lot lately\u2026 Context. Some time ago, I was interviewed by a local TV station.\u00a0 They were doing a story on a recent computer virus outbreak, and wanted to get my perspectives […]<\/p>\nPin It<\/a>","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2097,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[2837,359,2824,2820,2832,2825,1071,2827,2834,2833,2835,360,2829,2819,2830,2831,2821,2828,1358,2826,2823,2822,2836],"class_list":["post-2096","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-daily-emails-to-god","tag-ambassadors-or-gods-love","tag-bible","tag-computer-virus","tag-context","tag-digging-deeper","tag-digital-infiltrations","tag-emails-to-god","tag-flashy-bits","tag-gods-context","tag-gods-intended-truth","tag-gods-whole-truth","tag-internet","tag-media","tag-missing-the-message","tag-press","tag-pulpit","tag-quoting-the-bible-out-of-context","tag-rabbit-hole","tag-scripture","tag-soundbytes","tag-tv-interview","tag-tv-station","tag-vessels-of-gods-will"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/05\/Magnifying-Glass-on-a-Book-1-Cropped.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p18mMc-xO","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2096","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2096"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2096\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2099,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2096\/revisions\/2099"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2097"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2096"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2096"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2096"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}](\"http:\/\/pinterest.com\/pin\/create\/button\/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.phatherphil.org%2F%3Fp%3D2096&media=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.phatherphil.org%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2012%2F05%2FMagnifying-Glass-on-a-Book-1-Cropped.jpg&description=Inspirations+from+Phather+Phil+-+Missing+the+Message+for+the+Words\"){kind=link}