Context is everything: Every time we study our bibles it is imperative that read with understanding concerning the source of every word. The word of God is just that, the word of God. Not Paul, not Peter, not Matthew, Mark, Luke, James or John, God. This is really a struggle for many who have not study the origin of scripture. The bible is either the word of men who have written vainly to find God, or it is the Word from God to man that contains all we will ever, in this life, need to know God, and His will for us (2 Peter 1:3).
Fact is the the latter is true, for God wants us all to have unity of the faith (Eph. 4:1-6), and that can only be done if we learn and apply the scripture rightly to our lives (2 Tim. 3:16-17). True faith, “real faith”, comes only by hearing the word of God (Rom. 10:17; John 6:63).
With these truths in mind, we must understand that each time we study, we do not have the right to “privately interpret” (2 Peter 1:19-21, cf. 2 Tim. 3:16-17). Context is everything, and of the plethora of false teachers the preponderance of them exist because of not “rightly dividing” scripture which results in “proof texts”. First written by Dr. Donald A. Carson, professor of New Testament at the Trinity Evangelical Divinity School is the statement, “A text without a context is a pretext for a proof text”. He wrote this to his own father a Canadian minister. This exactly defines most bible teachers, and preachers today, simply put it is applied to anyone who teaches doctrine based upon one scripture. All scripture must harmonize or “we”, not God, are mishandling the text, and more often than not–to our own advantage, and to our own destruction (2 Peter 3:16).
As we do our study (2 Part) in this lesson, and every lesson, we need to keep this fundamental truth that we don’t become guilty of false teaching.
In this lesson from the third chapter of Peter’s first letter we will study the importance and application from the fact that Jesus set an example for all Christians. “For Christ also suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring [a]us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive by the Spirit,” (1 Pet. 3:18). He suffered once, died with a purpose, to bring us to God—to restore us and bring us into a relationship with the Father. We will see that in the spirit, Jesus through Noah preach in Noah’s “to the spirits in prison, 20 who formerly were disobedient“. We will teach with context inclusive to all scripture, and dispel just three examples of the false teaching that has been launched from this scripture such as Jesus went into “hell” and preached to the dead, or Jesus preached to the fallen angels who were cast out for disobedience, and that Jesus pridefully preached to the lost His proclamation about His victory.
Finally, we will contextually study the words of Peter concerning baptism, that it is meaningless if it does not include the heart, “an answer of a good conscience toward God“, (v.21).
Scripture only edifies, only works when it all fits together. When we teach or preach outside of context we are teaching in vain, and that is not why Jesus suffered on the cross.