The Rest of the Story

Con­text is every­thing. Words by them­selves only carry fif­teen per­cent of the mean­ing. The con­text con­veys the other eighty-five per­cent. A word by itself is but the tip of the ice­berg. Using words hon­estly is an eth­i­cal issue that dates back to the Gar­den of Eden. As the story goes, the Evil One put a spin on the words given to the orig­i­nal cou­ple — and dis­torted the mean­ing. Respond­ing to that caused a world of ills. The same thing con­tin­ues to hap­pen. Lying is sel­dom the out­right prop­a­ga­tion of false infor­ma­tion, it is merely giv­ing infor­ma­tion out of con­text in an accusatory tone.

When the woman caught in adul­tery was brought to Jesus, the verse about ston­ing such a per­son was quoted. Jesus quoted the fol­low­ing verse (and thus the big­ger con­text). “Let him who is with­out sin cast the first stone…” One by one, the peo­ple dropped their stones and went away. Jesus did not con­demn the lady but encour­aged her to leave her life of sin. In the big­ger pic­ture, none of us are in any place to judge the rest of us. No one is with­out sin.

Tell the whole story. Include the back­ground to the scene. Truth is a pretty big pic­ture. All sorts of the­olo­gies have been born of “verse-plugging” (tak­ing verses ran­domly from the Bible and using them as proof-texts). In the Temp­ta­tion of Jesus, Satan quoted the Bible. Any­one can take verses from the Bible out of con­text to “prove” any­thing. It is ter­ri­bly dis­hon­est.

The “rest of the story” (a phrase used by a pop­u­lar radio per­son­al­ity) takes time and research. It takes dis­ci­pline. In the end, it has a bet­ter shot at the truth. No one is totally defined by a sin­gle action. His­tory is not just a few out of con­text events. It is a story cast in the con­text of the whole. “Sound-bite” cul­ture does not do well with this. Things have to be con­densed to get them across in a “hot” media form. In doing so, the truth suf­fers.

The greater con­text to “water­board­ing” has to do with three thou­sand peo­ple being crushed and burned to death on 9/11. The part is not the whole. This is not a polit­i­cal state­ment, but it is a reminder of the greater con­text of any sit­u­a­tion. The Bible can be made to look like a story of end­less con­tra­dic­tions, or it can be pre­sented in con­text. The same is true with your life. No one action totally defines you (for this rea­son I resist the ther­a­peu­tic move­ments that define peo­ple by their addic­tions or their trau­mas).

The con­text of the aver­age human being demands a world of infor­ma­tion. “Judge not that you may not be judged” is a pretty good place to start. Our lives include all that ever hap­pened to us, and all that we ever thought or did. God alone eval­u­ates some­thing so grand.