“The LORD said: Because the daughters of Zion are haughty and walk with outstretched necks, glancing wantonly with their eyes, mincing along as they go, tinkling with their feet, therefore the Lord will strike with a scab the heads of the daughters of Zion, and the LORD will lay bare their secret parts.
In that day the Lord will take away the finery of the anklets, the headbands, and the crescents; the pendants, the bracelets, and the scarves; the headdresses, the armlets, the sashes, the perfume boxes, and the amulets; the signet rings and nose rings; the festal robes, the mantles, the cloaks, and the handbags; the mirrors, the linen garments, the turbans, and the veils. Instead of perfume there will be rottenness; and instead of a belt, a rope; and instead of well-set hair, baldness; and instead of a rich robe, a skirt of sackcloth; and branding instead of beauty.”
—Isaiah 3:16-24
Did you know that there’s a Bible quote saying “Jesus be cursed”?
That got your attention.
But you probably know where I’m going with this — when we read the Bible, just like when we read any text, we shouldn’t just look at a few words or phrases and ignore everything else. If you do, you might misunderstand what’s going on.
That’s the case with our quote here that says Jesus be cursed. If you just look at this phrase and ignore everything around it, you might think the Bible just suddenly forgot that Jesus is the Son of God. But no, the full sentence is: “I want you to know that no one who is speaking by the Spirit of God says, “Jesus be cursed,” and no one can say, “Jesus is Lord,” except by the Holy Spirit” (1 Cor 12:3). See how that works? When we focus on just one small part while ignoring everything around it, we misunderstand the bigger idea. But when we look at the stuff before and after one particular sentence, that could change the meaning of the sentence. This is what we call context. If you want to understand the Bible when you’re reading it, context is key.
So with the context tool, let’s look at today’s passage. If you just look at the passage itself, you might think something like: God just really hates pretty girls with jewelry. How do I avoid this? Maybe I should dress differently. Maybe I should pay less attention to my looks. Maybe I should act more holy, and do more church-y things.
Maybe. But doesn’t the Bible also praise beauty? Hasn’t God created many things to look beautiful? Think about sunsets, clouds, mountains — and yeah, some people just naturally look nice. Has God just not made up his mind about beauty?
Ok, let’s apply our context tool here. Today’s passage was spoken by Isaiah — Isaiah was sent by God to speak to God’s people, telling them to turn away from their sins, to remember God, and to get ready for their comfortable world to disappear, to be replaced by a lot of suffering; but at the end, God would save his people.
Now how about today’s passage? Why is God picking on girls who wear nice clothes? Well — context! — look at the stuff before verse 16: God also speaks against the leaders of his people, the rich and powerful people. God accuses them of mistreating the poor and the weak, of stealing from them and stepping all over them just because they can.
And then God speaks out against these girls in fine jewelry, which is today’s passage. Do you see how looking at the context changes things? After looking at the context, now the message isn’t God gets mad if I dress in a certain way; the message is God gets mad when his people mistreat each other, stepping on the weak, taking from them and making themselves rich, and showing off this wealth; God gets mad because no matter how many times he tells us not to do this, we still do it.
But context doesn’t just mean what comes before, but also after — look at a few verses after our passage today, and God promises that he will save his people after punishing them, and he will be with them again. God gets mad when his people mistreat each other. But he won’t stay mad at them, because he loves them. And if you want proof of that, look at how God sent his Son Jesus, hundreds of years after today’s passage was written — Jesus was treated badly, he was murdered, but he paid for the sins of all people, and brought us back to God by being raised back to life.
Do you see how context changes everything? Today’s passage isn’t about us, and what we can do to make God not mad at us. Maybe we might think about what our clothes and behaviour say about our hearts. But the deeper message is about what God is like: he’s not a God who just gets mad when he sees girls dressing nice, he’s a God who stands by his people always, even when he seems far away — he gets angry at his people when they sin, but it’s to discipline them so that they’ll turn away from sin, because he wants to be close to them.
That’s how we should be reading the Bible. Not chopping it up into bite-size chunks, not making it say what we want it to say — because it’s not about us. It’s about knowing God more, and knowing just how much he loves us, and why that’s the best news you could ever hear.
And that is how context changes everything.
Remember, My Lord 
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