Proof-texting or Wise Application?

I thoroughly enjoyed this lengthy David Powlison article from last month:

Are you using that text well? Or are you proof-texting?

Here is just a snippet to encourage you to click through and read it all:

Proof-texting can also happen when Christians seek to help and encourage other strugglers. In principle, wise biblical counseling will seek to unfold the specific, wide-ranging relevance of Scripture to life’s problems. But when someone “throws a Bible verse at a problem,” the criticism of proof-texting is just. Scripture is not being used wisely.

Let me give an example of how the same Bible text can be used either in a proof-texting way or in wise application. The phrase “Trust the Lord” is the deepest of all wise counsels. (The Scriptures call, invite, and command us to trust God in a hundred different ways. And God’s show-and-tell gives innumerable reasons to trust him. And the sins and sorrows of life are such that trust in God is our only hope.) But these words can be misused by “proof-texting” with a person who is struggling. Most of us have heard or overheard someone saying to a struggler, “You just need to trust the Lord,” as if that were all that needs to be said or can be said. Usually, more needs to be said for the relevance of this sweetest of counsels to be understood. Consider how this call, command, and exhortation can be used in a richer way that avoids the pitfall of “proof-texting” …

… Or consider how Proverbs 29:25 puts things: “The fear of man lays a snare, but he who trusts the Lord is safe.” This sentence orients us to one of the heart’s instinctive disloyalties (we tend to take our cues from the opinions of other people). It orients us to the negative consequences of a false trust (life gets very complicated, tangled, and confused). It orients us to the Lord as the person in whom we will find flourishing and safety (the backdrop of promises and revelations of God in the rest of Scripture). And, by implication, many other significant factors can be reckoned with in learning how to take this passage to heart, e.g.,

• the particular people or situations that you find difficult or intimidating,
• the particular destructive emotions, thoughts, words, and actions  that come forth when you misplace your core loyalty,
• the particular ways that faith can now respond constructively to intimidating people and situations,
• an understanding of your past that illumines when, how, and where patterns of fear of man became fixed characteristics,
• an ability to anticipate future situations so that you can wisely and prayerfully plan how you want to respond,
• the reasons for exceeding joy and gratitude as your Savior and Lord works to set you free of crippling patterns of fear.

 

The application of this call to trust the Lord becomes meaningfully located in your entire life context.

So, should we proof-text? No. But should we orient our lives to proof texts? Yes and amen.