Context is Key in Both Mathematics and the Bible

By Darla Butterfield April 28, 2024

Last night as I was spending time in God’s Word before bed, I was reflecting on the verses I had learned in my childhood. I was an overachiever, happily earning that next star on the Sunday School memory verse chart or another badge for my sash for Missionettes. As a result, God has used those verses in my life, bringing them to my mind at just the right time to encourage me.

Along with memorizing Bible verses in my childhood, I also loved math (and I still do). For some reason, I just enjoy the order, perfection, and beauty in mathematics. I like that there are answers in math, even if the answer is “no solution.” In studying to become a math teacher, we would look at formulas that we all had memorized (such as the quadratic formula) and discuss how to derive it. While I previously knew how to use the formula, I didn’t grasp its real meaning until I learned where it came from.

As I’ve spent more time in God’s Word, reading through books of the Bible at a time or understanding the whole of scripture through a chronological reading plan, I’d come across those verses I had memorized from my childhood. Suddenly a depth to that verse would hit me that I never saw before because now I read the context in which that verse resided. I realized who wrote it, who the audience was, and what book and chapter it was in helped frame that verse in a new way that I had never seen before. The verse on its own held meaning, but when I saw the context, it brought that verse to life, and I understood it so much better!

Here’s a challenge for you today: Look up a verse you have memorized, or one that’s written on your home décor or that you’ve seen at Hobby Lobby and read the chapter that it’s in. If you have a study Bible, look at the pages before that book of the Bible and read some of the information that it gives for the author and audience. See how that information grows your depth of understanding of that verse! Allow the Holy Spirit to speak God’s Truth to you today through His Word!

And for any other math nerds out there, feel free to explore how to derive the quadratic formula by solving ax^2 + bx + c = 0 by completing the square.

“Mathematics is the language in which God has written the universe.” - Galileo Galilei