Context

Being in Mexico has allowed us the opportunity to see some things in the Lord that we might not have been able to grasp as easily had we not come down. One of them is the importance of context. Dictionary.com defines the word context as:

1. The parts of a written or spoken statement that precede or follow a specific word or passage, usually influencing its meaning or effect: You have misinterpreted my remark because you took it out of context.
2. The set of circumstances or facts that surround a particular event, situation, etc.

Two synonyms for context are: background, climate.

Jesus made reference to context when he said the following words:

"But the Father who sent me commanded me what to say and how to say it." John 12:49

Jesus knew the what and the how. The how was the context of what he was saying. Context is just as important as the words themselves. Jesus knows this and so does the enemy of our souls.

In the Spanish language verbs are more important than nouns. In English you use more descriptive words when speaking. Nouns, pronouns, prepositions, adjectives....they are all more liberally employed when speaking the English language and change more often than english verbs. In Spanish, the entire language is built around the conjugation of verbs. Here is an example:

Comprar is the spanish verb, to buy. And every time we use the word comprar when talking about me/myself, you, him/her, them, or us...the verbs changes in both spelling and pronunciation. And it continues to change whether you are speaking in the past, present, or future tenses. In Spanish there are five different sayings and spellings of all 600+ verbs in the entire language in the present tense alone. Here is an example.

•  Yo compro....(I buy)
• Tu compras...(You buy)
• El compra...(He/she buys)
• Ellos compran... (They buy)
• Nosotros compramos...(We buy)

Do you notice how the spellings of the verbs slightly change? Compro, compras, compra, compran, compramos........Five different forms of the word comprar (to buy) just in the present tense. And it continues to get more complicated as you get into past and future tenses. In the past tense you have two principal forms of verbs: Preterite and Co-Preterite. The difference is that a preterite verb indicates something you did in the past only one time: I bought a car yesterday. The Co-Preterite is when you speak of something that you did repeatedly over the course of time in the past: I bought cars at auctions and resold them for a profit  from 1990 to 2005.

In Engish we use the word "bought" in both the preterite and co-preterite in the preceding example. And.....we use the same word "bought" whether I am talking about Me, you, him/her, them, or us....in both the preterite or co-preterite. The Spanish language is totally different. In the preterite-past you have five different words/conjugations for comprar:

• Yo compré (I bought)
• Tú compraste (You bought)
• El compró (He/she bought)
• Ellos compraron (They bought)
• Nosotros compramos (We bought)

 In the co-preterite past you have four different usages/spellings/conjugations:

• Yo compraba
• Tú comprabas
• El/Ella compraba
• Ellos/ustedes compraban
• Nosotros comprábamos

 The same applies for the conditional, imperative, present subjunctive and imperfect subjunctive. Five different spellings/usages/conjugations in each form for all five (Me/I, you, him/her, them, us). It's unbelievable. And the thing you learn through all of this that when you are speaking this language you have to watch "how" you say things.

"For the Father who sent me commanded me what to say and how to say it." John 12:49

A primary example can be taken from above. In the present tense, when I say, I am buying a car, I say Yo compro un coche. But the word compro also sounds very very similar to the word compró. It is spelled the exact same way and sounds identical to someone who doesn't speak Spanish. The difference is the empasis on the second vowel. Compro is said with no emphasis on the second "o".When I say the word like that I am indicating to another spanish speaking person that "I am currently buying something, right now." But if I place a strong emphasis on the second "o" in the word compró, as denoted with a hyphen, I am telling the listener that a third party, either him or her, bought a car at some point in the past.

The entire story changes just with the accentuation of a vowel. Compro (I buy). Compró (He bought). Yet on the surface, to the untrained ear, they seem the same. Just a slight deviation in the sound of a vowel, in two words with the exact same spelling, changes the entire context of the sentence. There are many verbs within the Spanish language that have this issue. Adjustment of vowels with dozens if not hundreds of verbs changes the entire meaning of what is being spoken.

What am I saying through all of this? Spiritual words have a context. Context in a believer's walk is determined by what God has been saying to them and doing in them for years. If we don't let the Lord set things in context for us we will constantly misunderstand what he is saying. And if we don't let other members of the body of Christ explain themselves when expounding on what the Lord is saying through them, we will completely misunderstand what God is saying through them and/or doing in their lives.

Last week I had a conversation with someone that wouldn't give me any liberty to explain "context". Everytime the Lord went to explain the "how" she cut me off. She wouldnt' let me give context to anything I was saying. She kept using what I was saying out of context, using it against me and argued with me through most of the conversation. She was constantly opposing me even though I would try to explain things in context.

I was saying Compro very clearly and she would turn around and tell me I said Compró. She changed what I said in the conversation repeatedly and at the end of our time on the phone I realized the one I had been conversing with was not a person but a spirit.

There is a spirit that is working in the body of Christ and it is taking away the context of what God want's to say. It is happening to such a degree that God's voice is interrupted quite frequently. When truth is heard apart from context it changes the message. Out of context. There is a spirit at work in the Body of Christ that is distorting context and changing the words.

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