SEATTLE—The day began just like any other. Stacey Kipper, 20, opened up to her favorite verse in the Bible at a coffee shop near her dorm in order to Instagram her quiet time. Proverbs 31:25 reads, “She is clothed with dignity and strength, and she laughs at the days to come.”
“I was debating what kind of picture to go with today,” Kipper confessed. “Should it be of my hazelnut mocha latte and my Bible, or just the latte with, like, the verse as the caption?” Kipper then went into detail about potentially overlaying the verse on top of the picture when something happened that changed the rest of her aesthetic quiet time.
“I happened to notice that the highlighted, underlined, annotated [verse 25] had some words before it…and after it!”
Kipper then relays the inner turmoil which unraveled after reading verse 24, which instructs her to make linen garments and sell them. Or the harrowing verse 15, about waking up while it is still dark: “Like, sometimes I have to get up early if I’m greeting at my church. And one time, I woke up when it was dark because Chad asked me to go for a run with him. But every day?? That seems a bit much.”
Kipper was also confused by the necessity of buying a field (v. 16), and having strong arms (v. 17). “Yah, I’ve never had much upper body strength,” she bemoaned.
Now that several hours have passed since this jarring discovery, Kipper relates her current state: “I realized that if I kept it as my favorite verse, I would have to, like, change my life and do more than laugh in all my Instagram pictures.”
Kippers has not yet landed on a new favorite verse, but says Philippians 4:13 and Jeremiah 29:11 are in the running.
“I just want to pick one that can’t be taken out of context. I don’t want to be surprised like this again.”
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I draw enormous strength from verses taken out of context. Don’t mock the very real comfort they can give. :-/
I don’t think he mocks the strength of verses taken out of context at all honestly. He’s only reminding us to look at the verse both in and out of context in order to get the full meaning behind the verse.