THE BIBLE IS an incredibly complex book, one that can be read and studied for a lifetime. After all, how does one adequately tell the story of God? Even memoirs and biographies can’t say all that could be said about a human life. So how do finite human beings speak of the divine, using finite language to describe things that are beyond imagination? The Bible comes to us as a collection of writings spanning many generations and different genres, and each genre has its own style. There is historical storytelling but also poetry, parables as well as prophecy. There are broad lessons of wisdom for all God’s people, but also specific words of pastoral encouragement written for particular communities — like the letters of the apostle John.

A yearly Bible-reading plan that takes us through the whole Bible, cover to cover, can expose us to all the different genres, opening us to the whole world of Scripture. That’s good. The challenge, though, is that it’s difficult to get a clear grasp of the Bible in bits and pieces. As we’ve studied 1 John, for example, we’ve seen repeatedly how important it is to read verses in context. When a letter is written between people who already know each other, a lot of mutual history is taken for granted by both the sender and recipient. Readers like us, centuries removed from the interaction, need to pay close attention to what’s said in the letter as a whole to understand what’s being said in specific verses. If we don’t pay proper attention to the social, historical, and literary context of a verse, it’s too easy to import our own meanings into the text, making John say things he probably never meant to say, and stamping our sideways interpretations with the authority of Scripture.

This is also part of the reason that people find contradictions in Scripture. And don’t get me wrong: while I firmly believe in the trustworthiness of the Bible for teaching us about God, that’s not to say that I or anyone else could give a universally accepted answer for every textual puzzle put forth. My point here is simply that sometimes what seems to be a contradiction between two teachings is partly the result of misinterpretation, and that such misinterpretation comes from reading verses out of context.

For example, consider the verses we just studied from 1 John:

If you see any brother or sister commit a sin that does not lead to death, you should pray and God will give them life. I refer to those whose sin does not lead to death. There is a sin that leads to death. I am not saying that you should pray about that. All wrongdoing is sin, and there is sin that does not lead to death. (1 John 5:16-17, NIV)

John, again, distinguishes between sin that leads to death, and sin that does not. When these verses are read in the context of the letter as a whole, as well as the historical situation that gave rise to the need for such a letter, he seems to be talking about the sin of the secessionists. Their rejection of the truth about Jesus cut them off from eternal life and is thus the sin that results in their death. The sin that does not lead to death may therefore be beliefs or behaviors by some of John’s readers that resembled those of the secessionists. The difference? These people still believed the truth about Jesus. Pray for them, John tells the community. Their sin is not to death, but they’re not living the kind of life that God wants for them either. For their sake and the sake of the community, pray for them.

That, I think, is a reasonable reading of John in context. Moreover, if we take John’s words out of context, it may sound like he’s contradicting the apostle Paul. John says, “there is sin that does not lead to death.” But in Romans 5:12, Paul says that “sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned.” That’s how he begins his discussion of Jesus as the Second Adam. The first Adam sinned through his disobedience, and his sin was passed down through the generations to all humanity. Jesus, as God in the flesh, as the Second Adam, lived as a human being without the disobedience of the first Adam. Thus, while death comes through the disobedience of the first Adam, life comes through the obedience of the Second Adam.

In Romans 5, then, Paul clearly states that death is the result of sin. Shortly thereafter, he gives another well-known statement to that effect:

For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Rom 6:23)

So if death came to all humanity through the sin of Adam, if the wages of sin is death, then how can John say that there is sin that does not lead to death?

The context of Paul’s words is different from the context of John’s. Paul is teaching a theology of sin and redemption, but John is writing a letter of pastoral encouragement. The two aren’t opposed, of course, but these are different purposes. While Paul writes about sin and humanity in general, John writes to encourage a specific group of readers, so that they will be reassured that they do in fact have eternal life because of their belief in and commitment to Jesus.

There is nothing Paul says in these verses that John would disagree with. Paul is absolutely right, John might say. The wages of sin is death; without the gift of life in Christ, death would be our only eternal destiny. But beloved, we also have to recognize something very important: just because someone is a Christian, just because they have eternal life, that doesn’t mean they no longer sin. The good news is that their sin doesn’t necessarily mean that they’ve forfeited eternal life. The bad news is that their sin prevents them from living with the fullness of life in Christ that God wants for them. So if you see your brother or sister sinning, pray for them! That’s the loving thing to do.

And somehow, I imagine that Paul prayed for his communities in just that way.