The Untold Story of the New Testament Church [Revised and Expanded] Quotes

“Context must be taken into consideration. Without context, we’ll routinely misunderstand and misapply Scripture, making certain issues binding that are no longer in force and vice versa. As a result, Christians have managed to build doctrines and invent practices that have fragmented the body of Christ into thousands of denominations, movements, and organizations, many of which have been at war with one another for generations.”
― Frank Viola, The Untold Story of the New Testament Church [Revised and Expanded]

“Proof-texting is the lamentable innovation of privileging certain biblical texts that support a certain theology while ignoring context and other texts that present a contrary view. Today, many Christians behave as if the mere citation of some random, de-contextualized verse ends all discussion on virtually every subject.8”
― Frank Viola, The Untold Story of the New Testament Church [Revised and Expanded]

“An ekklesia was an assembly of Jesus-followers.51 Specifically, an ekklesia referred to the assembled people who were part of the kingdom of God in a locality; hence, I use the phrase “kingdom community” or “assembly” to describe “church.”
― Frank Viola, The Untold Story of the New Testament Church [Revised and Expanded]