I agree with the author of the article; this is something I have been harping on for some time now with our church.  When leading a "Sabbath School," I refuse to follow the lesson, but rather facilitate an inductive study on a portion of scripture.  I've actually been fighting for even more focus.  I'd like to work through a book of the bible at time, rather than following a topic or skipping around the bible.

Don't assume that a quoted scripture is taken out of context -- the individual quoting may have studied the scripture properly and is using it correctly.  Upon hearing a quote, study it out.  Also, applying the knowledge gained is the reason why followers of Jesus study the bible.

I can't believe it!  I typed in a whole long response here (and I thought it was good) and it disappeared when I tried to post it.  So I will try again although I am afraid this will not be quite like the first one.  So, I was talking about quoting from the Bible to substantiate current day arguments.  I first need to say where I am coming from.  I was raised Methodist.  I married a Catholic and we raised our children Catholic.  Now, getting to quoting the Bible to substantiate current events.  I believe you have to be very careful.  I believe the Bible is a comfort to most people.  It is a comfort to me.  It is even a comfort to me to hold the Bibles that my mother and my grandmother used to read.  But, I also believe that basically the Bible is an historical document.  The Bible provides our basic Christian beliefs and we try to live by the Ten Commandments.  But, after that it is mostly an historical document.  I think we get into trouble when we try to take quotes from the Bible and apply them to today's minutia.  When we had the discussion about whether or not buying health insurance was good stewardship Chris mentioned that Jesus did not talk about insurance and my response was that he did not talk about the internet or blogs either.  That does not mean they are bad.   I don't think you can just make arguments on whether or not something that is unique to today was not in the Bible.  I guess I am a very simple person.  I try to live a Christian life, I try to do no harm.  I am basically content.  I don't like to over complicate things and over analyze things.  So when you try to apply a certain passage to some peculiar modern day event it does not make sense to me.  If you want to quote general Christian principles that makes more sense.  So, not sure I have made my point.  If not, then I will try again.  Otherwise, I see the Bible as a great source of comfort to a lot of people, I see Christian values applied to every day living but without having to find a quote from the Bible to justify every bit of minutia that we might have qualms about.  Making sense to anyone?

One thing I left out was comparing law to the bible.  We don't need laws for every little thing.  We need basic laws and they need to be applied to situations.  The same is true with the Bible.  We need to be able to apply the basic teachings of the bible.  We don't necessarily need a quote from the bible  for every little thing to prove or disprove a current day conundrum.  Apply the general concepts of good Christain living to your everyday life. 

I more or less agree with you on your comparison to the law.

Did you think my work on Joseph was stretching the use of the bible?

Is it a story to make a point about forgiveness and reconciliation; or, is it a story to warn us of taxation and becoming slaves?  Are you applying it too literally?   Read the last 4 paragraphs of this link.  I think it more describes what I have been taught about the story of Joseph. 

If I understand correctly, you are suggesting that the account of Joseph is merely a story -- not historical.  If it is merely a contrived story from which to take a single moral, then it would be dangerous to deduce anything beyond that moral.  However, if this is an historical account (my view) then it is valuable for understanding many things.

My study of the account of Joseph uncovered the impact of taxation policy on the long-term freedom of the people.  If this were just a story, we could reasonably assume that any such outcome was incidental to the story -- the author never really thought abut it.  But, since it is history (my belief), we find the cause and effect of taxation, a valuable insight.

For what it's worth, as a story of redemption, Joseph's story is not entirely happy-ever-after for the Jacobson clan.  After Jacob's death, the brothers came to Joseph and lie that their father told them to tell Josepoh to treat them well.  They were afraid that Joseph would seek revenge.  It doesn't sound like forgiveness made everything all better in this family's case.

Also, a group of us carefully studied through Genesis, and we found that the theme of Genesis is faith.  If Genesis were just a story, I would argue that forgiveness was somewhat incidental to the moral faith.

I guess I used the term 'story' too loosely.   I agree it is historical.  But we do refer to different aspects of the Bible as 'the story of this or the story of that...'.  My point is that it is dangerous to take a current day situation and apply a reading from the Bible to it almost literally.  It is dangerous to do this to back up your anti-state beliefs.  And I guess I am having some difficulty expressing exactly why I think this is wrong.  Let me think on it some more.

Here is an interesting article.   It has a slightly different slant.

Interesting take.  I don't see Joseph being quite as generous as Professor Walker does, but we have a lot to agree on.