All of us can pluck verses out of the surrounding context and use those verses to support our ideas. It’s in the context where a deeper understanding is revealed. Some of that revelation may be difficult for some of us to understand. It’s not just an Old Testament thing. It happens in the New Testament as well. 

Jesus was a mixture of opposing ideas. If the Lord has become “Jesus, meek and mild,” seeing Him upend tables in the Temple and using a whip against people is hard to reconcile. It becomes a challenge to accept that Jesus said His message would divide people against each other. When Jesus called people vipers, it doesn’t fit with our concept of what we have been taught about the Lord.

Psalm 139 is an example of plucking Scripture. After David spoke of how the Lord had uniquely created him and the world, he shifted gears to what God hates. It was an abrupt departure from what David was praising God for, but it was part of the surrounding Scripture. 

David wrote about his desire that the Lord would destroy the wicked because they blaspheme and misuse His name. David went on to say he hated those people who are enemies of God. And then come the verses we pluck out of the context that seem out of character with the previous verses. 

“Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. Point out anything in me that offends you and lead me along the path of everlasting life” (vs. 23-24). I’ve quoted those two verses many times failing to introduce the surrounding context.

The danger about plucking out verses without understanding the context will lead us to places where our thoughts, not God’s, take the lead in our interpretation about God and the theology we adopt. A plucked out verse is like pulling a plant from a garden and hoping it will survive without its roots being secured in the soil of a greater and more comprehensive truth.