The circle is only 9 meters across. The two wrestlers who tensely shift about one another are not going to run away. They watch for an advantage: the slightest of missteps, a dropped shoulder, an unbalanced stance, a distracted gaze.

There it is. An overextension and an exposed torso. The wrestler lunges. Coiled and taut muscles unleash and strain. Powerful legs drive the wrestler forward and an iron-strong grappling grip encircles the waist of the opponent. The crowd swells in a cheer as the two competitors tumble through the air, landing with a heavy thud on the mat. For the one who struck first, everything is channeled into that unflinching hold about the middle of his challenger. His eyes are shut fast with focus and exertion, he does not even breathe, but a thin smile is on his face. His grip is holding, and the other wrestler seems almost immobilized, hardly even struggling to free himself. A count is sounding off and, to his great delight, the referee slaps the mat with an open palm and declares the pin awarded.

Only then does the wrestler open his eyes. It takes a while to register the shock. He is not looking down at his defeated foe, but up at a rather confused face outlined darkly against the bright lights of the gymnasium ceiling. “Ummm….are you okay?” declares the now-released wrestler extending a hand to help the blinking young man to his feet. With a nauseous wave of embarrassment, the full extent of his humiliation settles in. “Yeah…I’m fine…” he mumbles. The crowd watches with a pained look of pity at this wrestler who had fixated so intensely on his hold that he was oblivious to reality. He was, in fact, lying flat on his back, unmoving, as his opponent easily scored the victory.

Almost 100 years after the letter of 1 Corinthians was written, the church father Irenaeus of Lyons would use this imagery to describe those who denied the resurrection. He chastised such believers as “[v]ain, therefore, and truly miserable,” since they “do not choose to see what is so manifest and clear, but shun the light of truth, blinding themselves like the tragic Œdipus.” They do not shun the truth, he taught, because they despise it. They shun the truth because they have become narrow-sighted and overly fixated on fragments of verses taken out of context that then causes them to miss the plain and clear teaching of Scripture as a whole.

In his words:

And as those who are not practised in wrestling, when they contend with others, laying hold with a determined grasp of some part of [their opponent’s] body, really fall by means of that which they grasp, yet when they fall, imagine that they are gaining the victory, because they have obstinately kept their hold upon that part which they seized at the outset, and besides falling, become subjects of ridicule… (Irenaeus of Lyons, “Irenæus against Heresies,” in The Apostolic Fathers with Justin Martyr and Irenaeus, ed. Alexander Roberts, James Donaldson, and A. Cleveland Coxe, vol. 1, The AnteNicene Fathers [Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Company, 1885], 539–540)

At the time that Irenaeus wrote, some were still using phrases like, “flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God” (1 Corinthians 15:50) as a reason to discredit the bodily resurrection that the entire chapter of 1 Corinthians 15 is written to support!

It is a good reminder that we need to approach Scripture as a singular whole made up of books and letters, and not a grab bag of phrases, sayings, and incantations. We must read not with the purpose of finding our magic verse for the day, but with the goal of understanding the meaning of what God has said in the flow of His full revelation.

Otherwise, as it is often quipped, a text without a context is just a pretext for a proof text. Such biblical malpractice is at the very least a cause for embarrassment and concern. However, when it comes to doctrines like the resurrection, the consequences of being a ridiculous text-wrestler can be catastrophic. As Irenaeus warned, “keeping fast hold of the mere expressions by themselves, they die in consequence of their influence, overturning as far as in them lies the entire dispensation of God.”