The blog statement “Jesus hates religion” is going to get you somewhere with one reader and nowhere with another. (Like the statement “Charles Spurgeon was a world class navel-gazer.”)

So you think about it a minute before hitting “Send.” You consider a fuller, pie-in-the-face-resistant description: “Jesus hates the empty and ritualistic cultic observances falsely called religion.” Even Attila the Hun would be fine with that. But you veto it for its sheer weight.

There is ever the Triangle to keep in mind: the Normative of Scripture truth; the Situational of the reader’s sensibilities; the Existential of one’s conscience.

You remember that Jesus sometimes said relative things in absolute terms, for effect: “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:26). It’s a common enough pedagogical device.

I recently interviewed a seminary professor and asked how he would define “Reformed” to a five year old. He said, “That it’s God who saves us and not ourselves.” Then he hastened to tack on: “Of course, then I would elaborate.”

I knew what he was doing and I told him so, and he smiled and called me perceptive. Then he confided that one is more liable to have one’s words twisted when exactly quoted than when one is paraphrased, because people will take you out of context.

It’s a risk you always take.