text & context --quote and reflection

Men's Bible Study dwelt on 1 Tim. 6 and prompted a reference to this quote,

...quoting Dr. Donald A. Carson, professor of New Testament at the Trinity Evangelical Divinity School and the author of several books, including (interestingly enough) one entitled Exegetical Fallacies.
The full quote, which Dr. Carson ascribes to his father, a Canadian minister, was "A text without a context is a pretext for a proof text."
     A "proof text" was originally a neutral term for the scriptural text that proved (or was seen to prove) a particular doctrine. However, the overuse and even abuse of proof texts (i.e., Quoting Out of Context as an Appeal to Authority) to defend practically any position eventually led to "proof text" taking on a mainly negative―sometimes even pejorative―connotation (Guilt by Association, anyone?).
     So, the original quote makes your point even more strongly: a contextomy used as an appeal to authority is usually misleading. Of course, a false premise does not mean that the conclusion is ipso facto false. We need not commit the Fallacy Fallacy.   [http://www.fallacyfiles.org/quotcont.html]

The same thing is true of sound-bytes and bumper stickers: taking a short segment out of its ecosystem is like cutting off its roots and as a result it can be transplanted or transported any place. Ditto when a person from one culture is transposed to another society ---without the context of material culture and the interactions of one's own native language, the roots and shaping forces are gone. Ditto when a language is translated to another way of talking (and writing). Once the thread of meaning is put into a different language, the meaning is cut off from its rootedness.