Over at Biblical Foundations, Andreas Kostenberger has posted an essay on the challenge of properly applying Scripture to our lives:

How do you apply the message of a given biblical text to today? Different answers have been given to this question. Perhaps one of the most common popular conceptions is that every text of Scripture applies to every person (and does so straightforwardly). But clearly, there are problems with this approach. When Paul tells Timothy to bring his coat and try to come to him before winter, how do you and I apply this command? Or how do we apply the passage in the Book of Acts narrating poor Eutychus’s fall from the window sill during one of Paul’s long preaching sessions?

Those are some pretty obvious examples, but as Andreas points out in the post, there are many passages—even well-known ones—that pose subtle but important challenges to anyone trying to discern a modern application in exhortations written for very different audiences in very different cultural environments. (Hat tip: Between Two Worlds.)