Stop Clowning Around, and Hold on to the Text!

I like the word picture Robert Plummer uses to emphasize the importance of paying attention to the literary context of a biblical passage:

I tell my students to hold onto the biblical text like a rider in a rodeo holds onto a bull. And, I also warn them that the only persons in the rodeo ring not on bulls are clowns. 

—Plummer, 40 Questions about Interpreting the Bible, 105.