Context

And he brought him to Jerusalem, and set him on a pinnacle of the temple, and said unto him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down from hence: For it is written, He shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee: And in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone.

Luke 4:9-11

We're all familiar with this passage as part of the temptation of Christ. In this temptation, Satan quotes scripture. And as we know in the next verse, he is rebuked by Christ. Satan took scripture, used it out of its context, and in such a manner twisted it from the truth. This is what Peter warns about in II Peter 3:14-18. We must not twist scripture, but use it as it was intended to be used. So let us consider three different contexts each time we go to the Bible:

Immediate
What do the verses right around it say? Does your understanding fit into the immediate context? Do the surrounding verses have further explanation or modifiers that apply to the verse you are looking at? It is easy to take one verse, ignore the verses around it, and make it say whatever you want it to say.

Book
Does your understanding of the verse mesh with the rest of the book? For example, if you are looking at John 3:16, does your understanding of that verse include John 14:15? Remember that the division into chapters and verses was done by men, many years after the scriptures were written. The different books of the Bible were intended to be read as a whole. Keep in mind what the rest of the book says and to whom each was written.

Bible
The Bible does not contradict itself. So we must make sure that the verse being examined, or rather, our understanding of that verse, does not contradict the rest of scripture. If there is an apparent contradiction, then the interpretation of one, or both, verses must be wrong.

If our understanding of a particular passage is in contradiction to any of these contexts, our understanding is flawed, and we must begin again. Using a scripture in a way other than it was intended (II Peter 1:20-21 – God gave it one way, we must use and understand it that one way) is not acceptable. Even if we are using it to show a true teaching, we cannot take the verse out of context. We must correctly handle the word of truth (II Corinthians 4:2, II Timothy 4:15).