'Moses was bicultural like me': reading yourself into the text

A host cites a Christianity Today piece titled 'Moses was bicultural like me' to name a pattern: readers hunting the text for affirmation of a self-made identity rather than receiving the identity Scripture gives -- 'you are my son, you are my daughter.' The same move appears in 'Jesus was a refugee' rhetoric, which lifts the flight to Egypt out of its context (the threat under Herod) to serve a cause. Pastors who pick a text and then preach whatever they wanted are named as the same error in blander form. The punchline the table lands on: Scripture defines who you are; you don't go to Scripture to ratify an identity you or the world already made.