LESSON 11 • Literary Context

What we are dealing with here is a fascinating subject, nothing less than how the word of God comes to us…in human language, through people! How is it that these words, these combinations of words, come to represent to us a message from the creator of the universe, the Lord! As we dive into this profound mystery, I want us to begin by thinking about our assumptions. 


A. Assumptions

When we speak about using the context of scripture to ascertain meaning, we are already making several assumptions. Here are the ones I came up with.

1. The “Meaning” or importance of a text is related to what the authors were intending to say originally. 

2. Understanding what the authors were trying to say is something both important and possible. 

3. The context of a text helps us understand what an author intended to say through that text. 

Do you agree with these assumptions? What other ones might you add to this list? What assumptions do you take with you when you go to scripture? 

B. Understanding Context

First, let’s look at how written language works. In any written document, we might say we absorb meaning through a funnel. That funnel starts with letters, which combine to represents sounds, which combine to represent words. These words then combine together to form clauses. These clauses combine to form sentences, and then sentences in turn become paragraphs. These are sometimes put together to form the structure of a larger document, what we refer to as a book. 
The way those paragraphs are related to each other differs, largely dependent on what type of book we are dealing with. Narrative books may contain paragraphs that are put together to form plots, while a book like the Roman epistle has paragraphs that are put together to form a rhetorical structure, a sort of argument. Each larger section of the funnel is the context for the smaller unit. Let’s simplify it to think about it like this:

Words ‡ Sentences ‡ Paragraphs ‡ Sections ‡Books

Working backwards, books are the contexts for sections, which are the contexts for paragraphs, which are the context for sentences, which are the context for words. What we want to point out this week as important is simple: To find meaning for a text, take the context into consideration. Which means you work the other way, in the direction of the arrows:

Words ‡ Sentences ‡ Paragraphs ‡ Sections ‡Books

Which means, to find the meaning of words, a person needs to look at the rest of the sentence. To find the meaning of sentences we look at the rest of the paragraph, and so on. 

C. Discipline – why not? 

This process of looking at the larger document to find the meaning of its smaller units is vital for understanding the meaning of scripture. While this may seem obvious enough on face, aren’t we all familiar with the concept of using “proof texts” to win arguments? Please understand; there may be texts that “sum up” important truths, but we do those texts a great disservice if we use them without taking their greater context into consideration and study. So why do we do it? There are three reasons I think we tend to ignore context. I want to explain those, and then propose a few steps for developing the discipline of reading scripture in its context. 

1. We want to “use” scripture instead of understand it. Now I do believe that scripture is useful, but we can be too quick to the draw, trying to employ scripture to our own purposes. Shouldn’t it be the opposite, that we would want to find what the word has to say about how God can use us, rather than how we can “use” it? When we are trying to use scripture without first understanding it, we become satisfied when we find a sentence that seems to prove us right, and don’t go through the trouble of investigating what the larger context says about that text. I think it’s important to understand scripture, to learn what is saying first, then we can use it for teaching correctly. 

2. It is so much easier to ignore context! Why read the whole letter to the Romans when our concordances can lead us straight to the sentences in 14:15 (or perhaps 14:18 of we were arguing the opposite point!)? Why investigate the context of John’s admonitions concerning those who do not hold to the “teaching of Christ” when the phrase itself seems to serve our purposes? Indeed, if we commit to seeking the meaning of context, we have to commit to a sort of discipline, one that requires time and care.

3. Our structures of learning often don’t help us with context…and can’t! Think about it: how much can an hour bible class really cover? The whole Gospel of Matthew in one Sunday? Or perhaps the books of Samuel, or Genesis? Right, they probably are going to have to focus on smaller sections, or cover the books generally. There may be value in doing both those things, but how much more value will there be if we are individually immersing ourselves in the books, absorbing and understanding their contexts! To say it frankly, if you get all your biblical teaching from your Sunday AM class and that’s all, you are going to have a very hard time ever grasping the contexts of these teachings. 

D. Developing the Discipline

Here I want to provide a couple of things that you can do to begin understanding the context of scripture better. 

1. One of the questions you should ask of any text is “How does this text relate to what the author writes immediately before and after it?” Perhaps make yourself a bookmark or something with this question in big, bold letters. (teachers, this could be the arts and crafts section of today’s class!). Begin the habit of asking this question of every text you read. 

2. Outline books whenever you can. If you know your Sunday morning class is going to study Genesis, try to make a little outline of how the book flows. This is useful to do ahead of time, but if not, you may try doing it as the class goes, so you can see how the book is developing, and how what you read one week fits in with what comes after it. I know this is nerdy, but it works.

3. Every once in a while, read books as a whole instead of in small sections. That may sound ridiculous when it comes to longer books like the gospels, but try it once and you’ll find that it is intensely rewarding. Remember: this is exactly how all of these books were first designed to be read! Can you imagine our whole church sitting one Sunday and reading the gospel of Luke! Begin small, with one of the shorter letters…Philemon or Jude, perhaps. Then, try one like James or Ephesians. Then, work your way up. Sound impossible? The longest book in the New Testament on my audio Bible is Luke: two hours and twenty-eight minutes. About the length of a movie! Still sound too long? Just try it! 

E. Discussion Questions:

Have you ever been surprised to find out that the context of a passage suggested something very different than what you thought the first time you read it? 

Do you think there are other reasons we ignore context? Why do you think we have lost this habit? 

What is the longest passage you have ever heard read aloud? Do you think our collective attention could handle listening to a whole book? 

Is there a commitment we can make to each other in taking one of these steps this week? 

What can we do collectively to help each other be aware of context? 

Sometimes I believe we assume that we already know and understand the contexts of many passages? Do we? Perhaps we should quiz ourselves on what immediately precedes some of our favorite passages. How well do you know the books as whole documents? Or do we know specific passages better? 

















Steven Hovater is a disciple trying to follow Jesus here in Little Rock. He is a youth minister at Pleasant Valley and loves to play disc golf. Call for a tee time.