Context- Preconceived Notions and Understandings
For the past several weeks, we have been looking at words, sentences and paragraphs. We are going to look at the larger context now. The point of looking at individual words and sentence structure it to understand what the passage means.
Before arriving at a conclusion at what a text means, it can be helpful to understand our “preconceived notions and understandings.” Where you grew up, how you grew up, what time period you grew up in, and many more situations and beliefs can shape our understanding of the text we are reading. Some of those preconceived beliefs are good (infallibility of Scripture) and some of our preconceived notions may be incorrect. It’s important to read Scripture in the context of when it was written and let the text Bible speak. We will be exploring context more in the coming weeks.
Context- Historical-Cultural Differences
Inspired by God, approximately 40 people authored the Bible over the course of ~1500 years with last book (Revelation) being authored by John over 1900 years ago. The cultures and circumstances can vary quite a bit between Adam, Abraham, Moses, David, Isaiah, Peter, Paul, and John….not to mention the cultural difference between 1st Corinth 21st century United States. The “historical-cultural” background matters when reading the Bible.
For example, in the US we do not often come across meat sacrificed to idols. But in Corinth such meat would have been common. Understanding cultural context of the city of Corinth with different gods that were sacrificed to helps us to understand the dilemma that Christians in the 1st century were facing.
Context- Literature
History and culture are not the only contexts important to correct interpretations. We need to also look at the literary contexts.
The first step is to look at the genre that the passage is written in. Is it biographical, poetry, apocalyptic, wisdom, etc.? When the literary style is know we can look back at history and culture to see how the ancient people used and read that style of literature.
The second step is to interpret the passage within it's own context and then move to the broader context of the Bible. What is the "immediate context" of the passage? What is the surrounding context of that book of the Bible? What is the context of the whole book? If the author is somebody like Paul, how does Paul use these words in other passages? And last, how does the passage fit in the context of the whole Bible?
Context- Word Studies
Word studies are a good way to dig deeper into a passage or a topic. However, there are a number of errors or fallacies to watch for. Below are 2 different fallacies.
Root Fallacy: Sometimes the root of the word helps with the meaning of the word but sometimes it does not. For example, the word for “apostle” is “apolostos” in the Green and comes from the root word “apostello”. “Apostello” means “to send” but the way “apostolos” is used in the NT doesn’t mean “sent one” even though it’s root would point to that. An “Apostle” in the Bible is someone sent and given authority by God and not merely “one who is sent”.
Overload Fallacy: When looking up a word in the dictionary (English, Hebrew, Greek, etc) there are a number of possible definitions for the word. The “overload fallacy” is when a person looks at all of those definitions as valid for the specific verse they are looking at instead of using context as a restrictor for possible meaning. For example, someone in Lone Jack said they need to run to Culver’s and would be back in 25 minutes, a person familiar with the area would know that “run” could not literally mean “run” and thus not all possible definitions of the word “run” are on the table for understanding the sentence. In English, we can use “run” to mean different things and context limits the possible meanings.