Monday-Context: Conclusion
If you have completed the tasks described in the previous articles you are ready to go deeper into the text on Tuesday. You will have accomplished your main objective and reached Monday’s goal: to understand well the various contexts that frame the passage you are studying along with the role that passage plays in the overall development of the biblical book.
- Objective: To place the passage in its historical and literary context.
- Goal: To have a few paragraphs written that help you explain the contribution the passage makes to the argument of the book as a whole, along with its relationship to the portions that precede and follow it in the text.
Obviously, depending on the time you have available, you can also include some other activities to strengthen your understanding of the passage. I will highlight a few below that I think may be particularly relevant.
Additional Ideas
- Highlight previous ideas. If this is not the first passage you have taught or preached in a series, what conclusions from previous weeks would be worth highlighting again? Do not belittle the work you have done previously. Repeating valuable conclusions can always be helpful.
- Begin to develop a list of ideas that may have homiletical value. You probably won’t use all of these ideas when it comes time to write your final outline or full text, but since ideas – and sometimes the best ones – will come up on their own as you study, it is very good to record them as they do. The danger of not writing them down is that, in some cases, they end up hindering your ability to study because of your fear of forgetting them. It is always best to record them in a place where you can refer to them later.
- Memorize the passage. And why not? Since you are already in the text every day, you can easily memorize it with minimal extra effort. I am convinced that for the little additional time this will take, you will be well rewarded by the meditation you will get in the process. That is to say, you will end up spending more of your «spare» moments reflecting on the passage than you would have otherwise. I assure you that ideas, illustrations, and applications will come to you in those moments of review. Make sure you also have a notebook by your side, so you don’t lose the ideas that come to you. (If you have a smartphone, you can always record an audio or text note for later use. And if you have the Logos app, you can incorporate your reflections directly into the note files you’ve been developing).
Ideas for Original Languages
If you have knowledge of the original languages – and the time! – some of the following ideas may be of interest to you.
- Assess the textual variants that may be present. Rarely will it be necessary to mention variants in a lesson or sermon, but for those who have adequate training in these matters, it is not a bad thing to know if the passage being studied contains some relevant variant and to have come to some conclusion in this regard.
- Memorize the vocabulary of the original language. Of course, if you have already started this habit in your Advance Preparation, all the better, but if not, learning the relevant vocabulary one pericope at a time is not bad either. In fact, it may even be better to work with fewer new words and in greater depth. It is often said that the best way to truly learn new vocabulary is with a thorough first contact with that word. Learning a word as you study it in a teaching passage represents an occasion for a very thorough first contact.
- Identify the structural words in the original. If you prefer, you can diagram the sentences, but this activity is simpler and still provides a useful structural lens. Simply underline or color the verbs and other structural words, such as prepositions, to clarify the relationships within sentences in the original. Another, even easier way (if you have the corresponding resources in Logos), is to simply open one of their diagrammed syntactic OT or NT editions to get an immediate view of the structure. (The «reverse interlinear» versions in Logos, even if you don’t know Hebrew or Greek, can bring you one step closer to this kind of information).
- Make a provisional translation from the original. If you get into the original text, nothing will help you get a feel for the text as much as trying your own translation. Obviously, your skill-level with the language in question will help you determine to what extent to rely on your own translation, but at the very least, you will have drawn a little closer to the text, and that is almost always a good thing.
Download: Quick Guide: Monday-Context