Task 1: Describe the Immediate Context of Your Portion
Essence of the Task
The purpose of this task is to make a deliberate effort to place the portion to be studied in its context. As a minimum, it consists of describing the immediate context and relating it to key background material. By carrying out this task one is making a clear investment to ensure that the study and teaching of current portion participates in the full message of the book from which it comes.
Detailed Description
Fortunately, although this is an important task, if you have done your Advance Preparation well, this task will take less time than it may seem. This is especially the case if you have done a thorough job with what is recommended in Advance Preparation, Task 5: «Develop an outline of the book». It can also be quite a bit easier to do once you are in the middle of the series, because you will be able to draw on some of the work you have done in this area for the earlier portions.
A good way to approach this task in order to do it efficiently and usefully may be to think about how you would communicate it to someone else. For example, if you had 30 seconds to tell the cashier in what segment of the biblical book you are and at what moment of the argument you find yourself, what would you tell him or her?
By the way, I am deliberately using two somewhat unusual words to focus the nuance of this task: «segment» and «moment».
- By «segment of the biblical book» I want to point out that it is not overly helpful to say, «we are in the middle of chapter 4.» It is of much greater didactic value to be descriptive. Thinking in terms of a segment reminds us that it is much more useful to tell someone that we are eastbound on the long steep grade heading up to Vail Pass than to say that we are between mileposts 181 and 190 on I-70. The second description is accurate, but it does not communicate as much as the first description. Similarly, though we can always say what part of the text we are in at a chapter and verse level, it is not as didactically helpful for the congregation.
- By «moment of the argument» I mean to emphasize the dynamic nature of logical development. In each portion, the author will be developing one part of what he wants to say and not another. Being able to highlight for our congregation in which part of that development we find ourselves will be of great value in helping them understand the specific contents that the author includes in the portion under study. Touching base again with our best analytical outlines can help us do this.
To Do
Try summarizing the context of your portion in brief paragraphs. For example, as a model to guide you, complete the two sentences below:
- «Remember that this portion is not an isolated thought that Jesus…, Paul…, Peter…, etc. offers us. It is part of a context, and we will never be faithful to the biblical message if we forget this.
- In the portion prior to this one, the author dealt with the question of (… fill in).
- In the portion following today’s passage, (… fill in).»
Next, be sure to include what you’ve just written at the right place in your study notes or teaching outline. And, since you still have plenty of study ahead of you, don’t feel badly if you need to go back over what you’ve written and nuance it based on your ongoing study.
To Keep in Mind
It is possible that the task of describing the immediate context and relating the passage to the book as a whole is easier when studying narrative. The need to situate the episode of the day in the larger story suggests itself naturally. «Recall that in the portion we studied last Sunday, (1.) Samuel has just… (2.) Now…»
Perhaps it would be helpful for us to borrow this aspect of narrative and apply it to all of our teaching, since, if we are teaching pericope by pericope, our hearers will also experience the portions studied in an «episodic» manner. (1.) Last Sunday, that. This Sunday, this. (2.) Next Sunday, the following.
The potential difficulty of narrative portions, perhaps, is that one can limit themselves to merely the temporal and experiential aspects of the narrative, forgetting the theological purposes for which the author chose to narrate the portion and to narrate it in the way he or she did. Therefore, when we work with narrative, let us not forget to make a special effort to situate every portion, not only in its temporal context, but also in its theological context.