Wednesday-Content: Introduction
Objective:
To determine the contextual meaning of key terms and finalize your understanding of the passage, having interacted with scholarship.
Goal (Mile-Marker 3)
To have written contextual didactic descriptions of important words, along with a draft of the exegetical idea of the passage.
Initially, the specific content we will be working on in this portion of our «weekly process» is the smallest one possible: words. But even with the crucial freight load of meaning that words carry, they do not do so independent of their context.
At any given point of its history, a word has a particular semantic range. It means certain things and not others, but even accounting for those certain meanings, it cannot mean all of them at the same time.
There may be better metaphors, but let’s consider the following: Under normal conditions, a truck may be equipped to carry liquid, gaseous, or solid cargoes, but it will not be equipped to carry two or three of these simultaneously. This is equivalent, in a generic way, to the semantic range of a word: that which it can carry. Now, if we think specifically of a truck equipped for liquid transport, on a given trip, it will not carry both milk and oil at the same time. Either it carries milk, or it carries oil. But whether it carries one or the other is not arbitrary or unpredictable. The truck will transport what the company has contracted it to transport. In the same way, the semantic meaning of a word at a given moment is not arbitrary or unpredictable. The word carries the meaning that its author intended it to carry and that meaning, under normal circumstances, can be discerned from its context. That is why having a good idea about the global and the nearby context of a word is so important. Knowing that a truck has just left the facilities of a dairy cooperative is much more important than understanding the technical specifications of the trailer.
Something similar happens with words. Reading dictionaries can be very useful, but in the end, the concrete meaning of a word in a sentence is always determined by its use in a particular context, not by the possibilities mentioned in a dictionary. A dictionary does not prescribe, it only describes. And the best use we can make of a dictionary is, on the one hand, to understand the possible options and, on the other hand, to get an idea about the contexts in which one option or another usually occurs.
What emerges from all this is that even understanding words is contextual work and, therefore, work that can only be done at the exegetical level in specific passages. So, the best thing we can do to learn how this works in practice is to go to the passage we are working on. Words, in themselves, do not mean much. Words, in context, mean a lot.
Our main interest for Wednesday’s tasks is to study for ourselves what the significant words of our passage may mean – in context. And then it is wise to go a bit deeper so that our initial work with those words participates in a larger conversation. Namely, we will consult our best commentaries to contrast and, if possible, refine our conclusions about the contextual meaning of those words. With that in hand, for any words that have particular relevance or complexity, we will gather up the fruit of our study in a didactic statement that can be shared with our audience.
At the same time, while we are consulting our best commentaries about words, and since we will be moving on to application on Thursday, this is our best moment to finish our interaction with the commentators, contrasting and verifying our work with theirs. Additionally, we need to make sure that we gather up our conclusions into notes that can be easily accessed as we move into the writing stages of our process.
One remaining task at this stage is to consolidate our exegetical understanding of the passage by drafting in writing what we understand the exegetical idea of the passage as a whole to be. In other words, what would this portion have communicated to its initial readers?
Thus, we end today with three main items in hand. These mark our «milepost» for the day. (1) We will have contextual definitions – in some cases little more than an explanatory sentence; in other cases, full paragraphs with illustrations and detailed explanations – drafted and ready to introduce in our lesson outline or text. (2) We will have written summaries of our final conclusions, following our interactions with our best commentators. (3) We will have drafted a 1-3 sentence statement of the exegetical idea of the entire passage, one which includes all of the main points and will be the basis for developing our homiletical idea later on.
Wednesday’s Tasks
The articles in this series will break down the basic concepts described above, presenting each idea in some detail. As always, I continue to recommend the ongoing task…
Task 0. Continue with panoramic reading…
Then, perform the following tasks:
- Task 1A. Determine the key words to research in more detail.
- Task 1B. Determine the contextual meaning and contribution of key terms.
- Task 2. Draft didactic descriptions.
- Task 3. Refine your exegetical decisions.
- Task 4. Write up the exegetical idea.
Finally, I will add a brief review along with some additional ideas for the brave.
If you are already familiar with the process, you can download a Quick Start guide for Wednesday-Content here.