It's been a while since I added to the Bible Study series, so you might want to go back and review. Then again, you might not. Your call. So far we have had a laser focus on the selected text we are studying. Don't leave it. Stay in it. Let it speak. Today I want to talk about best practices for starting to move outside the text. The two things we are going to talk about are literary context and cross-referencing. Literary Context The literary context is the literature in which the text is embedded. Unless your text is one entire book of the Bible (I suppose this is possible) it has a literary context. Outside of what your passage actually says, the material surrounding it has the greatest bearing on the meaning. The reason it is so vital is that the ideas your text is communicating are only a part of the big ideas that the whole piece of literature is trying to communicate. Imagine you are examining a staircase in a house. Without looking at anything other than the staircas...
The writings and ramblings of Ben Callahan