Well, I think, did anyone not catch up last week? Who was not here a little bit? OK. So thinking a little bit, I know Jay wasn't here either. Not that. We have to do anything for you specifically. But thinking through a little bit of the last week, all we did was kind of do a broad introduction to this topic and look at, I want to build a conviction in language that when there is a composition, when there is a book, when there is a letter, that all those revolve around a subject or a major topic. Very often, and no one asked me this question yet, but you'll run into it. You're going to run into study Bibles, and this is fine, this isn't a big deal, just have kind of this conception, depending on how you use and how someone defines a term. They're going to usually talk about, these are the themes, plural, in the book of the Bible. So if you're looking at Galatians, they're going to say, these are the major themes of Galatians. I typically, and I've been encouraged when I've gone through this degree before, I'll typically now say central theme, to try to say, let's narrow it down to a singular, what is the major singular topic. But obviously within that, There's plural, right? There's topics. But there is something that is the overarching central theme. And so that was kind of what we started to look at, that every composition has a subject. And then we need to start actually looking at our Bibles in a way that we are actively engaged and, using this term intentionally, reading, asking good questions. With that comes a conviction that says the Bible says something. And if it says something, that means it is not saying something. So that when we do get engaged with others and we talk scripture and we study our Bibles together, that we're not kind of thrown into like tossed to and fro and not able to understand that there is a single meaning to every passage, but to have that conviction. And then the question isn't to be offensive and to say you're wrong. It's to say we both want what's true. and to present in the text why we think what we think. And that's what we're always going back to, and then intentionally reading and saying, this is why I'm arguing for this. In fact, a good litmus test for me, preaching-wise, is I like to think of my favorite preachers, or the most respected theologians I can think of, And if I disagree with him, and when you preach and you find out, you know, there's lots of different views on things. There's major views and then there's minor views. Just an example with Revelation 7, when does that interlude between the 6th and the 7th seal happen? There's all kinds of debate if that's chronological, that it happens right after the 6th cosmological events or the 6th seal. Or is this an interlude that's just saying somewhere in these first three and a half years, or somebody even say in the first seven years, 144,000 get sealed. So the question of timing is not, I would say, a major point in Revelation 7, but everyone has their opinion. What I feel my litmus test is, when I'm ready to preach, it's when I can fight someone smarter, the names you would know. And I feel like I could fight them and say, this is why I think I'm right. Not necessarily why I'm going, hey, you're wrong, or I would bring it up in the pulpit, but I would feel confident. If I could argue from the text why I'm right, that's when I start to go, OK, I'm ready to teach a text because I have my reasons for what I believe, not just because I believe it, but reasons built in the text. So you want to be intentional readers, asking good questions. We look at these obvious things, which we're going to look at today. I would say obvious in the sense they're going to be basic observations. I want you to keep this in mind. So for those of you who like Sherlock Holmes, Sherlock Holmes is the fictional investigator who asks good questions and he always, and if you're familiar with either the movies or the TV show or the actual novels, he's always finding little things that are obvious. and he's saying basically you overlooked the most simple fact and that usually is the fact that solves the case. So I like this quote, that there's nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact. So we're going to talk first about an author and then mostly about an audience. We're going to get a little bit to occasion and purpose this morning. But you might be tempted to think, particularly on author, It's obvious, especially because we're going to look at a couple ones that are very explicit. And when we get to talk about central themes, you're going to find that some books in the Bible make your job easy, and they just state it. But you also find what's interesting is, you may have read your Bible multiple times and never noticed that he states his theme explicitly. Other times, when it's implicit, it's a little bit harder to get. But don't let anything that seems too obvious or too basic. What I have found is, even when I'm preaching, what I'm gonna do is what I'm gonna teach, and I still do that. I'm gonna grab a piece of paper, and I'm gonna do all these things that seem super basic because it's just the way I have to build it. And so, When we did, use another example, Revelation, someone came up to me and even looked at John's language and brought up the fact that John's exiled in prison, and it's so interesting that he uses that Christ has set us free, and you go, oh. Like, I don't know if I thought that at first, but you're going like, you read Philippians, you read, revelation and the fact that John is exiled on Patmos, who he is, what Christ said to him, the disciple, the beloved disciple, Paul being in prison in Philippians, all those things start to make a lot more, they impact why, they impact your understanding. So there's nothing more obvious than a, nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact. Thinking of four steps or three steps, we're going to kind of major on three. We'll talk about a fourth probably towards the end. But this would be what most of, I think you have heard before, but too often we think it's weighted evenly. People want everything to be, if it's three parts, it should be 1 3rd, 1 3rd, 1 3rd. And we're gonna look at this first step, begin really, looking at observation, which is answering the question, what does the text mean? But we're gonna try to identify the central theme of a particular book of the Bible, And we're going to do that first, and the majority of it is going to be the observation. And so 70% to 80% of our time, just like I think 70% to 80% of your study should be, is observing, observing, observing. When I was in seminary, when I got taught hermeneutics, which we looked at last week, just the art and science of interpreting the Bible, the first assignment was to look at, I'm trying to remember now, I think it was Ephesians 4. I know it was Ephesians, I don't remember the exact passage, but he, first assignment was he said, you need to write 35 observations on these like 12 verses. And you're kind of going, okay, that's a lot, but I can do it. And so you just start to, okay, this, this, this, this, I noticed this, I noticed this, I noticed this, I noticed this, you need 35, hand it in. And then the next week, which was, you know, you could tell, you guys taught the class a lot before, and he said, all right, I want 35 more. You know, now you're going like, man, it's 12 verses. You want 70 observations? And what he ultimately did, I think, is just as a test. Because what we all ended up doing was, you know, the is a, and we're just doing it in English, Bible's not Greek, but you know, the is a definite article observation, you know, 38. Like, a is an indefinite article observation, you know, 39. But his point was, if you really dig down, you start making observations you never would have if you try harder. And so that was one of the exercises they gave us to try to force us into that. But observation is important because it brings context. So context is king because when it comes to Any word, even in English, just use our language, if you say that word in one context, it can mean one thing, and if you say it in another context, it can mean another. So if I use the word fire, all of you, because you're visual learners, decided to come up with some, I'm sure of, visual imagery of when I said fire. Does anyone want to express? Is anyone brave enough to say this is what I thought of? When I say fire, what do you think of? What do you see? Okay, so you're thinking like a literal fire, right, a flame. Boom, fire. Anyone think of anything else besides those two? How about you're fired, right? And in any of those three contexts, we use the same word, but the context of that word brings different pictures, different meanings, different understandings. And so the same thing is true in scripture. You're seeing these words used in different ways, and really the context has to make sense. If you're looking at Galatians 2-7, unless you understand the whole of Galatians, the context of Galatians, you're going to butcher the text. I'll just use an example with the term legalism, right? So I'm a relatively conservative Christian, so, you know, not all the time, but if someone wants to say, you're a legalist, right? What do they mean by that? They're grabbing a term that comes from Galatians, and they're saying, we think you're that term. Well, in Galatians, the legalism in Galatians is very tightly defined as someone who's saying, you need to do something more, in this case, a circumcision priority, be circumcised, follow the Old Testament law to be converted, to be saved. And so, biblically speaking, if you're a legalist, you are telling someone to be a Christian, to be saved, you need to do something beyond just believe, trust in Christ. So that makes you a legalist. But almost always, without exception, almost always, that people are saying you have a firm conviction that something is true. and you're too conservative, or you believe there's only one way to interpret the Bible, you believe there's only one way to preach, or you believe there's only one way to do a church service, that you should preach the Word and not have interpretive dance. You're a legalist, and I would say, no, that you're taking this idea of legalism, you're pulling this term out, and you're creating a whole different meaning, but making everyone go, well, didn't Paul say, don't be a legalist, or didn't Jesus come against the Pharisees? And I would say, well, Yes, but in both cases they were doing a very specific thing, which is saying to be converted, to be saved, you need to do more than believe in Christ. I am definitely not saying that when I say we should prioritize preaching. And so you'll see that as just an example. They pull it out of the context. But you have to, when you observe, observation starts from the larger to the smaller units. You've got to identify the largest literary unit. Then we're going to move towards interpretation. What does the text mean? So we're asking the question, observation, what does the text say? Interpretation, what does the text mean? And then thirdly, we're going to move towards implication. What is the implication of the text on my life? In that we understand we're reading it, it says this, we're interpreting it to mean this, and then we know that it has some impact on the decisions I make. Well, all affirming, we are not the original audience. And that's why I like the term implication. I'm OK if you say, what's the application of the text? But implication, I think, hits the ears a little bit different. If you want another one, if you were to read, especially more towards advanced hermeneutics, the language of meaning and significance is used a lot. And I also really like that. because you're asking what does it mean and what's the significance of its meanings. So meaning and significance, implication, significance, I like those terms because too often with application it gets very specific, especially when it comes to teaching or preaching. If you get too specific, you know, it doesn't really, it might hit one person, it doesn't hit, what's the big implication for all of the church or for a larger group of people. Meaning. Meaning and significance. Those are probably my favorite hermeneutical terms. Honestly, I don't remember them being taught like when I took seminary. But I know they're out there in the sense of the older books I've read use those terms a lot. We're going to just talk implication, observation, interpretation, implication, but meaning and significance is a good way to think of what does a text mean and what's its significance. Observation is helpful though because that's talking about what we're actually doing. It's important though, we look at those three things and actually we'll probably, we might add a fourth depending on And that where we kind of correlate to the whole of scripture. But it's important to note the order of the steps is critical. Critical to correct interpretation, and that the order cannot be altered. That is to say, you can't skip to step three, what is the implication of the text, what's the significance from the text on my life, if you haven't properly observed the text and interpreted the text. And that's where this weighting comes into play. And we've all been there. Especially, you know, if you're in one of Gordon's dGroups and he's making, you know, you're doing your journal, right? And you didn't have enough time to do much work on it and you just kind of spit out some things, right? And the danger in that is if you skip over any kind of meditation, thoughtfulness, observation, you're much more likely to get the interpretation wrong. And so the amount of time spent in the first step is going to determine the accuracy and the ease of the following steps. We kind of talked about that last week, but there is an absolute relationship to, you spend a lot of time on observation, the interpretation will come a lot quicker, and therefore you're going to get to, hey, what does this mean more accurately, and not get kind of bogged down on all those things. If you don't understand what it means, you got to go spend more time back in observation. The class is set up the same way. And so we're going to spend most of our time here over the number of weeks observing the text, asking questions, looking at things like repetition, and all those things. But we're going to start with the most basic observations to identify what is the central theme, what is the subject of a particular book of the Bible or the composition you are studying. Every composition has a subject. You just have to discover it. And yes, that takes reading. And yes, that turns when you read your Bible, your brain has to click on. And I know you've all been there. You read your Bible with your brain on. You can read your Bible with your brain off. We're all multitaskers because of our cell phones. And even this morning, I was listening to something and doing something. If I just would sit down and actually turn my brain on, I probably would get it done twice as fast. But every time you guys read a verse, it sits in a book, and that book of the Bible has a subject. And you're not going to know the verse means unless you identify the subject of the book. The big thing, the big literary subject is going to inform the little things. So again, not saying there aren't subtopics. There are, just like in any longer paper you'd write, there are one major, this paper's about this one thing, and then here's three specific topics, but it's important to have an understanding of what is the bigger topic. We already talked about fire. If you don't understand the subject, you're not going to understand the details. So, the rest of the time we're gonna look at observation and we're gonna look at four key things that lead us to a fifth key thing, which are gonna be, I'll put them up here in a minute, but author, audience, occasion, purpose. Because the only way we're gonna understand the subject is to find background information. And the background information we're gonna look at are these four things. Questions so far? I know some of you are writing, so I'll entertain any questions. How about an example of an application where it gets too specific? Like if you're taking Colossians 323, maybe applying it to the athlete or coach, and everybody else does the light sports or something. We'll expand on that just a little bit. Probably just in the sense of, if I just pick what I'm doing right now. If you felt compelled of, I think, When you look at Revelation 7, the big idea is God will fulfill His promises. And He does that by saying, pulling up all of history is coming to a conclusion. And he's wrapping up in 22 chapters in Revelation all of the Scriptures, which is why Revelation is so informed by the rest of Scripture. So, if you're reading the rest of Scripture, you're left with questions of, is God going to be faithful to Israel? Is God going to be faithful to the nations? Because we tend to think, well, God's faithful to the church, which He is. But there's still two things that he hasn't addressed that are chiefly addressed from Genesis all the way through Malachi, which is these categories of what about the Gentiles, what about Israel? So I would just say in the sense that you can get bogged down with being too specific. Sometimes it's good illustratively, but if you got too bogged down in Some people will look at it with, and it can be helpful as a grid to get there, but then you probably don't want to teach it. But, okay, let's think of every category of people in the church. We have men, we have women, we have children. We have fathers, we have mothers. We have people who are pregnant, people who can't have children. We have people who are married, people who are divorced, people who are single. And eventually trying to go, let's apply specifically to everyone's life, God's faithfulness. Whereas, I think you want to spend more time on what the text says about God's faithfulness, and then that'll encourage, and everyone can understand, I think the Spirit can apply to their own lives where they're at. So, if that makes sense. Every once in a while you have, like Paul in Ephesians 5, where he goes through a household code, and he does kind of lay out very specifically the impact of the gospel on fathers, mothers, children, employee, employer. I'm just starting Genesis, so what's the central theme on that? Oh, I cannot cheat. We cannot cheat the yet. I know. I'm going to make you guys work harder, and we won't use Genesis either, because the answer is going to be reading the whole book. But I would say as you read Genesis, though, it is interesting. You're looking for these things. So this is a good segue. The logic behind this is simply that we have a conviction that the author wrote to a particular audience for a reason with a specific purpose. So when I talk about author, you guys know that is more obvious, which is the person who wrote it. we're reading a inspired biblical text. So there is a capital A, there is a little a, we understand from Peter that it was the spirit that came alongside. It's not just straight dictation, although we do see prophets obviously, thus says the Lord very specifically, but the majority of scripture is the spirit coming alongside and moving through the author, their time, their place, their style, even of writing, their personality kind of shows through. And you see that with Paul, you see that with Peter. But they wrote to a particular audience. We're going to flesh that out. And I think you'll see a couple ways in which that's not as obvious. And it becomes very important for how you interpret the text. And then when I say occasion, I just mean that what prompted the book to be written? What caused Paul to write them a letter? and then he wants to accomplish something. So there's a reason he's gonna write them and not write somebody else, and then he's gonna accomplish something beyond that with the specific purpose of why he's writing that letter. All right, so some examples, thinking of author. Philippians 1.1, these are the more obvious ones, that Paul and Timothy, remind me not to use red, slaves of Christ Jesus, to all the saints in Christ Jesus who are in Philippi with the overseers and the deacons. If I was studying Philippians, This is what I would do. I would take out a scratch piece of paper, and I would write author, audience, occasion, purpose, central theme, and I would start to fill it out. So it's really that basic, and that's how I start, because you have to build this, right? You have to build your understanding, and it starts with the most basic information that you have to keep rolling around to say, okay, this is Paul and Timothy. In fact, some of you, if I asked who wrote Philippians, you'd immediately go Paul. And then you go, well, this is interesting, right? Paul and Timothy. And you'd have to go through and just decide, in what way is Timothy involved? This I'll answer, which is to say, most people believe he's just involved in carrying the letter and maybe dictating the letter, or copying the letter down. And then audience, which we're not getting too far into, but it clearly states in 1.1 right up front, audience, author. So if you're doing this, studying Philippians, this is fun, because it's easy answer, easy, easy answer. Likewise, you get to a lot of the epistles that are the same way. Galatians, Paul says, I'm an apostle, not sent from men nor through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father who raised him from the dead and all the brothers who are with me to the churches of Galatia. It's easy because you can identify it up front. I'll make this note, I don't have this in my slides, but if you were to go to 1 Timothy, let's see. And look at a very similar introduction, 1 Timothy 1, verse 1, Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus, according to the commandment of God our Savior and of Christ Jesus our hope, to Timothy, my genuine child in the faith, grace, mercy, peace, from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord. This is one of the books I studied a few years ago that, when I was really committed to not letting myself get too, not to bypass the obvious, Paul says here, he's an apostle. Paul says here in Philippians, he's a slave of Christ. I don't think it's an accident that he calls himself an apostle. That's not usual that Paul says, remember, I'm an apostle. I have the authority of the 12. That's unusual. But then if you understand and you kind of know a little bit of what Galatians is about, you understand the tone of Galatians, interesting. That makes sense that he's, hey, just so you know, I have the authority to write this and the authority to say what is a true gospel and what is a false gospel. When you get to 1 Timothy, I go, well, why? Paul, an apostle of Christ, he is according to the commandment of our God, of God our Savior. And I just remember thinking commandment, and then I look deeper into that word of commandment, and it's related to the language of 1 Timothy, which is this big estate stewardship metaphor, and that idea of commanding a steward. And he's saying, I, Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus, and he says according to the commandment of God, that is to say he's been commissioned, that is he is the steward underneath God, and he's going to be a steward then to pass on to Timothy. And you even start to see in very simple language, you go, I don't know if I would have thought that unless I had thought, why commandment and not another way of introducing himself. Why does he use apostle here and slave in Philippians? Now, sometimes that won't lead to as much fruit as other times, but the skill and the discipline to go look under every rock is what we're starting to foster, and to go ask the questions, why is that there? Why is that not there? And it will lead to fruit, because the scripture is not random, and there is purpose in the language, not just letter, but every word is inspired and we know that it's profitable. A harder one, if you were to look at Hebrews, there is no explicit author of the book of Hebrews. So there's a lot of debate over who wrote Hebrews. I have multiple friends who are like absolutely convinced 100% it's Paul. Other people that know it can't be Paul. Paul's probably the most If you had to guess, that would probably be your best guess. But I think if you look at Hebrews, the one thing you miss is we learn, as we study our Bibles, from what's there and what's not there. And so you can go and say, well, I looked, and there's no, he never says. This is a sermon. He never says who preached the sermon. And then you might ask yourself, well, it's still important that you don't know the author. And this is a good example here in Hebrews chapter 2, which I think starts to make a ton of sense, and I would argue that there's a point to not having a declared author in Hebrews, because he says here in 2-5-8, "...for he did not subject," talking of Christ, "...to angels the world to come concerning which we are speaking, but one has testified somewhere saying," and he quotes Psalm. He quotes a Psalm there. And there's no doubt in my mind that the writer of Hebrews knows the one, And he knows the psalm. And he knows that it's in the book of Psalms. Why does he say, but one has testified somewhere saying? In fact, that's really random. Most of you probably would not let me get away with that. It says somewhere. Someone said something in scripture somewhere. You go, yeah, where, Josh? But I think his point in Hebrews is to say it doesn't matter who wrote that psalm, it doesn't matter who the author of Hebrews is, this is God's word about God's son. So I even think there's a point being made there that there is no definitive, explicit author. Some other good ones here, thinking of Old Testament books. Who is the author? Because sometimes you don't have just a singular author. This is the case, 1st Kings, 2nd Kings. And we understand, we look at them as 1st and 2nd Kings, but they are one scroll, they're one letter, they're just broken into two. But you have to think of what's the theme, what's the central theme of 1st and 2nd Kings as they go together. So you'd read 1st Kings chapter one, and you'd probably be a little confused, which you've got to push through and you've got to have those sitting out there of when you see something that helps you with who wrote it, why did they write it, you've got to mark it down because it would take you all the way to chapter 11 before you got this insight where it says, now the rest of the Acts of Solomon and whatever he did and his wisdom, are they not written in the book of the Acts of Solomon? 1 Kings 14 verse 19. Now the rest of the Acts of Jeroboam, how he made war and how he reigned. Behold they are written in the book of Chronicles of the kings of Israel. Now this becomes important because you look back here and there's a book about the Acts of Solomon and then there is Jeroboam who is a northern king, when you have the nations split, northern kingdom Israel, southern kingdom Judah, and there's a book written about that. And then 1 Kings 15, now the rest of the acts of Asa and all his might and all that he did in cities which he built, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah? And you have a little tidbit, but in the time of his old age, he was diseased in his feet. We'll leave that, but it's interesting to go, why would you say that? But you start seeing here, this is saying there is an author, yes, but he's going. In essence, what we would understand as presidential libraries. And he's going out and he's checking out scrolls. Right? He's a historian. He's an editor who's finding, oh, let me go in to the library, pull out the Acts of Solomon. You can go in there and you can find them as well. Let me go in and find the Acts of Jeroboam and the Kings of Israel. I can go to that and find that. And then same thing here with the Acts of the Kings of Judah. Saying, he didn't write all this material. He wasn't alive when this material is compiled together. He went in and he gathered it together. the first time I read the First Kings and grew up obviously in the church and Sunday school, this is the kind of thing I would have never have noticed, but it tells you something about the author and it tells you something about the audience. Chiefly that, and I never thought of the Old Testament this way until I started to learn to study this way, when you realize, oh, I don't know why, but I always read the Old Testament books, especially the historical books, in light of the original audience knowing these people. They would know Solomon, and they would know Asa. It makes no sense, actually, when you start to think of it, because of the way it spans so much history. But when you start looking at who the author is, an editor, at a later date, it starts to push you to go, oh, wait a minute. Solomon is dead and gone. Because you have to start looking, and this is important, to the last possible audience. Solomon's already dead and gone. Jeroboam, dead and gone. Asa is dead and gone. But you can go to their libraries. You can go to the scrolls. You can find them. And he pulls out a selected piece of history, which is really important for him to communicate to his readers of his day. What that helps is, then you go back to, well, what was the idea? What was he trying to communicate? Why was he pulling this and this and this? Just like you would pull for a paper, a research paper, to say, this is what I'm studying. And I ain't got to pull resources for this topic. But really what the editor's doing, inspired by the Holy Spirit, is trying to communicate truth in that history. And as we get there, we'll talk more about these books. It's hugely impactful where you might look at the genealogies of Chronicles and go, this is really, really boring, until you realize, oh, these have purpose. And they're coming about a way in which God says, I have a message through this editor to communicate to my people. You've got to look for the clues. Otherwise, you're just not going to see them. Kind of transitioning to audience, so you understand, OK, it's an editor. which also comes back to the idea of subject, that he's organizing it according to subject. So that helps because if you look at Kings and Chronicles and they're communicating similar times of history, but they have different central themes. And so he pulls, the chronicler's gonna pull different books off the shelf than the one, the editor of Kings. And so we know in that case of 1 Kings, 2 Kings, that it's for a later generation. This is helpful to me because if that generation, just use an example. I always thought you're reading the Old Testament books and like I said, they could almost touch David. Like they knew David, they knew someone who knew David. And then you start to realize that most of these books are written 100, 200 years after David. Israel coming back out of exile. And then you start to realize like, Oh, so the Jewish person learning their history, which is important. That's partly why these are written. This is similar to us studying American history. They were as close to David as you and I are to George Washington. I don't know, it's just kind of a fast, I just never thought that way when you go, okay, so these, actually in that way, we have a little bit of, we're both, we're also removed from David, but they were as well. And it helps us kind of move towards the importance of who the audience. So we're looking for the last possible audience whenever you study a book, and you might come to something where you say, oh, they made a comment, and that lets me know this book can be dated later. Yes, you can kind of cheat and look at a study Bible, but I'm encouraging you, find your own information, because sometimes they don't highlight it, they don't always explain it this way. Good example, Ruth chapter 4, you have to read all the way to the end of Ruth. It's only four chapters, so this would be a good one to do if we gave an assignment, because you could read it over and over again within a short period of time. But you get to the end of Ruth, and you've probably heard, you know, Ruth preached multiple times. and you're gonna get lost a little bit in the generations until you understand, okay, there's purpose here. Who was Ruth written to? Because if you know, let's go back to chapter one. We know in chapter one, it's dated for us that it happened in the days when the judges judged. So we know Ruth happens during the period of the judges. So we're talking this is the time of Joshua, this is the time of Samuel, this is before the kings. That's when it happens. And we learn here, at least, the audience, he says, you will know who these people are. You will know Perez. Perez became the father of Hezron. Hezron became the father of Ram. Ram became the father of Abinadab. Abinadab became the father of Nishan. Nishan became the father of Salma. Salma became the father of Boaz. And Boaz became the father of Obed. And Obed became the father of Jesse. And Jesse became the father of David. I don't know if you remember the old J.J. Abrams TV shows, but he was the first one I ever saw on a TV show where he'd show like the end and it was something crazy and then it would cut and it would go back to the beginning of the episode. I don't know, J.J. Abrams always did that in his TV shows. That's what's going on here. You have this presented of this crazy experience between Ruth and Naomi and then all of a sudden he waits to the very end and there's this, oh, this is why you should know this. This is why it's important. This is what God has done because through Ruth she had a son named Obed, and through Obed there's a son named Jesse who ultimately fathered David, and everyone's going to know, this audience, oh, that's where David came from, and David is God's man. That's why that's here, to say God provided a son, a king in David, and he's going to provide a future son from David who's going to sit on the throne forever. It becomes important. that we see this. The setting of the book, looking at, I said, the Book of the Day of Judges, you've got Saul's reign for 20 years, period of judges for about 40 years, and so there's almost 60 years, at least that we know of, maybe more, between when these events happen and when they are recorded. And so, this is the way I think of it. Oftentimes, the audience is being presented what we would consider a period piece. So if you guys like period pieces, you like, my oldest loves anything related to World War II at this point, you know, he wanted this big, heavy, dangerous, like, five-pound helmet that looks like a World War II helmet, which he's only gotten taken away once for throwing at his brother, because it'll do damage, because it's solid. Or if you like the period pieces, the ones that, you know, BBC and all of that, That's actually closer to where the audience would have been. They're looking back and saying, it was 60 years ago when this happened. So 2023, 1963. That's their relation in time. And that helps us give a grid for where we're going to move with Woodland. Why write it? Why write this history? If we already know what's happened, well, because it's important for God's story, in this case, it's important to understand that God was faithful to Naomi, and particularly, I would say, when you start to see this story, not only is it God's man, but if you were to read and study Ruth, you see Naomi, who isn't Israelite, sees Elimelech, who's the husband who goes. They go into southern Moab during a famine in Israel, and everything goes south. Elimelech dies, his two sons die, and then you're left with three widows. And so there's a whole story of God's faithfulness to them. And Naomi is nothing. In the end, she basically says, to both Ruth and the other daughter-in-law, I hope you find a God who's more faithful than Yahweh, because He wasn't faithful to me. Don't come back with me. And of course, she's wrong, dead wrong, but that's the point of the story, to fall back and then in God's providence, Ruth meets Boaz and God, through very unlikely circumstances, both because it's a Gentile woman now that's in the line of Christ. And you see all those things come together, but it's for the purpose of this audience, a later audience, to understand who David is, where he comes from, and what God's purposes are for him. Another example here, last possible audience with 2 Chronicles, so thinking of the Chronicle. If you were to go, if you guys want to, you can look and see it. But I know some of you will get there probably sooner than later with Bible reading. But if you go to 1 Chronicles, I think it's 9 if I remember off the top of my head. Chapters 1 through 9. Has anyone read chapters 1 through 9? Who's looking at it and knows? Nine chapters. What is every chapter about? I mean, you thought Matthew chapter 1 was bad. Nine chapters of genealogy. Nine. And you go, this is not how I would write a book. And that's good, because you have to ask the question, well then why would they put nine chapters of genealogy? Understanding the author in the audience is what helps, because it's really important for that original audience to see all of these genealogies, because they've been living in Babylon for 70 years. How do we know that? Look at 2 Chronicles 36, which again, you get this 36 chapters in. So you're reading your Bible reading going like, I phased out in chapter 4 of Chronicles and just wanted to push through to get to Jesus, which I understand, but you go, you click your brain back on and go, you'll catch this in 36. That now in the first year of Cyrus, king of Persia, in order to complete the word of Yahweh by the mouth of Jeremiah, so this becomes important, because he's saying, Cyrus is doing this because God is going to fulfill his promise, made through the prophet Jeremiah, that Yahweh is going to stir up the spirit of Cyrus, king of Persia, so that he had a proclamation passed through his kingdom and also put in writing, saying, thus says king of Persia, Yahweh, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth. He has appointed me to build him a house in Jerusalem, which is in Judah. Whoever there is among you, all of his people, may Yahweh, his God, be with him and let him go up. And so, you get to the very end of 2 Chronicles, and you've had to read 1 Chronicles, 9 chapters of genealogy, the rest of 2 Chronicles, and you have a moment of, oh, this book has a different purpose than the Kings. This is for post-exilic, returning Israel, time period of Ezra, Nehemiah. They need to know who the people are, and they need to know that God has faithfully brought them back into the land. That He's faithful to say, when Jeremiah said, you will return, That's exactly what happens. You will return. And he does it in a miraculous way because the most unlikely character, Cyrus, who Daniel predicts will do it, is the one who causes it to return. It's to say they needed to know God's history of his nation. But with a particular bend, if you think about this as you're reading Chronicles now, you go, oh, this is for people who are going back to the land. What did they need to know that's different than people who were in the land? And then you'll start to go, oh, that's why Chronicles has a different flavor, because this is warnings of what has happened and what will happen. And you understand that when you see the last possible audience. Judges is another one. Judges 18, verse 30. Then the sons of Dan set up for themselves the graven image. And Jonathan, the son of Gershom, the son of Moses, he and his sons were priests to the tribe of Dananites until the day of the exile of land. 18 chapters in, you're trying to identify who the audience is, and you go, OK, we have a clue. This is why the paper sits there. You've got to mark it and go, day of the exile of the land. Whoever wrote the Book of Judges understands somebody's been exiled. Particularly, he's talking about the Dananites, which is the northern tribe of Israel, which we talked about was always the ones most, they all flirted with idolatry, but Dan usually was the worst, the most northern tribe. probably why it's not included in the 144,000 tribes, which is interesting. Levi, I think, is the one who replaces Dan there. But it lets us know that at least in the Book of Judges, who is the audience? Well, it's at least an audience that knows Israel, i.e. the northern 10 tribes have been exiled, and the southern two haven't been exiled yet. And so there's 120, 130 years between the northern captivity and the southern captivity. And then you can now read Judges and go, oh, when Judges keeps going back to this idea of everyone did what was right in their own eyes, who's he warning? Who's he saying, be careful? If you keep going this direction, if you keep doing what's right in your own eyes, Judah, two tribes, you're gonna end up like your brothers. You're gonna end up like Dan. You're gonna end up like the 10 Northern. If you don't have a course correction, you're going to end up exiled just like them. And it gives a context to judges now. You go, oh, that is the audience. And you can actually even pinpoint it a little closer to even probably who was on the throne in Judah when the book was written. But it has that audience, and that'll start to move into and shaping then occasion and purpose. Because you go, what? Then you ask the question, OK, what prompted the Holy Spirit to inspire the book of Judges to be written. Judah, and warning them about what is coming. So that helps you then kind of get into this third aspect of occasion. So we want to know who the author is, who wrote it, If you can find out more about them, all the better. Or if you don't know anything about them, like Hebrews, then that tells you something as well. You want to figure out the last possible audience. And then thirdly, we want to figure out occasion. And I think we'll finish this one here pretty quickly. If you can't find it, the answer is read it again, read it again, read it again. And so the next phase is identifying this background information that's going to help us identify the central theme by looking at what prompted the writing. Something happened to cause God's Spirit to work through an individual to write a specific book of the Bible with a specific purpose. The author wrote to a particular audience for a reason. That's what we're looking at. What's that reason? And then you wrote it with, then we'll see what it would look like next week, a particular, a specific purpose. We looked a little bit like at this one with, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. Context, context, context. Last week, You see Philippians chapter four, verse 10. Again, we're trying to figure out why did he write this book? What is the reason? And just because this is the reason he wrote it, it doesn't also mean that is what he wants to accomplish. That's why they can be two sides of the same coin. Sometimes it's a little bit confusing, but it is important to keep them distinct, even if they're similar. Here, Philippians 4, I rejoiced in the Lord greatly that now at last you have revived thinking about me. Indeed, you were thinking about me before, but you lacked opportunity. Not that I speak from want, for I learned to be content in whatever circumstances I am. We understand that background as Paul in prison. I know how to get along with humble means. I know how to get along in abundance. In other words, he knows what it is to be a successful Jewish Pharisee, who's part of the ruling class, and he knows now what it means to live in prison. He knows what it is to live in abundance, where his ministry is flourishing. In anything and all things, he says, I've learned the secret of being filled and going hungry, both of having abundance and suffering in need. becomes pretty key here, but I can do all things through him who strengthens me. So if we look at that context, what does that mean? It means he can have joy, contentment, whether he has a lot or a little. That's the context of what that means. But he goes on to say, nevertheless you have done well, it's a little small, sorry, to fellowship with me in my affliction, and you yourselves also know, Philippians, that at the first preaching of the gospel after I left Macedonia, no church fellowshiped with me in the matter of giving and receiving but you alone. For even in Thessalonica, you sent a gift more than once for my needs. Not that I seek the gift itself, but I seek the fruit, which increases to your account. But I have received everything in full and have an abundance. I have been filled, having received from Epaphroditus what you have sent, a fragrant aroma, an acceptable sacrifice, pleasing to God. And my God will fulfill all your needs according to his riches and glory in Christ Jesus. Now to our God and Father be the glory forever and ever. Amen. Well, what prompts the writing? What is the occasion of Philippians? Well, when you get a gift, when you got a present, typically, my wife's trying, you know, she nudges me to remind me to do this. Maybe it's a little old-fashioned. People used to, at least, write thank you notes. And when you look at Philippians, you're getting into chapter four, and you go, why was it written? Well, he's saying, I'm wanting to write to you to thank you for the gift that you have given. He's just simply writing a thank you letter. And if you read Corinthians, you're going to find there that, interestingly, Philippians, the church of Philippi is a poor church, and they gave out of what they had. And he's saying, God will supply all your needs. That is, God will provide for you. You've been faithful here, and God will provide. And we're going to look then at Philippians and the value then of why partner together for missions the way they partnered together with Paul, but that impacts what we understand as a purpose, and then ultimately the central theme by understanding why. Why did he write it in the first place? And, not to preach Philippians, but it's a pretty important message for us. We in America have what we call disposable income, right? And we can be stingy. And he's saying, no, listen, when you give, the point is, it's not about money, it's the fruit that comes from the gift. And you're gonna look at Philippians and you're gonna see, wow, there is a partnership that goes on, not just that we get to partner with one another, we get to partner with a local church, but bigger than that, you get to partner in God's mission for God's people. But part of that is understanding the author, the audience, and why it was written in the first place. Galatians 1, 6-9, why does he write Galatians? This might help to go why he emphasizes that he's an apostle. Because what he says at early on, six through nine, I marvel that you are so quickly deserting him who called you by the grace of Christ for a different gospel, which is really not another. Only there are some who are disturbing you and want to distort the gospel of Christ, but even we or an angel from heaven should proclaim to you a gospel contrary to the gospel we have proclaimed to you. Let him be accursed. As we have said before, so I say again, if any man is proclaiming to you a gospel contrary to what you received, let him be accursed. This is where he is attacking This idea of legalism, it's another gospel. It's a gospel where it's Jesus plus these works, particularly shaped by the old covenant and Judaism. The reason he's writing them is somebody is teaching a false gospel. And that's gonna shape then his purpose to say, this is why now I'm writing to you. What does he wanna accomplish? Well, he wants to tell you the true gospel. And it stands on the background of a false gospel, particularly a false gospel that's Jesus plus. We're not quite done with that, but we're almost out of time. Any questions before we wrap up on author-audience occasion? Yes? So the example you used, especially for, I guess, audience, And that was a great example with the reign of Saul and the kings to know that, OK, 60 years can kind of be the longest or the furthest back audience. But for someone especially like me who hasn't really studied the Bible or knows more so the history, geography, timeline things, I just haven't paid attention to those things. How do you, I guess, continue to go about sticking down the audience or the furthest back audience if you don't have necessarily the context, or not context like that, but background information to where you have to go through the whole Bible and study it to get the audience? So a lot of times you'll find it in the book itself. Outside of that, I'd say add to, this is the most basic background information. This is what I've been taught and I find really helpful in the way I run my grid, author, audience, occasion, purpose, theme. That's just how my brain works. That's the program I run in the back of my head at all times. That said, any background information you can find is helpful. So I would say timelines, looking at, study bibles or whole bible commentaries that will give you some of that background of what kings did where. I had a good friend who's a pastor in Kansas City who his joke is his bible he'll hold it up you know he's got anyone have tabs You're a pastor. You don't need tabs. You don't need to have a tab to know where your book of the Bible is. You know where to go. And he'll say to this day, in seminary, he memorized all the kings of Israel, and he memorized the books of the Bible chronologically, which is not how they're presented in our 66 books in the Bible. And he's like, he can't find any books. He's like, I can't find anything anymore. I need tabs. I'm not saying memorize all the kings of Israel. Things like that, I think, if you're a visual learner, to get someone to graph it out, that's really helpful. And so I would start on the study Bible side, and especially Old Testament, because there's such a long period of time. The more information you can see to kind of put it there. But you might be surprised at times where a commentary or a study Bible will not even pull out the audience of judges that way. So and I would say from a teaching standpoint, that changes everything for me in one sense, which is, yes, I can learn about not doing what's right in my own eyes. I can learn a lot from this spiraling of Israel getting worse and worse. But the minute I have the visual of, oh, this guy's preaching a sermon. He's preaching a sermon to these two tribes. It's impactful. But I just brought in the background. Do anything you can to get background, background, background, background. All right, we're good.