Good morning. Welcome to Discipleship Hour. So we're continuing our series, Teach Us Your Word, today, learning some basic Bible study skills. Did, before I pray, has anyone tried, you know, two weeks ago Craig taught us the TP California method of Bible reading and prayer. Teach, what was it, teach praise, yeah, confess, ask. Anybody try that? I have been using it, yeah, but I can't remember what it stands for. Anybody? And then last week we talked about observation, just some basic, you know, you look at a text, read a text, what are just, before you even jump to interpretation or application, you have to see what's there. Did anybody try any of that? Did you try marking up your Bibles? I'm always scared to do that. Not because there's something wrong with writing in your Bible. I just, I'm always like, what if I mess up the line or what if I write something that's stupid? So I typically will print out the text and do it on a sheet of paper because then I can just toss it in the trash if I don't like the way it looks. Anybody try it? All right, well I would encourage you to start trying to implement some of these things just to get, you know, the reading and prayer method that Craig talked about two weeks ago is just a great little rubric for, you know, you sit down and you want to benefit from God's word. It can be very helpful just to have a little system like that. And then also if you're trying to do a little more on the study side, Again, I encouraged you last week, don't just rush to the theology, interpretation, application. You really want to see what's there. So I'd encourage you to start trying some of that if you haven't already. Today we're going to talk about context. So last week was observation. Today, we launch into doing a little bit more than just seeing what's there. Context. I'll say more about that in a moment. Let me pray before we go any further. Our Father in heaven, we thank you for the gift of your word, your life-giving word. We pray that you would Give us just some skills as we seek to read your word well, as we seek to benefit from our Bible reading. We pray that you would sharpen our ability to read it and understand it. We ask in Jesus' name. Amen. All right. So context. Context. You know, if you're looking at, I want to study a passage of the Bible, there's a million things you could do. maybe a little bit less than a million. But context is very, very important. And let's talk about why context matters. Why do we need to pay attention to the surrounding context of a verse or a paragraph or a chapter? Well, you've probably heard this saying before, a text without a context a pretext. Maybe you've heard that, maybe not. What it's getting at is, you know, if you just take a Bible verse and in isolation, a single Bible verse, even a couple verses, and you don't pay any attention to what came before and what comes after, you can make that verse say whatever you want it to say. And you've probably all sat under some sermons where you thought, wow, I really didn't know that that verse meant that. And where is he coming up with that? If you ignore the context, you can make the Bible say whatever you want. And we're going to look at some examples of that in a moment. Also, without context, it's very easy to misunderstand. Very easy to misunderstand, especially if you're just looking at a single verse. there's some terms in there that maybe are not as familiar to you. If you don't pay attention to the context, it's very easy to misunderstand what the author is saying. And so I'm going to look at a couple biblical examples in a moment, but first anybody know slugs and bugs? It's a Christian organization. I knew the cookers would know because they have little kids. It's a Christian organization. They produce music and shows and books for kids. They've got musical albums that are like sing along to scripture and stuff like that. It's very fun music. And they've got this album and a song called Underwear. And in the song, there's two characters. And you think of them as like two little boys. And the one character says, I can't find my pet bunny. And he's all distraught. I can't find my pet bunny. I've looked everywhere. I don't know where he is. And the other kid says to him, have you looked under there? And the first kid says, under where? Asks the question. And they do this back and forth thing. I can't find my bunny. And did you look over there? Under where? And then eventually, the second character just starts really laughing in the song. He interrupts, and he's just cracking up because Underwear also sounds like the word underwear. And context matters, right? If you just hear underwear, underwear, underwear, you don't know. Is that a question about location? Or is that a statement about undergarments? You don't know. And that's a silly example about context. It illustrates context matters, right? You have to know what is the situation here? What is going on? And the same is true with scripture. For example, Ephesians 2, the opening two verses, and you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work and the sons of disobedience. There was a time early in the days of radio, when radio was a new technology, that some groups of Christians said that Christians cannot listen to radio. Christians cannot own a radio. Do you know why? They said because the devil is the prince of the power of the air. He controls the airwaves. The radio signals going over the air The radio is the domain of the devil. And here we are in 2023 going, what? But you take a verse out of context and you can make it say whatever you want. How do we know that Paul wasn't talking about radio? Yeah, there was no radio at that time. So Paul certainly couldn't have been talking about radio waves, the airwaves, Also, the context, you know, the surrounding context would indicate that's not what Paul's talking about. When we say, well, there was no radio, we're talking about historical context. So, it's helpful to know. Another example, a beloved verse, Jeremiah 29.11. Maybe you've seen this verse on coffee mugs or a poster with a very peaceful background. I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil to give you a future and a hope. A very positive statement, right? God saying, I've got a plan for your life and it's a good plan and a future full of hope. It is an encouraging verse, but if we zoom out from that particular verse and just think about it in context, does anybody know the context of Jeremiah 29.11, Elise? Yeah, so you have the prophet Jeremiah writing a letter to the Jewish exiles in Babylon, saying I know that some some so-called prophets have been telling you like this is all coming to an end and and But I want you to know you're going to be there a while so I Want you to know that you ought to settle down build houses Get married, raise kids, and go about your daily life there in Babylon trying to seek the peace of the city. Promote the peace of the people who carted you off into exile. And you're going to be there 70 years. But take heart. The Lord hasn't forgotten you. At the end of 70 years, he's going to bring you back home. The Lord says, I have a future for you. I have a good future for you. If you talk about context, if you take that verse in context, it has a different, not a totally different meaning. It's still an encouraging verse about God making good plans for his people, but there's a particular context to it that it's not like your best life now. It's not, you know, comfy, cozy, middle-class, suburban life. You're going to go through the ringer. You're going to be in a tough situation for a long time. And it's going to feel like the Lord has given up on you. But take heart, he hasn't. So context. The context really matters when we are looking at scripture. And we'll look at more examples along the way. But types of context. Types of context. You could multiply the types of context, but we'll just talk about two kind of overarching types of context, literary and historical. And I'm going to look at the screen every once in a while, because using slides is still new for us. And I'm always like, is what's showing on my phone really showing up there on the screen? But two types of context. Literary context. What is literary context? Let me give you a definition. This is from Dan Doriani, who wrote a book on reading and interpreting the Bible. And he says, literary context is the words, sentences, paragraphs, or chapters that surround and relate to a text. So literary context is applicable when we're reading the Bible, it's applicable when you're reading a novel, it's applicable if you're reading a news article on a website or even a physical newspaper. Literary context is just about what came before and what comes after your reading. It has to do with words and words are part of sentences and sentences are part of paragraphs and paragraphs are part of sections and so forth. So every Bible verse, and you're going to hear me say this multiple times today, every Bible verse is a part of a larger literary unit. We tend to focus on verses because they're, you know, it's easier to remember a single verse than it is to memorize, for example, a paragraph or a chapter. But as meaningful as an individual verse can be, it really is a part of a bigger unit, something, a bigger argument. If, you know, if it's Paul's letters, he's usually making a point or it's a part single verse that's a part of a bigger narrative arc. Things like that. Like we looked at a moment ago with Jeremiah 29 11. That's not just some drop down out of the sky promise that there's a context there. Israel, captivity, so forth. Historical context. Historical context, again this is Dan Doriani. Historical context is the culture, customs, language, beliefs, and history of the author and the original audience. So, you know, sometimes we read the Bible. And we're confused because it was written thousands of years ago and we're in a totally different time, completely different culture, different, just different. And that cultural and chronological distance can make it difficult for us to understand what's going on just because we're not familiar with the culture. We're not familiar with customs and maybe even historical events that happened and that are in the mind, that those events would have been in the minds of the original readers or speakers and shapes what they're saying and how those who originally heard it would have understood what is being said. And so that cultural and chronological distance and it can make it challenging at times to read the Bible with understanding. And we're going to look at some examples of that a little later. But two main categories of context, literary and historical. Now, let's spend a few moments talking about how to explore the literary context. How do you try to understand how this verse is situated, what it means, what it's saying within the context of a chapter, a book, and so forth. My first guideline that I'd give you, Read the book, the whole book, the whole thing. If you're looking at, name one of your favorite Bible verses. You can shout in Discipleship Hour. OK, Romans 8.28. Mark says Romans 8.28. Can you quote it for us? OK. We'll get there eventually. Romans 828, wonderful verse. God causes all things to work together for good for those who love him and walk according to the... I don't even have it memorized, but you know, you know the verse. Now that is an amazing statement and there's a lot that you can derive from that verse without even looking at the context actually, but to really understand the full import of what Paul's saying there in Romans 828, you really need to read the whole book of Romans. You really need to understand the flow of Paul's thought beginning in chapter 1 and carrying on to chapter 8 verse 28 and then even beyond in past chapter 8. Again, it's not that you can't understand the verse at all if you don't read the whole book. That particular statement that Paul makes in 8.28 is a part of a bigger story Paul is telling about the gospel and God's plans and purposes and what it means to be a Christian. So, read the book. Trotting is communicating big picture. You know the saying, don't miss the forest for the trees? And reading the Bible, and this applies to reading a novel and watching TV shows and other things, we're constantly doing this dance between seeing the big picture and focusing on the details. And you kind of have to go back and forth. The details contribute to the big picture, but the big picture also helps you understand the details. That's the whole don't miss the forest, the big picture, for the trees, which are the details. And so to really understand the Bible well, you want to get the big picture. And sometimes it helps to just read through a book without getting down, without kind of getting lost in the minutia, but just reading briskly, quickly to get a feel for the whole thing. I mentioned last week that's easier to do. with things like Philippians, Colossians, Philemon. I mean, you could probably read Philemon in less than five minutes. It's a little more difficult to do with Genesis, right? Fifty chapters, you're going to, it's going to take you some time. But, read the book, the whole thing. And the reason is, context, you can think of context as a series of concentric circles. Each Each circle is connected to the circles around it, the circles inside of it, and there's that interplay. So you have a verse. That verse is a part of a paragraph. That paragraph is a part of a bigger section. That might be a chapter, that might be a group of chapters. That section is a part of a book. that the overall book of Romans has a purpose, an overall message that Paul is communicating. That book is a part of a testament, Old Testament or New Testament. and understanding where are we in redemptive history. Are we in the Old Testament, Old Covenant right now? Are we reading New Testament, New Covenant? Is it before Jesus' death and resurrection? Is it after Jesus' death and resurrection? All of that helps you make sense of the paragraphs and the verses. And then finally, each book of the Bible is a part of the whole Bible story. There is the Bible, and I know you know this, but the Bible's not just some random collection of religious thought. There is an overarching story and really, you know, four acts, creation, fall, redemption, new creation. And that overarching storyline can help, you know, keeping that in mind, can help you make sense of some of the particulars, some of the details. And so, you might see this picture here, this graphic, and think, wow, that's a lot of work to really try to understand a Bible verse. Yeah, it is. Being faithful Bible readers, reading the Bible responsibly does take work. Now, again, You don't have to do all of this every time you sit down to read the Bible. If you've got five minutes in the morning and you're just wanting some encouragement from the word, you don't need to like, you know, all right, well I need to read the whole book of Jeremiah now before I head off to my appointment this morning. No, you don't have to do all that. You already have knowledge of the Bible that you can bring to bear on any particular verse you're reading. And as you read the Bible well and faithfully over a length of time, you're accumulating an understanding of these concentric circles of context. It's not like you have to go dig up, do some fresh excavation every time you read the Bible. important. If you received a letter from a friend, now I know that handwritten letters are not really, you know, very common anymore, but if you received a letter in the mail from a friend, let's say it's five pages long. So somebody really had a lot to say. You wouldn't jump to page three and And then just look at maybe one or two sentences right in the middle of a paragraph on page three and then set the letter aside and say, well, I understand the whole thing now, right? I understand what those two sentences mean. No, we wouldn't do that, right, with a letter. We'd start at the beginning and we'd read through to the end. Same with the Bible. Verses mean what they mean in a broader context. So with that, let me give you a couple, I mentioned read the whole book, but let me give you some other guidelines for understanding literary context. Interpret a verse in light of its immediate context. So I've been saying that. Interpret a verse in light of its immediate context. And let me give you an example here, Luke 17, 5. The apostles said to the Lord, increase our faith. So if we're just reading that verse, Luke 17, 5, it sounds like a very commendable request, right? The apostles, the disciples here, saying to Jesus, hey, we just want to grow in our faith. Would you increase our faith? But, let's do a little exploration of the context. Let's look back. What was said right before these verses? Luke 17, verses 3 and 4, Jesus speaking to the disciples. Pay attention to yourselves. If your brother sins, rebuke him. And if he repents, forgive him. And if he sins against you seven times in the day and turns to you seven times, saying, I repent, you must forgive him. So Jesus is saying, you know, the imperative of forgiveness. And you should forgive your brother or your sister who sins against you and comes to you confessing their sins and repenting. And how often will, even if seven times a day that happens, just forgive. Immediately after that, the disciples say, Lord, increase our faith. And then right after, verse 5, And the Lord said, if you had faith like a grain of mustard seed, you could say to the mulberry tree, be uprooted and planted in the sea, and it would obey you. Will any one of you who has a servant plowing or keeping sheep say to him when he has come in from the field, come at once and recline at table? Will he not rather say to him, prepare supper for me and dress properly and serve me while I eat and drink, and afterward you will eat and drink? Does he thank the servant because he did what was commanded? So you also, when you have done all that you were commanded, say, we are unworthy servants. We have only done what was our duty. I know there's a lot there. But Jesus tells his disciples, you need to forgive each other. They say, increase our faith. And then Jesus tells this story about the unworthy servants who just did what they. Well, first he talks about faith the size of a mustard seed. Then the unworthy servant, what he's saying is, Jesus is highlighting their reluctance to do what he commanded. That statement, increase our faith, it's the disciples saying, what you just told us to do, Jesus, is way too hard. There's no way we can do that. We're not even going to try. You have to do something to us in order to make this possible. And Jesus is saying, even if you had the smallest grain of faith, you could do more than you think. you know, the story about the servant is just pointing out their reluctance. So, obviously there's a lot that could be unpacked there, but the point is if you read, if you just read Luke 17 5 in isolation, we could misunderstand that and think that, okay, This is the disciples praying for greater faith, and I should pray for greater faith, which it's true. We should pray for the Lord to strengthen our faith, but that's not exactly what's going on in the context of Luke 17. So you want to interpret a single verse in light of what's around it. Another guideline. Interpret paragraphs light of the surrounding paragraphs. So you're starting to get the idea, right? The concentric circles idea. A verse is a part of a paragraph, so understand the verse in light of maybe the paragraph or two that it's a part of. Understand paragraphs in the larger circle of the other paragraphs surrounding it. You know, sometimes we, again, we kind of play Bible roulette. You know, we just open up the Bible, look at one particular section, read that section, and then maybe come to a conclusion about what it means that really contradicts everything else that's said in that book. And let me give you an example here. Romans 5, 18 through 21. I'm not going to read the whole thing. In Romans 5, 18 through 21, kind of a paragraph unit in Paul's book, Letter to the Romans, he has a statement in verse 18. Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. And he repeats that in the paragraph. And if you're only reading that paragraph, you might come to the conclusion that Paul is teaching some kind of universalism here, right? That just as all human beings are condemned in Adam, all human beings will be saved, justified in Christ. So is Paul saying, you know, all people will be saved irrespective of or regardless of personal conscious faith in Jesus Christ. If you're only looking at this paragraph and this verse in that paragraph, it kind of sounds like it, doesn't it? I mean, I know we're saying, no, that's not what it says, but it kind of sounds like it. Can you see how someone might reach that conclusion if they're only looking at those few verses? I mean, condemnation for all men, justification in life for all men. How would we know what Paul is or isn't saying here in Romans 5, 18 through 21? We've been going through Romans, so I'm kind of testing how well are Craig and I communicating the message of Romans. What else do you know about the surrounding context of this statement in Romans 5? Let me tell you. previous paragraph, chapter 5, for example, verse 17, the end of the previous paragraph, speaks of people who receive grace and the gift of righteousness and life by faith. So Paul is saying, you know, there are some who receive grace, salvation, life. If you back up even to chapter 5, verse 1, therefore, having been justified by by faith. So that is going to nuance, that context is going to nuance how we understand Romans 5.18 saying that there's justification in life for all men or all people. Well, Paul is also saying in context that those who have personal conscious faith in Jesus Christ received that verdict of justified. And then if you back up even more, chapter 321 through 425, another big unit, Paul is just hammering justification by faith, justification by faith, justification by faith. We're guilty in our sins in Adam, but those who have faith in Jesus Christ are declared righteous. All of that context, the surrounding paragraphs, and we didn't even talk about what comes after, all of that sheds light on what Paul means right here. When he says that one act of righteousness, talking about the saving work of Jesus Christ, one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men or all people, The all men, all people there means all who are in Christ by faith. Not all people who have ever lived regardless of personal faith in Jesus Christ. So, surrounding context informs how we understand this verse and paragraph. One more guideline, and I had to restrain myself from giving you like 25 guidelines. I'm trying to just gently introduce some of these. One more guideline. Try to determine why the text belongs precisely where it is. So again, if you're trying to understand a text in its literary context, you want to know why did the author put this here? How does it function in the overall For example, if it's a narrative, a gospel, or an Old Testament narrative, how does it function in the overall storyline? Or if it's one of Paul's letters where it's a real dense kind of logical argument, how does it contribute to the argument Paul is making? I'm going to give you an example here. What we're trying to do is understand how does this particular verse or paragraph illustrate, support, or develop the author's message. Let me give you an example here. The Parable of the Prodigal Son. Most of us are familiar with that, right? Luke 15, Parable of the Prodigal Son. Now, what is, I mean you can tell even the title we give this story, in our understanding typically, what's the focus of that parable, that story? the prodigal son, right? This wayward son who rebels against his father, who goes and lives recklessly and wastes his inheritance and kind of hits rock bottom. He's laying in the mud watching the pigs eat their slop and wishing he could share their food. He reaches rock bottom but then he comes to himself And he returns, goes back home, and his father receives him with wide open arms and throws a big party. And we're like, see? Even people who have lived wild, immoral, reckless lives will be received with open arms by God if they come to him in repentance and faith. And all of that is true. But if we think about how the story begins, This is how Jesus begins the story. And he said, he, Jesus, said, there was a man who had one son? No. There was a man who had two sons. And so Jesus is signaling, right at the beginning of the story, this story I'm about to tell, there's two main characters in it. There's maybe three. You could say the father is a main character as well. This is a story about two sons. And if you go back and read the story in Luke 15, the first half of the story focuses on the younger son, the prodigal, the wayward son. The second half of the story focuses on the older son who's upset that the father throws this big party for the younger brother. And if you back up even further, so you're trying to understand why is this here? Why is this story here? If you back up even further to the beginning of chapter 15, Luke tells us, now the tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to Him, to Jesus, and the Pharisees and the scribes grumbled, saying, this man receives sinners and eats with them. You have this little introductory comment by Luke, And then Jesus proceeds to tell three stories about lostness. He tells the story about a lost sheep. He tells a story about a lost coin. And then he tells a story, we often say about a lost brother, but it's really two lost brothers. You look at Luke's introduction, there's two groups here, right? There's the Pharisees and the scribes who are complaining about Jesus. Why? because Jesus associates with sinners, eats with sinners. And then in the story about the two brothers, the younger brother, I mean, perfect kind of representative of the tax collectors and sinners, right? Just wild, prodigal, rebellious people. The older brother, good representative of whom? The Pharisees. who are all bent out of shape about Jesus' association with these disreputable people, just like the older brother is bent out of shape about the father showing such kindness and grace to the younger brother who doesn't deserve it. You're thinking, why is this story here? Well, It's here not just to say even rebellious people can come home to God and find mercy and grace, but even morally upright people who think they have no need for salvation are lost as well and need to, in a sense, come home to God and receive mercy and grace. So that question, why is this text here, is helpful. to consider what does the context tell me about why this text might be here. Now, before we talk about historical context, some questions for you. I don't know if you have questions on this, but what do you find difficult about trying to understand the context of a Bible verse or a chapter? What are some issues you've run into? Mark? Or were you not? Were you raising your hand? Yeah, Nevin's got the mic. All right. Thank you. OK. I think one thing, you almost went to this point. But as I'm looking at my translation, most of us have the same, similar translations. They do a bit of a disservice to us, don't they? They put headers in ahead of sections, and they put chapters and verses, which lends itself to fragmenting a letter or passage. And so I think just as you were going through that, it made me feel more aware of that. So as I'm reading now, I can go, okay, just try not to look at those or think about them, but read it as a whole. So when the church got a letter from Paul to Ephesus, that was a letter. It wasn't broken up into chapters and verses or subheadings and italicized writing. That's really helpful to remember. Those headings can be, your Bible translators put in those headings. They can be helpful, but they can also kind of, you think, well, I'm only just going to read this one little paragraph. And the Bible, as Mark was saying, wasn't originally divided up into paragraphs and verses. And the story is that the first attempt to, or what we have today in terms of chapters and paragraphs goes back to a, I think it was a French publisher in the 16th century, who apparently was making notes about how to divide it all up while he was riding horseback. And apparently, you know, the bumpiness, like, he screwed it up. That's how the story goes. Because sometimes you look at the chapter divisions and you're like, what in the world? Why is there a new chapter starting there? Or a verse, you know? It's all a little crazy sometimes. So that's a good piece of advice try to what one thing you can do is there are readers Bibles out now that Don't have it's more of its formatted more the way a novel would be Without all the headings there might be verse references, but but it's a little Formatted for reading the way you would read other books because the Bible is a divine book, but it is a book It's a piece of literature and a lot of the same guidelines for reading literature apply to the Bible as literature. So, yeah, trying not to let the publisher's headings and divisions keep you from reading context. Maybe anyone else? Something you find difficult? Bruce? Yeah, yeah, culture. And we're going to talk about that, actually, in a moment, that understanding some of the background is very, very important. And then Kevin, and then we'll move on. And sometimes even sentence structure is confusing. So it's helpful to compare different translations, especially in Paul's writings, because his sentences are so long, and phrase after phrase, and they're all connected. But we got lost in the middle of it. Yes. Yeah, that's part of the challenge of translating something that was written in first century Greek into a comprehensible 21st century English. It can be challenging. So yeah, comparing translations can be real helpful. OK, let's talk about the historical context. And we're not going to go into depth here, but I do want to give you some examples of how some understanding of historical background can shed light on things that might otherwise be confusing. And then towards the end, I'm going to give you some helpful resources because you're like, well, how do I explore historical background? I'm not a classics scholar, or I'm not a New Testament scholar, so I'll give you some resources. But when we're talking about exploring the historical context, we're talking about researching the world of the Bible. So, except for maybe the book of Proverbs, the Bible is, you know, Proverbs are just short pithy statements. And, you know, there's not this like detailed literary context, although the book of Proverbs is thematic and it was written in a particular time and place, so there is historical background. But, you know, Paul's letters are written to people who are rooted in a particular point in time, in a particular culture, whose thinking and outlook on life have been shaped by certain events and cultural practices, whether it's Greco-Roman culture or first century Jewish culture, or in a lot of those cases, a blending of those things. And the more we can try to understand that world, the better we're going to understand the Bible. awareness of that world and the daily life of the people in the Bible, as much as we can understand it, is going to shed light on the Bible. So, let me give you an example. Lukewarm Christians. Who knows where that phrase, lukewarm, or yeah, Book of Revelation, and maybe you've heard sermons on this before, the Book of Revelation, Jesus, the risen Jesus, speaking to the church in Laodicea. So this is Revelation 3. He says this to the church in Laodicea, I know your works. You are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were either cold or hot. So, because you are lukewarm and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth. Revelation 3, 15 and 16. Maybe you've heard these sermons. Jesus doesn't want lukewarm followers. You either need to be totally on fire for him or totally opposed to him. There's no middle ground. He does not want some armchair follower. So get on fire for Jesus. Don't be lukewarm. Anybody ever hear those sermons? I had a sticker on my surfboard as a teenager that said, never lukewarm. I wasn't even a Christian. I mean, that preaches, right? Get on fire for Jesus. None of this lukewarm business. Well, think about it for a moment. Would Jesus say to one of his followers, I either want you to be perfectly devoted to me or entirely opposed to me? I don't think so. I think he'd probably want to bring a maybe less than completely devoted follower. I think he'd want to bring them along into increasing levels of devotedness. I don't think he's going to say, you know, since there's still areas of your life that haven't completely come under my lordship, just give it all up. Become an atheist. I don't think so. And there's historical and cultural background to this that sheds some light on what Jesus is saying. So that city, Laodicea, which was located in what is modern-day Turkey, back in that time, people would use hot water for things like bathing and cleaning, and cold water for drinking and other purposes. Now, Laodicea did not have its own water supply. So no natural supply of water. And so they piped it in from other places. They had aqueduct systems that brought water in from other locations. So for example, the closest hot springs were six miles away. And you think, well, if you're going to get cold water from the mountains, this is a picture of a street in what remains of Laodicea. And you can see the mountains are pretty far away, right? The snow-covered peaks are quite a ways off. So, you know, the hot water and the cold water are far away. They get piped into Laodicea. And by the time either the hot water or the cold water gets to Laodicea, it's all the same temperature. It's all lukewarm. It's all tepid. And a constant complaint from the citizens of Laodicea is, this water is useless. It's not hot enough to use for bathing or cleaning. even though there were ways you could heat it up. It's also not cold enough to provide a refreshing drink. It's just this lukewarm water that is useless. That is what Jesus is getting at here. He's saying to the church, he's rebuking in the context, both literary context and historical, he's rebuking a complacent church. that doesn't offer life or healing to its community. And he's saying, because you're lukewarm, you're not useful. It's not that you're not totally on fire for Jesus, although that's sort of part of the idea. But if you were useful, you would be either hot or cold. You'd be cold water providing a refreshing drink, or you'd be hot water, you know, cleansing and being used for cleansing and bathing. But because you're neither, you're useless to me." Just like the people of Laodicea thought the water that gets piped in from these different sources is rather useless because of its temperature. So, there's some historical cultural background. Let's look at another one. Shake the dust off your feet. Maybe you remember Mark 6. Jesus sends out his disciples, says, go out, preach, announce that the kingdom has arrived, heal, cast out demons, stay in the homes of the people to whom you're preaching, and if they're not going to receive you, shake the dust off your feet as a testimony against them." So Mark 6, 11. And if in any place, if any place will not receive you and they will not listen to you when you leave, shake off the dust that is on your feet as a testimony against them. And we read that and you know you get some idea of what Jesus is talking about because he says it's a, this act of shaking off the dust, it's a testimony against them, against people who are not listening to God's message, but you're kind of like, okay, it's a symbolic act, but what does it symbolize, the shaking the dust off your feet? Well, historical background, cultural background. Any faithful Jewish person at that time who traveled outside the boundaries of Israel, let's say they went to a neighboring country, had to do some business there or whatever, when they would come back to Israel, as they're approaching the borders of Israel, they were required to shake off the dust from the foreign pagan land that had accumulated on their clothing and shoes. The idea being, I'm not going to bring this pagan dust into the holy land and pollute the holy land with what is unholy. And so this practice of shaking the dust off the feet Jesus is telling his disciples, you know, if these villages in Israel reject the message, reject my message about the kingdom, treat them like they're unclean pagans. That's a testimony against them. You've rejected God's prophet. You're no different than the pagans who have no access to the temple and God's revelation. So, again, understanding some of the cultural background is helpful. Let me give you, I think this is my last example. Yeah. Last example here. Donkey versus horse. And I'm not talking about a fight here. Jesus riding into Jerusalem on what we typically call Palm Sunday, Jesus' triumphal entry. He rides into Jerusalem on on a donkey, right? Not a horse. Now, if you, you know, typically if we're picturing somebody riding a beast of burden or some animal in way back history, we'd probably picture somebody on a horse. Because in our own culture, century and a half, two centuries ago, horses were a major form of transportation. Why did Jesus ride a donkey and not a horse? And we might conclude, well, that's all that was available. But that's not exactly the case. We might conclude, well, Zechariah 9-9, this prophecy about the true king coming to Jerusalem riding on a donkey. And that is part of the background there. And it gets quoted in Matthew 21, Mark 11. But there's also something about the historical cultural background that's important to understand. Horses were used in warfare. So a general or military leader in the ancient world would ride a horse into battle. And you see that in Proverbs 21, 31. The horse is made ready for the day of battle, but the victory belongs to the Lord. And here's this. drawing, I forget who did it, of King David after a military victory. He's defeated, I think, the Edomites here. And what do you notice? So David's in the middle. He's got the crown on. What do you notice about his transportation? He's in a chariot that's being pulled by two gargantuan horses. And You can see the, I guess it's the opposing king's head on a spike and then his body, you know, it's pretty gruesome. And there's, you know, you got some prisoners here being led in a shameful procession. As King David, who's also Israel's military leader, rides triumphantly, being pulled by these horses, So, a horse in the ancient world is like a tank or something like that, you know, a Black Hawk helicopter, something along those lines. Jesus rides into Jerusalem on a donkey. Now, they're not as intimidating as the, as, donkeys not as intimidating as those war horses are, is it? And kings in the ancient world, if they came to a city to do war, they rode a horse. If they came to the city on a peaceful mission, they rode a donkey. That's just part of, you know, the president rides around in a black SUV or a black limo when he's just driving around Washington DC. But if the president was going into a war zone to survey the scene, he's going to go in in a fully armored, you know, Vehicle there's going to be soldiers there with with weapons and so forth that that's the difference This is the the black SUV or the limo Jesus comes in to Jerusalem on this what's it communicating? He's not coming as a military warrior, a messiah who's going to overthrow the Romans with violence. He comes as the king of peace. So, again, background, cultural, historical background can help. Let me give you a few resources that can be helpful if you're trying to understand some of the background, both literary context and historical context. Two books I highly recommend, How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth and How to Read the Bible Book by Book. Both of these books are by Gordon Fee and Douglas Stewart, who are biblical scholars Fee is not alive any longer. He died several years ago. As far as I know, Stewart is still alive. These are wonderful books. They're not that long. They're guides. They're meant to be, you know, all right, I'm going to set out to read the Book of Acts. And you can go in there and kind of get an easy outline of Acts and some of the main themes and so forth. It's a guide. how to read the Bible for all it's worth kind of talks about the different genres, which we'll talk about eventually in this class. So you have historical narratives, you have poetry in the Bible, you have epistles, Paul's letters, and each of those, you know, there's some helpful things you need to understand about each genre so that you can read it well. How to read the Bible book by book is what it sounds like, kind of an overview of each book of the Bible. Highly recommend. They're very useful. Also, a good study Bible is going to get you a lot of helpful information. These are three that I recommend. The CSB Study Bible, the NIV Biblical Theology Study Bible, and the ESV Study Bible. You know, three different translations, but what's really useful is the notes. The notes in these translations. So each of these Study Bibles was done by a team of scholars. And so I typically recommend study Bibles that are done by a team rather than just a single author because the team, you know, these people have different specialties and they collaborated. You get a study Bible by a single author, it's, you know, they don't have expertise in all these different areas and it can be biased, you know, their particular kind of viewpoint. These tend to be Within the realm of evangelical reform theology, you've got people from some diverse backgrounds. Very helpful. You can get physical copies. You can get digital copies. I use all three of these. Very helpful. So the books, like the How to Read the Bible ones, or even just a decent study Bible, is going to help you with some of the, especially the historical background. You know, you read one of these weird statements like shake the dust off your feet and the study Bible almost guaranteed is going to tell you a little bit about what that, what's going on there. Last thing, final thoughts. See this guy here, he looks very contemplative, right? Final thoughts. I want to encourage you to develop a habit. When you look at a verse in the Bible, I want you to think of it like this. It's a little difficult to see on there. I should have knocked down the brightness a bit, but who knows what that is? Lego brick. I want you to get into the habit of seeing a verse or even a paragraph like a Lego brick. Craig's like, this just made my day. Craig is a Lego aficionado. By itself, a Lego brick is pretty cool, I think. I mean, it's orange. This one is orange. It's kind of cool. You know, it's got an interesting shape but by itself, it's Not that interesting, right? By itself, where a Lego brick really shines is when you see it part of a bigger model or a bigger creation. So, for example, a Lego DeLorean. Now, not just any DeLorean. The Back to the Future DeLorean. This is a time machine DeLorean. I had a friend in high school whose dad had a DeLorean and we'd go ride to the store together in the DeLorean and the, you know, the doors would lift up and I thought it was so cool. It couldn't time travel though, you know. But an individual Lego brick is pretty cool but it really shines when you see it as a part of the bigger, the bigger picture. And the same is true with Bible verses, you know. I know we each have, you know, a Bible verse that really speaks to us and that's good. But there's a whole, there's so much more in the context, so much more that is being communicated when you see your favorite Bible verse in the context of, you know, Paul's whole letter to Romans, or whatever the case might be. So I want you to get into that habit of, okay, I'm reading this verse, but what else, what else is going on here? You know, what came before it? What comes after it? Alright, so that's it for today, context. We're going to move on to another category of Bible study next week, starting to talk about analysis, looking at different ways to analyze a biblical text, which sounds super technical, but it's actually not too complicated. Let me pray, and we will be finished. Our God and Father, we long to be nourished and strengthened and encouraged and helped by your word, and so we pray that you would help us Take these ideas about reading well, learning to observe, learning to think about context, and help us practice these skills so that we might be people in whom your word dwells richly with understanding. Lord, sharpen our ability to read and understand what's going on so that we might be transformed, we ask in Jesus' name. Amen.