Relocating To Elfland

A few humble thoughts on how to read the Bible:

Every text in the Bible is situated in four contexts, and each of these contexts helps us understand what the text is saying and how we are to respond to it. The four contexts are as follows:

1. The historical context

The question to ask here is what was happening in the world and the life of the author when this text was written. Every writer is a product of his or her time, and in order to understand a writer, we must understand something of the time in which he or she lived. It is no different with the biblical writers, even though they were inspired by the Holy Spirit and kept from error.

2. The literary context

We need to try to recreate the writer’s dictionary (what particular words meant at the time he was writing), and also learn as much as we can about the grammar and syntax of the language in which he thought and wrote.

But there is much more than this to literature. The biblical writers were working within a literary tradition overseen by God Himself, so biblical texts are full of allusions to prior texts, and full of hints, images, shadows, and “types” of things yet to come. We must ask how the words, imagery, and ideas in a particular text are informed by any number of other biblical texts. This requires a growing familiarity with the Bible as a whole.

3. The canonical context

Because God is the primary Author of scripture, the Bible (the entire “canon” of scripture) is one cohesive story. We must ask how a particular text serves this overall biblical story of the Triune God, His Messiah, and His kingdom.

4. The covenantal context

God intended scripture to teach us, reprove us, correct us, and train us in righteousness. We must therefore ask how each particular text is intended by God to shape the life of His people in every age, including our own.