- Published: October 2, 2022
- Updated: October 2, 2022
- University / College: The University of Warwick
- Level: Doctor of Philosophy
- Language: English
- Downloads: 37
Discovering the Literary Context What happens if you carefully consider the surrounding context of a passage, but ignore its literary genre? If one ignores the literary genre then the consequences are similar to playing by the rules of basketball in a football game. Considering the surrounding context is very important as it gives relevance to the meaning. As explained in the book that in Bible the context is everything (Duvall & Hays, 2009). And perhaps there are no meanings without context. But the problem arises when the literary genre is not taken into consideration, why? Because each book; literature, story, comic, article, essay, they all have their specific rules by which one needs to understand them and exact meanings source to avoid misinterpretation. One cannot simply use the literary context of reading the ingredients written on a tuna-can and apply it to understanding Bible. The game of genre determines the meaning.
2. Besides those examples cited in this chapter, what are some instances of interpreting a biblical passage apart from its immediate context?
There are many passages and verses that are frequently misinterpreted by ignoring the immediate context. For instance, Jesus has said in the Bible that he is vine (John 15: 5). This is probably the prime example of what conferring to immediate context means. If this statement is considered without immediate context it can be misinterpreted that probably Jesus was calling himself a plant, which is not the case.
3. When is topical preaching contextually valid? When does it disregard and violate context?
Topical preaching is valid when the passage is not misunderstood regarding the context or when the passage is coherent with the context (Duvall & Hays, 2009). Usually what happens is topical preaching disregards the literary context and that gives the chance to the listener or the reader to misinterpret the message. For this reason the expository preaching is considered a better alternative to topical preaching (Duvall & Hays, 2009). It topical preacher has more chances of getting it wrong by misinterpreting when the correct when they connect their first thought stemming from Johns preaching with some random fourth thought relevant to Psalm.
Reference
Duvall, J. S. & Hays, J. D. (2009) Journey into Gods Word . Grand Rapids: Zondervan.
