Recently, we continued our series on textual Bible study by exploring the when and where questions that are involved in reading a passage. We continue to explore the book of Titus and practice this reading in small groups during Bible class on Sunday morning. Both when and where help to frame the story in context. The assistance of a good Bible handbook can help to make these questions much easier to answer, especially when one is looking for specific dates or locations on a map.
When questions are important for rebuilding timelines or while establishing a chain of events, especially when an earlier event has specific relevance to an event occurring later in the narrative. Understand where the writing falls in the life of the author may help to bring out keywords and phrases that we might otherwise miss.
Where helps us to determine the environment in which the story is unfolding. Knowing the location of an event will tell us about nearby cities, land features, or lakes – which sometimes are even referenced in the story itself. Knowing how one location relates to another, can allow us to estimate travel time as well. Furthermore, locations can also give us hints about the people, what sort of culture they came from, and their background.
While context is not strictly required in order to extract the basic meaning from most passages, it does greatly enhance our ability to understand more deeply what the author is trying to convey to his readers. In the New Testament, this context is particularly important for the letters written by Paul as some of them are very short and do not give sufficient context to see the whole backstory without additional study.
