The old adage ‘context is king’ is wheeled out a lot when it comes to reading the bible. What we usually mean is that meaning is primarily derived from context. Reading words or sentences in isolation, ripped apart from their context, can make the bible say a lot of weird and wonderful things. We fundamentally determine what this word means in this particular sentence by it’s wider context. And we place things in the ever-broader contexts, starting with words in sentences, then sentences in paragraphs, paragraphs in sections, sections in books and, finally, books in the canon.

Of course, there is another form of context that is important too. It is what theological bores call its sitz im leben (because why not make ourselves feel clever by unnecessarily using German when perfectly decent English words will do!) The phrase translates to setting in life. In other words, when you read a text of scripture, we recognise it was written at a particular time and place in history, with specific goings on, by a writer who had particular situations they were addressing and things going on in their own life that will inevitably impact how we understand the text.

To take a trivial example that some people run a million miles with, take what Paul says in 2 Timothy 4:13:

When you come, bring the cloak I left in Troas with Carpus, as well as the scrolls, especially the parchments.

If I go hunting for the specific thing the Lord is trying to say to me here, I might be on a hiding to nothing. Nevertheless, some try and build fanciful cases for the importance of reading Christian books on this single verse. They rarely seem so interested in making a similarly vital case for the wearing of cloaks, which is interesting. But this verse isn’t really telling us that it’s important to wear a cloak out or you’ll catch your death, or the significance of having a friend called Carpus (a particularly bad name for a wife I think) or that scrolls are the preferred means of reading or anything about reading and writing at all. We can know all these things simply by looking at the context. Just reading a few verses around this one, we can see that Paul is speaking primarily about some general goings on in his own life. He is speaking about his sitz im leben, and that setting in life impacts both what he says and how we are to understand it.

Now, does that means there is nothing for us to glean from these verses that might of benefit to us and our personal Christian life? Of course not. Clearly, this is part of God’s inspired word and so there is presumably something of value for us even in these very personal, situational matters for Paul. The point isn’t that these verses have nothing to say to us, it’s that understanding their context – the textual and the historical and the personal contexts – helps us to understand what Paul is saying, why he is saying it and, therefore, what we might reasonably take from it that is useful for teaching, correcting, rebuking and/or all those other things Paul insists the whole is scripture is useful for, including presumably this bit.

This idea of placing things in its historical and situational context is helpful more broadly. It can be useful to understand a bit of the history and culture of various cities to which Paul writes his letters because it goes some way to explaining why he addresses some of the particular topics he does. Likewise, Paul’s own situation or the situation of the churches he writes to can help us understand a little about why Paul writes to them and, more specifically, why he writes this in particular. It won’t tell you everything, of course. But it will give a bit of guidance when you come to particular passages and ask, if X is going on and Y appears to the the broader purpose for writing into this specific situation, this passage may well be saying A, B and C of relevance to those things.