Studies in the text

How these studies work

Each study moves through a book a passage at a time. Before asking what a text means for us, we ask what it meant: who wrote it, to whom, in what situation, and how the passage fits the argument around it.

The pattern

• Read — the passage in full, more than once.
• Situate — where we are in the book, and why that matters.
• Observe — structure, repetition, and the words the author leans on.
• Interpret — what the text claims, including the parts that unsettle us.
• Apply — carefully, and last.

No prior training is assumed. Where a study leans on a Hebrew or Greek term, it is explained in plain English.