Three Reads - What in the world is Jim asking us to do this week?

What in the world is Jim asking us to do this week?

That's a great question. As part of this study on Jonah, I wanted to make sure that we spent a little time brushing up on our bible study skills. The tricky part of doing that inside a short study of a book like Jonah is that there's no time to do the setup work for the work you'll do between sessions, unless we take one session to review the elements of studying the bible. That would take an extra week, and I really wanted us to keep up the pace we've set in our look at Tales of the Sea.

I also know that for many of you, most of what we'll be doing is something you have practiced in the past, or practice all the time.

So, I thought we'd do things a little differently this time when studying Jonah and I wouldn't burden you with a lot of "instruction" on technique, but just have you jump into the text. I also hope you can enjoy the text as the text, and let it speak directly to you.

These few blog entries will provide a means to give you just a bit more direction if you'd like to have it.

Case in point.
One way to look at bible study that resonates with me is describe in David L. Thompson's book, Bible Study that Works. He reduces the suggestions for bible study down to two questions: 1) "What, as a matter of fact, did the authors intend to say to their first readers?" 2) "What does that have to do with us and our world?"

In answering the first question we have to look carefully at the text. In doing that we'll look at both content and structure.

This week we're looking at the content. And that's the short answer to the question "what are we doing this week?"

The literary read.
Estimates are that somewhere between 40% and 60% of the bible is narrative/history. What this means to us is that narrative is a major approach God has used to reveal himself to us. One of the skills that I hope we are building during our Tales of the Sea study is the ability to get great value of the narratives we're reading.

This is why one of your readings this week should include looking at the story of Jonah from a literary point of view. I had a question from one of our group members about what are we looking for when looking at "narration". Narration is a term that basically means the recounting of the series of facts and events in a story. When we look at the narration we're discovering who the narrator is, what the point of view of the narrator is, and other elements such as the pace of the telling.

Here's a link to an assignment for students to write a literary analysis. It includes a brief introduction to many of the literary elements in a story. Pay attention to the information contained in Step 1.

Still confused?
Send me an email, or add comment to this post. We'll be reviewing this in context as we meet together this week.

And, really, enjoy the book of Jonah this week.