Bible Study Techniques - Gospels

Excerpts from "How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth" by Fee & Stuart

Step 1 - Historical Context - have an awareness of the historical context...this means not only to know the historical context in general, but also to form a tentative, but informed, reconstruction of the situation that the author is addressing.

There are two levels to this:
#1 - The Historical Context of Jesus
#2 - The Historical Context of the Evangelist (Author)

Step 2 - Literary Context - understand the place of a given story (in the Gospel) in the context of any one of the Gospels. This helps you understand the nature of the composition of the Gospel as wholes, helping you to interpret any one Gospel itself, not just isolated facts about the life of Jesus

In summary:
#1 - Think Horizontally - studying a story in any one Gospel, one should be aware of the parallels in the other gospels. Remember, don't rely to heavily on this, as none of the authors intended his gospel to be read in parallel with the others. Nonetheless, the fact that God provided four gospels in the canon means that they cannot be legitimately be read in total isolation from each other

#2 - Think Vertically - one should try to be aware of both historical contexts, that of Jesus and that of the evangelist (author)

We will use these techniques as we go through the study of Matthew in the coming weeks.