Thursday, April 10, 2008

Explore the Bible for Yourself, Part 32 of 52

IDEA: You have to take the entire narrative as a unit. Each individual segment or episode doesn't stand alone.

PURPOSE: To help listeners see that they have to look at the whole as well as the parts.

I. Begin with the story of the Good Samaritan:

If you read that by itself, what lesson would you find in it? Perhaps "You ought to be a neighbor to everybody."

II. The next story in Lk 10 deals with Mary and Martha

What do you think the lesson of that story is? Why might Luke have put them side by side?

III. Now look at the broader narrative in which Jesus talks with a lawyer.

Does that give you any clues about the Good Samaritan or about Martha?

IV. The principle that we have gone through is that you have to take the entire narrative as a unit.

Each individual segment or episode may teach you a lesson, but it could be the wrong lesson unless you see how the story develops.