The Importance of Historical Context
Perhaps one of the most overlooked aspects of Bible study is a commitment to understanding the historical context of a particular passage. Much attention is often given to literary context as well as textual observations. However, little effort is typically given to understanding the historical, cultural, and social conditions that are influential in a verse, chapter, or book of the Bible. A careless study of the Scriptures that ignores historical context will almost always lead to a misuse or misunderstanding of God’s Word.

A commitment to understanding historical context is one of the best ways to honor the biblical past so that it remains relevant to our present. To paraphrase Klein, Bloomberg, and Hubbard, when you study the historical context behind a passage, you are confessing that you believe Scripture was God’s Word to someone else who came before you. Consequently, you want to know what those words of Scripture meant to them so that you can understand what it means for you.7

There is a direct correlation between our understanding of the world of the Bible and our understanding of the content of the Bible. As you build your knowledge of the historical, cultural, and social aspects of the Scriptures, you are developing the means to see how these elements fit within the theological connections of the Bible. You should never engage in this type of contextual study just to become a walking database of biblical facts and figures. Rather, this information should inform your reading and studying of God’s Word. Similarly, collecting this type of information should not take precedence over understanding the meaning and application behind the text. Understanding historical, cultural, and social aspects of the Bible will translate into a greater understanding of God’s Word and his purposes for humanity.

What Is Historical Context?
Historical context consists of the author, the audience, and the world in which they lived. Conducting a study of historical context means that you are seeking to understand all that you can about who wrote the book, to whom it was addressed, and what role the social and cultural components of their world play in understanding the content. When you understand each of these elements, you will be able to place the text in its proper historical context and understand what it would have been like to hear a New Testament letter being read to the church or see an Old Testament event taking place. Historical context takes us to the past so that you can have some idea of what it would have been like to experience it firsthand.

The Author
When you explore historical context, you want to know more about the author. If you are reading through a passage and asking the key questions (chapter 16), your “who” question includes determining the book’s authorship. When you study the book of Galatians, you need to know more about Paul than merely that he was a follower of Christ and one of the first missionaries. However, you want to avoid the other extreme by spending so much time studying Paul that you have built a biography on his life that has very limited contact with the book of you are studying. You want to mine the biographical information from Paul’s life so that you understand anything that relates to his message Galatians.

The “who” of historical context may also involve a person or the people found in the passage. For example, if you were studying Matthew’s Gospel, it would be correct to study Matthew as the author of the text. However, Jesus is a prominent “who” in Matthew. Therefore, you will want to investigate the relationship Jesus has with those he interacts with in the passage you are studying. Once you have completed this study, you should place it in context of the author’s intent. In other words, why is Matthew including this story of Jesus? What role does it play in shaping the focus and direction of the Gospel of Matthew? Understanding an internal “who” will provide you with a certain amount of clarity with regard to the author’s purpose.

The Audience
The audience is also another “who” element. When studying historical context, we want to know the recipients of the letter or book and seek to know more about them. If you are studying Galatians, you will want to better understand the churches in Galatia. A study of the letter to Philemon means you will want to learn all that you can about Philemon.

As you study the audience, pay particular attention to the relationship between the author and the audience. Did they know each other? If they knew each other, was it a lengthy relationship or relatively new? What type of relationship did the author and audience have? Was the relationship a source of blessing or contention? Answering these types of questions will help you uncover the relationship between the author and the audience. One way to look for answers to these questions is to examine the letter or book for questions the author poses to his audience, concerns he raises about their actions or attitudes, and the tone or emotion he uses to address them. This will help you see the full picture of the relationship the author had with his audience.

In a narrative genre like the gospels, there is an internal audience that will need to be investigated. The people who are part of the historical event typify this internal audience. For example, if you are studying one of the many confrontations that Jesus had with the Pharisees, you will need to study his relationship to these religious leaders as it fits within the context of that passage. When you have accomplished this, you will be able to determine how the historical context of Jesus’s relationship with the Pharisees fits within the whole context of that particular gospel.

The World The Author and Audience Lived In
The third element of historical context is the world that the author and audience lived in. When you study this world, you want to identify social and cultural factors that play a role in understanding the text. If you are using the six key questions, these social and cultural factors are often answers to the “what” question. It is easy to overlook these social and cultural factors when you read the text with a modern bias. For example, in Matthew 18:21–35, Jesus tells the parable of the unforgiving servant and refers to two kinds of currency. Jesus first mentions a servant who owes ten thousand talents. He then describes a servant who owes one hundred denarii. In order to properly understand the depth of forgiveness that Jesus is explaining in this passage, you need to have a better understanding of the relative values of talents and denarii.

A list of these types of social and cultural elements can be quite extensive. When Paul writes to the Corinthians and mentions the “judgment seat” or “tribunal” (2 Cor 5:10), how would they understand that term in their social context? In the book of Ruth, the “shoe covenant” figures predominantly. What is this cultural custom, and how does it help bring understanding to the book of Ruth? An understanding of architecture can shed light on the required roof railing in Deuteronomy 22:8, the claim of “no room for them at the lodging place” in Luke 2:7, and the reason the man in Luke 11:5–8 will not get up at night to provide food for his friend. Does grasping the ancient social context help us understand Paul’s description of the military armor in Ephesians 6? What role does cultural context play in recognizing the importance of Jesus’s discussion with the Samaritan women in John 4? When studying Galatians, it’s important to understand the social and religious significance of circumcision. In order to understand Galatians 4, you should become familiar with the social custom of distributing an inheritance in the Roman world.

As you can see from this short list of examples, studying historical context can be extremely helpful in understanding the Bible. Once you have identified specific historical, social, and cultural features in the text, you can begin exploring their significance to the passage of Scripture. [Hulshof, Chris & Cartwright, John (2016). Everyday Bible Study (p. 139). B&H Publishing Group. Retrieved from https://app.wordsearchbible.com.]