Scene in Context (August)

Open the Resource Pack PDF for all the information on the weekly subthemes and the daily prompts and Bible readings which shape our Daily Worship and live streams. (3 August - 6 September).

Scene in Context

This month we thought it would be interesting to highlight the importance of interpreting and understanding scripture in a contemporary context. So each Bible reading this month comes with a brief description of a contemporary scene. We ask our Daily Worship writers, worship leaders, and Connect groups to picture these scenes and then bear them in mind while reading the Bible texts.

How does Hosea sound when we picture a noisy creche?

Or the Gospel of Luke when we are sitting in a tractor next to a farmer?

How about the letter to the Hebrews while we picture the upheaval and confusion of a hastily assembled refugee camp? 

We offer a wide range of various contexts and situations in which the writer, reader and God find themselves in conversations which are being illustrated before their very eyes by the surroundings they find themselves in. What do we discover anew about these texts when we read them alongside vivid contemporary scenes?

Sometimes the images seek to draw parallels with modern life and at other times we have looked for a contrasting scene to stimulate our reflection. We hope to spark off conversations between God, writer, and reader; allowing the Holy Spirit to direct the conversations into different areas of thought. 

Context is hugely important in helping us understand Scripture. Both the context in which it was written and the context in which we find ourselves reading it today. Some scripture has significance for a community that has still to be formed while other scripture helps us understand how God has spoken to people in the past. The voice of God as heard in Scripture is never spoken in a vacuum. It is always spoken in context in order to give us meaning and direction in our lives.

This month as we read scripture together it is our prayer that we will take these scenes to God and use them as starters to bring about conversations with others in order to connect our friends and families into the great conversations in Scripture.

Weekly overview:

• Opening scenes

• A change of scene

• Jump scene

• Bursting on to the scene

• Closing scenes

Each week of this theme runs Sunday-Saturday and has its own subtheme, which contains daily Bible readings and prompts for thought (see the Resource Pack PDF for more information).