Observation: what the text says

Look first

When we open the Bible we want to know at once what a passage means and what it says to us. Those are good questions, but a step comes before them: observation, looking slowly at what is actually written. Ask what a text means before you have seen what it says, and you will easily read into it what is not there. Observation is the ground that interpretation and application stand on.

So we ask simple questions. Who is here? What happens, where, when and how? Does the text say why? We look for words that are repeated; for things set against each other or compared; for the small words that join sentences, such as ‘but’, ‘therefore’ and ‘so that’; for commands and promises; and for the way the passage moves from its beginning to its end.

None of this needs special skill. The Westminster Confession of the Presbyterian churches says that what is needed for salvation is set out so clearly in Scripture that the unlearned as well as the learned, ‘in a due use of the ordinary means’, may understand it ch. 1.7. This is called the clarity of Scripture. Reading slowly, looking and writing down are about the most ordinary means there are.

Seeing is not only a matter of the eyes. The psalmist prayed, "Open my eyes that I may see wondrous things from Your law" (Psalm 119:18); begin with his prayer. And open the commentaries after you have looked at the text yourself: the guide to commentaries explains why.

A boat in the storm

Read Mark 4:35-41 with me, the first half first:

When that evening came, He said to His disciples, “Let us cross to the other side.” After they had dismissed the crowd, they took Jesus with them, since He was already in the boat. And there were other boats with Him. Soon a violent windstorm came up, and the waves were breaking over the boat, so that it was being swamped. But Jesus was in the stern, sleeping on the cushion. So they woke Him and said, “Teacher, don’t You care that we are perishing?”

Mark 4:35-38

Start with people, place and time. There are Jesus and his disciples, the crowd they leave behind and the other boats. The place is a boat on the sea, and Jesus is in its stern, at the back.

The time is "that evening" (v. 35), which points back: earlier in the chapter Jesus had taught the crowd from a boat (Mark 4:1), and now "He was already in the boat" (v. 36). It is the evening of the day of the parables. They are bound for the other side, and in the next chapter they arrive there, in the region of the Gerasenes (Mark 5:1).

Then follow what happens, in order: Jesus says, let us cross; a storm comes up and the boat fills with water; and Jesus sleeps. One small word sets the two side by side: "But Jesus was in the stern, sleeping" (v. 38). The next gives what follows: "So they woke Him" (v. 38). They call him ‘Teacher’ and ask whether he cares that they are perishing. Now the second half:

Then Jesus got up and rebuked the wind and the sea. “Silence!” He commanded. “Be still!” And the wind died down, and it was perfectly calm. “Why are you so afraid?” He asked. “Do you still have no faith?” Overwhelmed with fear, they asked one another, “Who is this, that even the wind and the sea obey Him?”

Mark 4:39-41

Look for repeated words. The wind comes four times, once in the ‘windstorm’, and the sea twice: Jesus rebukes them, they fall still, and in the last question they obey him. Theophylact, an archbishop of the Orthodox church of the East around 1100, noticed the order in this verse: "He arising, rebukes first the wind, which was raising the tempest of the sea, and causing the waves to swell … then He commands the sea" Theophylact. The BSB folds both into one rebuke; set the King James Version beside it in Compare and you will find the order Theophylact saw, which is the Greek's.

Open the Original tab under Study, and something more appears. The ‘violent’ windstorm of verse 37, the ‘perfectly’ calm of verse 39 and the fear that ‘overwhelmed’ them in verse 41 all stand on one Greek word, megas, ‘great’: a great storm, a great calm, a great fear.

Now a contrast comes into view. The storm is over, but the fear is not. Jesus asks, "Why are you so afraid?" (v. 40); then, with the sea calm, "Overwhelmed with fear, they asked one another" (v. 41). The Greek uses two different words: the first means timid; the second is the usual word for fear.

Before, they were afraid of the storm and of perishing. Now their fear comes with a question about him: "Who is this, that even the wind and the sea obey Him?" (v. 41). The fear has changed its object.

Notice the commands and questions as well. The passage opens with Jesus' word, "Let us cross to the other side" (v. 35), and at its centre his command stills the storm. It holds four questions: the disciples ask Jesus one, he asks them two, and they ask one another one. They began by calling him Teacher; they end by asking who he is, and the passage stops there, unanswered. From his word at the start to a question about him at the end: that is its flow.

Write what you see first

As you write, keep what you see apart from what you think. ‘Jesus was sleeping’ is in the text; ‘Jesus was exhausted’ is not. Mark says only that he slept.

That does not mean throwing your thoughts away. Write them down as questions: why he slept in the storm, whether ‘Let us cross’ had already settled how the night would end, what waits on the other side, and why "still" (v. 40), as if they should have known by now. Questions are part of observing, and the following lessons take them up with context and interpretation (the next lesson).

Application, too, stands on what has been seen. On this passage Matthew Henry writes, "Faith and fear take their turns while we are in this world" Matthew Henry, Mark 4:35-41. His words reach us because we have first seen in the text the disciples' fear in the storm and Jesus' question about their faith.

Try it

Open Psalm 1 on the map. In the map under the Jesus tab, open Psalms and tap chapter 1: it has a ‘One-line summary’ and ‘Notes’. On the map, each psalm is a chapter. Begin with the prayer of Psalm 119:18.

Read the six verses slowly, twice, and write what you see in Notes, one thing to a line. Who is in the psalm? What is repeated? What is set against what? Where do ‘But’, ‘Therefore’ and ‘For’ come? Write what you see, such as ‘v. 1: walk, set foot, sit’, and keep your thoughts as questions.

Compare verse 6. In Compare, set the BSB's ‘guards’ beside the other translations and note what they say. Then put the whole psalm into a one-line summary.

Practice