Each genre has its own rules, and the writer expects the reader to follow them. Reading poetry like a legal code, or a parable like a news report, gets the meaning wrong.

The book describes genre as a kind of agreement between writer and reader about how the words are to be taken. You already do this without thinking: nobody reads a menu the way they read a sympathy card.

Because words and sentences get their meaning from what is around them. A verse lifted out of its context can be made to say almost anything.

The immediate context — the paragraphs just before and after — matters most. It is where the writer set up what he meant and followed it through.

1. Work out how the book divides into sections. 2. Summarise the main idea of the sections around your passage. 3. Explain how your passage relates to them.

This is a procedure you can do with nothing but the Bible and a pencil. Step 3 is where the insight comes: once you can say why the passage is where it is, you are close to knowing what it means.

That Christ gives strength to be content in any circumstance — in plenty and in hunger. It is not a promise that you can achieve anything you set out to do.

Read the two verses before it and the meaning is plain: Paul is talking about having learned to be content whether he has much or little. The verse is about endurance, not achievement.

I'm not saying this because I'm desperate for help. I've learned to be content no matter what's going on.

I know what it's like to have almost nothing, and I know what it's like to have plenty. I've learned the secret of being content in every situation - whether I'm full or hungry, whether I have a lot or very little.

I can handle anything because the One who gives me strength is with me.

Philippians 4:11-13

Church discipline: the "two or three" are the witnesses involved in confronting a member who has sinned, and the promise is Christ's presence with them in that decision.

It is usually quoted to reassure a small prayer meeting that Jesus is there. He is, but that is not what this verse is saying. Verses 15-17 set it up as part of a process for dealing with sin in the church.

Matthew 18:15-20

Citing a verse to support a point without regard for what it means in its context.

The verse may even support a true belief. The problem is that it is being used as a label rather than read, and that habit, once formed, will also support false beliefs.

No. Chapter divisions were added in the 1200s and verse numbers in the 1500s.

They are useful for finding things, but they sometimes break a thought in the middle. Do not let a chapter break tell you where a unit of thought ends; let the text tell you.

Working outward: the immediate context, the surrounding section, the whole book, the author's other writings, and the whole Bible.

The closer circles carry more weight. A passage is shaped most by the paragraphs around it, and least by a verse in another book that happens to use the same word.

A promise to the Jewish exiles in Babylon that God would bring the nation home after seventy years. It is not a promise to an individual about career or personal success.

The verse before it sets the seventy years, and the letter it belongs to tells the exiles to settle down, build houses, and pray for Babylon because they will be there a long time. The principle — God keeps his promises to his people through long hardship — is still true. The specific plans were for them.

Here's what the Lord says: When seventy years are up in Babylon, I'll come back for you and do what I promised - I'll bring you home.

I know the plans I have for you - plans to help you, not to hurt you. I want to give you hope and a future.

Jeremiah 29:10-11

Christ standing at the door of a lukewarm church, Laodicea, calling it back to fellowship with him. It is addressed to a congregation, not written as an invitation to an unbeliever.

The verse is often used in evangelism, and it is not wrong to say that Christ invites people in. But in context the people behind the door are church members who think they need nothing.

Revelation 3:14-22