Highlight up to three topics of background information to help the participants listen to the story in its original context. In other words, help them understand how people who first heard the story would have experienced it. These are things that people today need to know about the original context of the story to understand what it meant for people who first heard it.

Choose things to teach about the story from a performance criticism approach to biblical study. For example, you might present some details about one or more of the narrative elements:

• Setting
• Characters
• Objects
• Plot

Other possibilities include:

• Any word you think participants might not understand
• Geographical and historical facts
• Political, social, and religious practices
• Social norms and expectations
• Cultural and scriptural background

When there is relevant information, I show illustrations and read from a paperback book called The Kregel Pictorial Guide to Everyday Life in Bible Times by Tim Dowley. I also give this book away to participants who come to six classes.

Some of the stories on this site deliver this kind of background info in documents called “About the Story.”

There are links to stories that are also treated on the GoTell site.

To learn about performance criticism, visit the biblical performance criticism site and GoTell.