Paying Attention to Time Resource Pages

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What (Type of) Time Is It?

In this skill, you are asking of your text, "What time is it?" but time can mean a few different things. I have divided what I mean by the question into a search for markers of:

  • Calendar Time
  • Cosmic Time
  • Narrative Pace

1. Time Where We Are

Calendar Time

Chronos & Kairos

If you have studied Greek, you have probably heard distinctions made between two words for time, chronos and kairos. Both words have to do with time, but chronos more often refers to generic calendar or clock time while kairos connotes "the right time," or a fitting time for an event.

Among other things, paying attention to time means asking, "What time is it?" in terms of calendar or clock time.

  • In your text, is it evening, morning, Sabbath, a festival, night, "the next day," or some other time?
  • Are things placed in relative temporal order? That is, are some things noted to have happened after other things?

2. Time Where We're Going

Cosmic Time

Every book of the New Testament has something to say about a time different from the time characters and readers are living in. According to the New Testament authors, there is an End in sight, an End that is both breaking in and brought into clearer focus for observers by the ministry, death and resurrection of Jesus. Paying attention to time also means looking at how the text you are reading relates to the End Time envisioned by those who wrote the New Testament.

  • Are there phrases like these in your text: (a) the day, (b) the last day, (c) the hour, (d) the end? These phrases may be pointing to cosmic time.
  • What is the end or telos described by the book you are reading, and how is the text you are reading related to that end?

3. Time Along the Way

A Story's Pace

Compare Texts
Look at Mark 1:14-34 and Luke 24:13-35 with the question of narrative pace in mind.

What do the stories tell you about how fast their action unfolds? How do they tell you?

Paying attention to time also means noticing the pace at which action in a story unfolds. Read through Mark's account of the beginning of Jesus' public ministry (Mark 1:14-34). What is the pace of the action? How do you know?

Compare this pace with the changes in the pace of the action in Luke 24:13-35. In the first few verses of the story, everyone in the story is walking along a road from Jerusalem to Emmaus. Yet all is not well. Look what happens to the action of the story when the unrecognized Jesus asks Cleopas and his companion what they have been discussing. The story literally comes to a standstill (24:17b). The pace at which a story unfolds can tell you something about what is happening in that story.

What's Next: Two Minute Tutorial on New Testament Eschatology

The ideas that New Testament authors have about time are connected with their view of God and God's way of working in the world. On the next page, you will find a quick summary of views about the End in the New Testament.