Gordon Fee and Douglas Stuart in their book, How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth, say this about context, especially historical context:

Thus, the task of interpreting involves the student/reader at two levels. First, one has to hear the Word they heard; he or she must try to understand what was said to them back then and there. Second, one must learn to hear that same Word in the here and now.

How true! We must hear the Scriptures as the first audience heard it.

2.  Literary Context

The literary context is the surrounding meaning of the words and passage of the text in question. It is what precedes and follows the text. For example, Matthew 7:1 has become the most quoted verse: “Judge not, that you be not judged.” Today, the verse is used to defend the modern idea of tolerance that says no one person has truth.

But when the verse is understood by its context, something different surfaces. In verse six Jesus says, “Do not give what is holy to the dogs; nor cast your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you in pieces.” Now, how is anyone going to determine a pig from a dog if judgments are not to be made? Matthew 7:1 must mean something else than what all the lovers of the modern doctrine of tolerance say it means. This is how context rules.