Every speech in a passage has a speaker, an audience and a purpose. Asking the three questions in order keeps the answer attached to the right person and the right reason.
This lesson is part of narrative and teaching in the SPM Bible Knowledge learning guide. The passage is original, written for practice, not a prescribed text.
The original passage
“On the first morning, the shopkeeper, Mr Lim, gathered the two new helpers beside the scales. ‘Weigh twice, say the price once,’ he told them. ‘A customer who trusts the scale will come back.’”
The three questions
| Question | How to answer | In this passage |
|---|---|---|
| Who is speaking? | The person whose words are quoted | Mr Lim, the shopkeeper |
| To whom? | The people addressed or present | The two new helpers |
| Why? | What the speaker wants to achieve | To teach honest, careful weighing |
The narrator is not the speaker here. The narrator says “gathered the two new helpers” and gives the setting, but the words in quotation marks belong to Mr Lim.
Worked example
Question: “Who is speaking, to whom, and for what purpose?”
“Mr Lim is speaking to the two new helpers. His purpose is to teach them how to work honestly. He tells them to ‘weigh twice’, which stresses care, and explains that a customer who trusts the scale will return, which gives the reason.”
The answer names all three parts and supports the purpose with two quotations.
Finding the purpose with a verb
Choose one verb and test it against the words.
| Verb | Fits if the words… |
|---|---|
| Instruct | give directions (“Weigh twice”) |
| Warn | name a risk |
| Encourage | praise or give hope |
| Explain | give a reason (“A customer who trusts the scale will come back”) |
Mr Lim’s speech instructs first and explains second. That is why “to teach” is a stronger answer than “to tell them about customers”.
The mistake of crediting the narrator
A typical slip is to write “The narrator wants the helpers to weigh twice.” The instruction is in Mr Lim’s words, not in the narrator’s.
Check by finding the quotation marks. If the words are inside them, credit the speaker. If they are outside, they belong to the narrator, who describes and does not instruct.
Check yourself
In the passage, who is the audience, and how do you know?
Answer
The audience is the two new helpers. The narrator says Mr Lim “gathered the two new helpers”, and his words say “he told them”, which points to the same group.
A good answer quotes both parts. If a passage does not name the audience, say so instead of guessing.
What to study next
Move on to comparing responses to an event using textual support, then try the narrative and teaching practice set. You may also want to read tracing a theme across the prescribed passages.
If you want a teacher to read your school passages with you and ask these questions aloud, see online one-to-one Bible Knowledge tuition, which starts with a one-hour trial class (from RM50).