Folding chairs filled the Lakehurst Public Library’s community room Monday night as a local instructor held up a single sheet titled “Genre = OS,” telling attendees that the fastest way to misunderstand a passage is to treat every page like the same kind of writing.

The free workshop, hosted by the library and Stonemill Community College, drew about 70 people — retirees, high school students and clergy — for what organizers called a low-stress introduction to biblical genres.

“Most fights happen because people install the wrong program for the file,” instructor Dalia Kwon told the group, borrowing her central metaphor. “Genre is the operating system that tells you what ‘buttons’ to press — what to notice, what to expect, and what to do next.”

Kwon’s handouts leaned on familiar comparisons: coffee recipes versus tasting notes, investing prospectuses versus narrative news stories, gardening care sheets versus poems about flowers, and astronomy images versus scientific papers.

“An espresso recipe is not a café review,” said attendee Martin Reyes, 42, who said he came to help his teen read more confidently. “I realized I’ve been reading some parts like they’re instructions when they’re actually more like a song.”

A simple canon map, taped to the wall

The session began with a “canon map” that volunteers taped in a single line around the room. Participants walked the perimeter while Kwon pointed to the labels.

Handout: Canon map (simple)

Hebrew Bible / Old Testament

• Torah (Law)
• Prophets
• Writings

New Testament

• Gospels / Acts
• Paul’s letters
• General letters
• Revelation

Kwon asked the crowd to call out what each section “feels like” when read aloud. One table offered “speech,” “story” and “poetry.” Another said “mail.”

“It’s obvious when you say it,” said Lakehurst High senior Naomi Patel, 17. “But it’s not obvious when you’re scrolling on your phone at night.”

The one-page checklist: “genre signals”

Midway through, Kwon distributed a one-page checklist and asked people to mark what they saw in short printed excerpts. The sheet, she said, was meant to be used “like training wheels” — not as a final answer.

Handout: Genre signals checklist (one page)

Look for what the text is doing on the page:

• Plot + characters (scenes, conflict, dialogue, movement through time)
• Imperatives / case law ("If… then…" rules; “shall/shall not”)
• Parallelism (two lines saying similar or contrasting ideas)
• Oracle formulas (“Thus says…,” announcements of judgment or hope)
• Symbolic visions (strange images, numbers, beasts, heavenly scenes)
• Thesis → argument (main claim, reasons, objections answered)
• Occasion-specific address (named recipients, greetings, local problems)

Kwon asked attendees to circle the first three signals they noticed before making any conclusions.

“When I see ‘If a person does X, then Y,’ I stop trying to make it sound like a diary entry,” said the Rev. Alan Nguyên, who attended with two members of his congregation. “It changes the questions I ask.”

“Purpose first” on a sticky note

The evening ended with what Kwon called a “purpose first” heuristic, printed on a sticky note-sized strip meant to fit inside a Bible cover.

Handout: Purpose-first heuristic

Genre → Function → Reading approach

• Genre: What kind of writing is this?
• Function: What is it trying to do?
• Approach: How should I read it so it can do that?

To keep it practical, she used the workshop’s everyday analogies.

• Coffee: A brewing recipe tells you what to do; a tasting note trains you what to notice.
• Investing: A prospectus warns and defines terms; a news story narrates events.
• Gardening: A care sheet gives steps; a poem about flowers shapes attention and feeling.
• Astronomy: A telescope image can inspire and point; a scientific paper argues from data.

“If you read a poem like a care sheet, you’ll think it failed,” Kwon told the group. “If you read a care sheet like a poem, your plant dies.”

A summary table handed out at the door

Organizers said attendees often asked for a “one glance” guide. The final handout condensed the class into a plain-language table.

Handout: Genres × purpose × common pitfalls

Library director Shanna Morimoto said the workshop came from repeated requests for “something that doesn’t assume you already have a theology degree.”

“We host finance nights and gardening nights,” Morimoto said. “People get that different documents work differently. This gives them permission to read slowly and ask better questions.”

Kwon said she plans a follow-up session in February that will focus on reading letters and narrative scenes side-by-side.

“People leave calmer,” she said, stacking leftover handouts. “Not because everything is easy, but because they have a way in.”