Enthymemic discourse, then, is discourse that presumes a context to fill out its meanings. The question then becomes the context a particular enthymeme evokes. Every text somehow enacts the social, cultural, and ideological context in which it was written. A reader who stands outside that context uses that enacted context as a medium for another context. Readers, from their own context, may be preoccupied with looking back on the context in which the work was written, may intentionally intertwine looking back with looking forward to another context, or may simply use the context embedded in the discourse as a medium for a new context.
Literary works vary in the manner in which they present enthymemes in their discourse.
A literary work may articulate premises somewhere in the work that are exactly or approximately equivalent to the unexpressed premises evoked by enthymemes in another location. This kind of work creates an enthymemic network in the text that may invite readers to turn most of their attention toward negotiating the reasoning in the works' inner content rather than negotiating the reasoning in relation to social, cultural, and ideological contexts outside the work. In contrast, a literary work may not articulate unexpressed premises or conclusions for its enthymemes. This kind of text invites the reader into a process of evoking contexts of various kinds outside the work to understand these enthymemes. A major thesis in this essay is that the Gospel of Luke interweaves enthymemic networks in the text with social, cultural, ideological, and theological enthymemes that evoke contexts outside the work.