Tuesday, March 11, 2008

IDEA: The wisdom of a passage may be in its details.

PURPOSE: To show what kind of details you look at when you're studying a passage
of Scripture.

Have you ever read a legal document?

What do you know about the way you read a legal document?

Have you ever received a love letter when you were single--not a letter from someone
you loved, but a love letter. How did you read it?

When you come to the Scriptures and observe a text, you get the overview, but now we
want to look at the details.

I. What do you look for when you search the details of a passage?

You look for different things in different kinds of passages.
When you're reading narratives, you read one way;
When reading a psalm, you read it another way;
When reading letters, you read them another way.

When we think of New Testament epistles/letters, sometimes they have to be read
closely. When you observe, you're simply trying to note what is there. (The next step
is interpreting why it is there. That comes later.)

II. As a case in point, let's take Romans 12:1-2, working through it to observe what
is there.

What is the structure of those two verses?

Then note some of the details, e.g.,
Paul pleads/beseeches/appeals/asks;
"Therefore" should be circled;
Present your BODIES;
Renewing of your mind = emphasis on how you think.

When I'm through with this, I can know God's good, perfect, acceptable will is
contingent on giving God my body and having my mind renewed.

Now that you've looked at it, what is Paul driving at in these two verses?

When you ask some of these questions, you're not only observing what is there,
but you're beginning to answer the questions, which moves into the realm of
interpretation.