Knowing God’s Word helps me to love Him with all my heart, soul, & mind.
Part 4
Paragraphs
Step1 : “Grasping the text in their town” or “Reading in context”
For the past several weeks, we have been looking at sentences. It’s not time to take a step back and look at paragraphs. Specifically, we are going to look at 9 potential observations we can make when reading a paragraph in Scripture:
General & Specific Purpose Statements Actions of people/Actions of God
Questions & Answers Means Emotional Terms
Dialogue Conditional Clauses Tone
Sometimes the Bible teaches by giving us questions and answers. In Romans 5 Paul writes about free grace and the forgiveness of sins through Christ. In chapter 6:1, Paul anticipates a question that could arise after reading what he had written. So he asks the question and then immediately answers it and deepens our understanding about how to live the new life given to us through grace.
Example Passages:
Question: Romans 6:1: “What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound?”
Answer: Romans 6:2-14: “By know means!…..”
Question: Romans 6:15a: “What then? Are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace?”
Answer: Romans 6:15b-23: “By no means!.....
Part 3
Step1 : “Grasping the text in their town” or “Reading in context”
Last week we looked at Isaiah 53 and the past and present verb tenses used in a famous prophetic passage. This week, let’s turn to something in the New Testament (Greek). Verb meanings are often times obvious to the reader, but sometimes they warrant further study and can change your understanding of the passage.
1 John 3:6: “No one who abides in him keeps on sinning; no one who keeps on sinning has either seen him or known him.”
The verb “abides” is a present active participle and is a tricky verb in Greek. The “present” tense verb sometimes indicates a continuous action…not just an action that happened one time in the present. This is important because our abiding in Christ isn’t a one time happening, it is an ongoing and continual abiding.
Part 2
Step1 : “Grasping the text in their town” or “Reading in context”
Last week verbs were mentioned as a key aspect in helping us understand the Scripture we are reading. What the verb means is obviously important to helping us understand the passage, but so is the tense. Whether or the verb is past, present, future, or something else (Greek verbs can have a unique aspect) matters.
Read Isaiah 53. Notice that vvs 1-9 are in the past tense and some of vvs 10-12 are speaking of what will happen (future). Words and definitions help us to understand the passage but other things like the tense of the verbs help to fill it out.
Question: Why would God (the ultimate author) speak as if Jesus (the Suffering Servant) had done some actions in the past and will do some actions in the future?
Possible Answer: The 1st century Christians would read Isaiah and see Jesus as the fulfillment of Isaiah 53:1-10 and be able to trust the future events in 10-12 were certain as well. God is in control and if He says it, the future is as certain to happen as the past.
Part 1
Step1 : “Grasping the text in their town” or “Reading in context”
The Bible was written by men inspired by the Holy Spirit in a certain time and place and oftentimes to a certain people. If we want to learn to love God the best we can, it is helpful to learn to read the Bible in it’s context before thinking about “today.” We can start that journey by looking at certain features in the sentences. So far we have covered 6 different features. The last is to look for conjunctions (and, but, for..), verbs, and pronouns.
Example – These are basic grammar but they are obviously important towards understanding any sentence. Sometimes, the meaning is obvious but sometimes if we focus on a specific conjunction or verb tense (Greek has many) we can uncover things we may have missed.
Basic Example Passages:
Romans 6:23 (the “but” in this verse in incredibly important!)
Ephesians 4:2-3 (these verbs give a command)
Resources:
“Grasping God's Word: A Hands-On Approach to Reading, Interpreting, and Applying the Bible” by J. Scott Duvall and J. Daniel Hays