Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Biblical Arcing

John Piper:
It was a life-changing revelation to me when I discovered that Paul, for example, did not merely make a collection of divine pronouncements, but that he argued. This meant, for me, a whole new approach to Bible reading. No longer did I just read or memorize verses. I sought also to understand and memorize arguments. This involved finding the main point of each literary unit and then seeing how each proposition fit together to unfold and support the main point. (Biblical Exegesis: Discovering the Meaning of Scriptural Texts, pg. 18, my emphasis)
If you want to learn this method of biblical interpretation (which works especially well in Pauline texts), there is now a website devoting to the art of biblical arcing.

HT: Johnathon Bowers