A Theologian's Workshop, Tools, and Methods (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1914 Excerpt: ...involved. Verse 4 gives his definite and personal aim, concluding with a word still further confirming the "certainty" of the matters in hand. Among the incidental gains of this opening sentence, we note the information that narratives of the Life of Christ were common among His early followers. Such incidental indications must be carefully observed. The student will do well to write out, in full, sentences asserting or involving important doctrines, putting each clause on a separate line, and thus concentrating attention on each one successively. This careful writing out of the words of the Bible is specially helpful to preachers, and will frequently suggest suitable divisions of an expository sermon. More difficult than the grammatical analysis of sentences is the task of tracing the writer's Line Of Thought, of grasping the ideas which he endeavours to put successively before his readers and thus following him to the goal he has in view. Our chief aid must be an unwearied retracing again and again of the sacred ground. Take the first sentence with its various clauses primary and subordinate, and contemplate the ideas it expresses. Then call up successively the sentences following; and so on with the lesser and greater divisions of the book. The similarities and contrasts between the sentences or paragraphs will suggest the connection of thought. Each hour's study will shed light even on the most difficult passages. Here and there the writer's meaning will come out clearly. And every sentence understood will help to explain the whole. Moreover, whatever brings us into sympathy and mental contact with the writer will help us better to understand his line of thought. And, above all, the Spirit of God, who Himself guided the Sacred Writers and thus...