Cornerstone Curriculum, Official Certification Edition

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using the Scriptures themselves as proof ? What do you think about the professor’s comments, and what would you advise the pastor to do in order to complete his study in that course?

Your Native-Tongue Bible Isn’t Enough (Based on a true story). While turning in an exegetical project for credit during a class on Romans, a student was advised by his professor (who had skimmed his first attempt at the study) that he had broke fundamental rules in using tools of language. The professor explained: “You simply cannot go to a theological dictionary or lexicon and assume that all the usages written down of a word are the meanings in this particular place . You wouldn’t use an English or Spanish dictionary that way; you would look up the word, find the definition that fit, and then apply that single meaning to the text. You applied all the meanings of the term to your study, and therefore made a fundamental error in your study.” The professor went on to say that only when you know how an individual author used a word (e.g., Peter’s, Paul’s, or John’s use of a word in all of his writings) could you then be sure that you were using your language sources right. Since the Bible was written in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek, and since many of us do not know these languages, how then are we to know that we are reading the text right? How are we to use language tools if we don’t know an author’s entire use of a word or phrase ? Confusing the Twigs for the Trees and the Forest One of the immediate problems with those who discover the Three-Step Model is that they begin to use their new-found methods to analyze the specific details of numerous passages as a single part. With no guidance as to how to connect and integrate their insights into the overall meaning of the Scriptures, they multiply themes, topics, and studies without ever bringing them all together under a single, understandable banner. In your opinion, do the Scriptures have a single, coherent theme that would allow all of our study to be placed underneath it, allowing us to interpret our insights in light of it? How do we as students of the Bible avoid becoming focused on the details of single passages so much so that we miss the “big picture,” the larger message and meaning of the Bible itself? How do we avoid the distinctive problem of the Pharisees, who mastered the details of the Scriptures but had great difficulty in seeing and applying the weightier matters of Scripture to their lives (i.e., they saw trees fine, but missed the forest). How can we see the Bible as a whole and still find nourishment as we study its parts ?

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B i b l i ca l S tud i e s

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