Galatians is an odd little book. It deals with a historical question from the early church that seems quite foreign to us. The arguments get a bit weird, even taking Old Testament history metaphorically. It can be hard to know what to do with it. But besides being inspired scripture, Galatians is also tremendously important in the history of the church, so we really should have a thorough understanding of it. That's where commentaries come in.
Commentaries normally explain the things non-scholars don't know or have a hard time understanding. This one, though, does something a little different. Galatians: The Charter of Christian Liberty by Merrill Tenney shows you how to dig in and attack a book from several different angles. Because Galatians is such a short book, he is able to cover a lot of ground in the text while also demonstrating these different methods of study. Any of these approaches alone will give you a deeper understanding of the book you choose. All of them together would give you a very comprehensive knowledge. But which you employ is up to you; it's a buffet, not a checklist.
The first presented he calls the synthetic method. It involves multiple readings of the book while looking out for specific things. "The readings need not follow each other in immediate succession, but each reading should seek to deal with some different aspect of the total organization and teaching of the book, and at the end of that reading the results should be committed to paper."
The first pass (or a few, if necessary) looks for the main theme of the book. Then we read again with that theme in mind, paying attention to how that theme is emphasized throughout the book. The next couple of passes involve reading with attention to the structure, with the intent to outline the book with respect to the progression of that theme. Finally, we want to write down that outline. We now have a thorough knowledge of the structure of the book and the way the author develops his theme and a resource we can refer to in the future.
He also demonstrates how to explore the theological framework of a book. As he says, the books of the Bible aren't primarily theology texts, but they all contain a great deal of theological content, sometimes discussed directly and systematically, sometimes implied. Getting at that implied doctrine is very important.
There are three aspects of the theological method that may be pursued in the study of any book of the Bible: (1) the endeavor to define the assumptions that underlie the teaching of the book; (2) the topical codification of the explicit teachings which are prominent in the text; and (3) the separate treatment of any section of the book that may be predominantly theological in character. The application of the teaching thus discovered is the final task of the expositor.
He then walks us through studying Galatians' implicit doctrine of God and explicit teaching on justification by faith, including how it is developed over seven arguments in chapters three and four.
Tenney also demonstrates the "critical" method, which looks into the origin and transmission of the book, the biographical method, which studies the author and anyone else mentioned in the book, and the devotional method, which by itself would take the average Christian's time in scripture much deeper, and several more — ten in all. Any of these methods would give you a better understanding of any individual book. Employing all ten would enable you to really own that book.
I read this book as part of a deep dive into Galatians. Now I intend to try at least a few of them along with an inductive study on another short epistle or three, then a longer book. If we could do this in all 66 books of the Bible, our knowledge of the Bible would be amazing, and I can't help but think that having that much Bible in us would have powerful results.
I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in knowing the scriptures better. If you only learn to employ one method he teaches, it would be money well spent.
Image via Pixabay
No comments:
Post a Comment