The Highway Forums General Discussion Open Forum Biblical interpretation class at school

In the words of the Apostle Paul,
Peace and grace to you

I apologize for my long absence.. I have been in a long and hard struggle to get back into school. After what seems an eternity I was finally able to get financial support to enter South Western College here in Az. It is a Bible college where I am majoring in Biblical Interpretation. I am unfortunately already having issues with the course..

One of my assignments is to take my passage (Philippians 2:3-8) and type 50 observations about the passage. The observations must be textual and with no attempt at application or interpretation.. As described by my professor C.L. Mitchell, I am to be like Sherlock Holmes and just investigate and write out observations. They can be as detailed as I want, but they can't be so vague that the idea is not clearly seen.. Here are a couple examples another person did from another passage...

C.L. Mitchell
Biblical Interpretation
1 Peter 1:3-7
1. In verse 3, the possessive pronoun “His” refers to God the father.
2. In verse 3, the possessive pronoun “his” shows God’s ownership of “great mercy.”
3. In verse 3, God’s mercy is the cause of being born in again.
4. In verse 3, the preposition “through” connects living hope to the resurrection.
5. In verse 3, the word “living” is an adjective to the word “hope.”
6. In verse 3, the third time the word “to” is used it is used as a preposition that connects being born again to a living hope.
7. In verse 3, the pronoun “us” refers to the audience specified in verse 1 as aliens.
8. In verse 3, the word “great” is an adjective to the word “mercy.”
9. In verse 3, the possessive pronoun “our” describes Jesus Christ as belonging to the audience who as revealed earlier in verse 1, are the “aliens.”
10. In verse, 3 the proposition “from” demonstrates the relationship of the resurrection of Jesus Christ to the dead.
11. In verse 3, the auxiliary verb “has” is past progressive tense, so it is ongoing.
12. In verse 3, the Father is not only the father but the God of Jesus Christ as well.
13. In verse 3, “to be born again” is in past tense but is active.
14. In verse 3, the phrase “blessed be” is a statement and command that is ongoing.
15. Verses 3-5 are one complex sentence.
16. In verse 4, a list contains four descriptions of the inheritance.
17. In verse 4, the word pronoun “you” refers to the audience of aliens from verse 1.


These examples are a little more "in depth" than what I need at the moment, but eventually I will need to be able to write another 30 observations that are at that "depth" so to speak.. here are a few that I was able, (I'm not sure if they are correct or not) to piece together.. I am very poor with language and grammar..

50 observations of Philippians Chapter 2 verse 3-8


1. In chapter 2 verse 3 the author is giving the audience a command by saying “Do nothing from selfishness…”
2. In chapter 2 verse 3 the author uses the conjunction “or” showing the audience that the command is conditional.
3. In chapter 2 verse 3 the author uses the conjunction “but” to connect the first and second pieces of the sentence.
4. In chapter 2 verse 3 the author gives a second command telling the audience to “regard others…”
5. In chapter 2 verse 3 “humility of mind” describes to the audience how they are to regard others.
6. In chapter 2 verse 3 the audience is more than one person as shown with the word “yourselves”
7. In chapter 2 verse 4 the author issues another command of “do not merely look…”
8. In chapter 2 verse 4 the object of the command in the first part of the verse is the“interests” of both the audience and others.

Have any of you had similar courses at school or are any of you good with language and grammar that could help me out? I would greatly appreciate it..

Thank you

Clint

Clint,

It looks like you're off to a good start. One thing that will help, though, is to see that you are using too many unnecessary words which slow you down and submerge the real details. For example, you have already told us what chapter we are looking at, so:

can become:


Next, it can be assumed that an author wrote the words, and that someone will hear or read them, so you can trim it down some more:


Notice how, as the extra words are tossed overboard, the meaningful details become more obvious. Let's see how it looks when you're done!

Clint, a little bit of the track from your very specific question - Peter Masters wrote a book "Not like any other book" which is about interpreting the Bible. Worth reading.

Johan

Thank you Paul for the help, the only problem is that my teacher does not want us to "short hand" anything.. He also told us that although the most important details will stand out more with fewer shorter words, if we get into a habit of that, we may end up cutting out important details that we did no see as important the first time around. As far as just saying Verse 3, instead of in chapter 2 verse 3... I just copied and pasted that beginning 50 times and was just changing the verse number as I went.. <img src="/forum/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Here is an update on my "observations of Philippians 2:3-8
As of my posting this I am required to have 80 and yet I have just over 50.... I am still struggling with this so if there are any suggestions or helpful hints (hints at how to better learn English grammar and word usage <I am terrible with that stuff> not so much giving me answers) I am more than open.. But here is my updated list...


50 observations of Philippians Chapter 2 verse 3-8


1. In chapter 2 verse 3 the author is giving the audience a command by saying “Do nothing from selfishness…”
2. In chapter 2 verse 3 the author uses the correlative conjunction “or” showing the audience that the command is conditional.
3. In chapter 2 verse 3 the author uses the conjunction “but” to connect the first and second pieces of the sentence.
4. In chapter 2 verse 3 the author gives a second command telling the audience to “regard others…”
5. In chapter 2 verse 3 “humility of mind” describes to the audience how they are to regard others.
6. In chapter 2 verse 3 the audience is more than one person as shown with the word “yourselves”.
7. In chapter 2 verse 4 the author issues another command of “do not merely look…”
8. In chapter 2 verse 4 the object of the command in the first part of the verse is the “interests” of both the audience and others.
9. In chapter 2 verse 4 the audience is told to look out for (others). Plural
10. In chapter 2 verse 5 the word “which” is used to describe the attitude that was in Christ.
11. In chapter 2 verse 6 the relative pronoun “who” refers to Christ Jesus.
12. In chapter 2 verse 6 the pronoun “He” also refers back to Christ Jesus.

13. In chapter 2 verse 5 the author issues a third command telling his audience to “Have this attitude.”
14. In chapter 2 verse 5 the author uses “this attitude” speaking back to verse 4.
15. In chapter 2 verse 4 the adverb “merely” is used to describe the way the audience “looks out” for their own interests.
16. In chapter 2 verses 5-7 make up a single compound sentence.
17. In chapter 2 verse 3 is in the present tense.
18. In chapter 2 verse 4 is in the present tense.
19. In chapter 2 verse 5 is in the present perfect tense.
20. In chapter 2 verse 6 is in the past progressive tense.
21. In chapter 2 verse 3 the word “empty” is an adjective to the word “conceit”.
22. In chapter 2 verse 6 the word “existed” is in the past tense.
23. In chapter 2 verse 7 the word “emptied” is in the past tense.
24. In chapter 2 verse 3 the word “regard” is in the present tense.
25. In chapter 2 verse 5 the word “was” refers to the attitude of Christ Jesus.
26. In chapter 2 verse 5 “yourselves” is the object of the preposition “in”.
27. In chapter 2 verse 5 the preposition “in” connects “this attitude” to “yourselves”
28. In chapter 2 verse 3 the word “more” (more important than yourselves.) is used to describe the level of importance.
29. In chapter 2 verse 8 “He humbled ‘Himself’” Himself is a intensive pronoun.
30. In chapter 2 verse 8 the word “humbled” puts Christ in a past form, to show a difference in the present (in verse 9) saying that Christ suffered in the past yet now is exalted.
31. In chapter 2 verse 3 the conjunction “but” contrasts “empty conceit” and “humility”.
32. In chapter 2 verse 2-3 the author contrasts using “verbiage”.
33. In chapter 2 verse 4 adversative conjunction contrasting (in addition) only looking for yourself, but also others.
34. In chapter 2 verse 6 contrasts equality with God, and him emptying himself.
35. In chapter 2 verse 7 and connects the different characteristics of Christ.
36. In chapter 2 verse 8 repetition of death emphasis.
37. In chapter 2 verse 8 lists or describes a progression of His willingness.
38. In chapter 2 verse 8 the repetition of the word “death” and the word “even” shows Christ had an unusual death.
39. In chapter 2 verse 4 “personal” describes the type of interests.
40. In chapter 2 verse 7 “but” contrasts that Christ had equality with God, but did not hold onto that instead emptied Himself.
41. In chapter 2 verse 8 tells that Christ humbled Himself (cause) for the effect of being highly exalted.(verse 9)
42. In chapter 2 verse 4 “interests” is repeated two times for emphasis.
43. In chapter 2 verse 5 states that Christ is the subject, and in verse 6-8 is a list of six characteristics of Christ’s humility (cause) and verse 9-11 list of 3 type of exaltation. (Every knee will bow, name above all other names, and every tongue will confess) as an effect.
44. In chapter 2 verse 6 it is stated that He existed in the form of God, but something changed. (Christ was in one form, and transformed into another form, while retaining the power of God)
45. In chapter 2 verse 4 the idea of verse 3 is restated in a more simple way.
46. In chapter 2 verse 8 “even death on a cross” defines the extent of Christ’s obedience.
47. In chapter 2 verses 3-5 are the means in which the audience is to carry out the task given to them in verse 2. (task) make my joy complete…(means) verse 3Do nothing… verse 4 Do not merely look out… verse 5 Have this attitude…
48. In chapter 2 verse 7 “emptied” shows Jesus Christ’s action.
49. In chapter 2 verse 8 “He humbled” also shows the actions of Jesus Christ.
50. In chapter 4 verse 14 the author states that in the past the audience has shown their ability to look out for the interests of others as asked of them in chapter 2 verse 4. (Chapter 4 verse 14) Nevertheless, you have done well to share with me in my affliction.
51. In chapter 2 verse 6 “He” is the pronoun for Christ.
52. In chapter 2 verse 7 “bond-servant” is a figure of speech stating that Christ was not born into slavery.
53. In chapter 2 verse 7 “emptied” is figurative, not literal.
54. In chapter 2 verse 5, the author wants to compare the attitudes of Christ to the attitudes of the Philippians, telling them to have Christ’s attitude.
55. In chapter 2 verse 3 “but” is a conjunction that contrasts selfishness and humility.
56. In chapter 2 verse 6-8 there are multiple references to the “form” of Christ. Referencing that there is a special idea of the form.


I think some of them might be duplicates.. I need to print them and double check them against itself.. I also started getting lazy towards the bottom and not putting the "In chapter 2 verse..... SHAME ON ME.. I need to go back and correct those, but at a later time.. I really should be doing the work and not spending time here.. LoL.. I really need to become a better time manager..