Grasping God's Word A Hands-on Approach to Reading, Interpreting, and Applying the Bible

Grasping God's Word-Second Edition Copyright © 2001, 2005 by J. Scott Duvall and J. Daniel Hays Requests for information should be addressed to: Zondervan, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49530 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Duvall, J. Scott Grasping God's word : a hands-on approach to reading, interpreting, and applying the Bible / J. Scott Duvall, J. Daniel Hays ; foreword by Kevin Vanhoozer.-2nd ed. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN-10: 0-310-25966-5 (hardcover) ISBN-13: 978-0310-25966-4 1. Bible-Hermeneutics. I. Hays, J. Daniel, 1953- II. Title. BS476.D88 2005 220.6'01-dc22 2004017826 CIP This edition printed on acid-free paper. All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible: New International Version®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. All rights reserved. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means-electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other-except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher. Interior design by Beth Shagene Printed in the United States of America 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 /?DCI/ 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Part 2 How to Read the Book-Basic Tools Chapter 1 of Grasping God's Word introduces you to the process of reading, interpreting, and applying the Bible, a process that we refer to as the "Interpretive Journey." This journey starts with a call to careful reading, because this is where we determine what the biblical text meant in its original context (their town). Before we are ready to apply that meaning to our lives (our town), however,we need to measure the width of the river that separates us from the world of the text. Once we have crossed the river,we will be able to apply the meaning of the Bible in relevant and reliable ways. In chapter 2 we will start learning how to read with more insight and understanding. Superficial reading needs to be replaced by serious reading.We will show you how to observe smaller sections of text, looking for things like repeated words, contrasts, comparisons, lists, figures of speech, influential verbs, nouns, and conjunctions.Here we will learn how to read carefully at the sentence level. In chapters 3-4 we will move beyond the sentence level to the longer and more complex units of text- paragraphs and discourses.We will learn to detect things like dialogue, questions and answers, tone, connections between episodes, and story shifts. This is important to know if you really want to hear what God is saying through his Word. In these first four chapters of Grasping God's Word you will get your hands dirty as you dig deeply into the process of biblical interpretation. The theory can wait for a few chapters as we learn how to read carefully and thoughtfully. This becomes the foundation for understanding what the Bible means and how it applies to us. The Interpretive Journey Introduction Basics of the Journey An Example-Joshua 1:1-9 The Journey and Grasping God's Word Assignments Introduction A wrinkled old man in the mountains of Ethiopia sips coffee and peers through weathered, ancient bifocals at his worn Amharic Bible to read once again the story of David and Goliath. A middle-aged woman is bouncing along on a bus in Buenos Aires, reading and reflecting on Psalm 1. A young Korean executive, on his way home to Seoul from a business trip in Singapore, flies above the clouds at 35,000 feet, reading and pondering the words of the apostle Paul in Romans 5. And in a dorm room in San Diego, California, a youngDuvall, J. Scott is the author of 'Grasping God's Word A Hands-on Approach to Reading, Interpreting, and Applying the Bible', published 2005 under ISBN 9780310259664 and ISBN 0310259665.