Mike G. | Text to Talk - Melodic Line

[00:00:01] Speaker A: Okay, so this morning our topic is melodic line. You remember last time we talked about the topic of seeing Jesus, and we talked about the fact that we're responsible as those who teach and even understand God's word, to find real ways, important, helpful ways to connect to the person of Christ, the gospel, and especially the death, burial and resurrection of Christ as the interpretive center of the Scriptures. This morning we're talking about the melodic line. And this will be a topic that may feel one. It may be one of the more obscure topics that you feel. You feel the intangibility of it in some ways, hard to get your head around, but it's really an important topic. So when I was in Tommy Nelson's discipleship program in Denton, it was called Young Guns. I wasn't a young gun at the time, but just full disclosure, I was more like a rusty musket is what I called myself. But that was many moons ago. We learned to study and delight in the scriptures. And Tommy loved the artist Norman Rockwell. That's not a musician from the 1980s, just so you know. Anybody know Norman Rockwell? He's an American painter. And before we would tackle biblical observation. So use the coma method, you know, context, observation, meaning, application. Before we would tackle observation, Tommy would have us look at Norman Rockwell paintings and make observations. And so we would look at a painting, we would make 25 observations as a group, and then we'd look at that painting again, make 25. And our goal was to get over 100 observations. There are ways we can do that, obviously with the scriptures as well, but I really enjoy that kind of activity. You may not believe that, but it's true. I do. I like realism and art. I think Norman Rockwell particularly captures this environment of American art really effectively. He has this ability to place a whole story into a painting, and when you look at the painting and you look carefully, you can see the story. His paintings are staged almost like a photograph, and they're built from really careful perspective, and they're designed for you to read them as a story. So we're going to do that as an introductory observation here. Starting point for melodic line. Okay. Because, hey, listen, if you can start to see the Bible books, like paintings, like rich literature, like rich art, then your heart will be drawn into them in a much different way. And if you can do that, then you can help your audience to have their heart drawn in to the books of the Bible and the unique. A unique way. So we're going to ask a set of questions about this painting. What story does this Painting tell. What story does this painting tell? Now, we're going to make observations to help find the story. And we can't take too long. I love this kind of thing, so I'd love to sit here all day and make observations about this painting. But the fact is. Let me give you a piece of context. So there's a context point, namely a title for this painting. This painting is from May 1959, and it's called Easter Morning. Okay. Why might that matter? Let's get started. Why might that matter? Somebody help me. Yeah, right. So that helps you to define what's happening in the scene. Okay, Now I'm going to give you a piece of artistic interpretive framework here. Okay? There's something that artists call the diagonal of motion, which means that horizontal and vertical lines are broken up by diagonals. And those diagonals help to provide trajectory, direction, movement for the painting. And so there's a diagonal of motion here. Do you see the diagonal motion? Yep. And the shape of the top of their heads like this. Right. So you see these diagonals, like the diagonals are helping to point the eyes of the interpreter in a direction. Okay, what else do you see here? What else do you see here? What helps you tell the story in this painting? [00:04:24] Speaker B: Head cover. [00:04:25] Speaker A: Yeah. Okay, so those are probably given the fact it's called Easter Morning. Right. That's probably the kind of decorative dress, like if we were anthropologists, you know, it's a sort of. It's a kind of decorative dress associated with people in this situation and setting this people group. Right. This family group. What else do you see? [00:04:43] Speaker B: The contrast between the clothes. [00:04:46] Speaker A: Yeah, that's right. That's right. And what. Tell me what you mean, Nick. [00:04:49] Speaker B: So they're Sunday best and he's slouching [00:04:55] Speaker A: like he just rolled out of bed. That's right. [00:04:57] Speaker B: So burning one down. [00:04:59] Speaker A: That's right. That's right. So you see, you start to pick up on details. It's. It may be a little hard to see here, but look. What's that right there? So he's smoking a cigarette. He's not dressed right. They're all dressed in their absolute Sunday best. Notice their posture. Notice their posture. What's the posture of the family? Proper, Proper, Very proper. Stiff, upright. Look at the faces. You start to look at facial expressions. Look at the faces on the mom and the three daughters. And by the way, the diagonal motion is most broken by the distance between this father and his wife. Okay, but look at their facial expressions. Three of them are looking forward. Look at the son in the back. Look at the son in the back. His face is not looking forward. So you have some fairly self assured women of the family and a son who's staring into the distance. He's the next generation. And my understanding of that is he's not quite so sure. And the posture and reality of this father right here has an effect on that boy who's the next generation to come. Now notice what color the father's wearing. He's wearing red. That may connect to our passage for this morning. Look at his hair. What do you see on his hair? Do you think that's an accident? Artists don't paint by accident. Not good ones. Not good ones. So there's an insinuation that he's the. I'm not going to say he's the devil, but he is in that position of antagonism to what this family perceives to be the direction of the truth. And it's not an accident that he's in red. He's the color contrast. He's the standout in the picture. He's the one who breaks the norm, who defies the direction of the diagonal motion. And so even the background that there's this framed picture window, the perfect representation of American undisturbed, undefiled American life with a set of flowers in the window, some daffodils. And against that contrast of reality is painted this picture of a family in motion toward a direction that would be traditional. A son who has questions and a father who's opposing the opportunity for that normalcy to be established. So you with me there? You get it? So there's a lot there. That's why when you go to the National Museum of Art next time you can just sit in front of each painting one at a time and linger. I know that's what you're going to do, Gabe. That's what you told me you were going to do. So I knew that was what you were thinking already. But the point is that there's this compromised father who's a non Christer in this case, right? He's not going to do his Easter service. He's convicted by virtue of body language, his posture, their posture. And there could be a statement made here about the decline of tradition in this era of American life. And so there's a story there. Okay, that's my point. And so paintings and art in the Bible have this ability to engage. When we talk about. When Brad talked about the persuasion of an audience, there's a really critical element of persuasion. He didn't use the big Words. But we talk about logos, pathos and ethos. And ethos is established through a credibility that the author has with the audience. Logos is established through the reasonability of engagement with the audience. But pathos or pathos is established through tone and engagement in emotional connection with the audience. And so we have to find the art in the Bible, is my point. We have to find the melodic line is a statement of the art of a book. And so even as men, we're responsible to find that art, that quality, that engendering of pathos that places us in the center of the story and helps our audience get into the center of the story. And I'm saying all of that, and it's a long introduction because I think it's so important for you to grasp the profundity of this kind of idea. Just like richly textured compositions, paintings that draw our attention through careful observation, meditation on detail, they oblige our eyes to look to the details to help find the story. That's what we're describing. When you read literature. I was a literature and linguistics major in college and I confess it was my guilty pleasure to have to read Last of the Mohicans. I mean, I wanted to be able to read those books. And so it was just a poor excuse as a college student to be able to spend my time reading books. But again, in books you get lost in the narrative. You get captured by the unique flow of presentation of life in that particular book. And so with each of these books of the Bible, we want to slow down and read them in a way that draws our attention to their richness, to their texture, to the story, to the tones and the flavors, and to the themes that help us to prepare to teach that book in an adequate way. And this is a unique kind of challenge that you may not have thought much about because the question comes up when we talk about the melodic line. Where does it fit in? Where does it fit in? Where do you think it fits in? Exegesis? Yeah, yeah, yep, for sure. Because it's a preparatory process to understand the meaning of the book for the original audience. And, and I'm going to argue with you and anybody who's preached here in the room would say even it's like pre exegesis in a way. Because, for example, I'm supposed to teach the book of Matthew at the severe training program in like a week long event in October. Well, I'm telling you right now, if I don't start reading that book now, I'm going to be in trouble by October. Because I've got to absorb that two and a half hours worth of reading over and over and over again in order to prepare to understand the rich, textured composition that Matthew intended to be writing, such that by the time I get to X passage in that book, I'm always connecting that passage to the backdrop of the total flow of the story that's there. And so I'm encouraging us to be thinking of this even as a pre exegetical process. Like, if you know you're going to be teaching later in the semester in some book, I would encourage you to read the whole book and start reading it now. Because there's a development of understanding about how you engage that book and how each passage connects that book that will absolutely inform you as you try to help the audience understand each of those passages. Okay, so we're talking about this exegetical side, but I would say the process even goes back further than that. Like, it's up through your exegesis. And as you continue to engage with the book, you'll continue to refine what you think of as a melodic line. Now, we've got to change analogies here. That's part of my problem. But I wanted to get you set up in literature and art as an activity such that the story, content and context is there. Anybody know what this is? What would you call this in music? I know it's. I mean, I know you know it. So does anybody know what clef this is? Treble clef. What's the other clef? Bass clef. That's right. This is a treble clef. Anybody know what the lines are? Remember your music theory. Every good boy does fine. All the lines. What are the spaces? Anybody know? Face. F, A, C, E. So every line represents a musical note, and every space represents a musical note. And the idea is that it doesn't sound like I have a lot of musicians in the room. Is that fair? This could be hard, guys. That's why I needed the painting and literature, okay? Because music may not be the best analogy for most people. Okay? So I'm gonna make your life really hard now. You ready? What song is this? So we do have a musician. There we go. Exactly. So this a super commonly known melody, right? Right. All right. I'm gonna give our brother another challenge or another run for his money. Here, here's another one. What? What's this one? [00:13:53] Speaker B: Rocky top. [00:13:59] Speaker A: No. There you go. Jesus Loves Me. That's it. You track the line. Jesus. So four. Four timing. You know, if you have. Have anybody ever done this, Jacob, you've had to have done this earlier, right? [00:14:10] Speaker B: 4, 4. [00:14:10] Speaker A: 1, 2, 3, quarter. No, gets a beat, right? So 1, 2, 3, 4. Jesus loves me, this I know. 1, 2. On that, that hold that half note. That's carried for two beats, right? You get it? So my point is to say that every song has a melody. And, you know, you've probably stood beside someone if you're not a musician. You're. You're trying to sing the melody and that joker singing the harmony, and you're like, what am I doing here? Like, did I just forget this song entirely? No, it's because that guy's overwhelming you with the harmony part. The fact is, the melody carries the music. And if someone asks you do you know X song? And they say, sing a couple bars of it for me. You don't ever sing the harmony part, okay? You're always going to sing the melody because that's the story of the music that carries the music forward. And so that's what we're talking about here. We're talking about finding that melodic line, the notes of the melody of that book, that carry that book forward. I'm going to give you a principle in one second. Believe it or not, one of my sons likes heavy metal. And I listened to that. I'm like, I couldn't sing that song if you paid me money, man. That's my problem with heavy metal. I don't. I don't know how you get there because there's no melody. I just get lost in all the noise. But maybe some of you would throw stones at me. That's okay. But here's. Here's our principle for today, okay? Melodic line principle. Just as every piece of music has a melody, there. There are more than one way to phrase this. But just as every piece of music has a melody, every book of the Bible has a unique story to contribute to the overall biblical story. It's that kind of idea. And our goal is to find that story, to find that melody for each book. And then as we teach that book, then the melody is in view. So the melody enables us to know the uniquenesses of that particular book. Every book sings a unique song, and the symphony is the whole Bible. So good teachers take the time to listen for the melody first before they teach. You're less informed in teaching a passage of the Scriptures if you don't listen to the melody. And you may ask questions about that, and that would be fine, but the principle doesn't change. You're going to understand and teach that passage, that unique passage from X, Y or Z book better if you have taken the time to understand the melody of that book first, because you'll be informed for your audience's sake about the relationship between your passage and that book in terms of its melody. So we need to identify and articulate the melodic line of a book. Every book, as we teach, we're going to be better able to accurately explain that. So what we want to do today is think about that in the context of eventually of 2 Timothy. But I want to also first give you some tools for uncovering that melodic line. Okay, Tools for uncovering. Uncovering the melodic line. What do you think might be some of the tools for uncovering the melodic line? Somebody help me here. [00:17:15] Speaker B: Reading the book. [00:17:16] Speaker A: Yeah, read. Right? You got to read, read. Okay. Yep. And that just erased. I don't know why. Read. You got to read the book. What else? Yeah, reread the book. No, really reread. And it's worth putting it on here. My writing's terrible and my left handedness erases stuff. So get ready. It's going to be a long day on that. How should you read the book? [00:17:44] Speaker B: Out loud. [00:17:45] Speaker A: Out loud is a great way to read the book. I read out loud. You could listen to the book. Right. Because hearing the sound of the book aloud is a different experience when you're talking about art and aesthetic than just reading in text format. Why does that matter? Like, how does that change? Just curious. Any of you ever read aloud? Has anybody ever read aloud to a child? Yeah. What do you end up doing? Inevitably, emphasis tone. You're trying to find your way into the melody of the story. It forces a human being to engage with that differently. Not like the robotic Siri voice that you get when you read a book out loud. What else could you think of? Let's just put on here context. Okay. That may be a hard one to come to, but just context. Because having context for the book matters. Good authors. I've listened to 30 audiobooks in the last eight, 10, 12 weeks, whatever. And good authors know how to establish context. If you don't establish context, you're not, you're, you're just not, you're not going to get there. You're not going to understand the melodic line. What else? Anything else? Any other strategies that you guys know about? Yeah, repetition. Yeah. And, and here's. Man, you guys, I'm sorry, I should have just, I should just have done this, like fill in the blank. My writing's so bad on the, on a Kindle or on an iPad. Like this repetition, like repeating of words. It's important to know repeating of phrases. And here's another one that gets tricky is repeating of concepts. Because sometimes the synonyms used. We'll. We'll see an example of this. But sometimes the synonyms used in English, they use different words for an original word that in the original language is the same word. Like the book of Jude has some of those in it. So our translations can sometimes hide the synonymity. We talk about that in Bible translation as concordance. Trying to deal with concordance. What else do you guys think of anything? I don't want to kill us here, time wise. [00:20:04] Speaker B: Top and tail. [00:20:05] Speaker A: Yeah, it's called top and tail. And that's gonna, we're gonna look at that activity today because it's a significant way to think about reading carefully for melodic line. You guys, Any others, and I'm gonna hit you with I'm giving the top 10 list here. Anybody? [00:20:26] Speaker B: Structure. [00:20:28] Speaker A: Structure helps, right? Yeah, it does. Like, I think of that as like, how do the pieces fit together? So finding the pieces in building the whole. If you've read how to Read a Book by Mortimer Adler, he talks about how to build the book up from its pieces. That's why I'd encourage you guys, anytime you read a book, to first take time to look at the table of contents and actually see how the authors put the book together. Anything else? Those are all on my list. So identify genre and historical context. That's context. Read the whole book in a sitting. Read again and again. And I say read in multiple translations. I find that to be immensely helpful. I typically read the Bible when I'm preparing in eight translations, a couple of them not English, just to help me to see what the range of meaning is that a whole host of translators have presented. Read aloud. Listen to the book that was mentioned. Read beginning and end. That's head and tail. Look for a purpose statement in the book. Many books have some version of a purpose statement. They give you an idea, at least a general direction of what the book is for. Like why did the author write this book? Why does he think he wrote the book? Notice repetition. We mentioned fine parts that contribute to a whole. We mentioned Notice tonal quality of the book. The reason I say that is because if you read books like first and Second Corinthians, there is a tone change in Paul's fervor to communicate concepts. So look for tone. I know it sounds weird to say I'm reading. What are you talking about? But the words reveal tone and so we want to look for that tone quality. And then to be really granular, we're going to have to notice grammar. Ultimately, we're going to have to notice how conjunction. Now I'm going to use words some of you did learn in fourth grade English and some of you never learned in fourth grade English. But grammar, like conjunctions, and, but, or nor for yet. You know, Scott gave me a hard time last time about using the word modal. Modals are may, might, mus, can't, could. Didn't you know that? You know, I mean, I thought everybody knew that. Coordinating and subordinating clauses. So some clauses carry the main weight, some clauses subordinate underneath that weight. Verb tenses like main verbs, participle. So there's some parts of speech here or usages of grammatical categories in verbs that I think you will be a better teacher because you know what they are just now that may feel like a learning curve. And that's okay. We all have something to learn, right? But you'll be better for knowing what these are. So that's the top 10 list. I don't know if you. I can send this to you or you can capture that. That's where ultimately we want to go. The problem is we can't do that today because if we take examples like from the book of John, there are very few books we're going to have the time to sit here and read the whole of today. So there's certain of those activities involving reading and rereading that we're going to have difficulty applying. But we'll try to apply some of those exercises. So you get the idea. Okay, so here's what I want us to do. I want us to look just first at John is one of the books. I could have asked you this question and we could have taken three minutes to think about it. But John is one of the books that has a clear purpose statement. So John 21st verses 30 and 31. Just ignore John 1:1, 14. We'll cover that in a minute. John 20, 30, 31. Someone read that aloud for us. Again. This is the tool of purpose statement that we're talking about right now. The tool of purpose statement. Somebody find read John 20, 30, 31. [00:24:11] Speaker B: You got it? Now, Jesus did many other signs, presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book. These are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing, you may have life in his name. [00:24:26] Speaker A: So why, how does. How do you know that's a purpose statement? How's that Clarified by John in that set of verses. Yeah. What does he say? What do you mean, explain a little more? [00:24:39] Speaker B: Well, that's just inferring that the purpose is following those two words. [00:24:44] Speaker A: Yeah. Because he says outright, hey, I wrote this book. Right. I wrote this book. So that. So that is really clear there as a purpose statement. So somebody tell me just through words, ideas, phrases, what you might think of as some of the notes on our melodic line staff. Like, what are some of the notes in that set of verses that we would want to have? So, and here's the idea, like a purpose statement or this kind of melodic line of a book is a comprehensive statement of what we think will be indispensable for us to keep in the box as we teach a passage of that book. So it's important to come to a book and identify. I try to do it in a single sentence. Some of the sentences are run on sentences like, my grammar teacher wouldn't like them. That's okay. I'm not trying to keep to the 11 to 15 word idea in a main takeaway. It's an expanded version of an exegetical idea. I'm not trying to lose you here. Okay, so here we think homiletical IDEA Is that 11 to 15 word takeaway that I want to present to my audience. That's the preaching direction or teaching direction. But an exegetical idea is what the book is actually about from the perspective of the author. And those are not the same. So this is a version of an expanded exegetical idea. What does the author telling me that this book is about? I'm going to do that in a free flowing, expansive way such that I'm not constrained by 11 to 15 words because I find that to be too constraining. It's very difficult for me to get the whole of a melodic line into 11 to 15 words. On the exegetical statement side. Are you with me? You with me? Okay, so what would be some of the notes from those verses? If that's the purpose statement that John is telling us we need to have in our melodic line, what would be some of the notes from your knowledge of the book of John, what would be some of the notes believe? Right. So what I would want to do, and musicians differ about this, but I'm going to put this here and I would put believe that would be. That would need to be in our melodic line. Okay. What else? Jesus is God, the deity of Christ. Yeah. So we'd have to figure out where to put that. Again, it's Not. It's less about us, you know, creating an actual melody here, but deity, right? Yep. Okay, what else? Somebody said life. Yeah. Eternal life. Right. Like somehow or other eternal life is going to have to be represented here. So that could be life. Yep. What else? What's one other key word in the Book of John that's in these verses? Yeah, there are disciples there. There are disciples there. [00:27:42] Speaker B: Signs. [00:27:43] Speaker A: Yeah, signs. Signs. Why is that important in the Book of John? Why are signs important in the Book of John? Anybody know? I'm asking you questions. You didn't read the whole book recently. Yeah, there's signs. And what is. What, what is. What's John's point about the signs? Yeah, yeah. That ultimately are fulfilled. What we find in the second half of the book is the extended sign of the passion, the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus as the. The eternal life. So John presents a series of. Yeah, the signs are. That's right. Yeah. They're pointers toward the messiahship of Christ, the messianic identity of him as the promised God, man, ultimately the King. That's right. So my point is to say that as we're reading a book, we're trying to pick up on repeated words, ideas, phrases that are helping us to establish the notes that we feel they recur so much that we can't afford not to have them. And purpose statements are one of the tools that co. Occurs with those repeated words, phrases and ideas that helps us to know that. So if we were to go back now and you read, you could scan quickly. We don't have a lot of time, but if you scan quickly, John 1:1 14. My point is this, that the tail of the book is the purpose statement in John. It just so happens to be. Let's call that the tail. It's also a purpose statement. And just to be clear again, guys, I'm talking about the tools. Three tools now. Repeated words, phrases, ideas, top and tail, and purpose statement. Those are the. Just to be super clear, those are the three tools we're now circling around with the Book of John conversation to build a melodic line. Okay, so what else might you add from John 1:1 14? Maybe you wouldn't add anything, but I'm just curious if we go to. We were at the tail, now we're at the top, the head of the book. What else might you add there? [00:29:47] Speaker B: Light. [00:29:48] Speaker A: Light. Yeah, light. That's an important concept. And not only that, but we know in the body of John's work as a whole that that's an important category. So we'd have to decide how and where to let that figure into this. Right. A concept of light. Anything else? I'm not going to exhaust our time here just for your sake and mine in terms of overall time, but I hope you're getting the point. Like what we're trying to do, and here's just no melodic line is perfect. We'll always tweak it, will always change it. But you can see this is way more than 11 words. So one attempt, based on the tools we've used, is that John tells the story of the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus using specific signs so that others might believe in Jesus as the Messiah, the Son of God, and have eternal life through him. So I've tried to capture, I think, most of what we would have come up with in evaluating purpose statement. And also, it's going to be important, as far as I'm concerned, in any of the Gospels to explicate what the gospel actually is. In fact, it's the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus. Like, we can't assume for sure that our audience knows that. So in each case, we're going to reference back to the Gospel specifically. Any questions about this? Again, this is quick. It's quick, [00:31:17] Speaker B: yeah. With this hypothetical statement, do you include that in your teaching specifically, or do you weave it in? [00:31:26] Speaker A: It's a question, isn't it? What I found to be hard is when we parallel a complex exegetical idea consistently with a homiletical idea. Our audience doesn't know what to do. So I'm trying to solve the tension of knowing that as I preach, the concepts are imported. But I don't necessarily. It's a personal preference. My take is if I had a succinct version of a melodic line, like from the Book of Jude, when we did that one, that was easier because it's short. Then we could maybe include it. But I don't tend to state my exegetical statement at this length in a preaching manuscript because my audience, what I've noticed is people are desperately trying to write down that exegetical idea. And then I say, and now here's your main takeaway. And they're like, what you just gave me. I had to work like a madman to write that thing down. What are you doing up there? You know, get your act together so you get the point. Like, you're important. You're making sure the ideas are baked in to the melody of your messages, but they don't necessarily get explicated in that way. At least that's how I approach It. I'm sure other guys could give other ideas for that. Let's try desperately hard before in the next eight minutes to do two more examples. Romans 1:1:5 and 16:25, 27. I was going to let you guys discuss this at tables. Time runs so fast. So let's just. Somebody read aloud. Romans 1:1:5. Somebody read that aloud. Now, when I throw these two up there, what tool are you immediately thinking of? Huh? Yeah, Top and tail. Good, good. Okay. A couple of you are on the same page as me at least. No, that's good. Yeah, we're talking front and back, right? Romans 1:1 5. Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called [00:33:11] Speaker B: to be an apostle, set apart from the gospel of God, which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the Holy Scriptures concerning his Son, who was descended from David according to the flesh and was declared to be the Son of God in power according to the spirit of holiness, by his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord. [00:33:31] Speaker A: Okay, so there's a lot there that's a very packed set of five verses. Someone read. Someone who is about to read those verses read Romans 16:25-27. [00:33:50] Speaker B: That's a Hindu is able to strengthen you according to. To my Gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ according to the revelation of the mystery that was kept secret for long ages, but has now been disclosed and through the prophetic writings has been made known to all nations according to the command of the eternal God to bring about the obedience of faith to the only wise God. Be glory forevermore through Jesus Christ. Amen. [00:34:13] Speaker A: Again, very, very dense. I think we won't have the. I know we won't have the time to unpack the parallels, but I can assure you, if you sat down and you put both of those segments of scripture on pieces of paper, on a piece of paper, even in two columns, and then below you begin listing what you see in the overlapping ideas there you'll find a lot that's there you'll find a lot of. Oh, I see Paul at the beginning, he talks about this, the Gospel, the Holy Scriptures, obedience of faith, all the Gentiles. He talks about that at the beginning and then those ideas are underscored or reiterated at the end. Does anybody think that Romans has a purpose statement and if so, what might be one possible option? I'm going to say it could a purpose statement. No single. Just to be. Again, clear. No single tool by itself is the be all and end all. So what we're trying to do is use multiple tools to clarify, to confirm, to triangulate the data that we're gathering in order to create a melodic line. Any thoughts on a purpose statement in the book of Romans? Yeah, 1, 16, 17 could be thought of that. Good. Yeah, I think so too. At least as a clear statement. I am not ashamed of the Gospel. It is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes Jew first and also Greek. In it, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith or faith or to faith as is written, the righteous shall live by faith. So. So you could be reading and rereading the book of Romans and come on 1, 16, 17, and find that to potentially be a purpose statement. So I took a wild shot at a purpose statement for Romans because of those kinds of tool applications. And it's impossible for me to say, not based on other knowledge I have of the book, but since in the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus, God reveals his righteousness through. Through that gospel, God powerfully saves and gives new life to everyone who believes in Jesus, God's divine son, Jew and Greek alike. So again, just trying to capture most of that overlapping set of ideas there. You're with me here. Okay. All right, good. The book of Jude is another one that we could look at. I don't know that we'll take the time today. I'd rather spend just a few minutes on a couple of verses from second Timothy. Okay. So in second, this was a Jude example, top and tail. And then reading content. The word kept is used a lot in second Timothy. Preserved, kept, or in Jude. I'm sorry, in Jude, preserved, kept. That kind of idea. And that features heavily into a purpose statement for the book of Jude, a melodic line for Jude. Just so you know. But let's talk for just a second about 2 Timothy. I want to point you to especially two verses in 2 Timothy that are often understood without access to the melodic line. So if you think. Now here's a hard question again. If you think about the book of second Timothy, what is one verse that you hear a lot that might be the most quoted concept in second Timothy. What do you think? Anything come to your mind? The most quoted verse from 2nd Timothy 3:16, what is it? [00:37:36] Speaker B: All scriptures predict by God and profitable for proof, correctly? Yeah, it's out of order. [00:37:42] Speaker A: No, you're good. You're good. That's it. That's it. Now let me ask you a question. When you hear second Timothy 3:16 talked about, what do you think about in terms of the meaning of why is that popping up there? I do enjoy Logos, but I don't need to enjoy it with that. Interesting. I can't get rid of that. Well, I'd like to say not now, but I don't have access to the little symbol. Okay, I'm going to just leave that for now. So in second Timothy. Let me just shoot you what I. And we're going to come back to 3:16, because I'm asking you that question. What do you usually hear second Timothy 3:16 used in reference to? So Paul writes, this is just a wild shot at 2 Timothy. Paul writes to strengthen Timothy for continued faithful ministry in the face of suffering and coming apostasy with the word of God as the one resource sufficient to equip him for that task. Okay, so if that were to be the direction of a purpose statement in second Timothy, how do you usually hear 2 Timothy 3:16 taught to defend inerrancy? Yeah, inspiration, Inerrancy. Right. Okay. Is it true that second Timothy 3:16 teaches about the defense of inspiration and inerrancy? Absolutely. Here's the question. If you're going to teach the passage that includes two Timothy 3:16, the question you need to ask yourself is, would that be the main point of my message? And I'm just giving you the up front right now based on the melodic line. It should not. Okay. Because the purpose of 2 Timothy 3:16 in this passage is for Paul to encourage Timothy to know that God's word is sufficient for him as a minister of the Gospel to meet all of the needs that he has. It's my point is clear enough. I think that in preaching that passage, if you get hung up on the idea of 2 Timothy 3:16, I've heard many sermons that that include that pericope, that small portion of verses in Scripture where they get hung up on the idea of inspiration as the priority. And that's not the priority of the passage. It catches our attention, but that's not the point. But if you read that passage devoid of knowing what the line is here, there are false teachers. Paul's challenging Timothy to be faithful in ministry. He knows the word of God is Timothy's early charge of life. He knows that he has to be faithful to that charge of life. So when he engages life, he has to use God's word as the resource that he needs that's sufficient for his own equipping and the equipping of others around him. Second Timothy 2:2. Right. So you're with me in terms of concept here. I know we're moving fast. Okay, so I want to take you to one verse from your passage for today in A similar way. Similar way, 2nd Timothy 2:22. Because our passage is 2nd Timothy 2, 20, 26, 2nd Timothy 2, 22. Look at that passage quickly. Somebody read that verse for me. So flee evil passions, pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace, along with those who call on the Lord pure heart. Okay, so when you first hear that verse spoken and in whatever context you hear it, what's typically the Reference point for second Timothy 2:22, What's typically the reference point? How do you hear that verse talked about? Because we're covering verses 20 down to 26. How do you hear that verse talked about? What's the reference point? What is it talking about when you hear it talked about? Like if someone comes up to you and says, hey, flee youthful passions, pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace, along with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart. Okay, is that what that is? Is that usually how the verse is used, [00:41:48] Speaker B: Holiness? [00:41:49] Speaker A: Say what? Yeah, it's typical. I'm just going to say it outright. It's typically used about sexual purity. Like, let's, let's. Like almost anytime you hear second Timothy 2:22 talked about, the primary reference point is sexual purity because we, in our way of thinking about this issue, knowing that sexual purity is a priority, often talked about in light of the fact that Timothy's young, that Paul is challenging him to be sexually pure. But the fact is that in keeping with the melodic line, that the meaning of this passage has a lot more to do with fleeing youthful passions, in contention, in a lack of understanding of truth and an eagerness to argue, like a wrong kind of engagement with falsehood. If you read the rest of the passage, that's what you're finding to be the direction. So my point is that if we preach a passage like this, oftentimes we take a. Pull a verse out of the original context, especially away from the melodic line is really my point. And we tend to teach that verse away from the melodic line and therefore teach it in a set of applications and context that's not the one that was intended by the author. So it's important for us to capture, to do our best to capture a melodic line prior to preaching a passage from a book. That's my contention. And in the same way artists use images, tone, they use these kinds of tools to help us to understand the story being told. So every book of the Bible has a melody that contributes to the unique flow of that particular book. I'm going to take a couple minutes to answer questions because you may have questions about how to apply this. So I just want to answer any questions that you'd have because I don't know how many of you guys are teaching regularly or have opportunity to teach, but this may raise questions for you. It's easier as a person who's teaching through a whole book to obviously apply the melodic line conceptually because you know you're going to be using that concept over the course of quite a long period of time. So any questions and we'll do table work here. [00:44:07] Speaker B: You have a typical process for confirming a melodic line or a purpose statement for a book that's not as explicitly clear. [00:44:16] Speaker A: Yeah, I try just not to make that principle so significant to my process. That's what I do. Like in the book of Romans 1, 16, 17. I mean, John's the most explicit melodic line stater in the Bible period. But other authors don't do that to the same degree. So I try to weigh the tools in accord with how they're clearly applied in that book. I find the reading strategies, the repeated concept strategies, those really matter a lot. And I don't think most of us are willing to engage with books of the Bible. Matthew takes two and a half hours to read. That's a big commitment. So I have to start thinking now, how many times and at what points along the way am I going to be reading that? Even as I'm starting to work forward on exegetical content passage in big pieces of the book, I have to do both at the same time. So another issue for you is you may think, well, I don't have time. I got a. That guy told me last week and I got to do this two weeks from now. Like, what am I supposed to do? I'm just encouraging you to do your best to get through the book in a single sitting and do your best to pay attention to it. Don't let it just wash over you like a bunch of words, but do your best to get through it. Any other questions? Harder concept? [00:45:39] Speaker B: Yeah, I was just going to say one of the things that's helpful, brothers, is my target on this. But there's no verse in the Bible that says you have to read the whole Bible in a year. That may shock you and it's good to read through the Bible in a year. But one of the things I would encourage is pick two or three books of the Bible and like, you know, or four books and just spend, spend three months in one book reading it over and over again and meditating and studying it and then do another one and do another one. And so that way you're actually, you're in a book long enough to linger in it such that when it comes down to studying it. [00:46:21] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:46:21] Speaker B: You have the sense of the whole. [00:46:23] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. [00:46:25] Speaker B: Someone told me that many years ago. That's a good idea. [00:46:29] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Like I've. I had said, I set aside True Confessions. Along those lines, I set aside my Bible reading plan and just started using the book of Matthew as my content for this semester because I knew if I don't do that, then I'm going to not have the kind of time I need to do what Nick's describing. Was there another question? [00:46:48] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:46:48] Speaker A: Whenever you're talking about how much the chapter or the whole book synthesis relates to a particular text that you're preaching. Like when you're doing a series that seems like it's constantly being brought back to that at the beginning or like whenever we've done like Foot Inside last year. Yeah. We were constantly restating the purpose of the book. Yeah. You were saying, like you find that [00:47:11] Speaker B: often can confuse [00:47:14] Speaker A: maybe one place. In what ways is it helpful and what ways is it if you feel like time is elapsing and people are needing to be reminded. I'm not, hey, what I'm not saying is that repetition and reminder is not helpful. I'm not saying that. I just, I find for my own melodic line kind of idea, they're so stinking long that if I take the time to say those in full form every time, it's too hard for the audience to capture. So I had a guy who's told me, listen, you write a melodic line like in preaching content, you write a homiletical idea, 11 words or less. That's just my take. I know 15 is fine too. I just try to keep to 11. And then he said, I want try to write a five word exegetical idea in a five word homiletical idea and say that exegetical and homiletical idea many times. In other words, boil it down as much as you can to something that people can remember. And I remember the first time I taught Matthew 11, 28:30, I was working with that guy. And the homiletical statement ended up being finding rest in Christ's yoke. Again, it's that succinct homiletical idea that I can remember and keep reminding the audience of. The question you have to ask yourself is if my exegetical idea and or melodic line is too long, how can I boil it down such that when I repeat it, it's less complicated for people to engage with every time. That's the tension I feel. I'm just giving you my point of view on that. Are there other questions? I know our time is lapsing. [00:48:46] Speaker B: Quick, Mike, when you're preaching and your passage contains a verse that comes with baggage, a verse that's often pulled out and quoted. [00:48:55] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:48:56] Speaker B: Separately. Like when we were just looking at 2:22. [00:48:59] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:49:00] Speaker B: Do you acknowledge that? Do you just kind of not acknowledge it and just weave it into your whole. Your whole point? Are you, like, now, you probably have heard this, you know, verse pulled out, and I'm going to help you think about it differently. [00:49:14] Speaker A: I would almost always acknowledge that. I would almost always, because I want to help my audience read the Bible better as a part of preaching and teaching. So therefore, I'm almost always going to say what's great about this and even state the case positively. I don't know how you've heard two Timothy 3, 16, 17 talked about, but look at what it means here, like, in an enthusiastic and positive way. Talk about the joy of that verse as applied through the melodic line here. So I try. It's not. I don't want it to be a distraction, but I. Because then I'm wasting time in the other direction, like making the negative case. And what good does that do? Right. So. But I do try to point out exegetical fallacies in DA Carson's words in a kind way along the way. Okay. I should pray, guys. Thank you.