(upbeat music) - Well, we love to get questions on basic Bible interpretation, so much of what we do in helping you read your Bible. So please keep sending those questions into us. Today's question is from Deborah from Kalamazoo, Michigan. Hello, Pastor John, I've heard you talk about arcing. Can you explain to me the very basics of what arcing does and what we can learn from this practice?

This is my introduction to it, so the simpler, the better. And if you have one simple example to explain it all, that would be great. Pastor John, what would you say to Deborah? - I would love to. So let me try to be simple, because at root, it is simple.

Arcing is a way of taking a paragraph of Scripture, a unit of Scripture, let's just say a paragraph, breaking it down into individual statements, seeing how each of those statements relate to each other logically. Like is one the cause of the other? Is one the result of the other?

Does one explain the other? So seeing the relationships and then putting all those statements together according to those relationships so that we can see the one main thing that the paragraph is saying and how each of those individual parts of the paragraph, those statements, work to support it and explain it.

And then arcing provides a way of preserving what we've seen with a kind of drawing of the text, each statement having an arc and each relationship having a symbol. And so when you're done, you can file it away and remember everything you've seen next time you wanna study the passage.

There's nothing really mysterious about it. We talk this way, we talk this way all the time, especially when we're trying to be clear and trying to explain something to somebody. We try to make a point, then we say other things about the point to explain it or support it.

We do this instinctively. We manage to communicate pretty well from day to day. And what arcing does is force us to think about what we're doing and what the biblical writers are doing just as a way of making sure that we don't miss anything that they're trying to show us.

The great value of arcing is mainly, it forces us to just look and look and look at the text and think and think about it. Paul said in 2 Timothy 2.7, "Think over what I say and the Lord will give you understanding." So in order to get the fullest meaning out of a passage, we have to look at it carefully and in detail and think about it.

And then we need to construct the argument, reconstruct it in our heads or on paper and write it down lest we forget it. So here's the example of, so you get the idea. Romans 1, verses 15 through 17. Here's what it says. "I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome, for I'm not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God and the salvation to everyone who believes to the Jew first and also to the Greek, for in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith." So there are four statements here and Paul clues us into how they're related by the connecting words that he uses.

In this case, it happens to be four, F-O-R, four, four, four. So each of those statements gets an arc. So you get four arcs. And we're trying to decide what's the main point, not necessarily the most important reality, but the main point that is the conclusion, what everything else is supporting here.

So let's walk through these four propositions and see if we can reconstruct the argument. "I am eager to preach the gospel to you who are in Rome." That's statement number one. Here's statement number two. "For," or because, and so here comes the support or the ground, "because I'm not ashamed of the gospel." So one of the reasons he wants to preach the gospel in Rome is that he's not ashamed of the gospel at all.

And then comes the third statement, which is given as a support or an argument or a basis for why he's not ashamed of the gospel. "I am not ashamed of the gospel because it is the power of God and the salvation to everyone who believes." That's the third statements.

So now we have three statements and the last two are the arguments for the first one. And if we say it in reverse order, we can hear it even more clearly. When you go in reverse order, a because becomes a therefore. "The gospel is the power of God and the salvation for everyone who believes.

Therefore, I'm not ashamed of it at all. Therefore, I am eager to preach the gospel to you who are in Rome." And then there's one last important statement, one more piece in the argument in verse 17. He gives the reason or the basis, the argument for why the gospel is the power of God and the salvation to everyone who believes.

He says, "For, or because in it, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith." So Paul is giving a three-step argument rooted in the very nature of the gospel for why he is so eager to preach the gospel in Rome. So I'll read it in reverse order so that you can hear how the argument works.

"In the gospel, God's righteousness is revealed as a saving righteousness that is counted to us through faith." That's the first statement. "Therefore, this gospel is the power of God for the worst of sinners, Jew or Greek, through faith, whoever believes." Here's the third statement. "Therefore, I'm not ashamed of the gospel." Last statement.

"Therefore, I'm eager to preach the gospel to you who are in Rome." So that's basically what we do in arching. We take a unit of scripture and we identify individual statements. Then we identify the relationships between those statements and then we rebuild the argument so that we can see what the main point is.

What's the one thing he's trying to support with all the other statements. And I promise you, this is a promise. I promise you that if you begin to think about passages of scripture this way, you will not only see vastly more of what's really there that you might've missed, but your confidence level that you have seen God's truth will dramatically increase.

And if God is willing, and I think he is willing, you will go very deep with him and you will know him as you've never known him before. - Amen. These are such critical skills for reading comprehension with scripture and really with anything. But thank you, Pastor John, for outlining these principles.

Please keep sending in your Bible interpretation questions. It's one of the major themes on our brains right now. And really all the time we're thinking about these things. Pastor John's latest book, of course, is titled "Reading the Bible Supernaturally." You'll wanna check it out. And there's a really helpful guide to arcing as an appendix in that book.

If you want a more visual representation of the principles explained here today, that's a great place to begin. And of course, if you want more examples and if you want more help with arcing, check out the web resource, biblearc.com. B-I-B-L-E-A-R-C.com, biblearc.com. A lot of great resources there. Well, it seems if we read our New Testaments correctly, that Jesus said that his return was going to be soon.

So where is he? And why is the church still waiting for his return? That question is on the table Wednesday. I'm your host Tony Reinke. Thanks for listening to the Ask Pastor John podcast. We'll see you then. (upbeat music) (upbeat music)