Well, we've talked a lot about Bible study principles on the podcast.

Arcing, specifically, the practice of breaking down a paragraph in the Bible to its individual

statements, its propositions, to determine how those propositions relate to one another

logically so that we can then see for ourselves the main point of a text.

Arcing is a powerful way to employ discourse analysis.

We talked about this back in APJ 1056 if you want more there.

But in that episode, you only used examples from Paul's epistles, Pastor John.

And I think the epistles are rather intuitive for arcing, but Nicholas in Ontario, Canada,

who is, I think, I think he's a pastor, writes in to ask about narrative texts.

Hello, Pastor John.

Thank you for your tireless work on this podcast.

It is such a blessing to have these concise and thoughtful responses to the perennial

questions of life.

I am currently listening on Audible to your book Reading the Bible Supernaturally.

It has been such a wonderful refresher on why to read the Bible and how to focus my

reading and study for personal devotion and sermon prep.

Thank you.

My question is regarding narratives.

You make the point that your revolution in reading came when you discovered that the Bible's

authors were making arguments and that tracing those arguments well was key to understanding

the author and thus God's intention in the Word.

I see how this applies to the epistles of the New Testament and even the wisdom literature.

...