How long is a scripture passage

The application spreads from spiritual gifts to our other relationships as we remember that everything we do must be done in love. Christians face spiritual opposition every day from the world, the flesh, and the devil. Paul instructs Christians in Ephesians to put on the full armor of God to help us stand against the schemes of the evil one. Each piece of the Christian armor shows us how the truths of the Gospel protects us in the battles we encounter. This is not a complete list of every passage a Christian should memorize, but it provides a great start for the Christian wanting to learn the basics of the Christian message and the Christian life.

This article was originally published on ScottSlayton. Used with permission. He and Beth have been married since and have four children. You can follow him on Twitter : scottslayton. This guide will assume that your class includes the Gospel of Luke and you have decided to choose a passage from there. You can choose a passage you like, or that features a concept in which you are interested.

Suppose you are interested in studying the story of Jesus' Transfiguration. That is in Luke So you could write your paper on that passage. Alternatively, you could write on a passage that contains a theme you want to study. Suppose you want to learn about Jesus' attitudes towards money, but you do not know where in Luke's Gospel to look for a passage about money. You can solve this by using a concordance. A concordance is a tool that lets you look up a word, and see that word in its context in every place it occurs in the Bible.

Since English versions of the Bible differ sometimes in how they translate words, you need to pick a concordance that matches your Bible version. This assumes you are not working directly from Hebrew or Greek, which have their own concordances.

Next, you need to determine if the passage is of reasonable size. Suppose you have to write a paper that is ten to twelve pages long. That would be about the right size for a passage that is around eight to fifteen verses long, depending upon the genre of the passage. An argument from Romans would probably take more space to interpret than a story in 1 Samuel, though this may not always be true.

If you choose a passage that is too short, your paper will probably be too short, e. On the other hand, Luke is far too long.

You could spend thirty pages on that and not be done. It depends in part upon the complexity of the passage. For this Research Guide, let's choose a simple narrative passage: Luke , the announcement to Mary of the coming birth to her of Jesus while she is a virgin.

In order to decide the number of verses to choose, you need to validate that you are doing a complete passage, not starting or stopping in the middle of a narrative or argument.

In the case of Luke , you can tell that v. In Luke it is stated that the angel Gabriel, six months after promising Zechariah that John would be born, was sent to Nazareth in Galilee by God.

At the beginning of Luke , we again read about a transition to a new location, as Mary leaves to go visit her cousin Elizabeth. That makes Luke the end of the announcement to Mary by Gabriel. This is fifteen verses, which is about the most you should consider doing for a typical exegesis paper.

Shifts in time "and it came to pass" , shifts in location "went up to Jerusalem" , and shifts in topic "There is therefore no condemnation to those who are in the Messiah Jesus" all indicate the beginning of a new narrative pericope or a new topic.

Look for those as you seek the beginning and end of your passage. You could verify the boundaries of your passage by finding a Bible that divides the text into paragraphs and seeing how it divides this passage. You should plan, however, to describe why you have chosen a particular set of verses and not more or less.

The paragraphs are only the view of one modern editorial team, not part of the Bible itself. The chapters and verses in modern Bibles were put in many centuries after all the books of the Bible were written.

Go to the next tab above to learn how to examine the Historical, Cultural, and Literary Background of your passage. There are large numbers of "free standing" commentaries not part of a series. I n-depth commentaries that treat a Book of the Bible chapter by chapter, are ideal for research. When was the last time you truly felt carefree?

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