Phrasing a Passage

Over the four lessons of this module you have built four pages in your notebook: Connectives, Order, Conditions, and Main and Branches. Each one looked at a passage through a single lens. Phrasing puts the lenses together. To phrase a passage is to write it out so that its grammar becomes visible on the page: one thought to a line, main clauses on the left, everything that depends on them indented underneath the word it depends on, and every connection labelled. When you have finished, you can see the shape of the passage in the way an architect sees a building from its plan.

Several versions of this method are taught, under different names, and a student will meet them in books and online. The oldest is grammatical diagramming of the kind developed for English schoolrooms by Alonzo Reed and Brainerd Kellogg in the 1870s, where every word goes on a branching line according to its function. It is thorough and slow, and it is better at single sentences than at whole paragraphs. Gordon Fee's New Testament Exegesis teaches a sentence flow, in which the text is broken into lines and indented to show what depends on what. William Mounce's Greek for the Rest of Us teaches a similar method under the name phrasing, written for readers who use tools rather than reading Greek fluently. And the method called arcing, developed by Daniel Fuller and taught by John Piper and by Thomas Schreiner in Interpreting the Pauline Epistles, draws arcs over propositions and labels how each relates to the next.

These methods differ in detail and their teachers have their preferences, but they share one conviction: the meaning of a passage lives not only in its words but in how its statements relate, and you will not see those relations unless you make yourself write them down. This lesson teaches a simple phrasing method, close to Fee's and Mounce's, because it needs no special symbols and works in any notebook. Software exists that does some of this for you, and it can be useful. But a pencil has one great advantage. It will not let you avoid a decision. Every time you indent a line, you have to decide what it hangs on, and every decision is a question about the text that you would otherwise have skipped.

A word of honesty about what phrasing is. It is not a machine that produces the meaning of a passage. Two careful students can phrase the same paragraph differently, because some attachments are genuinely ambiguous, as you saw in Ephesians 1:4. What phrasing does is make your reading visible, to you and to anyone you show it to. If you have made a choice, the page shows it, and the page can be checked against the Greek, against translations and against commentaries. That is a large part of what it means to handle the text honestly.

Step one: choose a unit and prepare the page. Phrase a paragraph, not a verse; a verse division is a reference tool and often cuts across the sense. Write the reference at the top of a fresh page, and rule a margin about three fingers wide down the right-hand side for labels. If your notebook is small, turn it sideways. Work in pencil. You will change your mind, and you should.

Step two: break the text into lines. Copy the passage from the BSB, starting a new line at every connective (and, but, for, therefore, so that, if, because, just as), at every relative pronoun (who, which, whom), at every participle phrase or infinitive phrase that does work of its own, and at any prepositional phrase that carries real weight. Keep the connective at the start of its line, so that the joints of the passage run down the left edge of each line where your eye can find them. Use your Connectives page from the first lesson to make sure you have not missed a joint the English left out.

Step three: find the main clauses and put them flush left. Use the method of the fourth lesson: a finite verb not introduced by a subordinating word, or a verbless main clause like Ephesians 1:3. Check the Greek verb in your tool before you decide; an English sentence beginning 'It judges' may translate a participle or an adjective rather than a main verb. Every main clause starts at the left margin. If a passage has several, they will stand one under another at the left, and the connectives between them will show you how the argument moves.

Step four: indent each dependent line under the word it depends on. A purpose clause goes under the verb whose purpose it states. A relative clause goes under the noun it refers to. A prepositional phrase goes under the word it describes. Indent about two fingers for each level of dependence. If the word it depends on is far away on the page, draw a light line or arrow back to it. Your Main and Branches page from the fourth lesson has already done most of this thinking for you.

Step five: stack parallel items. Where two or more lines do the same job, such as a series joined by and, a not... but pair, or a μέν... δέ balance, put them at the same indent, one directly under another, so the eye sees them as a set. This is often where the beauty of a passage first becomes visible, because writers built their parallels on purpose.

Step six: label every indented line in the margin. Use one word for how it relates to what it hangs on: ground (for, because), inference (therefore), purpose (so that), result (so that, with the sense of outcome), content (that, after a verb of saying or asking), condition (if), contrast (but), concession (although), means (by), manner (how), time (when), place (where), comparison (just as), series (and). Where a line could carry two labels, write both with a question mark. The labels are the heart of the method, because they turn a shape into an argument.

Step seven: check against the Greek. Go through the passage in the interlinear with your phrasing beside it. Are the verbs you treated as main clauses really finite and independent? Is there a γάρ or δέ you have not represented? Has a word been fronted, or a pronoun added, that your Order page starred? Does a condition belong to a class that changes how you labelled it? Mark the words that carry emphasis with the star you used in the second lesson. Adjust the phrasing in pencil wherever the Greek corrects you.

Step eight: read the shape. Look at what stands on the left. Write one sentence that summarises the passage with its main clause as your main clause and the most important dependent lines as your supporting words. Circle the line where the weight of the passage seems to fall. Note any word that repeats. Then compare this sentence with the one you wrote before you started. If they are the same, you have confirmed your reading. If they differ, the phrasing has taught you something, and that is the point.

Now work the method through the anchor, and do it in your notebook as you read. Because the BSB divides Hebrews 4:12 into three sentences while the Greek has one, this phrasing follows the Greek order and uses plain glosses rather than quoting the BSB line by line. In the SBLGNT, the verse is Ζῶν γὰρ ὁ λόγος τοῦ θεοῦ καὶ ἐνεργὴς καὶ τομώτερος ὑπὲρ πᾶσαν μάχαιραν δίστομον καὶ διϊκνούμενος ἄχρι μερισμοῦ ψυχῆς καὶ πνεύματος, ἁρμῶν τε καὶ μυελῶν, καὶ κριτικὸς ἐνθυμήσεων καὶ ἐννοιῶν καρδίας.

Line one, flush left, is the main clause: For the word of God is. There is no verb in the Greek; is must be supplied, as in Ephesians 1:3. Label it ground in the margin, and draw an arrow up and back to 4:11, because the γάρ hangs on the exhortation to make every effort to enter God's rest. Everything the verse says about the word will hang under this line.

Lines two to six stand one under another, indented once under is, because they are a series of five descriptions joined by καί, all saying what the word of God is. Line two: living. Put a star on it. Ζῶν (zōn), a present active participle, nominative masculine singular, of ζάω, stands ahead of its subject at the very head of the sentence. That is fronting, and the second lesson's questions confirm it is worth noticing: the position is not required by grammar, and there is a contrast partner close by. Hebrews 3:12 warned against turning away from θεοῦ ζῶντος, 'the living God', and 3:17 spoke of those 'whose bodies fell in the wilderness'. The living word belongs to the living God, and the dead generation did not listen to it.

The other four follow at the same indent. Line three: and active, ἐνεργής (energēs). Line four: and sharper than any double-edged sword, τομώτερος (tomōteros), a comparative adjective, sharper, with ὑπὲρ πᾶσαν μάχαιραν δίστομον, beyond any two-mouthed sword. Line five: and piercing, διϊκνούμενος (diiknoumenos), a present middle participle, nominative masculine singular, going right through. Line six: and able to judge, κριτικός (kritikos), an adjective meaning able to discern or judge. Label each one series. Your page now shows what the BSB's three sentences hide: one subject, the word of God, with five descriptions stacked under it.

Under line five, indent once more, because what follows says how far the piercing goes: even to the dividing of, ἄχρι μερισμοῦ (achri merismou), labelled extent. Under that, indent again and stack two lines side by side in parallel: soul and spirit, ψυχῆς καὶ πνεύματος; joints and marrow, ἁρμῶν τε καὶ μυελῶν. Both pairs are in the genitive, both depend on μερισμοῦ, and the τε καί binds the second pair tightly together. Under line six, indent once: of the thoughts and intentions of the heart, ἐνθυμήσεων καὶ ἐννοιῶν καρδίας, labelled object of judging. Notice the movement down the stack: from what the word is, to what it does, to how deep it goes, to what it judges. It ends at the heart.

Then Hebrews 4:13. Line seven, flush left, is a second main clause joined by καί: And there is no creature hidden before him. ἔστιν is a real finite verb here, present active indicative, third person singular. Line eight, at the same level or indented once under seven and labelled contrast: but all things are naked and laid bare to his eyes. The but is δέ, not ἀλλά; after a negative this δέ does a job close to the not... but you met in the first lesson. τετραχηλισμένα (tetrachēlismena) is a perfect passive participle, nominative neuter plural, of τραχηλίζω. The word is related to τράχηλος, neck, and interpreters have suggested several images behind it, a wrestler's grip on the neck or a sacrificial victim's neck bent back for the knife among them. Module 2 warned you against building on a root: the image is uncertain, and in use the word means laid bare, exposed. Preach the meaning, not a guessed picture.

Line nine, indented under his at the end of line eight and labelled relative: to whom is our account. The Greek is πρὸς ὃν ἡμῖν ὁ λόγος (pros hon hēmin ho logos), literally toward whom to us the word, and the BSB gives the sense well: 'to whom we must give account'. Now look at your page. The passage that began with ὁ λόγος τοῦ θεοῦ, the word of God, ends with ὁ λόγος, the account we owe. Circle both. The phrasing has shown you the frame of the passage: God's word searches us through, and we must give our word back to him. That is why 4:14-15 turns at once to a great high priest who sympathises with our weaknesses. After a word that leaves us laid bare, the writer offers the one through whom we can approach.

Finally, read the shape and write your sentence. Something like: Because the living word of God searches us to the heart and we must answer to him, make every effort not to fall by refusing his voice. Notice that this sentence has the exhortation of 4:11 as its main clause, because the γάρ made 4:12-13 the ground of it. The phrasing has done what phrasing is for. It has moved you from a verse about the Bible to a warning about listening to it.

Phrasing does not resolve every question; sometimes it shows you exactly where the question lies, and that is its own service. Hebrews 4:12 has a famous one. Does the dividing of soul and spirit teach that a human being is made of three parts, body, soul and spirit, or is it a picture of how deep the word of God goes? Christians have held both views for centuries, and both should be heard at their strongest.

The three-part view, usually called trichotomy, reads the phrase as naming soul and spirit as distinct, so that the word can divide between them, distinguishing what comes from the human soul from what comes from the spirit. Its defenders point to 1 Thessalonians 5:23, 'may your entire spirit, soul, and body be kept blameless', where Paul names three, and to 1 Corinthians 2:14-15, where Paul contrasts the natural or soulish person (ψυχικός) with the spiritual (πνευματικός). They add that μερισμός most naturally means a dividing or separating, and that a dividing of soul and spirit is most easily heard as a dividing between them; joints and marrow, on this view, are a second, bodily picture placed beside the first, not a reason to blur it. On this reading, Hebrews 4:12 gives the word of God the power to sort out what in a person is merely natural from what is truly spiritual, and it has been an important text in some traditions of spiritual direction.

The two-part view, usually called dichotomy, holds that soul and spirit are two ways of speaking about the one immaterial side of a human being, and that Hebrews 4:12 is not making a statement about how many parts a person has. Its defenders point to the shape your phrasing has just drawn: two pairs set in parallel, soul and spirit, joints and marrow, and joints and marrow are not two layers lying side by side for a blade to slip between; marrow lies inside bone. They argue that the genitives after μερισμοῦ can mean the dividing of soul and of spirit themselves, the word cutting into each, rather than a dividing of one from the other. On this reading the verse is saying that the word reaches the innermost part of a person, as far as a blade can reach into a body, and 1 Thessalonians 5:23 is read as a way of saying your whole self, much as the command to love God with heart, soul and strength in Deuteronomy 6:5 is not usually taken as a count of parts.

What can the grammar settle? It can show that the four genitives depend on μερισμοῦ and fall into two pairs, and it can show that the writer is piling up images of penetration in a series. It cannot show whether he intended a statement about human constitution. That question has to be settled, if it can be, from the whole of scripture, and the Systematic Theology track takes it up. In a sermon on Hebrews 4:12, both sides can agree on the point the passage itself presses, that nothing in us is out of reach of God's word, and should be honest that the verse is used in a wider debate it may not have been written to decide.

A good phrasing is most of a sermon outline. The main clauses on the left are candidates for your main points. The indented lines under each are its supports, and the labels in your margin are your transitions: because, so that, therefore, but. If you preach Hebrews 4:11-13 from the phrasing above, you might have one main point, the exhortation of 4:11, with its ground in two parts, what the word is (living and searching) and what we owe (an account), leading into 4:14-16. That is a sermon whose shape is the text's shape, which is the safest kind of sermon there is.

Two cautions. Not every indented line deserves to become a point; the five descriptions of the word are a series that does one job together, and a sermon that gives each its own ten minutes will lose the urgency the writer built. And a phrasing is a tool for seeing, not a text to show the congregation. You will rarely put one on a screen, and you do not need to. What they should hear is a sermon that moves the way the passage moves.

Expect phrasing to be slow at first. A paragraph of five or six verses may take you an hour the first few times, and you will rub out half of it. It becomes faster with practice, and the hour is rarely wasted. You will very likely find that the passage you thought you knew has a joint you had never noticed, or that the verse everyone quotes is a dependent clause hanging on a command no one preaches.

Your step this week has two parts. First, phrase Hebrews 4:11-13 for yourself on a fresh page, following the eight steps, without looking back at section 3 until you have finished; then compare. Second, phrase your capstone passage, using your Connectives, Order, Conditions and Main and Branches pages from this module beside you. When you are done, write the one-sentence summary of step eight and set it beside the sentence you wrote in the last inquiry question. Then write a three-line outline for a sermon or Bible study from the phrasing: one main point and two supports, each with the verse it comes from. Keep the phrasing in your notebook. It is the backbone of the full passage study you will complete in the last lesson of this track.