Lesson 1 | What Is Arcing?
The Big Idea
There is a difference between the main point and my favorite point.
It is critical to understand the above quotation if we are to rightly discern the meaning of a passage. For our natural inclination is to latch on to the verse which first grabs our heart and then to try and fit the rest of the passage around that verse. But doing so may very well turn the structure of the text on its head, distort the meaning, and leave other verses by the wayside. To properly understand the passage, we must understand what the author's main point is and how every proposition in the text is working together to make that point. Doing so will both increase the clarity and glory of our favorite verse, and might just add other favorites to the list.
A Brief History of Arcing Arcing was developed by Daniel Fuller beginning in 1953, while he was a professor at Fuller Theological Seminary. Using the inductive Bible study method as his foundation, Fuller began to draw arcs over sections in a passage of Scripture to indicate which verses were most closely related. He continued to develop and teach Arcing for the next six years until his approach became more or less the complete method we use today, with the exception of some of the relationship’s names and the vertical display of the arcs. Arcing has since be taught in various forms at about a dozen colleges and seminaries by people like John Piper, Tom Steller, Thomas Schreiner, Scott Hafemann, Gregory Beale and Wayne Grudem. **This summary is derived from Alexander Kirk’s paper below.
New Testament Argument DiagrammingpdfThis document contains a much more extensive history of Arcing and related Bible study methods.