Lesson 2 | Expansion
Paraphrasing and Summarizing
There are two ways to write something in your own words. The first expands upon the text, unpacking it with description, explanation, logic, and interpretational stances. The second contracts the text down to its core, mentally sifting out details and supporting points, until it accurately restates the core message of the text.
For the purposes of this course…
- Expansion will be associated with the word “paraphrase” and will be covered in lessons 2–7.
- Contraction will be associated with the word “summary” and will be covered in lessons 8–10.
Consider the following summary and paraphrase of 1 Peter 1:22–25.
SUMMARY
Be fervent in brotherly love, since you actually have a new heart—brought to life by the very gospel of Christ and cleansed for genuine love.
PARAPHRASE
Since you have been cleansed through and through by means of your obedient response to the gospel—a cleansing that is designed to produce genuine love for others,
you ought therefore to be wholehearted and clean-hearted in your love for your fellow believers,
because you actually have a new heart, with new life that does not come from a source prone to decay. Rather, this new life comes from a source that death and decay can never touch, that is, through the ever-living, always-settled word of God; Isaiah explains this very truth when he says,
“All humanity is as durable as field grass, and all human splendor is as fleeting as the flower in the field. Soon enough, the season is past, the grass dries up and comes to its end, and with it, the flower fades and falls away. In stark contrast, God's word will never fade—it is forever true.”
To be clear, this word of God that Isaiah speaks of is precisely the good word about Jesus Christ which was proclaimed.
Now let’s see what we can observe about the difference between the two. You will want to internalize and remember these distinctions.
A summary shrinks the message of the text down to a concise statement of the main point.
In this passage above, the phrase, “love one another earnestly from a pure heart” is simply, “be fervent in brotherly love.”
A paraphrase expands the language of the text because it seeks to make everything explicit.
Here, that same phrase gets expanded to, “You ought therefore to be wholehearted and clean-hearted in your love for your fellow believers.”
A summary narrows the focus to only the mainpoint and its primary supports.
For example, the Isaiah quote does not show up at all in the summary, as it is a secondary support to Peter's main point.
A paraphrase unpacks all the details and connections between statements.
Peter quotes Isaiah 40:6-8 without identifying Isaiah as the source. He simply builds Isaiah's text into his own argument. On the other hand, my paraphrase adds the detail that Isaiah is the source and clarifies Peter's use of Isaiah 40 as an explanation of the imperishable source of new life.
A summary simplifies complex ideas.
Thus my summary simplifies Peter's second primary support to, “...since you actually have a new heart—brought to life by the very gospel of Christ.”
A paraphrase keeps the complexity of the original.
For this reason, my paraphrase of the same primary support maintains all its many layers:
- You have been born again of an imperishable seed
- That seed is identified as the word of God
- Isaiah 40:6-8 is quoted as support
- Peter identifies and resates Isaiah's main point that the imperishable word is specifically the gospel of the Messiah that has been proclaimed
Big Idea
- Summary: restates the essential core in your own words.
- Paraphrase: restates the whole in your own words.
