Lesson 5 | Test Your Arc/Bracket
Demo and Devo: Is 40:1–5
In the last three steps, we have tried to capture the testing function of a paraphrase in slow motion. In doing so, we have identified three key verification markers—that is, ways to verify “alignment” in your bracket and paraphrase from left-to-right, top-to-bottom, and right-to-left.
Of course, many times you do not pass a verification marker without first discovering your understanding is misaligned. This gives you the opportunity to make a fix, as I have demonstrated for you in the last three steps. But, in truth, the changes we discussed were just a sampling of the needed fixes! For this process is meant to be taken slowly and carefully, and will often require several iterations as you seek to sharpen your understanding.
So it was only after a number of further fixes that I was able to pass each verification marker and land on my final bracket and paraphrase for this passage. Here is what I came up.
Three More Optional Verification Markers
While we have already examined the most important verification markers you ought to pass through to verify your understanding, here are three more that are also worth consideration from time to time:
- Compare your paraphrase to a published paraphrase, such as The Message. Peterson’s work, of course, is not infallible, and you may find your paraphrase differs significantly in tone or in substance. In such cases, it is worth going back to the text of Scripture and asking, “Did I get this right?”
- Have someone else read your paraphrase aloud. Then read the biblical text aloud to him/her, giving it a tone and inflection to match your understanding. Discuss with your friend whether the two accord with each other.
- Allow commentaries to challenge your understanding of the text. Is your take defensible?
‘State it in your own words!’ That suggests the best test we know for telling whether you have understood the proposition or propositions in the sentence. If, when you are asked to explain what the author means by a particular sentence, all you can do is repeat his very words, with some minor alterations, in their order, you had better suspect that you do not know what he means. Ideally, you should be able to say the same thing in totally different words. The idea can, of course, be approximated in varying degrees. But if you cannot get away at all from the author's words, it shows that only words have passed from him to you, not thought or knowledge. You know his words, not his mind. He was trying to communicate knowledge, and all you received was words.
