Surrounded by Treasures: Chapter Summaries

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Wednesday, March 09, 2005

Chapter Summaries

I mentioned chapter summaries a while ago and promised a post about them eventually. Here it is. :) I started this last night, but T needed the computer for a minute, and while he was using it, it froze up. Since I hadn't "saved as draft" before I handed it over to him, I lost what I'd done so far. Clever me. So I'm starting over.

First, why do we do chapter summaries? There are a lot of reasons.

It's a simple, uniform format, easy to remember.
It's just you and your Bible, looking into a chapter and finding out what God has to say to you in it; you're not being influenced by someone else's "take" on a passage.
No matter how many times you've studied the chapter you can always come away with something new.
It's suitable for virtually any age, since the results can be as long or as short, as complex or simple, as the student is prepared to make them. C, who is a young kindergartener, does one every week, as does LT. T spends hours on his, references various commentaries, and writes sometimes several pages, full of theological (and, especially now as we're doing Revelation, eschatological) insights. The friend of ours who hosts the studies and taught us the format has been doing chapter summaries for thirty-five years, has done the whole Bible more than once, and, as anyone who's read the Bible can attest, hasn't run out of new things to learn.
Chapter summaries fit in with other study methods. You can use the Bible alone, or look at commentaries and research other scholars' opinions. The format works excellently used alongside the inductive study method taught by Precept Ministries, or without any other method at all.
If you do it long enough, you end up with basically a simple Bible commentary, written by yourself. We've been doing summaries for eight years, although I took off a few years from mid-week studies when the kids were teeny. T has notebooks containing a summary for every chapter of every book in the New Testament, except Hebrews which I think we're doing next, as well as Genesis and Daniel. It's both a really useful resource, and an interesting look at how he's matured spiritually in that time.
And lastly, it's the method used in our weekly small group study, and we're conformers. ;-)

Since C has her study done for tonight (Revelation 8), I'll use hers as an example, and maybe occasionally throw in some stuff from mine too. The format, as I mentioned, is simple. It goes like this:

Theme: this is basically a title for the chapter -- the main idea. (C's Rev 8 theme: "The angels and the eagle". Mine: "Only the beginning of the terrible judgments")
Key Verse: Sometimes this is the verse that the student thinks ties in best with his/her theme. Sometimes it's a verse that made you go, WHOA. Sometimes it's a verse the student chooses to memorize. Customize at will. ;-). (C didn't select a key verse this week; she generally doesn't, actually. Mine is verse 13, because it ties in with my theme.)

Teaching: This is where you break the chapter down into sections and describe, as briefly as you want, the content of each section. Some people, like T, like to make these very brief little phrases indeed. Some people, like my dad, basically paraphrase the section and write a paragraph.

(C's teaching:
Teaching:
v. 1-5: The angels with the trumpets and the one with the censer
v. 6-7: The first horn blew and made blood mixed with hail.
v. 8-9: The second angel blew its horn and something like a mountain of fire was dropped into the sea.
v. 10-11: The star was called Wormwood.
v. 12: The lights of heaven became dim.
v. 13: The eagle said, "Woe! Woe! Woe!"

Note: Her spelling is not this good. :) She writes things down as best she can figure out, and then I type it up for her so that it's easy for her to read out loud in the group. I do the same for LT, although before long he's going to start doing his own typing. The words they misspell -- and they are many, especially for C -- serve as spelling words until the next Wednesday. Two birds with one homeschooling stone.)

(My teaching:
Teaching:
v. 1-2: Silence in heaven. (What's coming must be really big.)
v. 3-5: An eighth angel offers up incense mingled with prayers, and then uses the censer to smite the earth with a few preliminary rumbles
v. 6-7: The first trumpet sounds; 1/3 of the earth and the trees, and all of the grass, are burned up in a hail of blood and fire.
v. 8-9: The second trumpet sounds; the seas are struck by a "mountain of fire", bringing death to 1/3 of all life in and on the seas
v. 10-11: The third trumpet sounds; wormwood poisons the waters of the earth
v. 12: The fourth trumpet sounds; a third of the heavenly lights go dark
v. 13: The eagle's warning: It's not over yet by a long shot.)

You get the idea on that.

And here's the part that provides the real meat of the discussion on Wednesday nights:
Meaning:

This can be anything and everything. It can be a mention of something in the chapter you'd never noticed before, or something that really moved you. It can be plain old exegetical teaching. It can be questions. It can be a basic overview of what the chapter meant to you. This is where T waxes really long and scholarly; I generally go for the "something that really moved you" -- the kids write a sentence or a paragraph telling what they thought the chapter was about, or what they think God is trying to tell us in the chapter, or, in C's case, what stuck out in the chapter for her to remember.

(C's example: "The eagle says, 'Woe! Woe! Woe! because the earth is going to be destroyed." LT's: "I think it is important that Jesus opened the seventh seal and seven angels came with trumpets, and they blew them, and things happened to the earth." It would take DAYS to type T's, so I won't, and I haven't done mine yet. But again, you get the idea.)

And then the last part, which is the most optional of all of them, since most people cover it in their "Meaning"...
Application. What does God want you specifically to take away from this chapter? How is your life going to change? Some chapters, this is really easy. Some, like these prophetic ones, not so much.

Anyway. Please pardon the long unfunny post, just wanted to share. :)

Posted by Rachel on March 9, 2005 10:00 AM in Bible | kids | theology