Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. For the commandments, ‘You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not covet,’ and any other commandment, are summed up in this word: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.

Last week we asked if you love God’s word. We asked if you like reading God’s word more than eating your favorite meal – even the tough to read passages about the law. In the passage above Paul links these two concepts together in an elegant way. Regardless of the number of laws in Leviticus and Deuteronomy there is one simple way to obey them all – Love your neighbor. It is a simple, life-giving formula: Loving God leads you to love God’s word, loving God’s word leads you to love others, loving others leads you fulfilling God’s law. Is there a better reason to study God’s word?

As we mentioned last time, Gordon fee has some exception advice regarding the study of the Bible. In regard to a book study he recommends asking the following questions of the text:

• Who is the author?
• At what part of the author’s life was it written?
• What are his present circumstances?
• Who are the recipients?
• If written to a church, how and when was it founded?
• What is the make-up of the recipients? (Jews, Gentiles, mixed, social status, etc.)
• What is the relationship between the author and the recipients?
• Where do the recipients live?
• What is the area or specific city like?
• What is the society in general like?
• What are their present circumstances?
• What historical occasion prompted this writing?
• What is the author’s purpose?
• What is the overall theme or concern?
• Does the argument have an easily discerned outline?
• Are there any deviations from the formal parts of a letter?

These are great questions that will take your study to the next level. While you could get the answers to these questions from a commentary or possibly even the introduction to the book in your study Bible, most of the time the answers to these questions are in the book itself. Take the time to discover them yourself and you are likely to be rewarded with a better understanding than if you had read someone else’s research.

Try answering these questions based on the letter Jesus wrote in our last exercise. Of course it is a much shorter text, so not all the questions will be able to be answered but you’ll be surprised how many answers you’ll find.

Besides Fee’s book, there is another great resource for learning about Hermeneutics. Henry Virkler wrote Hermeneutics: Principles and Processes of Biblical Interpretation which is worth picking up. We’ve included a summary of the primary teachings of the book available for you to download below. Next time we’ll examine some of the principles of Literary Analysis.

Download here: https://onedrive.live.com/redir?resid=31DEF9F5D1A82577!326036&authkey=!AAfKkfvo5Xp7rpU&ithint=file%2cpdf