Intensive Course on Galatians with Tom Schreiner

This June 4-8 I'll be participating in a week-long intensive course on the book of Galatians with Dr. Tom Schreiner of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. Dr. Schreiner will be hosting this class at Bethlehem Baptist Church as part of The Bethlehem Institute (TBI) Apprenticeship program. Given the number of e-mails I've received asking me about TBI, I thought I'd list for you what we have been doing since September in preparation for Dr. Schreiner's arrival.

First of all, we have been diagramming and ARCing all six chapters of the Greek text. ARCing is a technique for tracing an argument that Tom Schreiner (and Tom Steller and John Piper) gleaned from Dan Fuller, and which Dr. Schreiner described in his book Interpreting the Pauline Epistles (Guides to New Testament Exegesis). Diagramming the Greek text is a discipline that many seminaries encourage, as it helps the student to see what the author (e.g., Paul) is doing grammatically and syntactically. The book I just cited also described and teaches diagramming.

Secondly, after we produce our diagrams and ARCs for a particular section of the book, we then see how various commentators understand the passage. We've primarily been using the Richard Longenecker's commentary, Word Biblical Commentary Vol. 41, Galatians, which I'd highly recommend.

Thirdly, we've been reading some essays from an interesting and challenging anthology edited by Mark Nanos, The Galatians Debate: Contemporary Issues in Rhetorical and Historical Interpretation. To complement Nanos, I've been reading sections of Schreiner's The Law and Its Fulfillment: A Pauline Theology of Law and Paul, Apostle of God's Glory in Christ: A Pauline Theology.

I've finished all my pre-course work, and now I'm just trying to select a passage on which to write an exegesis paper. Any ideas?