The Melodic Line

Pastor Justin Holcomb 09-09-10 Ballard Campus
The Melodic Line
There is the Simian Trust Group present
The importance of the succession of notes that give a song a unique / organic quality that sticks with you
Motiffs and figures combined together delivers the force of something done right, something that feels complete
The Melodic Line is the hook that captures my attention

Hamilton's Melodic Line book shows in scripture how the over-arching story of the Bible is communicated using a string of metaphorical notes to tell the story

How to find a Melodic Line for an entire book of the Bible 
A preacher needs to be able to see these lines when they teach books of the Bible so they are focused and effective in communicating the point of the author (the Ghost)
Look for Top Tail of a book / passage
Look for Repetition (Words, concepts, Inclusio {lead-in and close-out character or phrase that act as parantheses for a passage or even book in scripture})
Look for paranthetical structure of text
Look for a thesis statement by the author

Testing for a Melodic Line
Does it frame or make sense of the rest of the text?
Danger: Doing violence to the text - placing a systematic theology over the text

Example - Book for Jude
From 1,2 and 24,25
Possible Melodic Lines:
+"Keep" or "Keeping" appears over and over - Jesus is awesome because he keeps you, this focus on our passivity and Jesus' activity
++But we see an active "contending" as a balance to the passive keeping
+verses 5-16 show the alternative state of being kept in condemnation, now 1-3 and 24-25 are extra important because of the contrast

Themes and sub-themes are important but they are viewed in light of the larger melodic line of the book.

Recognizing Melodic Lines allows a preacher to pull out even more depth from a passage, all the different variations on the same motiff and the sub themes and the figures from a passage show through; the nuances are brought out