Top Highlights

• Every research process has a preparation component, a field component and an analysis component.
• your research is not to present knowledge that you think is new to everyone else. You haven’t had time—as I hope the previous section on the history of theological research makes clear—to know if what you have concluded from your research is new to anyone else or not. So don’t worry about that! In fact, I strongly urge you not to use “Is this new/p...
• Second, theological research has an ever-present subject-matter expert—the Holy Spirit—who guides us into all truth.
• we enter into the theological research process in order to serve the church rather than advance our own careers, and that we treat our fellow researchers as fellow servants rather than fellow competitors for grades, grants, jobs and the like. To use the knowledge of God for selfish gain is to deny that we have any true knowledge of God in the first...
• Secondary sources have two important functions in your research paper. First, they guide your interaction with the primary sources. For instance, a good commentary will take you to the text and facilitate your interaction with it, raising questions you hadn’t thought to ask and bringing to the surface issues you hadn’t noticed. Second, they bring y...