O'Donoghue MTh_Thesis-FinalCopy.pdf - South African Theological ...

of the passage and which will also be examined include the genre, composition,grammar and textual variants.Thirdly, there will be an exploration of the theological themes and motifs of thepassage in order to examine how they will shed light on the understanding of thepassage.Fourthly, there will be synthesis of the findings, i.e. in light of the historical, literaryand theological analysis from the passage, there will be an attempt to examine whatMatthew 6:19-34 teaches about what the Christian disciple’s view on money shouldbe.Finally, there will be a brief summary of the research and an assessment of thehypothesis. The theological and practical significance of the findings for the Christiandisciple will be noted, as exegesis will not be considered complete until there isrelevance for today’s believers (Lategan 2009: 107; Smith 2008: 176).The research will be literary in nature. The approach to exegesis will run in thetraditional historical-grammatical vein. Standard methodological tools used inconceptual arguments will be applied throughout the thesis, for example synthetic,comparative, dialogical, polemical and comparative arguments (Smith 2008:159).1.6 PresuppositionsAs is appropriate for a theological research paper, the assumptions of this student’sapproach to the scriptures will now be stated.a) This thesis will accept the inerrancy of the scriptures. To clarify further, thisimplies that the Bible in its original text will always prove to be correct in allmatters relating to truth. Thus the scholar who approaches the Bible canexpect no contradiction in matters pertaining to truthb) A historically veracious reading of the NT text will also be assumed and so anunderstanding of the customs, world view and events raised within thepassage needs to be examined. I.e. events, ideas and customs found in the7