Bible Study Basics. Pt. 14

Good morning everyone. 

It is the Lord's Day today and although my family will not be able to attend, our church did live stream our services so that we are able to see our Pastor preach today

You can find our church's Live Streaming of Pastor Alvis's sermons on a YouTube Channel, HBC Smithville, OH. 

I want to think with you about what to do when we encounter an unfamiliar word as we read the Bible. The original languages that the Bible was written in was Hebrew and Greek. There is some Aramaic or Chaldean in there as well. 

We can thank God for providing capable translators whose burning desire was to carefully and accurately translate so that we can have a copy of God's Word in our language. 

There was an extended period of time where the Word was suppressed and ignorance spread. This was known as the Dark Ages. 

I read from an English Bible but some of you may be reading in an entirely different language such as French, German or Portuguese. Therefore it should not be a surprise when we do run into a word that we do not understand.

Jesus didn’t take the time to explain every single idea that the multitudes did not comprehend. He did explain a lot of things to people but He also clearly expected them to show some initiative in finding out what He meant when He spoke.

We should pay attention to what Jesus said because it will help us learn what to do when we don't understand a difficult word or phrase. 

Christ's command about learning new words or understanding hard words. 

In this text, Jesus is speaking to self righteous religious leaders known as the Pharisees. They were ones who should have been teaching the Old Testament truth to all the people. Instead, they taught their own rules and regulations as they swept away the authority of Scripture.

Christ told them to "Go ye, and learn what this meaneth." He is pointing them right to the Word of God and telling them to seek the answer there. 

Matthew 9:11-13 And when the Pharisees saw it, they said unto his disciples, Why eateth your Master with publicans and sinners? 

But when Jesus heard that, he said unto them, They that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick. But go ye and learn what that meaneth, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice: for I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance."   

Matthew 12:7 "But if ye had known what this meaneth, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice, ye would not have condemned the guiltless."              

Jesus Christ shows us how we should handle a word that we don't understand. We are to go and learn what it means. You guessed correctly if you think that sometimes this means we do a bit of work to find out what a word means. There are several avenues by which this can be accomplished.

How do we go and learn what a word means?

Look it up in a dictionary first.

I had to read Dostoyevsky's very long novel, Crime and Punishment for a high school English class. This gifted Russian writer was very intellectual. He used so many new or difficult words in his writings that I kept a dictionary by my side as I slowly waded through the epic book. 

This strategy also works very well for any unfamiliar words we read in the Bible. We learn the meaning and re-read the text with better understanding.  Thus, we can look up a word from our Bible in a dictionary and follow Christ's command to "go ye...and learn."

My Bible, as I previously stated is an English translation. There are many college dictionaries and many online dictionaries readily available.  However, I prefer the Webster's  American Dictionary of the English Language, originally published in 1828. 

Why the Webster's 1828 edition? Because its definitions contain Biblical or spiritual meanings along with how the word was understood and used in Post revolution America. Newer dictionaries have deleted many of the Biblical examples from their word definitions. 

The 1828 edition sets a very high standard for Biblical meanings and accuracy of definitions for an English dictionary. 

Consider the word "charity."

Let us look at a word used repeatedly in Paul's first letter to the Corinthians. It is the word "charity" as found in the King James Version. Most modern English Bibles substitute the word "love" in place of charity. There is a meaningful difference of meaning between the two words. 

Substituting the word “love” may cause us to miss the great beauty of the word “charity” if we didn’t look it up in an English dictionary first.

First, read through the text below and note where the "charity" is used.  Paul says that doing any external religious activities without "charity" is worthless.

Listing of what charity is "not."

Charity is not envious. Charity is not egocentric. Charity is not prideful. Charity does not act in unsuitable ways. Charity is not selfish or being self centered. Charity is not easily angered. Charity does not think evil of others. Charity does not rejoice in sin. Charity never fails. 

Listing of what charity "is."

Charity is kind. Charity is longsuffering or patient. Charity rejoices in the truth. Charity bears or keeps a cover on things to protect others. Charity is anchored to the Word of God. Charity has firm hope that all God promised to do will come to pass as He said. Charity endures all things for the sake of Christ and the gospel. 

1 Corinthians 13:1-8 "Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.  And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing."  And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.  Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up,   Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil;" Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. Charity never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away .”

Charity is from the Greek word "agape" that expresses the unconditional love of a parent for a child. The unconditional love of God is expressed in many verses from John's gospel. Charity means far more than having a simple emotional love for one another. It is a love that serves to benefit others first rather than self. It is a love that seeks God's glory in all things. 

John 3:16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. 

The 1828 Webster's dictionary defines the word  charity as "love, benevolence, good will. A disposition of the heart which inclines men to think favorably of their fellow men, and to do them good; a supreme love to God and universal good will to all men; Love, kindness, affection, tenderness springing from natural relations; liberality to the poor; support of Bible or missionary societies."

The modern definition of "love" falls short of the full meaning of charity. In addition, the context of scripture offers solid support for using the word charity rather than love. 

I looked at several modern dictionaries and found that they generally described the word "love" as noted below. This is why when modern English Bibles use "love" instead of "charity" the substituted word does not match up with the actions of "charity"  in 1 Corinthians 13. 

    

The modern dictionary has a primary definition of love as a passionate attraction to the opposite sex and emphasizes the emotional and physical  aspects of love, more than anything. The Greek word "agape" conveys a much different kind of love. 

Additional easy to use language helps.

If I am not satisfied by the dictionary definition, I have several options that help explain words from the original languages of scripture. 

Strong's Exhaustive Concordance of the Hebrew and Greek words of the Bible. 

The Strong's Exhaustive Concordance of the Hebrew and Greek words of the Old and New Testament is one such book. You can by these and they are often available as a free download through 
e-sword Bible study software. I strongly recommend that all Christians have access to this book or a digital version of it. 

Using our example of the word "charity" you will find that all the words and their occurrences are listed in the concordance. Hebrew words begin with "H" and Greek words with "G."

I pasted in the digital version below from my study software when I looked up  the word "charity." You see that Strong's number for this word is G-26. This is followed by the Greek spelling, the English and the basic definition.

G26 ἀγάπη agapē ag-ah'-pay From G25; love, that is, affection or benevolence; specifically (plural) a love feast:—(feast of) charity ([-ably]), dear, love.

USING GREEK OR HEBREW LEXICONS

The Apostle Paul lists several kinds of behavior which are strongly condemned by God. In 1 Corinthians 6:9 we notice the phrase "abusers of themselves with mankind". I was curious about what the Apostle meant with this phrase. In this instance, the English dictionary does not provide the necessary insight.

We turn to the Strong's concordance and find that number G 733 has been assigned to the word "abusers". Looking up word G 733, in the Greek lexicon in the back of the concordance, reveals that the act of sodomy is Paul's subject. There is another way which can provide further confirmation of this meaning.

There are other reference works which are keyed to the numbers in the Strong's concordance. 

The first is Gesenius' Hebrew - Chaldee Lexicon of the Old Testament. The second is Thayer's Greek - English Lexicon of the New Testament. These are very respected lexicons of the original Bible languages.

Since they are keyed to the Strong's numbering system it is a simple matter to look up a word using the same number, in this case G- 733. The Thayer's lexicon not only gives the same meaning as Strong's, but expands upon it and includes some examples of how this word is used in other similar languages. 

There is no doubt that 1 Corinthians 6:9 is one of the strongest verses found in the New Testament, on the subject of homosexuality. However, we would not have discovered the meaning if we did not have access to a concordance or lexicon.

Now, when an unfamiliar word is encountered, using one of these methods will help us develop a clear understanding of the word. We can obey Jesus’ command to "go ye learn what that meaneth."  

I realize that many believers may not have reference books in their personal library but their church library may have them available. Also, there is a good chance that the lay leaders in your church will have reference works like a lexicon. And, the e-sword Bible study software is free. You can add many books, dictionaries, commentaries and devotions at no cost. 

We should diligently try to find out the English meanings of any words which we may not be familiar with.  When that doesn’t help, then we should use our concordance. After that, we can turn to a lexicon. The dictionary, concordance, lexicon  and other works dedicated to Bible languages will really help us understand the meaning of an unfamiliar word. 

In our next post we will talk about the 4 "C"s of Bible Study: Cross references; Comparisons; Contrasts and Combining ideas. After that, we need to define the languages of the Bible and show examples of how they are used. We will also need to see how certain things are used as symbols in scripture. 

We are getting closer to the end of Bible Study Basics but we still have some material to digest and apply. 

I am thanking the Lord for allowing me to share with you many things that I have learned over decades of serving Jehovah. 

Bob