How To Study The Bible
Vern Peterman · Dec 9, 2001
How to Study Bible (2001-02), No. 10
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/48262238347658

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

The last couple of weeks we've talked about figures of speech. Remember that? Figures of speech. And we'll keep running into those as we go through the book of Revelation and the main service. Last week we talked about types and allegories and parables, right?

So this week we're going to be looking at The Greek language, this is obviously a real quick look. People spend years studying all the nuance. But I want to get a quick introduction to some understanding of the original language behind the New Testament. The New Testament was written in Greek, the Old Testament in Hebrew, and little smidgens of it in Aramaic. In the New Testament, the Greek language behind it can sometimes provide some valuable insights that will lead us to more certain and perhaps sometimes even a little different conclusions than what a person might get just reading the English.

So you've got a handout there. Let's have you take a gander at it there. Okay. This shows the Greek alphabet. I don't expect you to memorize that all this morning. To the right of that are five little acronyms and one of the little tricks to memorizing is if you can make something funny, bizarre, or at least in some way interesting, it's easier to memorize. So you have these really strange little acronyms to help you memorize the letters. If you find that it helps fine, you know, all bigots get diarrhea eventually, Zorro ate the ice cap Let's munch nuts excessively, okay? You know, things like that. If that helps you, then fine. If it doesn't, then don't worry about it.

Certainly, I wouldn't want you to walk out of here and say, well, I didn't learn anything except five really weird acronyms. But just one of the things that you might notice going down here, people say, well, it's all Greek to me. A lot of these letters you may recognize. You may look at them. What's that? Oh, yeah. Engineers always. Engineers, yes. That's a little different. Engineers, sigma, that's for stress. No, never mind.

Anyway, a number of these letters you may recognize. The truth is that the Greeks got their alphabet from the same root as the Jews got Hebrew. So there are some similarities. We'll take a look at those next week. One of the things to take a look at, look at the flip side here. One of the values in learning more about Greek, and you don't have to be a master of Greek to begin getting some value out of it, is understanding the difference in Greek verbs. In English, what we do is we vary our verbs slightly and then add other things around them, other words around them to get a full understanding.

We'll say, you know, I eat. That means I'm eating now. I have eaten. That means it happened sometime in the past. Or we might say, I would have eaten. That means you kind of would like to have eaten in the past. So what we do is we supplement our verbs with some words, plus we make slight changes in order to arrive at what we mean with those verbs.

In Greek, They don't add to the verb. Everything is packed into the verb itself. So that's kind of a difference between Greek and English. Now, let's go down the list. First thing, Greek verbs, and it's packed into the word itself, is the tense as to time. Present, future, past. There are several forms of those verbs that are more specific.

And that's one thing that Greek has, and I think it's one of the reasons the Lord had the New Testament written in Greek, is it's a very precise language. That's why you will find where it talks about you are saved, a great many of those are in a Greek perfect tense, which means a permanent past action, continuing results. You see the impact of that? you are saved, it's a permanent past action, continuing result. That's a part of what's built into the Greek tense. Another part of that, this aspect, is the time continuity of action. You can specify in the Greek, is it a one time, right now, or back then it happened, or is it an ongoing thing? And you can spell that out with the Greek verb as well. One more thing, And that's under this voice, active, middle, and passive. Active voice means that the subject, and let's say it's myself, the subject does the action.

The example I have is, I prayed for him. I did the praying, that's active. So we have that sense in English, don't we? The next one, and in English we have to kind of add some extra words to get there, That's the middle voice. I act back on myself. I prayed for myself would be an example in English of the middle voice.

The only thing is they can say that in Greek with just building it into the word. They don't have to use the reflexive pronoun, myself. They can build it into the word itself and that tells you whether or not it's middle voice, acting back on myself. The last one is passive. Receive the action. I was prayed for. Somebody else did the praying, but I received it. So you get the differences there?

In the Greek language, all three of those differentiations are made right in the word itself. Boy, they pack a lot into those words. The next one is what's called the mood. Now that doesn't mean they're moody. What that's talking about is the first one, is indicative. It's just stating the facts. I will. It's just stating this is what's going to happen, right? Or what is the case. The next one is subjunctive. I think I will, or if you do this I will. There are several different subjunctive... Well, okay, now, yes it includes some of those, but the next one here is optative, is the possibility or the desire.

And so that's a part of what you're talking about. And that is, I would like to go here. Or even the past tense, I would like to have gone here. So we can have that. And the last one is the imperative. And there are quite a few of those in Scripture too. Starting in James where it says, count it all joy. You could translate the Greek literally from there. You must esteem it ultimate joy, and it's written in the imperative. You must esteem it.

It's not an option. It's not advice. The next one is person, and this is something that is built into the verb. We add a pronoun or a noun to differentiate, but they'll add that right into the verb. where I'll say, I kicked the ball. We have to put the pronoun in there. Otherwise, we don't know who did it. And the Greek is built into the word. If they add the pronoun, that's only for emphasis.

And we'll see this morning, listen to it, when we get in the main service studying Revelation, Jesus tells to the Laodiceans, you buy from me. and he puts the extra pronouns in there for emphasis. See the difference there? And knowing that can tell us when the Bible is emphasizing something. Isn't that neat? See, now we can have more understanding than just simply reading it in English. What's that? Yes. Yes. Yes. It triggers into it because it's a non-personal pronoun.

The second one, you, or the third one, he, she, they, or, as he mentioned, it. Now one of the things that this doesn't do by itself is how many, but the next one does. The number. You can tell in the Greek, and again, this is packed into the verb. Isn't it amazing how much they put into one word?

It tells you whether it's singular, I, you, he, she, it, or plural. Us. You. It's funny, down in Texas they'd say y'all. And it's like there's a Greek equivalent for y'all. And that's a plural you, right? And they. And in Greek you can differentiate. And that's one reason why you look at the Greek language, it is very specific. You can put right into one word all this information that we just talked about. Another one of our informal ways of saying the same thing.

About three centuries before Christ, Alexander the Great came and took over basically from Greece all the way over to the Indus River on India down into the east part of North Africa. And the only reason he stopped at the Indus River is he thought that that was the end of the world. He had, in a short period of time, basically taken over much of the then-known world.

And what he did was he spread the Greek language, which set a perfect foundation for spreading the gospel. Because he made that language uniformly known. Even if people had and continued other languages, they still had Greek. And so the Lord kind of laid the foundations through Alexander the Great in order to be able to communicate the gospel quickly and easily to a great number of people. Furthermore, the language that the Lord had spread was a very precise language that was very well designed for communicating the gospel. Isn't that a neat thing? It's a part of, I think, the sovereignty of the Lord shown in the language. Okay, let's take a gander at something here.

John 1028, why don't you turn your Bibles to John 1028 there. Okay. This is one that I've talked about briefly on Sunday morning, but I want us to go through it from this standpoint. There are things, again, if we are able to kind of look behind the English and learn more about the original language behind it, there are insights that we can gain that are difficult to get from just a straight reading of the English translation. Let's go through it so that you know what I'm talking about.

Someone read John 10, 28 for us. Now, one of the things that comes out of the Greek language is the very things that I talked about where you have all the verbs and the verb, you know, tenses, the person, number, things like that, and the Greek is very precise about those things. It's mechanically and mathematically precise about spelling out all those details. There are also other things that are not built into the structure, the mechanics of the Greek word, but also have to do with the culture. That's one of the things that, as I'm teaching, I like to try to emphasize because the culture impacts what we understand as being said.

Remember when we were talking about figures of speech? And we said that, for example, in English, if you're joking, you're saying, you're pulling my leg. In Spanish, they say, you're pulling my hair. And I think you were saying in German, what, you're carrying me on your arm? We all use those as figures of speech. If you don't understand the figure of speech, what kind of sense do any of those make? Do you see the difference there? Understanding the culture is important, too. Now, what's the context of the verse that Helmut just read? What's happening there?

It's the first truth, and you're right about that. But, the larger context, what would have happened prior to that to cause Jesus to say this? He's talking about being the Good Shepherd, but how did that come out? What was the question that led to that, or the statement that led to this? Okay, who's he talking to?

These are the Jews, and they're actually the ones who are doubtful. And so he's saying, look, if you're really the Messiah, just tell us plainly. That's a euphemism for give us the rope to hang you. Okay? Because that's what they're wanting to do. And he says, you want to hear it plain? Let me tell you.

This is his answer in John 10.28. The Greek there is telling us this.

It says, and I give them. The Greek present tense has a continuing meaning. In other words, when we say, I give them, it's not quite sure, you know, in our English, whether that's continuous or something that sort of happens once. In the Greek, the meaning is it's present and continuing. So you could say it this way, I am constantly giving them life eternal.

Isn't that neat? And one of the reasons why that's critical is because it emphasizes the Lord has an ongoing relationship with us. See the difference there? So understanding that one little nuance about how the Greek conveys the present tense tells us something about our relationship with the Lord. He is constantly giving us life eternal.

Now, something else. There are two words for life. One word is bios, physical life. This word is spiritual life. Isn't that something? He's saying, I am constantly giving them eternal spiritual life. See the difference there? So now in English where we just have one word life, now knowing the difference between what's underneath that in the Greek tells me specifically this isn't just talking about people living forever and ever. And incidentally there was a cult in the Bay Area that said if you die you must not have been a Christian.

I mean physically. And they took it from things like this without understanding. So the Greek helps us have that insight. Now, let's go on. And how does it read in your translation, the next phrase there? And they shall never perish. There is so much more in that than shows up in that little translation, and here's why. First of all, who's they? We know that they're believers. These are His sheep.

To say they shall never perish is incredibly weak. I'm not saying it's wrong, it's just very weak. Because what he has said is two-letter Greek words, oomei, is how it's pronounced, oomei, and those words communicate, it is not even remotely possible. So, shall never perish isn't wrong, it's just weak compared to what the Greek is saying. It is the strongest way possible to emphasize a negative in the Greek. It is not even remotely possible.

Now, about the meaning of perish, how do we know that that isn't just they'll never die? Okay, that's one very good point. We know that he used the word for life that means spiritual life, so he's already put it in the context. Excellent. And he reinforces that with something else. Turn to Matthew 10.28b.

Keep your finger in John 10.28.

Here's Matthew 10.28. Same address, different book.

It says, but rather fear him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell. That word translated destroy is the same word back in John 1028 that means perish. So that word was used to describe people that were either destined for or in process of being in hell. So never perish is not only, as he pointed out, not just a physical thing, it is indeed a spiritual and eternal thing. but it is specifically used in this other context, having to do with hell.

So, let's get back to what this is saying. It's telling us it is not even remotely possible for them to destroy themselves, and I translate it, into the eternity. And remember we mentioned that there's active, middle voice, and passive? And what this is telling us is is not even possible for those people to cause themselves to be destroyed. See the middle voice there? They cannot, of their own doing, cause themselves, this middle voice acting back on myself, they cannot cause themselves to be destroyed.

So somebody said, well gee, you can lose your salvation. No you can't. He says, using the most emphatic Greek words possible, It is not even remotely possible for those persons to cause themselves to perish eternally. It can't be done. Who said this? Jesus himself. That's pretty emphatic, isn't it? Okay, now, he's not done. He's not done making the statement.

The next part, nor for anybody to take them out of my hand, right? But that word for take, It means to steal by force. It would be used if somebody like we would use like a purse snatcher to come and grab and yank something away from somebody. That's what that word meant. To steal by force. And notice that the person stealing by force is an active voice.

That is, Jesus is saying, I am constantly giving them eternal life, and they can't perish of their own doing, back on themselves, middle voice, and nobody else acting from the outside, there's passive voice, right? So we've got active, Jesus is active, giving them life. Passive, they can't destroy themselves. And third, nobody else can plucked them out of my hand." Do you see the emphatic there? He's used the different voices, active, middle, and passive voice, to talk about how impossible it is for somebody else, or they themselves, to lose their salvation.

And Jesus says, I myself am constantly giving them eternal life. Do you see how emphatic that is? How absolute that is? See, the Lord has laid it out clearly here. In the next verse, which we didn't ask Helmut to read, Jesus tells them, and the Father is greater than I am, and He won't let them be plucked out of His hand either. Nobody can take them out of His hand either.

You see how emphatic that is? And this is an example of where studying the Greek can give us an insight into the beyond what immediately comes out in English. Now, I've spoken to you all in English, right? I haven't given you very much Greek. So that brings up an important point. It is possible without learning Greek for you to go a long ways in understanding what's meant. There's value in learning Greek, but you can also learn a great deal enough to have a lot more insight into a verse without having to go through and learn all kinds of Greek language. Okay? Questions so far? Have I lost anybody? Yes? No? Okay.

Now, just to give you an insight into terms of what we're going to be doing here on out. This is the first quarter that we've started off in this How to Study the Bible. We'll be going next quarter starting in January into some kind of similar topics but a little bit deeper. And right now I just hit Greek and this is just one time and we're going to move on next week into Hebrew. So this is your introduction for this quarter. But what we will do is next quarter then we will take a look at how do I use some of these tools to study more deeply into the meanings of these words, the structure of the sentences, to better understand each passage.

But that's without learning Greek. The following, the next quarter after that, third quarter, this is like April, May, June, what I'll be doing is having having those who choose to continue on memorize the Greek alphabet. We won't be going in great detail into having you learn all these Greek roots, but here is the value in it. If you can get to the place of memorizing the Greek alphabet and knowing the sequence, whether or not you use these weird acronyms I gave you, knowing the sequence of those and being able to at least recognize the letters will allow you to use tools that are written with those, even if you don't speak Greek and even if you don't get into analyzing the stuff yourself. There are good reference tools available to you, just if you can recognize the letters in the alphabet.

So that'd be the next stage that we would go. And then the fourth quarter, this is going on into next summer. The fourth quarter, what we'll be doing at that point in time is then looking at particular passages and doing an in-depth study using the tools that we have, including the Greek language tools.

Again, this is not in-depth beyond just being able to read things in the Greek alphabet. So anyway, that's to kind of give you a foreview of what we'll be looking ahead to in the months to come. I'm glad for anybody and everybody who wants to stick through it, but I just want to give you a look ahead. This is kind of what we're looking at. This is all I'm going to do in terms of the Greek language.

I'm going to take a little bit of a sidestep here, away from how to study the Bible. Just two days ago, a lot of people observed Pearl Harbor Day. You may have seen special events on the television and what not. It's interesting. I have a particular memory of it that's a little bit unusual. I wasn't around during the Pearl Harbor. I wasn't even alive then. Here's why my memory of it is a little different.

The leader of the air attack, there were 353 planes. came in from the Japanese Air Force. The leader of the attack was Mitsuo Fushida. Anybody recognize that name? Yeah. And Mitsuo Fushida was Buddhist, as a great many of the folks were and are in Japan. Well, about five months after that attack, the U.S. began its bombing of Tokyo. And one of the fellows who was on the lead plane for that bombing of Tokyo, after the war, went to Bible college and then went back to Japan to be a missionary.

And about two years before I was born, Mitsuo Fushida came to him and said, tell me about this, because he'd gotten a hold of one of his tracts. And incidentally, he'd been passing these tracts all over and nobody had responded. Except now Mitsuo Fushida came to him and said, tell me about these tracts. And from that Mitsuo Fushida became a believer.

So the guy who led the air attack You heard the movie entitled Tora! Tora! Tora! That was the Japanese code that their attack had been initiated successfully. Those are the words of Matsuo Fushida. Well, Matsuo Fushida became a believer and he became a missionary for belief in Christ in Japan and in the United States. And so one of my First memories of this attack on Pearl Harbor is my dad taking Mitsuo Fushida around to different Christian camps to tell the people there about the Lord.

Anyway, my recollection of it is quite different in that here is something that is no doubt a terrific, horrible tragedy, and yet the Lord was in the process of using that very thing to turn this man around. You know, what started off here, he must have, you know, gloried in carrying out this terrific attack and having been so successful and coming through it alive and unharmed. And yet, still finding, you know, obviously the Japanese lost in the end, and still finding himself very dissatisfied with the Buddhism in which he had been raised. To me, it's just a neat example of how the Lord turns things around.

Here's this guy who initiated the attack, eventually becoming a believer. Here's the guy who was among the first attacking Tokyo, also turning around and becoming a missionary to Japan. And then my dad, who was in the army during World War II, turning around and flying Matsuo Fushiya around to these various Christian camps and speaking engagements. So anyway, I just wanted to share that.

My recollections are a little odd, perhaps, but it's something I remember from the earliest years, and it's kind of maybe colored my view. We're done a little early. Let's go ahead and pray. Lord, we thank you for the wonderful truths that are laid in your words. And we thank you, Lord, that you have indeed done a miracle, not only to bring us the word, Lord, but you've done a miracle in the lives of believers. Indeed, Lord, you have done a miracle to bring us all here. And we're brought together here, Lord, by your marvelous grace. We pray these things with thanks and praise in Jesus' name. Amen.