How To Study The Bible

Again, what we'll be looking at here for the next little more than a month, a month and a half here, is just taking a look at passages using this Word Study New Testament approach. The idea is that it gives us insight into the original language that doesn't always come out immediately as we read our straight English Bibles. It's not that I'm in the least bit discouraged reading your English Bible or anything of the sort.

It's just that I think that a lot of times there's a richness of meaning that comes out and a clarity that comes out by gaining the insights that come out of this. And what we did last week was we took a look at just the first verse. And just with that we got kind of an expanded understanding. And I wrote up on the board but did not did not write down, but let me give a brief overview of that, especially for those who might not have been with us last week.

Where it says in the King James, Be ye therefore followers of God as dear children, the word be there has a lot of meaning built into it. It's you must, it's imperative. It doesn't really mean just be, like all of a sudden you've got to just be. It says begin, okay? You must right now begin to continually, okay? And then where that word says followers, it means imitators. And a synonym, by the way, that this Word Study New Testament lists for that is a disciple, okay? Definition of a disciple, a fully devoted follower, okay?

Just to kind of give an up description there that it comes across. And then it says, of God, And the Greek, because it has the... Let me put this on the overhead. Because it has this A-R-T, means it has a definite article in the Greek in front of it. In the Greek it says THE God. The God. Again, it's to help distinguish, because the Greeks had what? A whole pantheon of sort of mini-gods, right? He's saying THE God.

And then, as dear children, this is agapitas that's behind this word dear. Agapitas. Sounds like what word? Agape. Agape love. And we'll talk about that some more this morning. Because as we'll see in the second verse, he doesn't drop that agape idea. In fact, he brings it up twice more. And we'll take a look at that.

As dear children, and kind of the example being, Children are followers of their parents, aren't they? They imitate. And so the imploring us to imitate is something that children do. That's the character of children. They look at what their parents do and they copy them. Unless their parents say to do something. Unless their parents say to do something, then it's a whole different story. This is dearly beloved children, which hopefully is different, right? Okay.

Let's take a look at the second verse here. Let's just read it in the English to get an initial introduction. "...and walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given Himself for us, in offering and sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling savor." Okay. Now what we want to do is take a look at that in detail.

Word by word. Can I ask you a question? Go right ahead. Always. Would this not encourage us to do something? Okay. Or do we just simply say, well these are beautiful words, but since Christ is in me, I can sort of forget about it and just live my merry way? Okay. So in other words, you're saying there might be some kind of a tension between being told to do something versus... I would like to refer also to this 12th chapter of Romans, I beseech you therefore, brethren, be by the mercies of God that you present your bodies as living sacrifice.

Okay. It sort of goes into a similar, would that not raise a similar eyebrow. Okay. And we'll be getting into exactly that issue as we get into this. Yeah. And if we somehow miss the boat in responding to your question, ask it again. Okay. All right. The first thing, and it may seem simple, but I don't want to pass on it because there's more to it than what we might think, is the word and. Okay. The Greek word there is kai. Can you say kai? Kai. See, I knew it. See, I can speak Greek. Okay, here we go. Kai, it says copulative, and all that means is connecting two groups of words. I wish they wouldn't use all that big stuff, you know. It's a conjunction, right? It puts two groups of words together. It connects them.

And it means and or also, typically. But depending on the context, it can be but, therefore, and some other shades, and so we want to take a close look at that. It happens in this context. What it means is as continuative in respect to sense. In other words, it's along that same line. It's not really a new thought. It's continuing on the same sense that we saw in verse 1. You see the difference there?

I'm not just saying, okay, there's this, and there's this other idea. It's saying, based on this thing, you're imitators of God as dear children. The and is not just, okay, here's some new idea to attach on to that, but it's saying, because of that. So the idea is, and so, and therefore, so that, or wherefore. That gives a different idea, doesn't it?

A different sense, because what it's doing is it's building on what we saw in verse 1. In a minute, it does so in various ways. It's just that simple word, and. There's more to it than just this and that. It's a continuing on of thought. That's the first thing.

Then, the next word that pops up there, and walk, And the Greek word there for walk is peripateo. You've been peripateo-ing, right? What it means is it's two different words put together. Peri means around. Pateo means walk. So put it together, it's walking around. And to tread or walk about, that's the idea. figuratively to live or pass one's life, always with...

I wish they'd throw away those big words. Always with the idea of manner, the manner of walking. In other words, it's not talking about just your footsteps. It's talking about the manner of life. Let's think about this walking. Why would Paul use this kind of figurative analogy or picture of walking? What is it about walking that is somehow valuable for us to understand? Okay, there's a pace to it, isn't it? Okay. Yeah. All right. And then what? Have you ever tried? What's that? Ah, okay. It's something we all do and understand. Okay.

Ever try to take 20 steps all in one step? It doesn't work so good. I try to do even two into one and I fall down, frankly. It doesn't work so well. So walking is something we must do one step at a time. One step after the next. What else is there about walking? There is a certain kind of a continuing movement and momentum. You are going somewhere. There is a progress in our walking. So he draws on this peripateo, walking about, as a figurative thing to kind of give us a sense of some of the things we talked about. There's a pace to it. There's a progress to it. There is a one after the next after the next sequence. Let me ask you this.

Can you trust the Lord tomorrow But can you do it today? You see the difference there? I have to trust the Lord one step at a time, don't I? I can trust the Lord now for now. And I can trust Him for tomorrow, but my trust now doesn't substitute for trusting Him tomorrow, does it?

See that? It's one step at a time. So this walking analogy is a valuable picture. Let's, yeah. Let me take a look. It's present imperative. I'm not sure what the intent of that is because I kind of clipped this out of the context there. But this particular one, it's a present imperative, which has the sense of, you must be... Right. You must right now be continuing to walk. Okay? Which, if I take the sense of what does walk mean, you must right now be continuing to order your manner of life. That's the sense that comes out of this word walk.

Okay? All right, now let's take a look at the next one. And here again is another one that if we're not careful, we'll miss it because it looks little. In. But you notice that there is a word in there. And there's something about in that we need to take a look at. This is a little diagram that they use in the Greek classes. And pardon the Greek. That's the only place I had the diagram. I didn't have it in transliterated English, so I screwed it up. What you see right here, this is the word that's used.

This ice means into, ek is out of, dia is through, in means totally surrounded by. Totally surrounded by. So then when we look at this word, Look at what it says there. With the primary idea of rest, how about that? Now, when we use the word in, we don't always get that sense, but that's what's being communicated here. Or in the last part there, means remaining in place.

You see that? Isn't that amazing? Just two little Greek letters. It has this idea of rest, remaining in place, being totally in the context of. So that's why I don't want to skip over that word. Now, let's move on to the next part. In what? In love. And what that tells us, here's this word that we talked about before. Agape. Yes, there we go. What's that? Yeah. Here we come across this word agape.

Remember we said in the first verse that word that's translated deer It's a kind of love that doesn't look at what the person wants. It's a kind of love that does the best for the person, regardless of what they're wanting. Do you see the difference? It's a kind of love that doesn't look at what the person wants. It's a kind of love that does the best for the person, regardless of what they're wanting.

Phileo, which is the other, you know, Greek word to contrast with it, that's the one where there's kind of, you know, we have mutual affection and that kind of thing. This agape is the kind of love God had because He loved us not because we loved Him. There wasn't a mutual affection there. But He wanted the best for us apart from our response at the time to Him. Okay? So here's this word showing up again. He first uses it saying we are the agapetos, those dear children. Now he's saying walk in love. Go about ordering your manner of life totally remaining in this unconditional love.

You see that? And it's not just an add-on idea, it's a consequence of what you saw stated in verse 1. So you get the sense there? Now, it involves God doing what He knows is best for man and not necessarily what man desires. Full of love, all love, or as the blue highlighting at the bottom, spoken more especially of goodwill towards others, the love of our neighbor, brotherly affection, which the Lord Jesus commands in, and I underscored in bold and italicized, inspires. It's the Lord's doing, not just saying, what would Jesus do? Okay? It's not just saying, well, Jesus would do that, therefore I've got to work it up. No, it's the Lord doing the accomplishing here.

Now, let's take the next phrase there. Yes. I'm sorry, what? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Right. In Greek, they have an equivalent to our word, the, which is a definite pronoun. They have no indefinite pronoun. Like we'll say, you know, not the dog, but a dog. They don't have that. When it says an a-n there, which means an arthrus, basically there's no definite pronoun. That's all it says. There's no definite pronoun in front of that word. Right.

Yes, in other words, this is an area where there isn't direct equivalence between Greek and English. Yeah, in other words, you say it's in love, it's definitely not in the love, because there's no article, and putting a love or ant, you know, it doesn't make sense in English, so it would typically be dropped. Doesn't the word agape take care of that?

I mean, it reflects a certain kind of love. Right, and that's one thing, typically, where you see it, where it has the definite article in front, it's typically pointing to something, this is specific, okay, where it talks about, you know, in love, in love or in grace or, you know, something like that, without the definite article, it's talking more about the general character, the nature, as opposed to this specific thing. which relates somewhat to our English usage as well.

Okay, let's take a look. As Christ also hath loved us. Okay, next phrase. And one of the things you'll notice, the word as has a different number above it in verse 1 than it does here. Different numbers, so you can look those up. If you look it up, it turns out they're pretty much equivalent. They're different words, but pretty much synonymous.

So there's nothing to be gleaned from that. Just a brief comment on where it says Christ. The Greek is Christos. It just means the anointed one. The Jews would say it, you know, Messiah. Or actually, they pronounce it a little different. They'd say Hamasia. But they would say Messiah. In English, we take it Christ, and it's from the Greek Christos. But either way, it all means anointed one. But we know who it's referring to. It says, also hath loved us. Here's that word coming up again. Before, agape, when we looked at it before, is what part of a word structure is that? The sentence structure is that.

It's a noun. Walk in love is a noun. Here, what is it? It's the verb. It's an action. It's the same root. We had agape tas, which was dear, explaining that this is dearly loved. Then the next use of it Agape was the noun. That's the actual naming of the thing. Here it's love in action. It's the same basic idea. It's love in action. Indicating a direction of the will. Isn't that interesting? A lot of times love gets used as some sort of an emotion. Here it's a direction of the will.

But notice the next thing. finding one's joy in something or someone. But that joy may not be based on that person's other behavior, that other person's behavior. For instance, Hebrews tells us what about Christ? It says, "...Christ, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross."

Was He looking forward to, oh boy, I get to be crucified? Was that His idea? No. What was His joy? What's that? His joy was us. Now, was He joyful about us because we were so good? No. Isn't that interesting? It's not a response to who we were or what we desired, but He took joy in going to the cross because He loved us and prized us, but not because of our dealings with a response to Him. See?

So this is a powerful and potent word. And he's used it once in the description of these dear children, agapitas children. He's used it once as a noun, in love. Now he's using it as a verb. And who does the verb get attached to? What does it say? Even as Christ. So here you see the verb attached.

And now the next one, and this to me is potent. Because what it says there, the next part in the English says, he gave himself for us. That's a little weak, frankly, compared to what the original Greek is saying. The Greek word is not just give in the sense of, here you are, okay? The Greek word, let me push this up so we can see it.

Peridodomi. You say that all the time, right? Peridodomi. to deliver over or up to the power of someone expressly here for persons delivered over to evil intent or power and authority, basically for punishment. So this isn't just giving like, you know, I give somebody something.

This is giving in the sense that he gave himself over. As some people have put it, it wasn't the nails that held him to the cross. He gave Himself over expressly to take the punishment, to be subject to the power and authority of the Roman government, in this instance, on our behalf. But not just the Roman government, but also because God placed our sin upon Him. He gave Himself up for all that.

So that's a powerful lot of giving, isn't it? It's more than just a give like, you know, I gave you something. This is a word that has a lot of depth to it, a lot of meaning to it. And then it is possible in the Greek to say, to have given, and then to build himself into the verb.

But if you really want to emphasize it, you say himself as a separate word. And that's exactly what he did. You notice that? They've got a different code there. And what that's telling us is an emphasis. He gave Himself. So the Greek puts the emphasis on Himself. He gave Himself. It was a deliberate giving of Himself. It wasn't a, oops, what am I doing up here on the cross? It's a, He deliberately gave Himself over of himself. It was his own doing.

And then, here's another one we don't want to forget. For us. What does he mean for us? Everyone. Yes. And you're one step ahead of me. And that's fine. But I don't want to give the word for away. on behalf of, for the sake of. It is right next to the idea of instead of me. He was there instead of me. You know what's amazing?

For the first 1,000 years after the New Testament, we don't know of a single author that wrote about Christ dying in our place. all kinds of writing from early church fathers, hundreds and thousands of pages and up to fill a whole CD, and then some. It wasn't until about 1100 that somebody wrote about Christ died instead of me. Isn't that amazing? It's been less than a thousand years that that understanding has been out there, which is phenomenal.

But here it is in this verse. Christ died in my place. See, the early church writers somehow didn't get the idea. They thought they were paying Satan off. So this is something the New Testament made plain, but somehow they just didn't see it. So when it says for, that's only a three-letter word, but don't forget what it means. He died for us, in our stead, in our place. A song that Nancy and I were listening to last night is Instead of Me. I should have been the one up there. I was the one that deserved the crucifixion. But in my place, he died instead of me.

See that? That's what that word for is talking about. Okay. For us, and this gets to Bertha's point, it's for us, and notice it's not just singular person. Yes, he died for each one of us individually, but he's pulling this together. He says, all of us here who have put our trust in Christ, we have this benefit. All of us. Everyone.

Then he says, an offering and a sacrifice. Let's just ask before looking at the Greek, is there a difference between the two? What's that? Ah, okay. And now let's think about that. What is an offering? Is that where you pass the plate? What's an offering? How's that different from a sacrifice? Yeah, and I think about that. An offering is something that we kind of put it to God's presence and say, Lord, this is given to You. This is offered to you. And the offering focuses on the action of presenting it before God, doesn't it? How is a sacrifice a little different from that? What's a sacrifice put the focus on? When we think of a sacrifice, how do we use that word? We've got something we have that we give up.

Okay, there's a cost. There's a price to it, isn't there? And so, you know, these are not identical words. It's not just two ways of saying the same thing, is it? It's focusing on something different with each one. And frankly, if you go to the Greek word, that's all it's going to tell you.

That essentially you've got the offering is what is presented before God, and the sacrifice focuses on a different aspect. It may be the same thing, but the idea is that the sacrifice It's something costly. It's something that was once had but is lost. It was something where there was some possession or something of value that was forsaken. See the difference there? But it's not two different persons doing that, is it? So Christ was both. You see that? Now, let's take this last thing.

Sweet smelling savor, those words are almost synonyms except for one thing. Sweet smelling has the idea of a good odor. In the next word it can be either good or bad. Kind of like a fragrant aroma. It kind of puts the focus. It helps describe it. But let's think about this.

The incense that was used in the temple. Why would he use that illustration here? What's the value in that? Why would he bother to bring that up? Ah, okay. Think about this. Why would it please God to have Christ die? I mean, that just sounds strange, doesn't it? Why would it please God? Why would that be a good thing? Why would God say, oh, yes? Because it was the only way to save us.

Yes. It has to do with God's character. God loves us infinitely. But He is also a God of infinite justice, and it was the way to satisfy both aspects of God's character. And God said, yes, this is exactly what it took. This is exactly what was needed. You see that? It was a perfect answer to the dilemma that man was in. And it was a perfect resolution to God's love for us. Yes. If you look at it, it is a full satisfaction of God's character. Yeah, good point. We can look at different aspects of God. It is a full satisfaction of God's very character. Yeah. Yeah. Good question. And I don't know the answer to that one. So now you've got to look it up. Yes. Oh, yeah.

Well, as a matter of fact, a friend of mine, Dave Hartman, that I sat down with like two and a half years ago, showing him how to do this, because I was initially showing him, I said, how do you study the Bible? And he said, it seems like I'm hitting a wall here, Vern, help me. So I started showing him how to use this thing. And then he said, where do I stop? And then I said, I can't tell you. Because he kept digging and digging and asking more questions.

Things like, here's this idea of agape showing up three times in two verses, but it's a slightly different shade, you know, aspect of it in each of the three places. Yeah, let's think about that. Or here's Christ the example, and walk in love as Christ, and then here's a comparison to Christ, and now He's a sacrifice. Whoa, what does that tell me? You see that? Let me put this since we're running out of time here. Let me put this up.

Last week we did an expanded translation of verse 1. Here's what I came up with for an expanded translation. And the idea of this translation is not that you're going to try to replace the English Bible. It's for you to get a sense of what does this mean. What is the richness of meaning in the original text that might not be coming out in the typical translation?

That's the idea. So here, let's go through it. Instead of and, I would put so therefore, because it's not a separate idea of just being attached to the first verse. Instead, it is a follow-on idea. It's continuing on with the same thought. The consequence of you being imitators of God's beloved children, this is the way it's going to look like. So I write, so therefore, go about in your manner of living. See, that's why I say walk. Go about in your manner of living. That's the idea being conveyed. Remaining. Now, where did I come up with that word remaining? Remember the word in? The idea behind that is the idea of resting and remaining, being totally. Remaining entirely in the context of unconditional love.

That's the agape love, right? in the same way as Christ has, and I put a little thing here because He did it first, right? We love Him because He first loved us. Christ did it first, so I put that as an asterisk. That isn't stated in here, but if I think through, that's the truth.

He first did it. has expressed that unconditional love to us and turned himself over for condemnation on our behalf. You see that? Turned himself over for condemnation on our behalf. For us. A completely consumed offering and sacrifice which has its appeal to God as a pleasing aroma, fully satisfying God's eternal character which includes infinite justice in unconditional love. See that? See that?

That's why I get excited about this, because what it helps me do is get the full sense of what was originally written. Here is Paul sitting down, he's writing to these people he dearly loves. He spent three years teaching these people at Ephesus day and night. Constantly.

When he was all done, He told the Ephesian elders, he says, I've given you the whole counsel of God. Now he's in prison and he can't see them. He can't talk to them. He can't visit them. He's saying, what can I tell these people that will draw them in their walk with the Lord?

And this is what he wrote. You see the power in that? I look at it and I say, man, this is neat stuff. And that's why there were places I was sitting there, here I'm going through Greek and looking up these books and getting stuff off the CD, and being right in the middle of stuff, all of a sudden I just break into tears. Because having such a marvelous sense of what was written here, and this written not by people who were passionless, just writing out some objective, bland truth. These were people who were giving their blood for this stuff.

When Paul was in Acts chapter 16, Paul was singing at the top of his voice in the Philippian jail. The space that he was sitting in was a stone stool. What they did is they shoved you back into a hole about the size of a dishwasher and they locked up your head and your hands and your feet. and they hadn't cleaned it off from the last guy that sat there and couldn't get up to go to the bathroom. It was in that context that he was singing at midnight at the top of his lungs. And my sense is the same depth that he's trying to convey to these people here, that's the sense that comes out of that. These are powerful words. These are powerful words to get a sense.

Here is this Christ who died on our behalf with this unconditional love for us. He was willing, not because of how nice and tender and joyful we were to Him, but because of the joy He looked forward to in us. That's phenomenal. Let's pray. Lord Jesus, we do give You thanks for the marvelous riches of Your Word. And we just pray that by Your working, that we would indeed make these walkabout kinds of words, that they would not simply stay in our minds, but they would be the kinds of words in which we are totally engulfed and totally surrounded, that we would remain in rest in your love. We just pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.