How To Study The Bible
Vern Peterman · Apr 28, 2002
How to Study Bible (2001-02), No. 30
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/48262242332950

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

Okay, as you recall, last week we took on the Code of Columbo, Bless the Cigar. We're doing detective work looking at the third chapter of the Gospel of John, and we're starting into the second verse, but there's actually some things in the first verse that we haven't gotten to yet. And as you recall, our sequence here is to go through the gospel of John chapter 3 and first look at what's the big context. Secondly, to just learn what about John, John the author? What about the book and its purpose for the book?

And then a part of that was also looking at context. We're out of that one handout. I'll have to get some more. I do have additional copies of, let me pass, this was a sheet for questions. And this one's available too, but I don't have a punch. To cover it last time, what we were doing was identifying questions and then looking at where would you go to look that up. The truth is, if we took all the time to cover all the content of everything that you could look up, We would be here for years because there is so much to dig into.

Here is one instance. Jewish Social Life by Alfred Edersheim. This is one book that was on the CD that I handed out. Just one of the books. Edersheim? Okay. The usual slur on that is Edersheim. But anyway, I'm certain we're quite often incorrect. Oh, Edersheim? Oh my. It's not like she. Do you know who he is? It's Edersheim. Okay, we stand corrected. Edersheim.

The chapters in blue have to do with the Pharisees. This book is one of the many books on that CD that was distributed. It's also available in print in case you don't have it. But it is just one of many and the reality is you could dig a lot into the resources to answer the question, what is a Pharisee? So that we better understand what the Pharisees are.

And incidentally, it's possible from the Gospels to get a misunderstanding of the Pharisees, and here's what I mean. Jesus frequently criticizes them, doesn't he? To most of the people in Israel, the Pharisees were heroes. They were the good guys. So it's possible from a direct reading of Scripture to get a misunderstanding of that. What Jesus was saying was not the popular thing because the Pharisees were the good guys.

So the Bible actually presents a contrast to what most people would think. Now, let's ask some other questions. We asked a series of questions about verse 1 and some of the context. What are some of the best advantages of the chapter and verse breakdowns that we have of Scripture? We've got chapters and verses and the whole Bible is divided up into chapters and verses. What are the advantages?

When we're talking among ourselves, to find the same place. Exactly. I can give a chapter and a verse in a book and you know what I'm talking about. Right? And so we can narrow it down. Some of the commentaries we have from before the time when there were chapters and verses, boy, it's really hard to find out where you're at. Because they'll quote the verse and then you've got to, okay, where is that? And so our thinking is frequently in that term. Then here's the flip side, what is the disadvantage or what are the disadvantages of chapters and verses?

They interrupt. They interrupt. They cause us to make a division where a division didn't exist, right? And this is no different. Let's take a look at, suppose you were to take the chapter break and just eliminated it. Because in reality, when John wrote, he didn't put a chapter break or a verse break. So we're starting in John chapter 3, but somebody read for us the last verse of chapter 2. And then, excuse me, read the last verse of chapter 2 and then the first verse of chapter 3.

Go ahead and start at the beginning of the sentence. Okay. What word do you see repeated? Man. See, and you would drop that significance if you just started in verse 1. Do you see that? Notice the previous references to man was to what kind of... how is it using the word man? Yes, yes, excellent. Mankind in a plural summary fashion, right? And what did it say about Jesus and his relationship to them?

He made two statements. What's that? He knew them. One. And then two. He did not need a witness. Okay, alright. But then he finishes off with what? He knew what was in man. Isn't that interesting? He knew the characteristic of man as a whole and he knew also what was in It wasn't just a superficial understanding, but it was depth of content.

And then the next verse, chapter 3, verse 1, that we're starting off, says, and there was a man of the Pharisees. Now, one of the things you'll find as you look in the rest of Scripture, it would be unusual to use that word man here, which is anthropos, Okay? Because that's kind of a general term. When we know that Nicodemus was a male, they should have used the Greek word, typically would use the Greek word anēr, which would refer to his maleness. Here, he had just gotten through talking about what was characteristic of man, mankind, and now here you have a singular one of those mankind. referred to.

You see the significance there? There's a tie-in to Jesus knew this man Nicodemus already. So out of all these people that Jesus knew of a general characteristic and knowing what is in them, now one of those, a part of mankind, comes to Him. You see the significance there? And we would lose that if we just started with verse 1. That whole significance would drop out. You see that? Here's something else, something we need to keep track of.

The Pharisees were, among the Jews, considered to be the most likely group to be able to identify the Messiah. How about that? The Jews, they would write about it, they would talk about it. The Pharisees were considered, of anybody, of the various political and social and religious groups, that Pharisees would be the ones, when the Messiah came, it's like, we're looking to you, Pharisees, you let us know. Okay? You see that? So here's this guy coming, and he's a part of the group. Jesus knows who he is. He knows his character. He knows he's a part of this mankind that he knows about them, and he knows what's in them. You see that?

Alright, so what were some of the questions we'd already asked here in verse 1? Do you recall some of those? Okay, and we came up with, it was in Jerusalem, okay. What were some other questions we came up with? When it took place, okay. Alright, and what did we come up with on that? Okay. Okay, Jesus had begun this ministry, it was early in the ministry. Let's ask something else.

Is a ruler of the Jews, and we determined that was the Sanhedrin, and your handout has about a page and a half on the characteristics of the Sanhedrin. I'll just hit something real briefly. We say the word Sanhedrin, in fact, there were three different subgroups, if you will, of the Sanhedrin. The one group that was 70, That was the largest group, 70 headed up by the high priest, so 71. That was the total Sanhedrin. When they had a criminal proceeding, because they were able to carry out criminal proceedings, it was boiled down to only 23 of those selected from the 70 were involved in the criminal court.

So you would have people who, and it turns out we have Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea we talked about last time. You would have those who would not agree with a criminal conviction against Jesus, but would not be a part of the group that would bring criminal convictions. See that? They wouldn't agree with it, but they couldn't do anything about it, because they weren't a part of the group that voted. So it's likely, based on what we see happening, that Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea were a part of the 70, but not the 23.

And then for certain high council events, there was a group of three headed up by the high priest. So when we talk about the Sanhedrin, there's actually those three groups. And just getting an understanding of how these guys work. And remember we said last week, what was John's connection with the Sanhedrin, the folks of the Sanhedrin, the men of the Sanhedrin? Yeah, one way or another he was on a first name basis with these people and had special insights and connections.

He was able to get Peter in at Jesus' trial to the high priest house. And one of the things you'll see on your handout there, and I apologize I'm a couple short here, one of the things you'll see on your handout is the references to Nicodemus. And what we see is this Nicodemus guy first shows up here, but he's going to keep showing up, but only in the Gospel of John. Why?

It fits because John, among all the disciples, had special connections with the Sanhedrin. So that's why he's the only one that lists Nicodemus, and multiple times, and he even describes Nicodemus' conversation, I think it's in chapter 7 if I recall right, Nicodemus' conversation with the rest of the Sanhedrin, and none of the other Gospels report that. So it's interesting. He's got some real inside contacts with the Sanhedrin and the high priest and the leaders of the Jews. One other question. What's a Jew? What's a Jew? Remember, you see that in verse 1, right? Leader of the Jews. So what's a Jew? Pardon? Okay. And how are they chosen? God specifically chose them.

How did we get this name Jew? If you look up the word Jew in the concordance, are you going to find it in the Old Testament? How did that happen? Here you've got one tribe, and now you've got Jew, Judah. So now I've got one tribe, And it seems, alright, if Judah is the source of the word Jew, how did that happen? Only one tribe and it represents the whole bunch? That's kind of strange. Yeah, when did this take place? How did this come about? It turns out, what's that? Okay, yeah, notice if you look at what happened in the north and the south, right?

After Solomon, Israel broke up into Israel which was actually that name applied to the ten northern kingdoms and Judah and Benjamin, those tribes, were the southern kingdom called Judah. And what happened is it's the southern kingdom that got hauled off to Babylon so that by the time they came back that name Jews had stuck. So you see the word used in the New Testament But really in the Old Testament times, it had barely begun to develop by the end of the Old Testament period. So like the word Pharisees, you won't find that in the Old Testament. There's a bunch of things that kind of show up because you have a period of several centuries between the Old and the New Testament.

And this is one of them. There are these Jews showing up. So anyway, that's the phrase. Now, that's the first verse. How about the second one? Someone read the second verse for us. This man came to Jesus by night and said to him, Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God, for no one can do these things that you do unless God has listened. Ah, okay. So let's go step by step on that one. So this man, and we've already hit on some significance of that, he comes to who?

Here's a question, how come he doesn't say Jesus Christ? Right, there's a part of it, yeah. One question you could have, you could look up in the Gospel of John and see, does John really use that phrase? Jesus hasn't died yet. That phrase, Jesus Christ, is much more often applied, not in the Gospels, but subsequently in the Epistles, where there was a full recognition. And also you could, again, look up and see how did John call Jesus? Did he actually use that two-word scripture? Then here's another question. We have in our Bibles Jesus. What was the original name in the language that Jesus and Nicodemus spoke? Joshua, right?

It means what? Savior, okay? How did he get that name? Well, you're right about that, but do you remember how... You're correct. He came from his Father in Heaven. But how did that name... An angel told him? Ah, okay. That's exactly it. You shall call his name Jesus, and they would have said in the language, Joshua is actually our equivalent, Yeshua. And then you quoted it right, it would be the explanation, for he will save his people from sins. He will be a savior. This is a real savior, not just a name we tacked on somebody. Good point. Okay?

So here we have this name, and it's easy to just brush over it, isn't it? The truth is, we could look, you know, what's the history of that name? How did that name come about? What did they think about that name when somebody got named that? What did they think about that?

Okay, we've just gone to one thing. He came to Jesus. Now here's another, does anybody have an inner linear? Yes. And what does it say, can you identify the Greek below where it says Jesus? Well, in verse 2, the literal translation is, this man came to war. Ah, interesting, huh? This is an instance where our English Bibles have put, instead of him, they put Jesus.

Why would they do that? To make it clear? And why does it need to be clarified? Tom? Makes me wonder if they have a short term memory. Yeah, Randy? Clarification because the Greek language tells you a lot more grammatically better. Okay. All right. So there's that. The Greek makes the connection more clearly. Remember one of the things we went through is that the Greek sometimes will specify things that English doesn't. And this is an instance. So that's a good point. It's a much more specific language. What's another reason? And there is more than just that. What's another reason why they would put Jesus here instead of just saying him? You're correct, but there's another reason.

One of the things that happens in our chapter and verse breaks is people lose the sense of continuity. So at times the translators will compensate for that by bringing over what is obvious. And so instead of just saying hymn, which if you were reading just straight through without the chapter and verse breaks, it would be clear, wouldn't it? But if I just said, let's start in chapter 3 verse 1, you might be going, huh? Because we've got the chapter and verse break, even though it's very evident in reading the original, it just means him, they would put that Jesus, just to make it clear, because of the chapter and verse break.

That's something to take note of. The original language is a continuing discussion. Our starting in verse one is an artificial beginning point, and it's important to recognize that. Now, let's ask another question. Where is Jesus from? It's from Nazareth. Good point. And Nazareth is where? Galilee. Now, how can you tell somebody is from Galilee? Language.

Just like we've got in our country, you can tell kind of where people are from. Years ago I had a linguistics course and it was interesting. They had people who were students of linguistics that had studied it for years and they could identify people down to what county and even town they were from. by listening to them talk. These experts, they could say, okay, you're from here and here. And the only ways that they seem to miss it is if somebody had moved around or had influence elsewhere. But yes, language identified them. And the truth is that the Galileans tended to speak with a more rushed, slurred, nondescript speech. And it was evident and apparent.

What's something else about Galilee in terms of its location compared to Jerusalem? Pardon? Good, it's north. And it is farther to the north. And what's between Galilee and the area around Jerusalem? Samaria. Oh no. So what happens is Samaria is no man's land. You live on the other side of no man's land. You see that?

So here's Jesus, and you can tell from his manner of speech, because he was brought up for three decades in Galilee, except for visits to Jerusalem. He was brought up for three decades. Not only that, Nazareth was a garbage town. The Romans had record when they walked through Nazareth to go to Jerusalem several decades later to go battle it and overtake it. So this place is a trash heap. Nazareth was low life. So Jesus lived in a backwater, backwards part of Israel, in a town that was nothing.

And he comes with this speech. Now, so here is who coming to who? Here is a guy, he's what? He's a ruler of the Jews. Out of all these thousands and thousands of Jews, this guy is cream of the crop, right? He is of a ruling class, he is highly educated, he is up there economically, and he comes to talk to an uneducated despicable thing to do.

So anyway, here's Jesus, this Galilean from this backwards backwater place, from a garbage town. The town the Romans described as just a garbage heap. Yes, exactly. What good can come out of this place? Exactly, good point. And that just reinforces the same attitude. Now, so here's, and this Nicodemus guy is brave. I mean, think about this. So what's the next thing? He identifies him as Jesus. We know Jesus was this Galilean. We know if we look at it, we know Jesus didn't have some big economic background. He had no clout. He wasn't part of any ruling group. He wasn't a part of the right crowd at all.

And then what else? What does the next part of the verse say? After he came to Jesus, what does it say? At night. Oh my. Now, a lot of speculation has gone into why at night. And what are some of the things that you might... What are possibilities? What we're guessing is possibilities.

Ah, okay. I'm going to go to a Galilean. This guy is an uneducated Galilean. He is not really a part of our group. and I'm going to go to him so he didn't want to be seen. That might be one reason. What might be another? Yes? Well, I was reading Ben Alford's Eddersheim, and he made this statement.

He said, well, the compromising step for a fan leader to take was that first bold purgation of the temple, a deadly feud between humans and the Jewish authorities had begun. Ah. As she said, he didn't want to be seen. Yeah, this was crossing several lines for him to come. So that may be a reason. Tom, you raised your hand. Good point. Ah, hey, now that's an interesting insight.

This may be a political move, because after all the Sanhedrin are very political. One of the things that we know the Sanhedrin regularly did is to try to quell uprisings. Because the arrangement that they had with the Romans is we have some limited degree of sovereignty as long as we keep things under a lid. And so that's an excellent thought that perhaps this may have been a political move. Come to Jesus and realizing that Jesus is kind of gathering some steam, let's kind of keep a lid on this thing and maintain some interrelationships and keep this under control.

Good point. Yes? Also, there were a lot of people who had taken a side with him because there were a lot of crowds and maybe he just wanted to have some privacy. Ah, excellent, yeah. There have been lots of people, and with the crowds, this was a way of just getting privacy, coming at night. And the crowds, as we read about them, what time of day did they tend to gather? Typically during the day, right? And so that's a very good point, too. Nighttime may simply have been, this is a time when I can meet them uninterrupted. Let's ask another question. When did the Sanhedrin meet? Yes, that's an interesting point. And where are you getting that impression? Okay, here's the trial. Let's back our way through this thing.

The trial, that would have been a criminal trial, right? And you remember how many of the Sanhedrin would have been gathering for a criminal proceeding? the 23, right? Not the whole group. So this Nicodemus from what we get the rest of the scripture is probably not a part of this criminal trial circle, but instead part of a larger group. But let me tell you something, there are several things about the gathering that took place to put Jesus on trial, they were illegal. And one thing was the Sanhedrin was never to meet at night. So Jesus' trial was illegal. And this is one of those instances where looking at the New Testament alone at times will give you a mistaken impression as to what the big pattern was.

You see that? So here's one thing, is that they would have met during the daytime, so when would he have been available? At night. It is possible, and frankly this passage doesn't answer the question that I can see, it's possible that Nicodemus' motivations for coming at night may have been sinister, or they may have been entirely innocent. but John makes note of it. What's one other thing? At night time, it's what? It's dark.

One of the things that you see John, in his Gospel more than any of the other Gospels, makes consistent note of is the contrast between darkness and light. Interesting, huh? So here's some connections. You start looking at the Gospel of John and the other Gospels and getting a sense of what's happening here. John may be kind of playing several things off at once. But he doesn't specifically answer the question about Nicodemus' motivation. But one thing we do know, the Lord knows what the motivation is. And this is a real unusual thing.

Here is a guy who's... cream of the crop of Israel. He is at the top, you know, echelon in terms of being recognized and having power and as much as the Jews were allowed under the Roman rule, okay? This guy is at the top and he comes to Jesus and says, and remember who Jesus is, he's this Galilean, and he says, Rabbi. Now, who gets called Rabbi?

Isn't that interesting? Comes to him and says, Rabbi, is that what you would expect of someone who is at the cream of the crop, intellectually, in terms of training for Israel, to come to a backwoods, backwater, uneducated Jewish carpenter? Isn't that interesting? Fascinating. Well, that's an interesting start, just to begin with. Rabbi. Now, what does rabbi mean? Essentially, it's another term. It's explicitly Jewish, right? It's explicitly Jewish. So he's speaking in a very Jewish context again. So here's this rabbi, and then he says, after rabbi what?

What's the phrase? Ah, who's we? Who is we? You see that? Who's we? Let's kind of come out with some hypothesis, because ultimately what we're going to do is test all these questions, right? Who is we? Who could it be? Who might he be speaking of when he says we? Pardon?

He may be representing the whole Sanhedrin. And as a matter of fact, Tom's point earlier could be going along with that whole thing. The Sanhedrin may have said, look, we don't want to make some violent foot coming down on these people because that will get things all stirred up anyway. So go in there and just kind of sweet talk this guy. That would be one theory to think about. Suppose that's too general.

Who else might we represent? There are some folks that are in the know, people who had seen some things. That might be. One of the things we notice is that there's Nicodemus and later Joseph of Arimathea. Maybe this is a subgroup within the Sanhedrin that he's saying we. But that's just a single pronoun. But real interesting, he doesn't say I, he says we.

So there's somebody else involved besides Nicodemus. And that's something that, again, we could look through the book of John, since it has so much insight on Nicodemus. We could look through the book of John and see if there's any other indications of this. We could gather through the account and subsequent interactions with the Pharisees and the Sanhedrin to see if that identification of we comes out. Now, we what? What's the next thing? What? We know! Which is interesting. How do they know anything? We know that what? You are a teacher. Now, isn't this interesting?

Again, this is more a contrast with this cream of the crop of the rulers of Israel coming to this backwoods, backwater, no place, no name, uneducated Jew and saying, you're a teacher. Because teachers were limited, basically, in terms of giving respect, that kind of respect, really limited to the Pharisees. They wouldn't even call the other groups that. Yeah?

Let me ask this. You are a teacher come from God versus... How is the phrasing? You have come from God as a teacher. Okay. What's the distinction between those two? What difference does that make when it comes to this? Does that create a different set of understandings in your mind when you read that? It's not denying something, it's more emphasis, isn't it? It's more emphasis. If I come from God as a teacher, the focus seems to be on the origin, doesn't it?

How would I resolve that question? Do you have two translations to put it differently? Is that where the question arises in? In this book it says, you know that thou art a super-competent God, and this is what you wrote here. Right, that's from the New American Standard. It says that you have come from God as a teacher. Ah, okay.

Emphasis. But I guess, not just based on what you wrote here, but I'm sure that other references will do this. That's right, and what we would have to do is go back in and say, you know, what does the text emphasize? You know, what does the text emphasize? So, we'd have to look... It's like the emphasis on the first word, is that correct? The first word? Yeah, this is one of those instances in Greek where word order does begin to make a difference.

From God is before there has come a teacher. Interesting, huh? So what does the inner linear put the sequence as? That's it. From God, as a teacher. Ah, isn't that interesting? Yeah. So the Greek sequence actually puts the focus on you've come from God as the first the first priority in communication there. Interesting, huh?

And then the next sentence really underlines that. Okay, let's read that for us. No man can do these miracles. No man can do these miracles, okay. In other words, if I look at it, because Anne brings up a good point, if I say this is from God, then the rest of what's being said is just reinforcing that you're from God. You see that? So it does make a difference, and that's a good point, Anne. If I look at a sentence, and this is where just looking at different translations may not instantly answer the question, but it will sometimes help us to raise a question that helps us get what's the real focus of this passage. Tom. Excellent.

There wouldn't be any usual reason for him to say you're a teacher. But he's saying, look, are you going to teach all this stuff? See, the usual thing, and we've got to look at this too, how would the Jews go about teaching? What was their pattern of teaching?

They would have the law, but what they had developed, this is the insight you'll get from reading some of these other things on the Pharisees and the culture of the time, what they had developed was instead of teaching da, da, da, da, da, they would quote this authority and that one, and they were happy leaving it in tension unresolved.

Case in point, Randy and I were talking about, within the last day, is the Jews could decide whether they wanted a divorce by Hillel or Shammai. Hillel said you can get a divorce for any matter. Shammai said you had to have one of five qualifications or you're not getting a divorce. And the Jews could pick between whichever one they wanted. They could get a divorce this way or that way.

They were fine leaving it in that tension unresolved. They would come to Jesus and they would say, you know, can we get a divorce for any matter or do we have to do it this way? They wanted him to pick one side or the other. They said, should we pay taxes to Caesar or not?

Giving you options and then just leaving things up in the air was a famous Jewish way of teaching. And they would just leave you with, here's the different views, this guy teaches this, this guy teaches this, you pick, you decide. And it was almost like our, that's true for you but not for me, thing of today. That was the Jewish way of teaching.

Did Jesus come that way? He didn't teach that way, did he? Instead, he says, you have heard that it was said, but I tell you, boing, you know? And he would nail it down, as opposed to leaving with all these quandaries. And the Jews were shocked. And you read about that. They were stunned. Here's somebody that just teaches. My God, this is the truth? That's it? Whoa! Nobody taught like that. Wayne?

I was just thinking, knowing that the Jews were looking for the Messiah, I wonder if Nicodemus is trying to explain things away as though you're just a teacher sent by God. In other words, that's a really good point too, is he starts looking at, is he a teacher? And what else did he start listing? Rabbi, and miracles, but what did he not say Jesus was? He did not say the Messiah, and he was of the very highest group, the one that all the Jews thought would be the most likely to be able to identify the Messiah. So here he is coming with everything.

Is any of it untrue? Well, it's not untrue. It's just less than he should have seen. Tom, yes. He may be the Columbo ruler. Yes, without the cigar. Do you see the issue here? Here we have a Nicodemus coming onto the scene here. In one sense, you've got to look at it, there's some drastic contrasts here. But at the same time, he's just not getting the picture. At least if he is, he sure isn't letting on to it at this point in time.

Okay, we've run out of time. Now, we're only partway through verse 2. Oh, no, we quit the sermon. Oh, okay. In one thing, you know, I made the statement a few Sundays back, and that really put people's adrenaline going, and I said, you know, John 3.16 may not mean what you think it means. And in a few months we'll get there. But we will get there. And I think perhaps what we've gone through so far, hopefully has kind of, because we're really, we have asked more questions than we've answered.

But my intent is, again, it's asking the right questions and knowing where to find the answer. That's the good and the best part of learning how to study the Bible. That's the in-depth part. And even the questions we've answered and the brief things we have said have hopefully given you some insight into the meaning of these two verses here.

And the truth is that we could spend much, much more time on them than we are spending. But we're not intending necessarily to dig out all the depths here, but to teach you how you could dig out all the depths and basically you could spend the rest of your life studying this passage.

There's enough material out there to understand what about the Pharisees? What about Jesus? When he says Jesus, what does he mean? When he says Rabbi, where does that show up in the Bible? You can dig into these things and it's knowing to ask the questions, like the questions we've been asking this morning.

That's what's going to lead to depth of understanding. So that's why we're going over it. Let's stop and pray. Lord, we thank you for your word. It is indeed filled with riches far more than we could dig and unearth in a lifetime. Even this passage is more full than that. It's no wonder John said that all the seas of the earth, if they were ink, would not be sufficient. Thank you, Lord, for the truths of your word, that we're not left like the Jewish scholars, just hung between the horns of a dilemma. But instead, Lord, we can know the truth. Thank you for that. In Jesus' name, amen.