Complete Word Study New Testament
Vern Peterman · Feb 21, 2016
Complete Word Study NT, No. 03
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/4926528526753

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

Should I move over by Pat, or sit between Pat and Doris? That's probably helpful. Okay, and I don't have a handout. There's that one right there on the chair. There's one there, there's one there. It's probably better if you're there. Oh, I did have a handout. Yeah, we're good. We've got plenty.

Let's see, I sent out a link and so some of you were able to get the Olive Tree software. The Olive Tree software went on sale this last week for like $30, whale of a deal, and it gets you all four of the books, the Old Testament and the Word Study and then the New Testament and the Word Study. So all four of the books on the computer for 30 bucks is the way to go. And actually you may be able to get it on Glenn's phone as well, the iPhone.

So now what we have here on the handout is we're going to take Colossians 1.24-29 and So the top part of that is in the New American Standard.

So that now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I do share on behalf of his body, which is the church, in filling up what is lacking in Christ's afflictions. Of this church I was made a minister according to the stewardship from God bestowed on me for your benefit, so that I might fully carry out the preaching of the word of God, that is, the mystery which has been hidden from past ages and generations, but has now been manifested to the saints, with whom God willed to make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. We proclaim him admonishing every man and teaching every man with all wisdom, so that we may present every man complete in Christ. And for this purpose I labor, striving according to His power which mightily works within me."

Okay. So now we have below, that's out of the Complete Word Study New Testament. And so you'll see each of those verses we just read in the American Standard with the grammar codes above the words and the Strong's Number. Now, one of the things you might have noticed is some of the Strong's numbers are bolded, and some of them are not. So what difference does that make? Do they just randomly bold them? No. The code there is, if this is your starting point, and from here you'll get the grammar codes and the Strong's numbers, right? If the Strong's number is bolded, then the definitions are in the back.

If they're not bolded, then you have to go to the other books. So that keeps you from searching in vain. Oh, it's not there. So this tells you by that bolding, if it's in here already, and you can just use this, if you like that. And if it's not bolded, then you go over to the Complete Word Study Dictionary where you've got everything. This is the Complete Word Study New Testament. In other words, it's got the New Testament in it, the whole New Testament, but it's got all the grammar codes and Strong's Numbers and all that right there.

Yeah, last week you were asking, you know, where do you get them? It's there. You have to have, in order to get it that way, you have to have this particular version. This guy named Spyros Zodiades, I think he's still alive, put this thing together over 20 years ago.

Put together the New Testament with all these numbers and grammar codes and everything, and then put together the dictionary and then did that for the Old Testament as well. So it's a lot of work. So he put it all together and then more recently that's been made into software. So instead of having to look at everything in books you can use the software.

So that's one thing. Let's look Let's see, 5463, who now rejoice, now rejoice, now it's bolded, right? Rejoice is bolded over the top, right? 5463, so that means, let's see, we should get more of these distributed. Okay, so, and on the software, I have the Complete Word Study Bible open and there are no numbers and no codes, but if you put The cursor over the word, the little hand, pointing hand, comes up. See, like Rejoice. Vernon's going to look at Rejoice. The pointing hand is there. And then it pops up. And then you can make this get a little bit bigger. So that's the way the software works.

So what if you put it over rejoice? That's what I have it over. Okay. And what does that tell you about the word definition? What's the word? Charisomai. Okay. And that's part of charis, which is grace, right? Part of that family of words. But let's ask this question. Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake and in my flesh I do share on behalf of this body which is the church in filling up what is lacking in Christ's afflictions? What does that mean? Can there be anything lacking in Christ's afflictions? So what's going on here? What does that mean?

I'm using a cursor. Uh-huh. Okay. Now the Complete Word Study Bible. Yeah. Is that King James? Yes. Okay. And it says what is to fill up that which is behind. Okay. Of the afflictions. Okay. So, so How could anything be behind or lacking in Christ's afflictions? Didn't he say it is done when he was on the cross?

So, what does Paul mean by that? Actually, Paul himself is the guy that gives us the clue as to what this means. Remember, Paul was on the road to Damascus, right? He was going to persecute the Christians in Damascus, right? And what happened to Paul? He was struck down and blinded. Yeah, struck down and blinded. And then what did the Lord say to Paul? Why are you persecuting me?

Ah! So was Paul doing anything to Christ? Christ himself? No, but to his believers. Ah, interesting. So what's happening is Jesus on the cross had suffered everything he was supposed to suffer, but notice that when he confronts Paul, why are you persecuting, he didn't say them, you're persecuting So we have this expression, don't take it personally. When it comes to persecution, Christ takes our sufferings personally. He takes our sufferings personally. So the suffering of the church, the persecution of the church, will not be done until the Lord takes the church home.

A person is actually a persecution of Christ. Yes. In the now time, the Christians that are being persecuted, I suppose some in the United States, but in other countries, they are actually persecuting Christ. That's right. as they can find. And so those believers are being persecuted and they are filling up what is still to be had in the way of Christ's sufferings.

Well it says, Soterios here says that Colossians Colossians 124, what is yet lacking of afflictions for Christ. So it's what the body must endure, what the body of Christ, the church must endure. for him, but it's through his strength, so it's of course not something we do. Well, and the other thing is, what do we refer to the church as? We refer to the church as the body of Christ, right?

And he is the head. So, so this is a... Okay? Yes. Okay, so in my flesh for his body's sake, which is the church. The church is the body of Christ. So then we have, this is whereof I am made a minister. Let's look up that word, 1249. What do you find here? Let's see. Diakonos. Diakonos. Okay. It's the word for deacon. Interesting. So is Paul saying he's a deacon? What does he mean by that? That word deacon, diakonos, is used for not only a deacon but also a minister and a servant.

And according to the dispensation of God which is given me for you to fulfill the word of God. So by dispensation he means a stewardship, right? That's what the word dispensation refers to as a stewardship. Now you think about a stewardship, what's a stewardship? You can almost call it an assignment. Yeah, okay, and there's an assignment, there's an entrusting, right? And so what was Paul entrusted with? With the word of God.

As a matter of fact, he wrote in 1 Corinthians 4.1 to the believers of Corinth. And he says, you must reckon, you must consider, you must understand that we are stewards of the mysteries of God. It is required of stewards that we become faithful. So he understands he's been entrusted with the Word here, which was given to me for you to fulfill the Word of God. So he's carrying out this assignment that he's been entrusted with the Word.

And then, verse 26, even the mystery which had been hid from ages and from generations now is made manifest to his saints. This is the one place where the biblical use of the word mystery is defined. And the Bible is consistent about this use. So it's mystery, mysterion in the Greek, and it defines it because we think of mystery as something that's really mysterious, right? And it remains mysterious.

The biblical use of the term is that which had been hidden from ages past and from earlier generations now is made manifest to the saints. And so it's a truth now revealed that wasn't previously. So that's a different idea of mystery than may come to our minds when we first hear the word. So it's something previously mysterious now made clear. So, this is something, it's Paul's job to make it clear. Isn't it? Right? Paul's job to make it clear.

So, to whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery, here's the word mystery again, among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. Let's take a look here on verse 27, that Make Known. If you look at the top of the second page, what's the Strong's number there above Make Known? in verse 27. 1107, so 1107, I've entered that at the top of page 2, so here's, and the Greek word is gnosko, eh?

Okay, mine's not coming, this is not coming, it's coming up as 1107. Is that right? Wait. 1097. It's not coming up as 1097. I put it up both on make and up to date. Oh, wait a minute. Did I say 10? Huh? 11. Oh, I'm sorry. It's 1107 and I don't have that listed. So I'm sorry about that. So what are you getting on that, sweetheart? Okay, just a second. It is there. It is there. 1107. But I don't have it listed here. I mistakenly pointed out some. It's benarito. To make known. To make known. Toward or to something. Okay. And so if we look for Colossians 127, generally to make known, declare, reveal. Okay.

So, if God did not intentionally reveal himself, what would we know about him? If he didn't reveal himself in the Bible, what would we know about him? We would know that he's the creator. Just from what's around us. As Romans tells us, we'd know about his eternal power and deity. That's about it. You wouldn't know that he's going to send Christ to die. He wouldn't know that we've got a sin problem.

Right? But God made known. And what did he make known? The riches of the glory. The riches of the glory. Does God have just barely enough glory, just to a pinch? Yeah, more than that, right? As a matter of fact, not even He's rich in glory, but rich in plural, plural magnitudes of the glory. And let's ask one other question. Can you tell from this, is it What is the riches of glory, or is it the riches of the glory? Can you tell which one? The glory. What's that? The glory. It's the glory, and how can you tell? Because, yeah?

It's ART, which tells you there's a definite article. So you have ART, so it's actually the riches of the glory. And you can tell that it's not simply the definite article inserted there to make smooth English, but it's actually in the original language. So in Greek, when you have the definite article, it points to the specificity of something.

So, the riches of e-glory, and then of this, and then here's the word mystery again, and again, what's the definition of mystery then? What was a mystery before, it's not now? That's right. His job is not to make it mysterious and keep it mysterious. His job is to have something that was mysterious before become clear. And that's because God wanted something to be made known. Definitely made known. And so this mystery among the Gentiles, that was his assignment.

Go among the Gentiles. Now was Paul the only one who went to all the Gentiles? I don't think so. Ultimately, the apostles got spread all over outside of Israel. We had them go into North Africa. We had them go into Europe, Southern Europe. We had them go as far as India. Thomas went to India. So, but Paul was the one initially sent.

Yeah. Can you see if they need somebody in the nursery? You get Ingrid with... I think we're good. Okay, so here is Paul, he sees himself having a stewardship, being entrusted with this gospel to take it among the Gentiles and make it clear where it wasn't clear before, right? So, and this specific mystery Is Christ in you the hope of glory? Now how is that different from what they would have known before? Christ in you.

Deity never indwelt a human being. That's one. Even among the Jews, when they thought of the Messiah, were they thinking of the Messiah in me? Not at all. Here's Paul, who was raised by a Pharisee to be a Pharisee. And they definitely believed in the Messiah, because the Sadducees didn't, right? But the Pharisees did. They believed in the Messiah, but they had no idea that the Messiah would evolve. Not a clue. That was just a stunning idea. Not a clue.

So here's Paul, raise the Pharisee, ultimately confronted by Christ, as we talked about earlier, and then personally taught by Christ, and he comes away with the assignment, I've got to teach these people that if they believe, that Christ will indwell them. And does Christ indwell the believer only until you die? Forever and ever. Isn't that amazing? Yeah. We shall be like Him.

As a matter of fact, like Him in every respect except His deity. Even more so, He indwells you more so after you die. Because the sin nature is gone. Yeah, you're not wrestling with sin nature anymore. It's evidence. Here you are beholding Christ who spiritually indwells you. You have His life. Christ in you, the hope of glory. What's glory? The radiant essence of who God is. Nancy, you'll catch on to this one.

Where did the Jews think that God dwelt? Probably in the temple. Yes, they thought he dwelt in the temple in the Holy of Holies. But what happened to the temple? It was destroyed. And so the Jews today, if you go to the Temple Mount, remember Nancy what they put there?

They both verbally say, and you'd see on the signs, the Divine Presence dwells here. But this is telling us, no, the Divine Presence doesn't dwell in those rocks. Here, right? The Divine Presence dwells here. Christ in you, the hope of glory. So then, verse 28, whom we preach. And then, what do you notice about verse 28? There's something there three times.

Every male. Does that mean every male? Yes. In other words, wanting every person, because that's Anthropos, every person, And admonishing is the way the American Standard has it, and teaching. So admonishing and teaching every minute, three times. So that means in the church we only teach with any depth, with just certain special people. Is that the way we do it? No. No. It's every minute, right? It's every minute. So the idea is that the whole body, is taught and admonished together.

One is, everybody counts. Everybody counts in the body of Christ. We've got this special group and everybody else is secondary priority. In the same way that we've been saying, God gives you his undivided attention. In the same way, each person counts. We don't have just a special high priority group and everybody else gets leftovers. So every person counts.

And with a little bit of wisdom, with all wisdom that we may present Here's every person, and let's take a look at that word. It's translated perfect in the Complete Word Study New Testament. Okay, so what's the Strong's number for that? 5-0-4-6. 5-0-4-6. And that you do have on page 3. It's the last one listed. So the idea of this, the word is TELEOS, okay? TELEOS.

And that word has the idea of complete. Complete. So that's why the numeric standard has every man complete in Christ. And so, we may present every man complete or perfect in Christ. Now, here's something else. We have earlier seen Christ in you, but at the end of verse 28, it's you in Christ. So there's Christ in you, and you in Christ.

To the Jews that whole idea was just mind-boggling. They had no idea. But Christ in you and you in Christ. None of them even had any thought of those things. Well they didn't recognize Christ as the Messiah. They couldn't get the first base on any of this. That's right.

And so what Paul is writing here as a trained Pharisee, to them was just shocking. First of all, to have the Jews recognize this is the Messiah, standing right here in front of me, would be, you know, that was really hard for all of them, with rare exception. And then to turn around and say, He's a Messiah, and He's in you, and you're in Him. That was just way, way beyond.

And you're right, they couldn't even get to first base. Heresy, I mean, they would just... Oh, yeah! I mean, this is picking up rocks time. And so, what Paul was presenting was really mind-boggling. And that's one reason why he would go into the synagogues, and in some places, they're chasing him out with rocks, right? Running him out of town.

So this is astounding news here, Christ in you, and you in Christ, and that applies to just a small group of people? Everyone. And so he wants people to learn that, and understand that, every single person in the body of Christ. Teaching and admonishing.

Okay now, so verse 29, Where unto I also labor? And we don't have that listed, but let's take a look. Where unto I also labor? Nancy, can you click on that one? It's Strong's number 2872. Right. Copy-a-o? It does take a little bit of time to open up the windows in here.

To labor, to fatigue, to be worn out. Yeah, it's to labor to exhaustion. So here's the Apostle Paul, and he labors to exhaustion. So, it's a word that means not just working, but you're working yourself to the end of your energy. Labor to exhaustion. You labor until you just can't labor anymore.

Is he doing that all by his own strength? Let's take a look at the rest of the sentence. Striving according to his working. Now, let's take a look at that. What do you see? What are the grammar codes right above working? What are the first three letters there? So it's a definite article. Now it's not in the English, but we would say it this way. Striving according to the working of him. Right? So the working of him. Okay, so here's Paul.

From the outside you look at it and say this guy is just working himself to death. He's just laboring to exhaustion, but then you find he's striving according to the working of him, and then which worketh, and then that also has the article, the working in me mightily. So he's laboring to exhaustion on the outside, you would say, that guy is really working himself to death.

But where is the energy coming from? From the Lord himself, who dwells in him. So this is a very complete message. You're in Christ, and Christ is in you, and the Christ in you isn't just sitting there, The Christ in you is the one who puts forth the energy.

So on the outside we'd say Paul is working himself to death, but on the inside what we see is that the Lord's doing it all. And how can that be? It's because he's depending upon the Lord for all these things. So God has given him a stewardship, an assignment, but God doesn't delegate it to him. It's interesting that the root word for labor in the His working and then which works in me, they're the same root word, but His working has efficiency and power, active power. And our working then has effect. That's the effect.

And so God does not want us to put forth our best efforts. See, Paul isn't putting forth his best effort. Instead, what's happening is the Lord is doing all the working in Paul. So on the outside it looks like Paul is working himself to death, but it's all the Lord's doing inside of him.

And that's possible because the Lord indwells him, and that's the message which he has in verse 27. Christ in you, which he's also saying Christ in me. Christ in me. So this is a neat insight. The Lord has entrusted the gospel to Paul and given him an assignment, you take this to the Gentile lambs, which he did.

And then the Lord says, but I don't want you to do it, Paul. I want you to rely upon my indwelling and empowering and enabling to do this. So it's not Paul's best effort. It's not Paul trying just as hard as he possibly can. It's the Lord working and empowering and energizing and enabling in the midst of it.

Now, there's something else I'd like us to take a look at, and it's not on here, and that's if you can get out your Bibles that can be complete Word Study New Testament or otherwise. Let's see, you've got a copy? I don't know how many I have. She has the complete Word Study New Testament. Let's take a look at... This is the New Testament.

So let's look at Colossians 3, this is the same book, just a little farther, Colossians 3.16.

So Colossians 3.16, it has there, and I'm reading from the King James, which is what this is. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord. Now, a few different things to look at. One is when it says THE WORD is the definite article in the Greek. Verse 16 is the definite article in the Greek. Is it? Is that what you're asking? Yeah. Is the definite article in the Greek. It has an A-R-T above it. A-R-T.

So that means, yes it does. So it's the word, right? And then look at Christ. What do you see in the grammar code above Christ? A-R-T. Let THE word of THE Christ. So here's where they'll smooth out the English by dropping things out. So that's what you can look for with this. And find out, oh, it's let THE word of THE Christ. And by the way, what does THE Christ mean? THE Messiah. Let THE word of THE Messiah. dwell in you richly.

So, so, alright, in all wisdom, you see that word wisdom? Do we see that before? Teaching and admonishing one another. And if I go here, I say wait a minute, here's wisdom 4678 4678, that's in verse 28, isn't it? It's the same word. Wisdom. It's the same word in English, and it's also the same word in the Greek. And then there's teaching. 1321, look at verse 28, guess what? It's there too. And then admonishing, as it is in here. It's the same word. in verse 28 and 128. So there's an all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another. So here I have this exact same words as in Colossians 128.

Wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another. How? What does 316 tell us how that happens? Songs and hymns and spirituals. Songs and hymns and spirituals. Isn't that interesting? Music. Musical things. So teaching and admonishing one another does always happen in a classroom like this. No, it happens even through our music. It's teaching. In songs and hymns and spiritual songs.

The Psalms, when you see that, what do you think of? The Scriptures. You think of the Psalms, right? And then the hymns are songs about God, right? About God and to God, right? And then there's spiritual songs. Do we ever sing spiritual songs that aren't necessarily said directly to God?

Sure. All right. Sometimes we'll look at it this morning and just notice we'll have songs where we're not directly talking to God necessarily, but it'll be teaching. Like the, we're going to sing 10,000 Reasons. 10,000 Reasons, right? Okay. And so there's room for a variety of songs. And let's ask this question, okay?

Can we use musical instruments or is that bad? We can use musical instruments. And we can use them. And why can we use musical instruments? Because scripture even says so. With a harp and a lyre. Alright, so we'll see that in the Old Testament. It'll talk about that. This word for psalms means to strum. It means to strum. So you're talking about, as a matter of fact, We have our word guitar. It comes from the Greek word for a harp, meaning kathara. It's pronounced kathara. That's how we got our word guitar.

Boy, in the 60s and early 70s guitars were thought of as something horrible in church. Yeah. When really it was more like, not certainly identical to, but more like what was used in the Old Testament. Yes. singing with grace and as is just your voice in your hearts okay so this is a heart thing okay it's a learning thing it's an admonishing thing and so God even includes you know our worship and music and a variety of it and yeah your instruments are okay singing with grace in your hearts and then where is in the end grace in your hearts?

To the Lord. To the Lord. So this is focused upon the Lord. So here's an interesting connection between 128 there with teaching and admonishing and all wisdom and then now here he turns it around And the message of Christ, the word of Christ, let it dwell in you richly. So not skimpy. Not just barely, but richly. And this is a heart thing, it's not just a memorize it thing. To the Lord. It has to do with our relationship with the Lord.

So it's good in this to be able to make connections, to be able to see things like, oh, that's got a definite article in front of it, even if the English drops it out. And in Greek, the definite article helps us to see this is the specific thing, the specificity. The word of the Christ dwell in you richly. OK, I think we'll stop there for now. Any thoughts, comments, questions? Hopefully this is starting to sink in as to how we use it. So we can find out things about how the sentence is written in the Greek without learning Greek. we can find out things about the definitions of words and look more deeply at it.

Sometimes the English word by itself is not enough, like the word mystery. The word mystery is a good example. The English word, we think of something that is really mysterious. But the Greek meaning in the New Testament, in fact throughout the Bible, the word mystery is something that was previously mysterious, but it's now revealed and made clear.

So, okay, let's pray. Lord, thank you for your word and the insights and understanding that we have. Thank you for these tools to be able to look into the original language and to have greater understanding and insight. And we just pray that you would work these truths into our hearts. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.