How To Study The Bible

Good morning. All right. Last week were some questions on, you know, things like, you know, what's this eris tense and, you know, what does that mean and things of that sort. So, anyway, I don't want to go through this in great depth. We'd soak up all our time in it.

But the point is, I think like even Roy stepped out and was asking, doesn't the eris tense, you know, speak of fact? indicative mood it does. My response was it can. And the indicative mood, it does state fact as generally speaking a past event. So it does speak of that.

But one of the things to keep in mind, and what you'll see on this diagram on the front page here, is that it can have based on the context and not on something that is built into the word, but on the context. It can have different implications as to past time. Continuous or even a point event, it can be ingressive, that is focusing on something having started in the past, or cumulative, having gone on in the past reaching some point. So there can be all those implications and it's context that's going to show you that.

There isn't some special form of the verb that just by looking at the word you can look it up and get the answer. That doesn't happen. But you can look at the context and look at other words that modify in order to give you that sense. For instance, And here's three for instances that they give you, 2 Corinthians 11-24, 2 Corinthians 8-9, and Acts 1-1. So each of those in the context tells you what that heiress is saying in terms of the time frame.

In general sense, we would say in English, if I told you I washed the car, you know that for a fact I washed the car, right? What you don't know is, did I wash it two weeks ago? Did I wash it last week? Was I washing it all morning? See, it's that aspect of time that just that simple statement doesn't tell you. But if I told you I washed the car from 8 until noon, then that gives you more information that just that aorist tense by itself doesn't tell you.

Does that make sense? In other words, you need more information if you're going to try to nail it down in terms of which time aspect, and that's the word, aspect, which time aspect is being indicated. And the context will tell you it doesn't come out of just doing a word study on that specific word. So, Aorist can very well indicate fact. For example, you have been seated with Christ. Aorist tense. Is it a fact? you better believe it.

And I don't mean that just as an expression. But that by itself doesn't explain, you know, that happened such and such time ago. You would need to have more information than that, than just what's stated there. And there isn't some way of looking up that Greek word and all of a sudden knowing exactly what that meant, time-wise. The aorist is, in terms of time, it's as general as you can get. but it can be very specific if it's accompanied by context that nails it down. I like to keep in mind. Some of the rest of this here gives you a little further explanation on this eristens and what that means. I would just leave that for you to peruse on your own there.

But just as you come across it, and the last page is intended to correct errors. One is that people say, well, errors tense doesn't mean anything. Well, hey, wait a minute. That's going too far. It is by itself very general, but you use the context to specify more details as to the aspect. The other error is to try to make the errors tense by itself say too much. And so that's why I include that last page is It avoids errors of extremes. Let's take an analogy.

If I were to tell you, keep the car centered in the road as you're driving, right in the lane. Keep it centered in the lane. That would be fine, right? The error on one side would be anywhere within that lane. You can see people weaving all over, and as long as they're within the lane, that wouldn't be good, would it? The other extreme was I'm going to be centered exactly in the middle of this lane. It doesn't matter if somebody is parked on the side of the road and I'm going to hit them if I don't swerve a little bit.

You see? So we need to be careful about the extremes of this use of the heiress tents. People claiming too much for it or too little. Okay. That's to help clarify that point. Now we've done that, another handout. This is getting back to the specific passage we were looking at last week.

And one of the questions that came up was this, we were talking about this sense and if and that kind of thing. And my statement there was I get kind of frustrated with translators because they'll use if when it really should be sense and they'll use the word might when the better way to state it is, in order that. If we understand what they're trying to say, then the implication of uncertainty may not bother us. But for someone trying to get a clear understanding and reading that, words like if and might can mislead people. The example that I mentioned was particularly those who are inclined to teach false doctrines will grab hold of those statements of if and might and all of a sudden they're shoving this verse in the direction of dangling this uncertainty over people.

And that's a problem. When I was going through the Greek course, what I would do is unless it explicitly said uncertainty, I would translate it with certainty because I didn't want to imply the conditional situation as if it were a statement of probabilities unless it explicitly was laid out that way.

Does that make sense? Okay, let's go through this here. That's correct and that's one reason why if you look up a concordance and see all the places where it says if and might, and you start looking at it, there's really very few places where that's appropriate. They've overused it. Because what they were trying to imply, and I understand what they're trying to say, is that might is communicating in order that. But too often people can take that in the direction of probabilities or uncertainties And that's a problem.

And you're right. The Bible doesn't have all kinds of uncertainties. It's not sitting there dangling things in front of people. Especially if something has a perfect tense in it where it's saying this is a completed past action. And the perfect tense implying permanence.

And then you go and translate it with a mite in there. It just doesn't fit. But here's a for instance that comes out of here. We looked at verse 12, and this inner linear here has four layers there that perhaps will help us see what's going on. If earthly things I have told you and not you believe, this is the Greek order, how if I tell you of heavenly things shall you believe? Most of our inner linears will have a Greek And I'll throw some English words under it. And this one does that, but adds the Strong's numbers and does both the Greek and the transliteration.

Okay, so that's John 3.12. Now, as much as we've been going through and using the complete Word Study New Testament, it says it's the complete. It's not quite complete. Because one of the things it won't tell you is plurals. and singular. It doesn't show up in that.

And here's a case where I think it's of value. If earthly things I have told you, now that you, is he talking to Nicodemus or Nicodemus and some other people? Ah, okay. Yes, you're right. And let's confirm why it's plural. Here's where the Greek kind of nails it down. First thing is you'll see some Greek words there. Pestuite is that first one, that second person plural present active indicative.

And where do you see that above? Where it says in the middle line, ye believe. See that? Pestuite is second person plural. So there it's built into the verb, the plurality. And then we look down, And the last one, which is under, shall ye believe, see that? They make the future tense by taking the same word and putting a sigma in there. Pestueste. So that's a second person plural future active indicative. So just by putting that little sigma in there, it makes it future tense.

See that? And in that case, it's also plural. But that's not all. You'll see in the chart below, I've got listed, these are the pronouns, personal pronouns. Now, if you look on this first page, on the upper right, there's this word humin. And what is that? Is that plural or singular and what is it? So let's look on the second page.

Second person on the top block there of pronouns, second person under the plural, which means you or your, what do you see? You see that word who mean, which is a plural you. So we've got multiple indications he's talking to a group. Now isn't this interesting? Because it doesn't come through in English, does it? The English doesn't convey that.

You remember how Nicodemus spoke to Jesus? What did he say when he first came to Jesus? Did he say, I or we? So how does Jesus respond? You, plural. Isn't that interesting? He responds with a you, plural. And let me ask this. Why would he do that? Why would Jesus do that? Why didn't Jesus just kind of cut to the quick and say, you, personally, Mr. Nicodemus? Or Dr. Nicodemus? Why didn't he just cut to the quick say you personally. Why don't you respond with this you plural thing? Go for it. I think Mikkonen indicated that he was looking for some more people.

Maybe some others that weren't represented, right? Okay, and that may well be. We have that implication coming across at Jesus' death. Here's Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus were the ones responsible for taking care of Jesus' body. Okay? So their name, there may have been others that didn't step forward at that time, but a plurality, it may have been a group within the Sanhedrin, even.

Could be. Alright, good. What else? What other reason might there be? General, you, Pharisees and Sadducees, you have this idea Yeah, yeah. You know, I've been talking with you. We have been in contact with one another. And here I talk about these things and you, plural, don't seem to get it. And if I talk about heavenly things, are you, plural, going to get it? Yeah, just a general statement. Is there another reason he might?

It is soft, I think. Excellent point. It's more gentle, isn't it? It isn't coming at you, Nicodemus. You don't believe. If I tell you this stuff and you don't believe it, how are you ever going to get it if I tell you about heavenly things? You see that? It's a softer statement.

And I think probably all three of those may well be correct. That Jesus would respond because that's how it was said to him. Jesus would respond because it is a general statement in truth in terms of people not getting it, and he's been speaking not just to Nicodemus, but to others, and that it's very soft. He certainly didn't want to just sit there and point this pointed finger at Nicodemus. So all three of those observations, I think, are quite likely correct.

But real interesting, this is a case where just a little bit of understanding of the Greek gets us to a place where We get a sense that does not come across in English. Just so you know, these references where I have the Pestiuote and Pestiuoste, that came from this Greek analytical. You would look it up here in the Interlinear and then you would look it up in this analytical. In the analytical, all I did was scan it in and blow it up. It will tell you exactly what you see in front of you.

Second person plural, present active, indicative. So every single Greek word in the New Testament shows up in here and it tells you precisely what that word is. It nails it. The complete Word Study of the New Testament tells you a lot, but it doesn't tell you singulars and plurals as one of the shortcomings. And this does.

I think you had one previously by another publisher. They're not horrifically expensive, but they can help you, in some cases, just nail it down. One instance that we've talked about earlier was with Ephesians 2, 8 and 9, where it talks about, you know, by grace are you saved through faith and that not of yourselves? Well, what is that?

And what you find out, you look those words up and you find out what's masculine and what's neuter and what's feminine, and then that nails it. So this can be real handy at certain points where you're really trying to nail down, what is that? And in this case, the English does not give you a clue that you've got a plural there, but it comes through just loud and clear in the Greek.

Jesus didn't even want to leave it to the implication of the verb. He added the plural pronoun, which when that's done in the Greek, it means for emphasis. He is emphasizing that point. So it was not an incidental point, but in fact one that he wanted to underscore. It's a you plural situation. In the Greek, it comes out emphatic. In the English, it drops out. So, it's just one of the values here. Yeah? Rolling over the arguments here regarding the use of the plural, Jesus using that. Yes. And while I understand the three issues that he spoke about, that seems to me like it limits that message. Okay.

Where, you know, when he says toil you, the limit was you. So that you could read in, you know, everyone who wants to come to believe. And since he's omniscient, it would seem to me that what he's really saying there is you, you know, the world. rather than try to focus on and limit in the context? Well, let's look at it in the context. He is talking to Nicodemus.

Where I would take what you're saying is not in the area of interpretation, because the context implies it, but in the area of application. In order to see the difference in the area of application, the truth is Christ could be asking that same question. to anybody out there. Anybody who lives here in Denver or next door neighbors, relatives, and by area of application, that same question fits everyone. And therefore, where you're moving and where you are now and where you work, the question fits everybody.

If Christ is telling you this, will you believe that or will you stop there and not get on to the rest of what He has to say? And so by application, it's universal. And in truth, you've hit on a point. Shortly thereafter, getting into about verse 15, all of a sudden it appears even that the conversation with Nicodemus has ended and that there's sort of a discourse going on because Nicodemus' involvement drops out.

Does that answer your question? Yeah, I see it by way of application. I mean, I can see in the context, I guess, you know, that you could arguably say, well, it's a Jewish book. Sure. And so to kind of make it limitless. Yeah. Kind of changes the sense of the book. Right. So, yeah, I appreciate it. The Net Bible, that's the New English translation. The net Bible translates this, you people. In Texas, they'd say, y'all. You started to say something, Bob, or started reading? Yes. Yes.

I think, you know, one of the things that happens is I noticed like Helmut's got a red letter Bible and I have some too. One of the things that's difficult there, and a reason why a red-letter Bible can possibly mislead, is where does Jesus' explicit words, where does it get cut off? Where does it stop? And where is John explaining as an author of the gospel?

You see that question? You know, Bob's point here, there's a turning point in this thing, and it starts about verse 15 where all of a sudden he goes from conversation with Nicodemus to here's a general statement about the world. I mean, everybody, and by the way, once you start jumping to the use of that word world, you've jumped out of Judaism. Right? You see that? Yeah. I mean, you've jumped out of Judaism because Judaism says, we got it.

So that's a big leap. And it may very well explain why Jesus asked this question right here. And then all of a sudden, two verses later, this whole thing is going out to everybody. And by the time John wrote this, Jews were just jumping out of Israel and the gospel of John was really being in great part addressed to Gentiles as well.

One other thing to make note of here, I want to go back to this if and since thing. The last two pages you've got some additional material on first, second, third class, fourth and fourth class conditions and some explanation as well as on the last page some examples. So that first, second, third and fourth class issue you can take a look at, but I think one of the questions is, is that really an if there, or should it be a since? And I was looking at this from a couple of different standpoints.

In the Wiest translation, because Wiest has gone through and done his own translation of the Holman Testament, Here's how he translates 12 and 13, because it was an issue we were addressing last week. Since I told you concerning the things which have to do with the earth and you are not believing, how is it possible if I tell you about the things which have to do with heaven that you will believe? And no one has ascended into heaven except he who came down out of heaven, the Son of Man. So you see how he does it. He starts off with a sense and then uses the second one as an if.

See that? The next thing that I checked was the Linguistic and Exegetical Key, which is by Rogers and Rogers, and this is one here that I brought before. Folks can take a look at it again if they like. What they do is they go through the entire New Testament and they'll list the Greek word and then give some explanation, not for every word in the Greek New Testament, but a goodly number of them, and frequently they give you some good insights.

Here's what they have for this first word translated if, this is a, and it says if, but the fact of fulfillment is assumed to be fulfilled. And they get that not from that word a, if, but the context because the next verb in there is an aorist that implies that this is a past condition that's already come to pass. Does that make sense? The implication is not from the Greek word translated here, if, but from the subsequent verb. You look like you're questioning or puzzled. Why not simply translate it into English, in terms of the English text, in terms of what's intended? Why should we see if? That's my point. I think there's a problem in the way a lot of translators have brought this across.

And it came up this last Thursday night at the Bible study over at the Doyle's place. Here's a word where they've got the if and the might right there in the 2 Corinthians passage. And I look at it, this is not a maybe deal. This is an in order that. And so I think, frankly, it's something I bring to your attention because as you're going through passages, check that out. Check it out.

I think it's an area where translators have left an uncertainty in there that is unjustified. Sometimes, sometimes, but that's one reason why we're going through this. Our church's doctrinal statement is it's the Greek text that's inspired. What we want to give you here in this class is tools. How do I dig into this? How do I find out what's behind it? Have I really got this sort of dangling sword of maybes and sortas and couldbes and ifs? Or is this thing really saying that this is the case?

So that's where, again, this says if, but it says the fact is assumed to be fulfilled. So it really is saying in the context Not because of the first, second, third class condition of that particular word, A, but because of the verb that's next to it, assuming that it's already fulfilled. He actually has, and so to translate it, if, implies an uncertainty that is not there.

Here is another commentator by the name of Perkins, I think spells it out pretty well. If I spoke to you earthly things, this has really happened. So Perkins is recognizing it too. The Arist indicative of Legault reveals this is an actual past event. Christ has spoken to Nicodemus and others. So here's the you. He has spoken to Nicodemus and others about earthly things. Their response was unbelief, one and all. Nicodemus, the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the Sanhedrin, they have all rejected Christ on the earthly level.

Christ postulates with the aorist subjunctive, this applies a likely outcome to the circumstance. So we have a sense to start it and then this aorist subjunctive then implies this is the probable outcome or a likely outcome. The likely outcome is unbelief. The kind of reasoning here is simple. If the Jewish leadership is unable to believe an easy thing, then how will they ever believe the more difficult? It is like saying, because you could not lift 100 pounds, is it fair to assume that you cannot lift 200 pounds?

Do you see that? As you look at these things, we don't need to just look at the English translation and say, well, that must be what it is. We can look behind it You don't necessarily have to be Greek wizards, but the point is that there are people who have given us some tools. Some of them are bits and pieces kind of tools, like the analytical type things, where you can look at little bits and pieces. And there are others that kind of put it together, and I think Perkins has done the best job I've seen so far in explaining what's happening here.

That there is a certainty in the earthly things that Jesus stated, just like Joanne put out here. There is no question, but Christ has laid these things out. And so Jesus is trying to get Nicodemus to think, you know, if I tell you heavenly things, is that going to make any sense at all to you? Are you going to believe that either? It's like I'm limited in what I can tell you, because what I've told you already is not sinking in.

So it's a sense, not because of that little word A says sense. but it's a sense because of the aorist there. We already know it's a past action, and in fact we can look at prior chapters and other Gospels and see examples of where he's done exactly that. So it isn't an if, it's a sense. And the same thing as we go through a lot of similar kinds of sentence constructions in Paul's letters.

There's an awful lot of things that Paul nails down because in fact What is Paul doing? He's teaching, trying to get people to settle down on certainties and to believe them, not to lay out a bunch of mites and ifs in front of people. He started to say something.

What chance is that second I tell, how if I tell you of everything? Okay, he's basically saying that's an aorist subjunctive, which is that's what the code spells out. Could you I don't see that that is the direction of his statement or his question. Let me expand on your point because you're asking a question that I don't want to get lost on people.

The Greek has the ability to ask a question with the answer built into the question. Case in point, Paul talks about where he goes in 1 Corinthians 12 and says, Do all have the gift of tongues? Do all interpret? Built into the structure of that Greek question is the answer.

No. And is that what you're looking at? Yeah. The Greek is capable of saying that. I don't see that in this question because he's not intending to answer the question so much as to get Nicodemus to think. But you're on to a good point, and that is that Because I have heard of people, for example, coming up to that question, you know, do all have the ability to speak in tongues? And people say, oh, of course. Oh, wait a minute. You look at the Greek structure and it says no in the question. Yeah, to extend that thought a little bit, I mean, in a sense, you began today's lesson with the Aristotelian sense of the way it's found in Scripture.

Yes. I mean, you dealt with these terms. constative and aggressive and culminative. Right. I guess in terms of Joanne's question, is it possible the subjunctive tense is anything more than simply conditional? You understand what I'm saying? Oh yeah, yeah. The subjunctive tense is simply simplified by saying conditional. That means, you know, under these circumstances. Right.

It can be what's called optative. That is, this is the way I would like it to be. So it can carry on additional ADS? Yes, yes, it can. Paul, at various places, I would that you were, you know, and you can think of various places, you know, I would that you would do this. I would like for you, and so he, you can use the subjunctive tense, and again context is going to tell you, but you can use it to say what you would like to be the condition. It's called optative. So that's something to keep in mind in terms of the possibilities that are being laid out in there.

But again, it's like we started several quarters back. Context, context, context is what's going to spell it out. You hear about people doing word studies and certainly don't want to discourage that. But if we lose sight of context, we'll get the pieces lost. Because if we're not careful, the context is what tells us what's going on.

People who manufacture puzzles will frequently use the same puzzle die to cut out the pieces. And you can take pieces from different puzzles and put them together. But when you look at the whole thing, it doesn't make sense, right? Because you've got the same puzzle die, but different puzzle pictures in it.

We can do the same thing here if we're not careful. We're just doing word studies without saying, where does it fit? And have we got the right pieces in this whole thing so that when we're all done, have we got a good picture and not are we scrambling all the puzzle pieces. So that's the case again.

We've got to bring it back to context. Go ahead and do your grammar studies for where does this fit, but recognize that in a great many cases, you've got to go to context to really see what's going on and not just do it sort of piece by piece mechanically.

It also appears that he's changed his approach to it that Jesus did. He's getting off of being born again and getting back down to earthly. Notice one other thing. He twice uses, or used the root, pastel. He gets down to, gotta be born again, gotta be born again. Now what's this verse 12 focus? Two times, belief. Good point. He's been talking about some other things. You've got to be born again. You've got to be born again. And now this is the issue.

Belief. And by the way, belief. If you'll believe this now, or if you won't believe this now, if I tell you other things, will you believe that then? Belief is the issue. And to think about it, what's the Jewish mindset? The Jewish mindset is who am I descended from and what do I got to do? And Jesus is coming back to him. It's a belief issue, and by the way, it's a belief issue.

You see that? It's kind of, too, that this is the way it is, and then it kind of ended the conversation with Nicodemus. Yeah. Well, okay, if you don't believe this, this is the way it is. Yeah, yeah, that's right. Apparently Nicodemus is really thinking now. Yeah. These are forks in the road, aren't they? In other words, it's great to lay all this stuff. Here's all the facts. Here's all the information. You know all this stuff. But bottom line, there's a fork in the road and it's called belief.

If you're not willing to go there, you're not... If you want to get to that next fork in the road, you've got to get to this one. And if you're going to say no here, you're not going to be able to say yes or no to the next one. That's kind of the fork in the road. There's the second fork in the road down there.

This one here is where you've got an issue, Nicodemus. We're going to be looking at verse 14 next. This is a fascinating one because it gets into... I think I've got the right number in my head. It gets into Moses having the serpent, and everybody looks at him. This is underscoring in terms that Nicodemus would certainly understand, what does belief look like? See that? What does belief look like? Real critical, and it's a beautiful picture of what Nicodemus is going to have to believe.

Anyway, neat deal. We've got to stop. Okay? Let's pray. Lord, after looking at all the Greek and all the nuts and bolts here and looking at the technical details, how marvelous a thing. In the end, we must believe. In the end, Lord, we have to place faith and not just intellectual assent. but place faith and confidence and trust in who you are and what you have done and what you're going to do and Just this morning. We just pray that you would teach us every part of that and through your Holy Spirit's work bring that home Lord we pray that the word of Christ would dwell on us richly. We just pray this in Jesus name. Amen