Language I:Word Meanings

Okay, hi. You're in the right place. If anything, I may be in the wrong place. Sorry to disorient you here. So we're in this How to Study the Bible binder, and we're on page 10. One of the key things in this is we introduced earlier the two stages of looking at scripture.

And one is observation. What are we observing about language and history and culture? And those things are objective. And then what does it mean? There's been a situation where somebody looks at a passage and somebody says, well, I think it means this. And somebody else says, well, I think it means that. Or somebody else says, well, I feel like it means this.

What we're trying to do is to get so that we look at it and we say, Scripture was intended to have a particular meaning. And we get around the I feels and I thinks by looking at objectively what does Scripture say. And in truth, those two parts of the process are actually parallel with science in the sense that we're looking for objective, observable things at the outset. And then we're wanting to reach conclusions that make sense based on what we've observed. That's really what we're looking at.

This part we're looking at today on page 10 here is word meanings. And one of the things we have right at the top there in bold italics, the meaning of the word in the context of the passage. Why is it important that I get the word meaning right? Why does that matter?

Because it could mean different things depending on the context. Okay, it could mean different things depending on the context. Okay, so the context could change the meaning. Okay, good. Why else? Okay, yeah, yeah, that's key. To accurately transmit the message. There was an intended meaning originally. We want to know what that meaning was. That's the bottom line. What did God intend to say through the author of Scripture? Whether it's Paul or John or Isaiah or Moses, right? What did God intend to say? So we want to get to the original meaning and context.

Let's take an analogy from English. Suppose I spell out the word B-O-W. What do I mean by that? Well, it depends on the sentence. Oh, what? Depends? Yeah. Oh, okay. Heavens. What does it depend? So that you can understand what the heck you're talking about. Okay, yeah. You know, like I use my bow and arrow. Yeah, that's right, yeah.

And it's interesting that, here's three letters, and without knowing the context, you think, heavens, it could mean so many things, I don't know. But sometimes only one word or two, and Bob hinted at it, is all it takes to tell us what we mean. If I say, bow, and you say, I don't know what kind of bow you're talking about, but if I use the word arrow, all of a sudden, oh, I know what you mean. And all it took is one word to give you the clue, right?

Right, not the bow in your hand. Or the one in the Christmas present. Or as my grandmother used to say, do you have a new bow? Uh-huh. Now here's where you have a sound equivalent, right? Yes, that's right. But in terms of sound equivalent, it sounds the same, right?

Words are hilarious. I mean, really, seriously, they are. Words are just hilarious. Nancy and I live in an apartment. It's not apart from any of them. They're all stuck smack dab together. None of them are apart, but they're apartments. Our language is goofy. We have actors and actresses. We have waiters and waitresses. I don't know how you'd make sense with a butter and a buttress and a batter and a battress. A matter in a mattress?

English is a crazy language, and most languages are a little nuts that way. But when you start looking at this, the meaning of the word in context is key. Some people will get upset because, well, here's a Bible word, and you've translated it this way, but over here you translate it that way, and that bothers them. But the truth is, it's just like in our own language, We use words in different ways. We use words in different ways.

If I say the word bark, what is that? A dog or a tree. It has to do with a dog or a tree. But having to do with a dog, it can be a noun or a verb, right? Because I can talk about a dog has a bark, But I also talk about barking, right? And then I can use it in a figure of speech and it means something else. You can be talking to another person, and we're not talking about dogs, and you can tell them, well, you're barking up the wrong tree. And you're not calling them a dog, but all of a sudden the figure of speech changes the meaning again. So context, context, context, and they probably already told you in here, the three most important things are context, context, and context. Yes, just like in real estate, location, location, location. Okay, so that's a key thing.

Here the example that we start off with in this chapter is the word flesh. When we went through our study of the book of Galatians the word flesh was used a number of times and one of the ways that we see it used is one quoted here in Galatians chapter 1 verses 15 through 17.

But when God who set me apart even from my mother's womb called me through his grace was pleased to reveal his son to me so that I might preach him among the Gentiles. I did not immediately consult with flesh and blood." Now, so there's other passages, it turns out, that use the words together, flesh and blood. You just verbally changed the meaning of that sentence because you said, reveal his son to me instead of him. mm-hmm okay sorry about that yeah it should be in me but here it's just like Bob's previous reference where I used the word bow and all of a sudden there's one word with it arrow all of a sudden oh I know what kind of bow you mean well here this term flesh and blood that set of words tells me, all of a sudden, which meaning of flesh do I have? And that's one you find not only in Paul's writings, but back in Matthew, with Christ using it. Is that a term we continue to use today? Flesh and blood?

I don't get it. I don't get what that means. Okay, let's think about it. What does it mean? It's used here in this passage and was used a few other places. It's not only used as it's used in context here. The Greek term sucks. They are extended rights in a multiplicity of ways.

I mean when we talk about our flesh, I typically talk about that same nature, the old man. But flesh and blood is the physical flesh. It focuses upon the physical side and basically is a term that speaks about other people, right? Well, here's one of the ways, if someone's a relative of mine, I say that person's of my own flesh and blood, right?

That's a way we would use it in our culture, for example. If they were to use a substitute term, he might have said something like, in this one, I did not immediately consult with other people. Or my kin. Or my kin. Right. Right. And so it's talking about other people with an emphasis on the physical side. And it's interesting. Flesh and blood is sort of a summary of anatomy. Right? But that's what the term is talking about. And the words are used together when they're used that way. It's interesting. Paul uses it that way three times. Christ uses it as well. And it's a term that we continue to use. In other passages, Paul uses the word flesh to mean this present human body, which is similar in meaning here.

Here's Galatians 2.20. Here's one where the word flesh pops up. It's the very next chapter. I have been crucified with Christ as no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. And the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself up for me. Here's the same word flesh, translated from the Greek word sarx there, means the sin nature is expressed through the human body, even among believers. That's going into the next chapter there.

Before we get there, Galatians 2.20, when it says, the life I now live in the flesh, what does he mean by that?

Well, the human experience, right? Living in this body. Yeah, right here. Right here in this body, here on this planet. The life I live right here, right on this planet, with this body, that life is lived out by faith. That's what he's saying. What I, Paul, do in this body that I have right now, I live by faith in the Son of God. so it has a slightly different meaning than the flesh and blood. Here's the next one and now here he uses the word flesh in a different way and this is the sin nature is expressed through the human body that's the way he uses it in chapters five and six so notice as we step through the book of Galatians we start to see a different usage and now here in five and six he uses it just about uniformly for the sin nature is expressed through the human body. Someone like to read that for us, that's verse 16 through the end there.

Go ahead, thank you. But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh. For the flesh sets its desire against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh. For these are in opposition to one another, so that you may not do the things that you please. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. Now the deeds of the flesh are evident, which are immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissensions, factions, envy, and drunkenness, carousing, and things like these, of which I forewarn you, just as I forewarned you, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such things there is no law. Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit. Let us not become boastful, challenging one another, and being wanted.

Okay, thank you Margaret. As you look in here, he's used the word flesh several times, hasn't he? But he's used it, at least in this passage that Margaret read for us, he's used it consistently. He's meant the same thing by the word flesh in that context. Would it change the meaning if we understood flesh to mean the same thing we read there in chapter 1? Would it mean something different? If you put can in there, that wouldn't make any sense. If I said the desire of the flesh when it means flesh and blood like just means other people? No, that's not the same meaning, is it?

This is explicitly in this chapter 5 and on into chapter 6, explicitly meaning the sin nature is expressed through the human body. So each context, same word, each context has a different meaning and that's why it's important to pick up on that. What do you mean which word?

The flesh is weak? Oh, the Greek word behind it is sarx. Yes, still sarx. And all these is sarx. Yes, and in fact we'll get to that on the next page because what's amazing is that that word sarx, there's four Greek letters and the word flesh is the way it's usually translated. Only five letters in English, and yet the meaning is, there's a lot of different meanings depending on the context, right? Yes, right. It gives you the character of it, right? But it's the same word. Yeah, right. Yeah, yeah.

And those who practice those things will not inherit the Kingdom of God. Okay, but all of these things we have in us and we often screw up. So, you know, then you ask God to forgive you. Will He then forgive you or will you be forever doomed? You're already forgiven. If you believe in Him, right? That's right. If you're in Him, you're already forgiven.

What is interesting is that when each time Paul has these lists of different sins, and they can be sins that are things that are more attitudinal, or sentiment, envy, jealousy, or they can be things very external. But no matter how they're listed, it's interesting that each time he has these lists, and it shows up in a few books, and this is one of them. He talks to the church at Corinth this way, the church at Galatia this way and he says the same thing to the church at Ephesus Each time he gives those lists He says those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God now key thing for us to take a look at One is is that that doing is a continual locked in habitual practice coming from the person to central nature Okay, he's warning them not that the believer is going to lose their salvation if they fall into this.

But he's saying those who are doing that of a locked-in character out of their purely unredeemed nature aren't going to get there. He's telling them, that's not your character. He's not telling them you can't fall into it. But he's saying that's not your character, you're not locked into it. He says don't be like those who are not going to inherit. first part of Pulse of Pisces, he really declares convincingly who we are in Christ.

Yes. It's positional truth. And then the second half in Ephesus and Galatians are good examples. That's what the life looked like. Yes. Yeah. And so this contrast that we see is sort of a contrast between that sinful nature, old life, flesh, slush, unsaved, unforgiven man. And then the Christ life, which is in total contrast to this way of existence. That doesn't mean we don't all have envy at times, and aren't angry at times, and don't lust at times. All these are part of that nature that's intrinsically the old man or the sinful nature in us.

But the neat thing is God sees us, I mean, if you start victoriously and you end victoriously, because when we do fall short of His glory, you confess and you get back into position where we're at already, right? And that's the beauty. It's a wonderful thing. And Christians have this phenomenal comfort and assurance.

1 Corinthians is one of the books that has this same kind of list and says, those who do such things won't inherit the kingdom. Right after Paul says hello to these Corinthians, and this is a church with a lot of trouble, right after he says hello to them in the first chapter, before he says anything about do this, don't do that, he says, I'm writing to you who are sanctified, and he uses that word sanctified in the perfect tense. What does he mean by that? You have been made holy and set aside completely, permanently. So it isn't a threat, boy, if you fall into these sins, you're going to lose your salvation. He's already told them before he wrote that, you're completely and totally sanctified before you even get to the problems you've got, and you've got a lot of them. And so he tells them that with great assurance.

In chapter 3 he talks about people who will be rewarded. He says some will have wood hands double and what they have done will be burned away. Others will have gold, silver, and precious stones and it's rewardable. But at the end of that passage he describes some will come through heaven's gates with basically no reward at all. But they'll be saved. And the way I kind of paraphrase that is they'll get to heaven's gates naked and smoking.

They saved us by fire is the way he puts it. Not much to save for it, but still redeemed. Not much to save for it, but still saved. So in no way is he putting that there is a threat. He's just saying, look, you have been completely sanctified. You'll be rewarded for everything that's done in trust and dependence upon the Lord.

But he's just saying, these things that are on this list, that's for those people who are locked into the flesh. And that's not you. So don't join into that, because that's not your character. The character you have is that of Christ. So that's what he's laying that out for. Does that help? We hope so. Okay. Alright, let's turn to page 11.

What we did right here in this first page, on page 10, is we looked at several different passages, and without looking anything up in any other reference, we were able to see, oh, those words are used in different ways. The same word is used in different ways. And we could simply read the difference in the English. Sometimes it may not be quite as clear just from reading the English, and it may be more helpful to look something up. For that, we give a couple of recommendations or a few recommendations.

What we have here is in Vines, Expository Dictionary, and I don't have a printed copy of that because the one I use is on the computer. And I also give a website where that's available. You can use that. Another one, the Complete Word Study Bible. The third one is also available as software, as well as in print. And I can't show you that either, because what I have is software. But the middle one, Mounce's Complete Expository Dictionary of Old and New Testament Words, is this one. It was only made available last year.

It's sort of an updated Vine, which is probably the best way to describe it. Define it. I think it is because particularly one of the things that helps us is it looks again at context, perhaps a little bit more than Vines does. Yeah. So that's where it can be helpful. And that's available by software. This one, so far, I haven't seen it as software. But anyway, that is in print as of last year when they first released it. So those are a few you can take a look at. I've got a few others that I use from time to time. So you can look up meanings if reading the context doesn't clarify it. So you can look things up in some of these references here.

Either printed books, those three that we have listed there, all three available in print. And the first and the third are available as software as well. Vines is one that's in the public domain, and so that one you'll frequently see even online. And we give one link, but there's a number of places where it's available.

It can be helpful particularly if you can't quite figure it out from just reading the English. It can be also helpful if there's some peculiarity of the culture or historical background that makes a difference. And we'll be taking a look at one of those instances here shortly. From the middle of page 11 on to the bottom of page 12, is more detailed than I want us to take the time to sort through right now.

OK, but the idea there is here for the word sarks. And this is this is from the complete word study Bible, which is the third one you see bulleted there in the list. you have a page and a half of definition for this word, sarx, given mostly in context.

And notice the different possible meanings. In big Roman numerals, you've got one, two, on that first page, and then three. So there's three major definitions, and for the second one, there are three possible sub-definitions. You see that? So you've got quite a bit of additional help to try to figure out what it means in a specific context.

Something else we've done in there is to underline in bold the passages in Galatians. So that's something else you notice is, well, we went to the first chapter, and the second chapter, and the fifth chapter, and a few passages. There's others in chapters three and four and chapter six. that we didn't mention. So actually, each chapter has a use of the word sarks and they're not all the same. So this can help you sort it out, particularly where just reading the English doesn't make it clear. And frankly, it goes into more detail than I want us to get caught up in here.

But other than to say that there's lots of additional definition in each one of these categories for just even the book of Galatians itself. Something else that it can be helpful is where you've got, you know, synonyms, antonyms, words that are related. That's where it has at the bottom of page 12, D-E-R-I-V, short for derivative or derived. So you can really get into some detail here, but the point being that you notice that this is something they can give quite a bit of explanation about, and it's not a, well, I think it means this.

I feel like it's saying this to me. It's not something subjective, but rather something objective. I can look at it and say, OK, I think I understand it. How about you? Have you checked this out? What do you think? Think after you've taken a look at that. Is it clear to you?

OK, yeah. And so there's objectivity rather than just sort of, well, I kind of feel like I think. That's amazing, all the meanings of this word. Yes, yeah. You can apply it to many different situations. And that's why, you know, we need to be careful, and also just the one-size-fits-all answer doesn't work, right? Okay, let's move on to page 13. A few cautions and clarifications of what we have there.

How many of you have looked something up or heard of or seen something in the Strong's definition? Strong's number or Strong's definition? It can be useful, but one of the things about the Strong's numbers and definitions is they're not context specific.

They don't give you the context. So notice here we've got on the bottom half of page 11 and all of page 12, we've got all this detail about what it means in the context. It turned to Strong's and it's all summarized in half a line, okay? You don't get the context detail.

So Strong's isn't wrong, it's just not very specific. So that's just, it's something to look at in terms of, you know, if somebody says, well, the Strong's definition is this. Okay, that's good so far as it goes. But specifically, what does it mean in context?

In the middle of that page, on page 13, we have this paragraph that starts off, additionally, one should be cautious about assuming that an English word that is derived from the Greek word that's there in the Bible automatically gives us the right insight into the meaning. The example we have here is the Greek word dunamos and its related word dunameo, the verb. The word translated power in many contexts is translated power and is in fact the source of the English word dynamite.

Now, so does that mean that Paul intends that you explode? Or that the power that we demonstrate somehow be explosive? Or necessarily even impressive? Not so much. jumping to the idea, oh, well, that is the source of our English word here, so it means the same thing. Well, not necessarily. Because sometimes our English word has had quite a bit of change in the way we've used it. Here's a quick one.

Different words for life in Greek. One of them is bios. We get our word biology, right? And another one is Zaos, and this is one used for our word zoology. Zoology. Now, what's the difference between biology and zoology? People and animals. Typically, biology has to do with, actually it can include animals, it can include plants, biology includes plants, right? Zoology, we say, well that includes animals. Well, the Greek word that's the root for zoology actually has more to do with spiritual and soul life.

So here's a distinction where, you know, we think, all right, this is all about zoos, right? No. Where in fact, if he uses not the bios kind of life, but the word where we get our word zoo or zoology, well he's talking about spiritual or soul life. So the jumping to the English meaning that comes from that could lead you to the wrong conclusion. So if we have Christ's life, it's not bios life, right? And it's not zoo life either. It's not about animals. This is spiritual or soul life from Christ. That's what he's talking about.

There will also be some other things to watch out for. Occasionally you will run into a word that in the original Greek usage, it has a different meaning than Christians attached to it. And one of them that we point to here is the word grace. The Christians expanded the meaning of the word grace, charis, because originally grace was a favor you did for somebody without any expectation of return who was a friend or a relative. Now, does God show us grace just because we're friends or relatives? No. Yes, but what happens is we become related to Him because he has shown grace when we weren't friends. He has shown grace and mercy on top of that when we weren't relatives or friends or anybody that even had any favorable relationship with him.

So the Christians took that word and expanded it. They grew it to take on a bigger significance than the word had originally. He gave us grace even when we didn't believe. While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us, right? While we were enemies. While we were, as Ephesians 2 puts it, sons of disobedience.

So this is super grace. This is grace beyond what the people in the language would have understood. So sometimes Christians took the words that were there, and if you look up in some lexicon of pagan literature about that same Greek word, they would not have used it in quite the same way. Grace is something that's just been expanded to the max.

In fact, it's so phenomenal, there's Ephesians 2.7, it will take all of eternity, rolling ages, for him to reveal His glory and His grace to us. It's that big. It's no longer, here's a favor I do for my friend. Here's something I do because you're my relative. But while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. And with a grace so phenomenal that eternity is not enough time.

That's real different, isn't it? There's one other, I think, and this is a wonderful thing. There's something else, and that's that what translators will try to do, and this is one of the reasons for looking up a word, and sometimes we've got to dig pretty deep. What they'll try to do, because the publishers are telling them, look, you can't use 20 words to translate this English word.

So one of the crops up there in the New Testament To Romans, to Galatians, and to the Ephesians, Paul used the phrase adoption of sons. And by the way, each of those three churches is A church that has a significant Roman influence. Obviously the church in Rome has Roman influence. Ephesus was the territorial capital that had a Roman governor there and 3,000 Roman soldiers stationed there. Galatia had about four cities, two of those were Roman colonies. So lots of Roman influence there. Those are the places with lots of Roman influence where he chose to use this word adoption. Adoption of sons particularly.

And he didn't use it elsewhere. So real interesting. But he used it with those who had that understanding. Let's turn to page 14. This Galatians 4 passage that we've been Of course, we've been drawing from Galatians all along here, haven't we? But Galatians 4 is one of those places where he uses it. And he makes reference to adoption of sons. This adoption of sons means son position. And this is a phenomenal one.

In Roman law, an adopted son, and we have this here in the slide here on the left, the adopted son had a position better than any natural-born son. The privileges gained by adoption of sons could not be reversed, could not be lost, which is also something else that tells us that our salvation is assured. It's just one more way. Your salvation is assured. The privileges gain through adoption of sons could not be lost. And there's better than a natural born son. Once a man had an adopted son in place, if a natural son was born afterwards, the natural son could not displace the privileges of the adopted son. It's like it doesn't get any better than this. A full heir, irreversible, the adopted son was legally severed from any prior sonship.

Remember Ephesians 2, I think it's about verse 3? Sons of disobedience is where we were. But now, having believed we're adopted as sons, that prior sonship, sons of disobedience, you're severed from that. You're not a part of that anymore. Now look at the consequences under Roman law.

Number one, The adopted son lost all rights in his old family and gained more rights than a fully legitimate son in his new family. So his connection to the old family was lost. He gained all these rights under the new family. The second one, he became an heir to his new father's estate even if other sons were born afterwards. You're an heir locked in. You get maximum privileges, untouchable, can't be reversed, can't be lost. Okay, we're not done.

The old life of the adopted son was completely wiped out, so the adopted son was regarded as a new person entering into a new life. If that adopted son had any debts of any magnitude or number, they were all wiped out. You could be piled so high that you're never going to pay it off and it's all gone. All debts completely wiped out. Furthermore, if the adopted son had committed any crimes of any magnitude or number, they were all erased and of no effect. No debts, no crimes carry over into this new adoption.

What I don't have here is the adoption of son proceeding was carried out in front of seven witnesses and it had to be approved at a high level. It was initiated by the Roman emperors and during biblical times most of the Roman emperors that reigned during New Testament times were emperors according to this adoption of son procedure and it was approved by the entire Roman Senate. So what this meant is the adoption of son process had high-level approval. So when Paul says we have the adoption of sons, he's saying this has top-level approval. God in all of heaven says, yes, this is approved.

And then you get to the last one. The adopted son was literally and absolutely the son of his new father. It doesn't get any better than that. So when these guys said, we have adoption of sons, they were practically somewhere between tears of joy and jumping up and down with excitement. This was phenomenal. Everything I've ever done, no matter how bad and how many, gone. Any prior debts, no matter how high they're piled up, erased. And it can never be wiped out. It's wonderful.

Oh, Dwight, I'd have to take a look at that. Because actually one of the things we'll be getting into later is the culture. Some of this is explained in some of these references, but there's also references about the culture. But so that's where my point being that if you have an English word, you know, we think of adoption, what do we think of? We say, oh, this is a nice little baby, and I'm going to adopt this baby.

But we don't understand what, when these people read this, man, they were either overjoyed and to tears or jumping up and down with excitement. I can imagine these people hearing this being read and they say, wait, stop, you mean to tell me? And imagine some guy that was born a slave. Imagine some guy that, you know, he knew what he'd done. And he's thinking, adoption of sons. That's phenomenal. That's just mind-boggling. It's like if we believe, right? We believe everything is erased. That's right. I mean, this is astounding stuff.

And isn't it also true that in the Roman culture, a real son, a birth son, could be sold into slavery. If a father was upset with what the son had done or he was a ne'er-do-well, He could sell that son into slavery, but adopted sons could never be sold. That's right. Did you hear that? You could sell a born son into slavery, but not an adopted son. One more thing. In the Roman Empire, it was legal for a father to kill his son at any age. But he could not kill an adopted son.

So this is amazing stuff. This is phenomenal, amazing stuff. And this assurance not only gives us what phenomenal privilege we have as believers, but also what assurance in terms of, you know, if we feel like, boy, my salvation is hanging on by fingernails. No, that's not the impression you're getting from this at all. What it's saying is, basically, no way. You're not losing this. You have phenomenal privilege.

And that's why for those churches where the people understood it because of their Roman background, because this was Roman law, where the people understood it, he used the term and told them to each of those groups with significant Roman influence, you have adoption of sons. And those people, all the way down to the ones that are slaves in Caesar's court, Yeah.

Yeah. Margaret, I got to be in Rome next Sunday. Ah, phenomenal. Yes. Next Sunday we're there. But what I was going to say is this is that before God, we're all adopted sons. That's right. Live, born, you know, from the womb of our mother. That's right. All adopted. So that's right. If you took Roman law to its extreme before God, we can never be separated. That's right. And that's the neat thing. This isn't like certain ones in the church. It's not like everybody's coming to church and people are looking over and, see that guy? He has adoption of sons. I sure wish I had that. It's not that way, is it? This is every single one of us.

If you believe, and it doesn't matter your worldly standing, it doesn't matter at all. If you believe, that's it. You have this phenomenal privilege and it is untouchable. And it is incorruptible. You can't mess it up. Because none of us are natural born. We can't be sold or given. That's right. That's right. Our privilege is as secure as the Lord of the universe can make it. And that's absolutely secure. Where our privilege is astounding and phenomenal.

And so that's where, as we look up words, Keep your eye open for this, that there may be some tremendous potency in it. Here's just one word, which if you didn't look it up, you'd say, oh, adoption, that's cute. I like little babies and all that. And, you know, it's nice as it is. But this, he's trying to get across something. that is just astounding. And it's a wonderful thing to learn and to know about and to have the sense of, oh, that's what that means. It makes the whole passage come alive.

And here's the deal. What we want to do is to understand Scriptures the way the original authors intended and the way the original readers read it. And so that's our intent here. And we look at, here's this verse 5 in chapter 4, the adoption of sons, it'd be really easy for us to say, oh, that's nice, and then just move on.

Instead of saying, whoa, stop reading here, I've got to soak this up, I've got to ponder this, because what he told them was so potent, so phenomenal, I'm quite certain that many were blown away at how amazing this was. How phenomenal. So I think that's one of the things that's neat about what I have to present here in this chapter. The riches are great. In looking these words up, it's not just an academic exercise. There are some phenomenal, wonderful insights to be gained from Scripture. And here's something else. Adoption of sons. Once I look it up, now it's good for three books. I got Romans. I've got Galatians, I've got Ephesians.

So once I learn the truth, I don't just use it one place, I use it three places. So that's another thing that's potent about these, is once you learn a truth and gain an insight, you can frequently use it numerous times. And so that gives you kind of a leverage and a depth. utility so this isn't just academic this isn't just let's look up the words because that's what they're supposed to but this has got wonderful treasures I know that I know that have always been unsure of their salvation mm-hmm and how there's no way it can ever change that position yeah And I pointed these verses out to them about how this was Roman law because we've learned it here and we've been taught this before. This was so eye-opening to these people who are being taught in other churches that their salvation is maybe not so secure. So when you read this, and like you say, in three books where Paul talks about it pretty emphatically, You can't dispute this once you understand that. Oh, it's rock solid. It's rock solid, yeah.

But the focus of our faith must be on who we are. That's right. Not what we do. That's right. And that's exactly what this is. He's telling you, you people have problems with what you do. But you've got no problem with who you are. Isn't that wonderful? Yeah. That's right. By grace alone. By grace alone. Yep. It is wonderful. Yeah. Yeah. among others. Yeah, yeah, that's exactly right. Isn't it wonderful? It's a tremendous truth.

So anyway, I would encourage you with this again, not just for, you know, a bunch of kind of dull academic churning. OK, that's not so good. Certainly we underscore that this is objective. So it isn't just I guess this and I hope that and I think this and I feel this way. Certainly it's objective, but on the other hand, this does not stay in the realm of the mundane and earthly, but this is lofty, wonderful stuff. Great assurance. And this is exciting stuff, no doubt. No doubt. Tremendous depth in this. So I just encourage you along that line. And with that, we'll We'll call it a close here and on to the next thing, and I probably won't be the one to follow through on that.

Let's pray, okay? Lord, thank you for the riches that you've placed in your word, and Lord, what an incomparable hope we have. Not an I-hope-so hope, not a that-would-sure-be-nice, but a hope that is certain, a hope, Lord, will be fulfilled on the moment that day when we see you face to face. We pray it today. In Jesus name, Amen.