How to Study the Bible III - Introductory New Testament Greek VI
Craig Kaes · Feb 21, 2016
How to Study Bible (2016), No. 08
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/4926528351230

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

I did some reworking of the material from when I taught this last time. We were originally slated to review on verbs and review on pronunciation, but I think it's more important to use some of that time to tie back some of what we're learning in the scriptures so that You guys can see just vividly.

We've been putting tools into our tool bag. Why are we doing this? If we go too many weeks without coming back to scripture, it's going to start seeming very abstract. Why are we going through all this bother? We're going to look at a couple passages.

On the English side, we'll hit pronouns, and then we'll see what those look like in Greek. When we do hit the pronouns, we're going to go through all the different types. It's not important that you remember every single different type of pronoun. But it's useful to see, given these types of pronouns, what do you express with them, and then look at an overview of scripture and see which ones get used the most, because there's a key insight that I think is neat to look at there.

So we'll start with review. OK, verbs. So verbs within the Greek language have a lot more stuff to them than they do within English. So we get this whole mood and voice that we don't really get so much within English. And we pick up a couple extra tenses. So I think we've covered this once, and we've reviewed once. So this time, I'm looking for it to be a little bit more interactive. So let's talk about mood. What does mood tell us about the birth? It's relationship to reality. Mood is the relationship between what's being expressed to reality.

And so on the list that we've got up there, we go from the most real, the most concrete, to the least real, the most abstract. And so indicative ends up just being, you know what, this is being presented as fact. Whether it is or not, it's being presented as fact. How do we know that it's not necessarily fact and true? someone could believe it's true without it actually being true or they could be lying.

Yep, either one of those cases is exactly right. Okay, so subjunctive now we've gone from stating this is fact to we've taken one step to the side of reality and now we're talking about what should be, what could be. With optative we're getting even further away and we're saying well That was fact. This was should be. This is might be, could possibly be.

Optitive and subjunctive are the tenses that you're going to see when somebody wants to very emphatically negate something. So you're getting away from that is not true to that couldn't be true. to there's no possible way that could be true. And so you see how we're getting stronger and stronger in the negation as we move across. Paul used meganeto, which is optative negation. It couldn't possibly be 15 times in the New Testament. So very emphatically, no possible way. One example. is, should we sin so that grace may abound? It couldn't possibly be that way. Nope.

Alright, so then we get all the way over here, and now we're totally removed from reality. And that is because we've given an imperative. I've asked you to do something, who knows whether you're going to listen to me or not. So imperative says, do this. If you're telling your kid, go clean your room, might happen.

So tense. We have present tense, which within Greek, the default translation is continuous action right now. So it's not, I walk to the store. It is, I am walking to the store, would be sort of the translation that you would use. So you see that continuous motion when you see Jesus said, My sheep know me, and they hear my voice, and I give life to them. That give life is present tense. A more accurate translation would be, I am constantly giving life to them. It has more force.

Imperfect tense is your traditional past tense, that is continuous action in the past. So again, using our walking example, it was, I was walking to the store. So it's not, I walked to the store. I was walking to the store. So you have that continuous action in the past.

Perfect tense. Actually, let me skip forward to heiress. Aorist is a summary view of something. When it's used in the indicative mood, that's what's giving you your traditional past tense. So I walked to the store, you would say that in Aorist, is what you would use for that. OK, perfect and pluperfect. So perfect is, you've got something that happened in the past, and that thing's done.

Christ died down on the cross for our sins. OK, done deal. But there is this ongoing. benefits or consequences of that action that occur into the present and on into the future. So that's present. Sorry, that's perfect. Pluperfect is you've got something that happened in the past, and that's done. And that had ongoing consequences, but they're done too. So it's all going on in the past. And future, we know what a future tense is. All right.

Voice talks about the relationship of the subject to the action that's going on in the verb. And so active means the subject is just doing whatever that thing is. Passive means whatever that thing is, is being done to the subject. Middle means the subject is somehow intimately involved.

Maybe doing it to themselves. Maybe you just want to express intensely that they're swept up in whatever this action is. But that's what those work out to be. And of course, we have person and number. So let's tie some of this back. So putting it together. So I grabbed the King James because it's It's the best one that I could find to make this point.

So, Ephesians 5.22, King James Version says, Why submit yourselves unto your own husbands as unto the Lord.

Okay, this sounds like command sort of thing, something we're supposed to do. So, a couple questions about submit in this verse. Without going and looking at the Greek, what mood do you think it would be? Is it imperative or is it subjunctive? Sounds imperative. So is it saying wives you should submit yourselves or is it saying wives get busy and do this thing? Get busy and do it. So you'd guess imperative. So we'll talk about that at the back of our mind. We've got this guess. Guess is imperative.

Voice. How would you put subjunctive? Subjunctive would be possibility or probability, so why you should submit yourselves versus just full on do it. Could be subjunctive. I mean, to express the same thing. All right, voice. You guys think that's active, middle, or passive? Okay, so we've got active and we've got middle. For those who said middle, why middle?

Okay, so the wives are somehow benefiting from submitting themselves, so we'd like to put that in. I just look at this verse. I've given you a tiny little snippet. I have one verse. The verse says, Submit yourselves unto your husbands. I wonder what that submitting looks like. I like chocolate pies. So I can tell Crystal, I want a chocolate pie. And then whatever she's doing at that moment, she just says very clearly it's an imperative. She needs to drop it and go. We've got some nods, people like that arrangement.

So let's look at what's actually in the Greek here, and then we'll know which it is. So in the Greek, and I'm giving you parse codes down below, so the D in the front means it's a definite article, N in front means it's a noun, A means it's an adjective, and CS, that's a subordinating conjunction. So we have wives to their husbands as to the Lord. We're submit. She says, wives to their husbands as to the Lord.

So now context becomes important in understanding scripture. So we can't just look at a verse in isolation, we need to look at what's being said in the larger block. That's a very good point. What we're going to find, and we're going to come back to this verse, and come back to this verse, and come back to this verse over the next few weeks and months, we do have to expand out and look at more scripture.

What's interesting, we're not there yet, we'll come back after we've talked about participles. That mention of submit may not actually be a do thing. It may actually be a description thing. So let's play a game. Based on Ephesians 5.22, we're going to play a game. The game is called Find Verbs That Fit for X, just to sort of reinforce our need to look at context and get a bigger view of scripture. So here we've got wives, something, to their husbands as to the Lord.

So, submit. That would be a fine thing to do. What else would be fine there? Honor. Okay, so maybe honor. Honor, give honor to your husbands as to the Lord. Respect. Respect, love. How about sing? Would sing be okay? Yeah, we're just singing praises to the Lord. I like to be sung too, so maybe that's what this verse is actually saying. Crystal needs to sing to me more. Give. Give. Okay. Yeah. Give. Depending upon where you fall on the covenant line, tithe. It'd be good for our wives to pay us a little bit. That'd be fine. Speak. Speak. Yeah. Sure. Lots of things are going to fit. Okay.

So I'm giving you guys a homework assignment. and at least one of you has a very good idea of where to go hunting, use blueletterbible.org. So you're going to use one of the tools that we've learned about and go hunting and find out where this event is coming from, because it sure isn't in 522. Homework assignment. Is it important to know the Greek?

Here's another example. So Ephesians 1, 18 through 19. I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you will know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance to the saints, and what is the surpassing greatness of His power toward us who believe. These are in accordance with the working of His strength and of His might. And we don't say things like this to one another.

And so I'm scratching my head here, and I'm wondering what this actually means. So Paul would very much like for me to know the surpassing greatness of his power toward us. So what is power toward us? What is that? Power, like directionally at us or something. It's a little odd, right?

There are four words for power in the New Testament. One very cool thing is we get all four of them, actually, in this passage. So one of them is translated power, another one is working, another one is strength, and another one is might, and they're all different aspects of this power. Power in this case, so this power that's toward us somehow, I'm not sure what that's like, means ability. Capability is power in action. So it turns out God is actually able to do all things. So it's talking about that ability to actually accomplish his goals. So we've got this ability to capture and accomplished goals, and now that's like shooting at us somehow with this tort.

I still don't fully understand it. So we look at the word that's being translated as tort. The word that's being translated is ice. Ice is a preposition. We covered prepositions last week, so we know things. Ice, it turns out, is much, much, much more commonly translated into. than Tord. It's almost never translated as Tord. That's different, isn't it? So let's talk about what those differences look like. So first thing, Tord, you get this notion of directionality.

So God has some sort of power and ability to accomplish his goals and that comes toward us and so it's shooting over, but We don't know where it lands. Somewhere in between. It's coming in our direction. So, with this power shooting toward us, does that give us the ability, the capability to live that Christian life?

It's sort of floating out there. Into. Into is a little different. Into means comes out of and comes all the way into us. That makes more sense in the context, especially since in chapter 2, just around the corner from here, we're going to find out that we were formerly dead in our trespasses and sins. Dead in our trespasses and sins looks like this. We can't do anything. There's no ability, there's no power.

But God, through the surpassing riches of his grace, which he loved us, made us alive together with Christ. Does alive together with Christ seem like power came somewhere near us, but then stopped, but maybe it's still directionally coming toward us? Or does alive together with Christ look more like this power and this ability that's inside of us?

Prepositions matter. ICE is INTO. So it's these sorts of insights that are available to us as we start getting more and more tools within that tool bag. So why do the translators translate as TORDS? I don't have that answer. You don't know the mind? I don't. The heart is desperately wicked, who can know it but God. Alright, so, cliffhanger.

This should excite you a little bit. So I pointed out one insight that we're able to get from the Greek looking at power toward us. We're going to come back to this passage throughout this year, and there are insights that are littered throughout this verse, and we are going to hit every single one of those. So as we get more tools in our toolbox, we're going to be able to come back and look at this and get a richer understanding of what scripture is actually saying. Can we gain insight into the us part of this? How it got into us or why it got into us?

Not from this verse, but yes, throughout scripture, absolutely. Right, but not this verse. Correct. But just as little spoilers, it turns out I Pray is not there. Maybe Enlightened sounds like it's something he's really wishing for. Turns out that's already happened. So there's a lot of insight to be gleaned from this. I've memorized that verse, and I've puzzled over it for quite a while. I memorized it a few years ago, maybe a couple of years ago.

But I just didn't really understand what he was saying, but just understanding his power into us makes a whole lot more sense than power toward us. It's amazing that the God of the universe loved us so much that he made us alive together with Christ, that it was not his expectation that we try really hard in our own might to fight off the sin nature and live the Christian life. He just enabled us to do that, because he knew that was impossible for us. Because Power Tor does means, okay, I need to grab onto this and access that power and...

Catch it before it gets over your head. Yeah, I'm dead in my stems, you know, and I can't do that. No, you really can't. So there's our cliffhanger. We will be coming back to this. Once we get past participles, a lot of this is going to unlock for us. And that's where we're really going to be able to get good insights into that whole submission thing. All right. English. So hopefully you've now seen. There's a reason why we're learning these nitty gritty details. And now we're going to go learn nitty gritty details.

Pronouns take the place of a noun. They're placeholders. They sit in there. The noun that they're sitting in place of is called the antecedent. And so as an example, when Vern sings like Bob Dylan, he makes us laugh. He is standing in place for Vern. It's going to be very weird if we take pronouns, we throw them out. People sound funny when you do that. So they tell a story and they mention somebody by name 42 times during that, you're like, that person's a name dropper.

An antecedent is not required. So if I say everyone here is learning, I didn't have to talk about the class at some point in the past for us to understand what I'm talking about. So that antecedent can be implied. So pronouns act the same as any noun. So they can sit in and function as any noun would.

So going back to our tale of Mr. Morton, Pearl replied in the afternoon. How did she reply? She replied by note. What's she functioning as there? The antecedent is Pearl, so she is standing in place of Pearl. Is she the subject, the direct object, the indirect object? She's the subject. Subject, because she's the one who's doing the replying.

Next one, when Evie sees red pandas, they lick her. OK, so in the previous sentence, red pandas, that's our direct object. That's what Evie is seeing. But in the next sentence, they refers to red pandas. They are the subject. No problem with that whatsoever. When Evie sees those red pandas, they like her. So in this case, in the first sentence, it is our subject. She's the one who's seen. In the second sentence, they're licking her. She's the recipient. She's the direct object of that licking.

Make sense? So the pronoun can sit anywhere within that sentence. It doesn't matter how the noun was used in the previous sentence. So it tickles when they do that to her. In this particular case, the they do that to her. So they is our subject. That is our direct object. Her is our indirect object. She's the beneficiary of that action that's going on. So we've seen a pronoun, regardless of how the noun was used before, function as a subject, as an indirect object, and as a direct object. And the next sentence down, Crystal likes our new car, Hope. Yes? Can I go back to it tickles when they do that to her? Because you said that is the direct object because that is the pointer to tickles and... I got lost. Yes. Okay. Actually, that is the pointer to tickles. Thank you.

Yeah, so Crystal's pointing out that there's a pronoun that I didn't bold, which is that. Turns out that is a pronoun. And that's antecedent is tickles. So it's pointing back, actually, to a verb, which is interesting. Anyway, so when I say Crystal likes our new car, Hope, our is functioning adjectivally, right? It's describing that car. showing ownership. So somewhat abstract slide.

The thing that you take away from this is a noun is going to function somewhere within a sentence. Later on, you've got a pronoun that's going to refer back to that noun, and they can also function anywhere in the sentence. It's not dependent upon how that noun was being used.

It's going to matter in a moment. It's tucked up away in the back of your head. When we come back around to it, you're going to understand why that matters. Questions? You just have to figure out what the antecedent is. Yes. And it's not really obvious all the time, but it is kind of obvious.

It doesn't refer back to the noun or the direct object necessarily. I see what you're saying. It can refer to anywhere in the sentence. It can refer to anywhere in the sentence, but it is going to refer back to a noun. I think of them as trackers. You think of them as what? Pronouns as trackers. They mark and they track the points, the subjects, and what's happening. Okay.

Let's talk about different types of pronouns. And it's not important that you remember all of the nitty gritties and what all of these things are called. But it is important to understand the different ways that pronouns can be used and how they mark themselves. So personal pronouns are these things that talk about us, about the persons, the peoples. Demonstrative pronouns are used to point things out. There's this one and that one, these and those.

Interrogative. If you want to interrogate somebody, you would use interrogatives. And so, who are you and where were you last Friday night? It's very important that you point when you interrogate. It's more effective somehow. Indefinite articles. Indefinite pronouns are pronouns that just sort of vaguely specify something. Anyone, someone. Reflexive pronouns, point back. Intensive pronouns, oh look, they're the exact same as the reflexive pronouns.

So we'll look at examples of how you pull those guys apart. Reciprocal pronouns talk about collaboration, working within a group. By the way, we've got a slide on each one of these. That's why I'm blazing through them so quickly. And relative pronouns. These are the ones that we're really going to spend some time on.

Relative pronouns are great because they give you a description about what's going on. They give you more context. So personal pronouns. are used to designate the person who's speaking, the person being spoken to. Again, it can be used anywhere in the sentence, but it's talking about people.

And so as an example, John testified saying, I've seen the spirit descending as a dove out of heaven, and he remained upon him. I did not recognize him, but he who sent me baptized as in water said to me, he upon whom you see the Spirit descending and remaining upon him. This is the one who baptizes in the Holy Spirit. And the thing that's amazing about this to me is we've got he and him.

That's all that we've got in here for personal pronouns. I guess there's a me that I didn't highlight. But all these he's and him's, who's being discussed here? So he is... Jesus. Jesus. He is... The Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit. He is... Jesus in Him. Yes, so you've got he, Holy Spirit, remained upon him, Jesus. I did not recognize him, Jesus. But he who sent me that's God the Father, said to me, He, upon whom you see the Spirit descending, Jesus, remaining upon Him, Jesus.

And we have no problems disambiguating that. We read through that and we're like, totally, that He is this one and He is that one. It's because we've got the context. We can match those antecedents up. We're really good at this. So when you get into the mechanics of it, you're like, oh, how am I ever going to map these up? Remember, we're really good at this. Humans are pattern matchers. God made us that way so that we can see meaning.

Demonstrative pronouns. Demonstrative pronouns are great because they talk about relationship between relationship to the thing, whether it's something that's near or it's something that's far away. So demonstrative pronoun comes in two categories. You've got near demonstrative, you've got far demonstrative. Near, these are these things that are close. Far, they're way over yonder. We're separating ourselves from that somehow.

So when Jesus said, who sinned, this man or his parents? Is he talking about somebody way over yonder? No, it's really interesting. And when you read that passage where he's talking to the disciples, you get the impression that sick man is right here, and the Lord is having a conversation with his disciples just right around this person as an educational experience. You're like, wow, he's talking about that man in the third person an awful lot, but standing right next to him. It's just sort of an interesting insight you get. To those who are selling doves, they're far away. We're separated from those. We're not those dove-selling individuals in this verse. Those are far away.

So you start thinking about near and far in the context of these demonstrative pronouns, and they can tell you relationship. Interrogatives are Who's and what's, they're just what you would use to ask a question. Interrogative, the easiest way to remember that is if you're going to interrogate somebody, use lots and lots of interrogatives. I suppose you would think, based upon movie and TV, that you might get confused about interrogatives and profanity. Interrogatives are the who's and the what's. Profanity is just decoration that's used in those interrogations.

OK, reflexive pronoun. A reflexive pronoun, yourself, himself, myself, is used to take the action and direct it right back on the one that's performing it. And we talked about, when we were talking about different voice, we have active, we have middle, we have passive. Active means you're doing it. Passive means it's being done to you. Middle is sort of this You're somehow intensely involved in the action. Maybe you're doing it to yourself. Maybe you're just wanting to emphasize you're the one who's doing it.

There's a little confusion there. And what's nice is in Koine Greek, they understood there was a little confusion there. These people are learning this as a second language. It's got to be simplified. And so thank you, Alexander the Great. It was more explicit, typically. So usually when the translation is a reflexive one, so you're doing the action to yourself, you'll get a helper pronoun along with it. That's this reflexive pronoun. So you can say, like the example that I gave was about Judas.

He hanged himself. That was all in one word. He hanged himself. That's not typical. Typical, you'll get at least the two words. You'll get one for he hanged, and you'll get a himself that points it back. So that's a helper. So examples, for not one of us lives for himself, and not one dies for himself. So it just shows that action coming back. All right, so let's distinguish that from intensive. which also uses a himself or a herself. So these are used to emphasize the antecedent.

And so, for example, the spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God. That's made to emphasize that he's the one, only he is the one. for they themselves report about us what kind of a reception we have with you. It's different when you say the spirit testifies with our spirit than when you say the spirit himself testifies with our spirit. It does make it more personal. It does make it more intense. That's what an intensive pronoun is meant to do. Hence the name. reciprocal pronoun.

Now we're talking about collaboration. We're going to do stuff together. So, for example, be devoted to one another in brotherly love. Give preference to one another in honor. This is something we're all doing together. Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you. It's different for me to say, you need to forgive others, than it is to say, we need to forgive each other. We're all in the same pot in this case.

Relative pronouns, and this is where we're going to spend a little bit more time. So relative pronouns, whom, which, that, and there are a number of others. relate the clause that they're in to something that's going on with the antecedent before. And generally, they're giving a lot more description about what's going on. Typically, you can pluck them out and still have a full sentence. But with them in, you get a lot more information. It's a richer content.

So for example, there is another who testifies of me. And I know that the testimony which he gives about me is true. You could pull what she gives about me, just pull that right out of the sentence. And you've got, there's another who testifies me and I know the testimony is true.

But we get a little bit of extra information with that relative clause in there. For he whom God sent speaks the words of God. Whom God sent is giving us more information about he, making that he more specific. Let's talk relative clauses. Relative clauses are clauses that contain the relative pronoun.

I would have you know, brother, that the gospel, which was preached by me, is not according to man. Whenever you see one of these relative pronouns, you're going to want to know, ooh, what clause is that sitting in? Because you're going to end up lifting that clause completely out of the verse because it's not really necessary. It's giving you description. So, for I would have you know, brother, that the gospel is not according to man. That's the important point, which was preached by me, is giving additional information about that gospel.

Relative clauses, they come in two varieties. Variety number one, non-restrictive. Variety number two, restrictive. So much technical jargon, but it's totally easy. Non-restrictive clauses are ones that you can lop out and still have all the context you need.

You just got a little extra description. Non-restrictive clauses, my children, whom I love, are singing right now. It's nice to know that I love them, but it's not essential for the sentence. What I'm trying to convey to you is my children are singing right now. Non-restricted.

We can just throw it away and we still know what we're talking about. Is this your son who you say was born blind? We get extra information, but not required. But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, he will teach you all things. That makes sense. We didn't need that extra content. But the extra content gave us information, whom the Father will send in my name. Like, oh great, now I've learned another thing about this Helper, this Holy Spirit.

Compare that to restrictive relative clauses. So restrictive ones are ones where if you pull it out, you still have a full sentence, but it's just weird. So are they the ones? I was working at the college bookstore many eons ago. And one of my jobs was to help people find the right textbook for their class. And somebody came up to me and stuck a book right up in front of me and said, is this the same? It's very difficult to answer that question. What they gave me was a sentence with a restrictive relative clause removed. And so I didn't have the context that I needed to be able to answer the question.

So another example. Is this not the man? That's not quite enough. We need to know whom they are seeking to kill. OK, now we're starting to understand what we're talking about. Or on the contrary, it is much truer that the members of the body are necessary. I'm sorry? What? We're specifically talking about the members of the body which are weaker. So that gives you that extra context where you can say, oh, OK, now I actually know what we're talking about. Good rule of thumb.

Restrictive relative clause? Never try to say the sentence without that. You'll just confuse people. It'll be blink, blink, blink, blink. Actually, that'll be a good sign. If you say something to somebody and they just blink, blink, blink, blink, you probably have dropped a restricted relative clause.

Good heuristic. Yeah, it's good heuristic. OK, so let's talk about diagramming relative clauses. So one thing that we learned is we can pull them out of the sentence. And that's OK for the most part. So guess what? That's how we diagram them. We pull them out of the original diagram. And then what we do is we connect the relative pronoun back to the antecedent.

So you can see how all of this fits together. So in this example, we've got my children, whom I love, are singing right now. What you see on the top is a sentence diagram that says, my children are singing right now. What's below is, I love whom. We're connecting the whom back to children, and now we've got the full context.

And the reason why you do that is because it's important when we're going through scripture to identify what's the main point, what is being told to me, and then what's extra decoration, what's extra description. And so being able to pull those apart and say, this is the main point, and this is further description, now I get more clarity into what I'm seeing.

So a question here is, oh my gosh, how in the world did I decide where to put that whom? That's weird. I love whom. How did I know whom was a direct object? There's a simple trick, and it's documented on the next slide, but I'll talk about it here. The simple trick is, substitute the antecedent in for the relative pronoun, and it'll usually become really clear. So I know my relative pronoun is whom refers back to children. So if I just substituted children in, where would I put them? I love children. Children is my direct object. That's so obvious.

So that'll be a trick for how you know where you put it in the sentence. So here's another example. They are the ones who are singing. Who are singing? That's just extra description. So they are the ones. And now I've got this who are singing. How did I get who are singing over there? Well, I just substituted ones. So if I said ones are singing, ah, ones is very clearly the subject.

So that's where whom is going. Yes, ma'am? It's on the side, not underneath? It doesn't matter. Just anywhere that you have a room. just separated somewhere. Marilyn's question was, does it have to go on the side or underneath? Because this one was underneath, this one was on the side. Oh my gosh, what am I conveying? The exact same thing.

They're just separated from one another. They're basically two separate sentences. They're definitely two separate clauses. And the reason why I'm being specific about clause is, who are singing? It's not a complete sentence. It's a clause. It's a fragment. Okay, so let's talk Greek pronouns. Knowing what we now know, here's how pronouns got used in the New Testament. This is the distribution of them.

Any observations? There's a few more personal. It's personal. There are a few more personal. Here's my take on this. Relative pronouns are description. Demonstrative pronouns are description. Talking about this versus that. Personal pronouns are personal.

My take away is that scripture is very intentionally personal. and wants to be clear. So that was the point of going through all these different pronouns. Now you've seen the grand reveal of the table. Scripture is personal, and it very much wants to be clear. God wants us to know.

Greek pronouns. So this is an interesting one because we've already learned that within Greek, the pronoun is embedded in the verb. I can say, he hanged himself. I've got two pronouns jammed into one verb just by giving you person, number, and voice. Two pronouns got jammed into one word. So why in the world would you ever use pronouns? Here's an example.

But he kept silent and did not answer. Again, the high priest was questioning him and saying to him, are you the Christ, the son of the blessed one? And Jesus said, I am. And you shall see the son of man sitting at the right hand of power and coming with the clouds of heaven.

I am there is ego, a me. And we've talked about this a lot here at Holly Hills. A me actually says I am. Ego is I. So now you've got Christ saying, I, I am. He's not stuttering. He's making a very emphatic point. Quite often, when Jesus said, ego, a me, people started looking for rocks. And we'll spend a good chunk of time in a later class on a GO-ME because it's super interesting how it all ties back to the Greek Old Testament forward into the New Testament.

So if the personal pronoun is contained in the verb already, there are a few reasons why you would try to add a pronoun on top of that. First one, emphasis. So you can think of it as being an intensive use of the pronoun. So I am could be I'm. And I alone am would be an emphatic way of saying it. And throwing that extra pronoun in there gives you that emphasis. Sometimes it makes it easier to be explicit.

And we talked about how usually reflexive pronouns do show up. It's usually not solely the use of the middle voice. It's middle voice and you get the reflexive pronoun that tells you that you're acting on yourself. But sometimes they threw it in there because it sounded good.

Oh my gosh. How in the world are we ever, ever, ever going to know which one it is? And the answer is, we have to expand the context beyond the one verse that we're looking at and see what's being described. OK, so I talked about puzzle pieces. So pronouns have to match their antecedent in gender and number, as in English. And this is normal.

It makes tons of sense to us. Tristan ran eight miles, and he wasn't even tired. That makes a lot of sense to us. Tristan ran eight miles, and she wasn't even tired. Who is Craig talking about? It makes no sense, because we have to match in gender. Kaylee taught swim lessons and she had fun. That's great. I get that. Kaylee taught swim lessons and they had fun. How do lessons have fun?

That doesn't make sense to me. So I can't match those up. So we do the same thing in English. So in Greek, you've got to match in gender and number, just as in English. No different. However, pronouns don't have to match their antecedents in case. Why would that be?

Just cast your mind back to a point that I was beating to death earlier in this class. Pronouns are all over in the sentence. So if I've got a noun that's being used as a subject, And then later, my pronoun is being used as a direct object. So I've got Evie sees a red panda. They licked her. In the first sentence, I've got Evie as my subject. She's going to be nominative. They licked her. Well, that's a direct object. So her, that's going to be accusative. Nominative and accusative, two different things. So they don't have to match. And they wouldn't. It doesn't make sense.

So here are the puzzle pieces. A noun has case, gender, and number. An adjective that modifies a noun has to match in case, gender, and number. So it's going to be really easy. You're putting a jigsaw puzzle together. This noun starts glowing red and this adjective starts glowing red, just stick them together. Just trust it. Because they're going to match. Pronoun taking the place of a noun has to match in gender and number. It can have a totally different case and we're fine with that. It's useful to us. Make sense? That's why I was beating that point to death. I'm glad you got it, Jim. Homework. Diagramming. Warning, there is a relative clause in there.

And go figure out where this whole submission thing is coming from. Because I want to know if Crystal is going to bake me a pie, or whether she's going to start singing to me. And I don't know yet, so you guys have to do the research. I need to know New Testament Greek, because I have the answer to that, but I'm not going to say anything. That's right, it's true. Alright, let's listen. By the way, thank you so much for this morning, just for the richness of scripture, and for how personal it is, and how much you want us to know it, and I'm just so grateful that we can. It's in Jesus' name. Amen.