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Study Words!!!

Deacon

Deacon

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I brought along a copy of Craig Blaising and Darrell L. Bock’s book, Progressive Dispensationalism [Baker Book House, 1991] while on vacation last week.

A good portion of the book concerns hermeneutics, how we interpret and understand what we read.

I was captivated by this quote:

“Someone has said words are like a game of chess. They take on their sense and importance from the other words with which they are linked. A pawn is generally an insignificant chess piece, but put in in a certain position on the board and it is the most important. Words are like that, and their grammatical-literary context means almost everything.”

Rob
 
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V

Van

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Please stop with your innuendo questions, everyone understands that you seek to prevent discussion of the bible by derailing threads into absurdity.

Word studies can upgrade even our understanding derived from conservative translations like the NASB. But to be willing to engage in word study, one must believe words have meanings and those meanings have merit.
 
Greektim

Greektim

Well-Known Member
Van said:
Please stop with your innuendo questions, everyone understands that you seek to prevent discussion of the bible by derailing threads into absurdity.

Word studies can upgrade even our understanding derived from conservative translations like the NASB. But to be willing to engage in word study, one must believe words have meanings and those meanings have merit.
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The problem isn't that words have meaning. The issue is how we assess and apply word meanings.

Even this morning I heard major lexical fallacies b/c the person's extent of exegesis was word studies. It was 2 classic examples: one from John 21 and "love" and the Hebrew word "bowels" or "intestines" or "kidneys" for heart or mind.
 
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Yeshua1

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Greektim said:
The problem isn't that words have meaning. The issue is how we assess and apply word meanings.

Even this morning I heard major lexical fallacies b/c the person's extent of exegesis was word studies. It was 2 classic examples: one from John 21 and "love" and the Hebrew word "bowels" or "intestines" or "kidneys" for heart or mind.
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Van seems to think that if we have a Greek word with 4 differing meanings assigned to it in English, pick one of those and translate it same way throughout
 
V

Van

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Yeshua1 said:
Van seems to think that if we have a Greek word with 4 differing meanings assigned to it in English, pick one of those and translate it same way throughout
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More assertions of absurdity.

If you have a Greek word with four differing shades of meanings, then it should be translated as four different English words or phrases to convey transparently the four differing shades of meanings.
 
V

Van

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A popular theme on this forum is to claim "word studies" lead folks astray, but they are recommended by many teacher of bible students, such as the one linked to in post #4.
 
Greektim

Greektim

Well-Known Member
Van said:
A popular theme on this forum is to claim "word studies" lead folks astray, but they are recommended by many teacher of bible students, such as the one linked to in post #4.
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The main reason I discourage word studies is because it has been abused so much, that people continue to follow the same terrible patterns as if that were the right way. They muck up so much in Scripture just to try to make some amazing point to glean some nugget of Scriptural wisdom. I would say that I'm not impressed by word studies.
 
V

Van

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Nothing I can add to that. Lets leave it that others hold the opposite view.
 
R

Rippon

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Greektim said:
The main reason I discourage word studies is because it has been abused so much, that people continue to follow the same terrible patterns as if that were the right way. They muck up so much in Scripture just to try to make some amazing point to glean some nugget of Scriptural wisdom. I would say that I'm not impressed by word studies.
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Now the above is worth repeating. Did you hear that Van?
 
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Yeshua1

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Van said:
A popular theme on this forum is to claim "word studies" lead folks astray, but they are recommended by many teacher of bible students, such as the one linked to in post #4.
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They can be fruitful, but should be done AFTER you have done a good exegesis of the text based upon grammar/syntex/construction/contex etc!
 
B

Bro. James

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Word study: John 21: 15-17. In the KJV agape and philo are both translated love. There is a remarkable difference between the two Greek words.

God so loved (agape) the world that He gave His only begotten Son...

Peter the apostle was fond (philo) of Jesus.

Many Christians have a philo relationship with Jesus. He wants us to put all on the altar. The spirit indeed is willing; but the flesh is weak.

"If you love me, keep my commandments..."

"Why do you call me Lord and do not what I say?"

Even so, come, Lord Jesus.

Bro. James
 
Greektim

Greektim

Well-Known Member
Bro. James said:
Word study: John 21: 15-17. In the KJV agape and philo are both translated love. There is a remarkable difference between the two Greek words.

God so loved (agape) the world that He gave His only begotten Son...

Peter the apostle was fond (philo) of Jesus.

Many Christians have a philo relationship with Jesus. He wants us to put all on the altar. The spirit indeed is willing; but the flesh is weak.

"If you love me, keep my commandments..."

"Why do you call me Lord and do not what I say?"

Even so, come, Lord Jesus.

Bro. James
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All that disregards what Greek experts have been saying... those 2 words are synonyms of each other and John uses them in the same context many times because there is little distinction.

The abuse of the word study, ladies and gentlemen.
 
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Yeshua1

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Greektim said:
All that disregards what Greek experts have been saying... those 2 words are synonyms of each other and John uses them in the same context many times because there is little distinction.

The abuse of the word study, ladies and gentlemen.
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Yes, as in the greek text itself, there are examples where the author switched between those 2 greek words, and the contex implies that the same meaning was intended by him...
 
Greektim

Greektim

Well-Known Member
Yeshua1 said:
Yes, as in the greek text itself, there are examples where the author switched between those 2 greek words, and the contex implies that the same meaning was intended by him...
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Exactly correct!

I couldn't find it, but David Alan Black was just interviewed on a radio show in Cali about this very passage. It would have been very enlightening.

Here is his short article that makes this point though.
 
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Bro. James

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How does a Christian Hedonist define love? Use several examples.

I have difficulty understanding how brotherly fondness is the same as Divine love for creation.

There are many levels of love: fatherly, motherly, brotherly, sisterly, friendly, husbandly, wifely.

The shade of difference is: willing to die for, which is kind of agape, fulfilled in The Lord Jesus.

Not sure where this is going.

We are in a Narcissistic world of ego maniacs. The love of one's self does not fit any of the above.


Even so, come, Lord Jesus.

Bro. James
 
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Still Standing

New Member
I have found over last 20 years of preaching and teaching that most misunderstanding of scripture here in America were not caused by a lack of a proper understanding of Greek, but it most often stems from the fact that people really do not understand their own language of English.

And I'm referring to us preachers, not the poor folks sitting in the pew trying to sort it all out.
 
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