Using Study Tools

[John of Japan]

I'm currently teaching a layman's "Introduction to Greek" class on Sunday evenings, what we used to call Training Union. With only ten sessions of an hour each it doesn't approach being Greek 101, but they are enjoying it.

In most of the lessons I share a resource with them, and that is right in line with the OP, so I thought I would share them in a couple of posts. Here are the first few.

Suggested resource: Vine’s Complete Expository Dictionary of Old and New Testament Words, by W. E. Vine, Merrill F. Unger, William White, Jr. This is a very helpful dictionary for the layman, giving both English transliterations and the Greek and Hebrew words. It does not have all of the words in the original languages of the Bible, but it has all the important words.

Suggested resource: PowerBible CD, at Power Bible – The one that's easy to use. This is an excellent lower end Bible software program. It is just $7, but has a really great search feature. I use it all the time. You can download it, or get them to send you a CD of it. Also, it has some great free resources, including the commentaries by Matthew Henry and famous Baptist Greek scholar A. T. Robertson: Word Pictures in the New Testament.

Suggested resource: Interlinear New Testament. An interlinear document is one that has the original language sentences with literal translations directly below the original words. There are several good interlinear Greek New Testaments on Amazon. The one closest to the KJV was translated by Jay Green, and can be bought on Amazon, but there are several others.

Suggested resource: blueletterbible.org. This is an excellent website for Bible study, with many resources. It has the Textus Receptus (TR) Greek New Testament text, which is what the KJV was translated from. There is a very useful search function. You can search the Greek New Testament and find out all of the places a certain word appears, which is great for word studies.

 

[Van]

JohnC seems to agree with you.

22 Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference:
23 For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;
24 Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus:
25 Whom (Jesus Christ) God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God;
26 To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.

It is not God who has faith in his blood, but God who has been satisfied with the sacrifice of his blood and the individual who comes believing in him will be justified. Verse 26 narrows it down to an individual because each man can come by believing in Jesus to be counted righteous by and to be justified. God is giving the reason here why he can receive any and every man who comes to him in faith. The reason is because this one sacrifice of Jesus Christ is satisfaction for all men.

Here is your statement that I reacted to.

Let us consider the translation of the KJV of "katallage" (G2643) as atonement at Romans 5:11. Rather than "atonement" the NKJV correctly translates the Greek word as reconciliation. Notice that believers have now received the reconciliation, thus a separate action of God from Christ's substitutionary sacrifice on the cross. His death provides the mean of reconciliation, but only after God bestows that reconciliation upon those of His choosing, do we become reconciled. Thus God is reconciling humanity one sinner at a time.

I quoted passages from the OT concerning atonement by blood and also Heb 9 for my point. It was a simple point. I said the new testament saints were reconciled by "receiving" the atonement. In the old testament men made an atonement over and over that could not take away sins. The blood that Jesus Christ shed was a once for all time sacrifice that satisfied God for every man and at all times because it could take away sins when it was applied. God is now not responding to men in anger but by grace. Because God has been corporately reconciled to the world by Christ's one time atoning sacrifice, each individual may come to God in his name and be reconciled to God. This is Paul's prayer, "I pray ye in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God." The next verse points to the one time sacrifice of Jesus Christ as the reason all men can come.. "For he has made him to be sin for us who knew no sin that we might be made the righteousness of God in him."

The corporate atonement (if I may use that word) stated clearly.

1 My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous:
2 And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.

This following seems to be the statement that you do not fully agree with.

10 For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son (this is the one time atonement and it reconciles God to the world of sinners), much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.(this is the spiritual new birth and is individual)

On a second note: Your braggadocious attitude is not becoming, IMO. God has set forth a good rule for us to follow, I think.

Pr 27:2 Let another man praise thee, and not thine own mouth; a stranger, and not thine own lips.

More obfuscation to derail discussion of bible study. More unstudied claims about what the bible says.

1) No one said or suggested it is God who has faith in the blood. Thus a strawman argument.

2) Again God's wrath toward all of humanity has not been propitiated.

3) Not all individuals who profess belief in Christ will be justified. See Matthew 7 and 13.

4) Here is your claim from post # 38, ".I said the new testament saints were reconciled by "receiving" the atonement." But here is your actual statement from post #27, "The pure blood of Christ provides what is required as the only acceptable sacrifice for sins and God will receive it from any sinner that approaches him with this sacrifice and in his name." Thus you actually said the opposite of your claim!

5) You continue to claim God was satisfied "for every man." This is unstudied biblical nonsense.

6) The "corporate atonement" is another unstudied bogus claim. God reconciles each individual, see 2 Thessalonians 2:13, when He sets them apart in Christ based on crediting their faith as righteousness.

7) Here is yet another unstudied bogus claim, "if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son..." claiming the vague "we" refers to all humanity, rather than only to born anew believers. If you look back to verse 8 (Romans 5:8) you see that Christ died for all mankind. But in verse 9, Paul refers to only those who have "justified by His blood." Thus in verse 10, Paul is referring only to those who have been justified, and not to all humanity.

 

[JD731]

More obfuscation to derail discussion of bible study. More unstudied claims about what the bible says.

1) No one said or suggested it is God who has faith in the blood. Thus a strawman argument.

2) Again God's wrath toward all of humanity has not been propitiated.

3) Not all individuals who profess belief in Christ will be justified. See Matthew 7 and 13.

4) Here is your claim from post # 38, ".I said the new testament saints were reconciled by "receiving" the atonement." But here is your actual statement from post #27, "The pure blood of Christ provides what is required as the only acceptable sacrifice for sins and God will receive it from any sinner that approaches him with this sacrifice and in his name." Thus you actually said the opposite of your claim!

5) You continue to claim God was satisfied "for every man." This is unstudied biblical nonsense.

6) The "corporate atonement" is another unstudied bogus claim. God reconciles each individual, see 2 Thessalonians 2:13, when He sets them apart in Christ based on crediting their faith as righteousness.

7) Here is yet another unstudied bogus claim, "if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son..." claiming the vague "we" refers to all humanity, rather than only to born anew believers. If you look back to verse 8 (Romans 5:8) you see that Christ died for all mankind. But in verse 9, Paul refers to only those who have "justified by His blood." Thus in verse 10, Paul is referring only to those who have been justified, and not to all humanity.

I do not desire to argue with you about the gospel of Jesus Christ. If you do not believe it and desire to confuse the truth of it that is on you. Here is 2nd Corinthians 5 stating what it does.

17 Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.

18 And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation;

If the "us" here is considering all who have already been reconciled what need is there for a ministry of reconciliation?


19 To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation.

But Paul explains his words himself: God was in Christ reconciling THE WORLD (the kosmos) unto himself. WHAT DOES THAT MEAN in simple English? It means that he is not imputing the sins (putting sins on their account) of the world unto them and he has chosen men to take the word of reconciliation to the world of men so they may receive the atonement that God has provided for us in Christ and be reconciled to God. Thus sayeth God the Father the Judge of all the earth.

20 Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God.
Paul says this to men who are not saved yet and to whom God is not imputing sin. Why not because all men are sinners. It is because of the atonement and he says so in the next verse.

21 For he (God the Father) hath made him (Jesus Christ his Son) to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.

Ask yourself; if God has already punished sin by death and resurrected the one who died in our place as our substitute, why would he still charge us with sin that would keep us from him?

Your reasoning is not biblical.

Read the previous verses starting at verse 14 where he says Christ died for the whole world.

14 For the love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead:

I looked it up. All means all.

15 And that he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again.

 

[John of Japan]

Here are the rest of my resources given in my lay believer's Greek class:

Suggested resource: Dr. Bill Mounce is a top Greek scholar and professor with a wish to help anyone who wants to learn New Testament Greek! If you wish to continue studying Koine Greek after we finish this course, go to his website at: billmounce.com. He has a regular course for whoever wants to learn New Testament Greek, and another course for those who just want to learn how to use Greek for Bible study! You may have to pay some money for your course, but it will be well worth it.

Suggested resource: Learn to Read New Testament Greek, third edition, by David Alan Black. This is the basic textbook we use for first year Greek at BCM. Dr. Black is a top Greek scholar, and was the PhD mentor for Dr. Paul Himes. He is gracious, loves students and missions. He used to travel to China and Ethiopia to teach Greek there to nationals before retiring.

Suggested resource: Textbook author Dr. David Alan Black has his own website to help you learn Greek: newtestamentgreekportal.blogspot.com.

Suggested resource: You can download a PDF of Alexander Souter’s book, A Pocket Lexicon to the Greek New Testament and other resources here: Resources | LatinPerDiem. This is excellent for a short lexicon.

Suggested resource: Synonyms of the New Testament, by Richard Trench. This is an “oldie but goodie” book, very helpful on its subject. It came out way back in the 19th century, so the meanings revealed in the early 20th century through papyri discoveries are not in it, but it is unique, and thus still helpful. It is available in several different reprints.

 

[Van]

But Paul explains his words himself: God was in Christ reconciling THE WORLD (the kosmos) unto himself. WHAT DOES THAT MEAN in simple English? It means that he is not imputing the sins (putting sins on their account) of the world unto them and he has chosen men to take the word of reconciliation to the world of men so they may receive the atonement that God has provided for us in Christ and be reconciled to God. Thus sayeth God the Father the Judge of all the earth.

1) Thanks for this explicit description of your beliefs, now changed from your initial posts.

2) God is reconciling humanity (meaning of kosmos in this verse) one human at a time when He transfers the individual spiritually into Christ based on crediting their faith as righteousness.

Ask yourself; if God has already punished sin by death and resurrected the one who died in our place as our substitute, why would he still charge us with sin that would keep us from him?

1) Since God has already punished His Lamb of God for the sin of humanity, that resulted in Christ becoming the means of reconciliation (meaning of hilasmos [G2434] in 1 John 2:2) for the whole of humanity. When God transfers a sinner into Christ, the individual receives the reconciliation, thus made alive together with Christ!

2) I am sorry so many believe in the mistaken views of Calvinism, and its step child, Arminianism, but both are simply relics of the dark ages.

 

[Van]

Un-reconciled, fallen humanity is separated from God, dead in their sins (and unholy sinful state of separation). Reconciled persons have been made alive (no longer dead in sin) together with Christ (no longer separated from God in an unholy sinful state). Our message to the lost, as ambassadors of Christ is "be reconciled to God."

 

[Van]

What would be a wonder aid in bible study would be a transliterated Greek lexicon, like the Pocket Lexicon, except alphabetical based on the Greek transliterations, with a list of all the verses where the word appears in the NT in all its grammatical forms.

The idea is to study the actual historical grammatical meanings of the actual Greek words (in their transliterated form).

Using study tools we can still get there but the journey could be shortened. But the journey is mandated by our command to be like those in Acts 17:11, for only by verifying the translation reflects the contextual meaning, can we know we are actually handling the word of truth.

 

[John of Japan]

For anyone interested in actually learning the Greek alphabet, I'm going to attach some aids to that here. Don't think that it is difficult. All of my students (even those who later fail the course) are able to write both the upper and lower case alphabets after only two days study (Monday to Wednesday morning).

 

[John of Japan]

Here are a couple more study tools for you Greek geeks who want to do in depth studies.

First of all, Bruce Metzger has a nice little book, Lexical Aids for Students of New Testament Greek (Oxford University Press, 1969). This book includes an explanation of the methodology, then two lists of Greek words and their occurrences in the Greek NT (UBS). One lists all the words according to their number of times, 10 times or more. The second section lists words according to their root.

There is an appendix about the Indo-European language group, and some other helpful essays.

The other tool is Old Testament Quotations in the New Testament, by Gleason Archer and G. C. Chirichigno (Moody, 1983). This book is essential for studying the NT quotes of the OT (which to me is fascinating!). It is certainly helpful if you know both Hebrew and Greek), but you can learn a lot from it even if you do not, because it has the OT and NT references all in English!

It starts with a very helpful explanation, then it has four columns for each quotation: Masoretic, Septuagint, UBS NT, then some commentary in the last column.

 

[John of Japan]

In my lists of resources, I forgot the one in Lesson One, which is about the alphabet. Here it is:

Resource: download a great, free, Bible software program or app at e-Sword: Free Bible Study for the PC. Learn the Greek alphabet in a song at:

 

[Van]

There is no need to learn the Greek alphabet if you use transliterated Greek. We are talking about how everyone sitting in the pew can study scripture and look past their English translation choices, just to verify accuracy of translation and clarity of meaning.

This is not a thread advocating the need to learn Greek in order to study scripture, but advocating study tools written in English to study scripture.

 

[John of Japan]

In the "Introduction to Greek" class I am now teaching in our training union, there are three types of students. First of all, there are freshmen who will have to take my Greek 101 class in the fall. They're just trying to get a head start, and who can blame them? Then there are some laymen who years ago graduated from Bible college, and just want to review what they learned then.

Finally, there are some students who are just regular laymen, people who sit in the pews and do their best to study the Word of God and serve Him. These students are very diligent, and are succeeding at learning the basics of Greek! They are not scholars (as I am not), they don't plan to go to Bible college, and they are ordinary in intelligence. They just love the Word of God and want to use Greek as a tool to study it better. Unlike Van, I honor and respect them, and his screeds against simply learning Greek are insulting to such good believers.

 

[Van]

There is no need to learn the Greek alphabet if you use transliterated Greek. We are talking about how everyone sitting in the pew can study scripture and look past their English translation choices, just to verify accuracy of translation and clarity of meaning.

This is not a thread advocating the need to learn Greek in order to study scripture, but advocating study tools written in English to study scripture.

Note that not all of us are gifted with the language skills to deal with Greek in its actual alphabet. To offer the opportunity for all to study using tools available is not "screed" it is love for the word of God.

 

[John of Japan]

Note that not all of us are gifted with the language skills to deal with Greek in its actual alphabet. To offer the opportunity for all to study using tools available is not "screed" it is love for the word of God.

Learning the Greek alphabet is not a "language skill." It is simple memorization. It is not hard to do. As I said in a previous post, every single Greek student I've ever had, even those who later failed the course, was able to learn the Greek alphabet easily within two days. With the documents I have uploaded, absolutely anyone can learn the Greek alphabet.

1. Make a card for each letter. Cutting a 3x5 card in half works well. On each card put the lowercase and uppercase letter on one side. Number the cards so you can put them back in order later.
2. Put the name of the letter (alpha, beta, gamma, etc.) on the back of the card.
3. Go through the cards over and over, looking at the name of the letter and imagining writing it in your head. Mix the cards up out of order, and do it again.
4. Go through the cards over and over, looking at the letter and then giving the name of the letter before you turn the card over to see if you are right.
5. Get a Greek NT, or find a website with the Greek NT, and practice reading it.

I have taught Greek to hundreds of students in two different languages, and never had a single student who could not learn the alphabet.

 

[Van]

There is an old saying, if you are a hammer, everything looks like a nail. It does not follow that if you are a Greek teacher, everyone must learn Greek.

 

[Van]

Dyslexia is a common condition that makes it hard to work with language. Students leaning in their native language do better than students leaning in a second language. God used translations to convey His message. God used the gift of tongues (speaking in a foreign language) to convey His gospel. The purpose of translation is to spread God's message in an understandable form. Studying God's word, using study tools for English native speakers is a good practice.

 

[John of Japan]

There is an old saying, if you are a hammer, everything looks like a nail. It does not follow that if you are a Greek teacher, everyone must learn Greek.

My point was that everyone can learn the Greek alphabet, not that everyone must. And not everyone can learn Greek, due to character issues, dyslexia, whatever. I had one student who failed the class twice--couldn't learn it. But I had another student who failed once, but took it again and got straight A's.

But it is true that everyone learns at least one language. The "universal grammar" theory is correct: everyone has an innate ability to learn a language. And it is put there by God.

 

[Van]

What would be a wonder aid in bible study would be a transliterated Greek lexicon, like the Pocket Lexicon, except alphabetical based on the Greek transliterations, with a list of all the verses where the word appears in the NT in all its grammatical forms.

The idea to study using English study tools is to discern the actual historical grammatical meanings of the actual Greek words (in their transliterated form).

Using study tools we can see which of the word or phrase historical meanings fits with the context of the usage. The effort seems mandated by our command to be like those in Acts 17:11, for only by verifying the translation reflects the contextual meaning, can we know we are accurately handling the word of truth.

Acts of the Apostles 17:11
Now these people [Bereans] were more noble-minded than those in Thessalonica, for they received the word with great eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see whether these things were so.​

 

[Van]

Here are some study tools:

1) A formal equivalence translation of the Bible, I recommend the NASB

2) A good English Dictionary in case we run across a word whose meaning or meanings in English may not be well remembered.

3) A Bible Dictionary or two, so that we can ponder when differences appear.

4) An Exhaustive Concordance for the Study Bible you have chosen. (Example: Zondervan NASB exhaustive concordance )

5) A Lexicon or two covering both Hebrew and Greek word meanings and all the places the word is used.

6) A Reverse Interlinear for the Study Bible you have chosen. (Example, NASB95 Reverse Interlinear)

 

[John of Japan]

Some scholars look down on them, but I still like and consult the various "Word Study" sets of years ago:

A. T. Robertson, Word Pictures in the New Testament (6 volumnes, excellent)

Marvin Vincent, Word Studies in the NT (4 vol.)

Henry Alford, Alford's Greek NT (4-5 volumes, depending on the edition)--mor of a technical commentary, but quite usable even for those who do not know Greek

Kenneth Wuest, Word Studies (4 volumes in the edition I have). Some of the volumes of this set are not straight through the NT, so sometimes hard to find what you want to study, but still a good resource.