Knowable Word - Bible study help

Lessons from the Reformers About Dead Bible Teachers

November 30, 2022 By Peter Krol

The early Reformers pioneered the sort of Bible study that prizes the Scripture itself more highly than any church council or clergy. And yet they didn’t reject completely the need to listen to Bible teachers of the past. At the Logos Word by Word blog, David Barshinger explains three key principles we can learn from the Reformers.

The Reformers treated the Bible as God’s very word.
They recognized the value of Bible teachers—even dead ones.
And they didn’t see any Bible teacher as infallible.

This brief piece provides a good introduction to the role of tradition in balance with the authority of Scripture.

Check it out!

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Grammar Crash Course: Inflection and Tense

November 25, 2022 By Peter Krol

When we observe the Bible, one fundamental thing to take notice of is the grammar. Grammar always matters, as language cannot function without it. But in instructional literature such as epistles, grammar’s importance is elevated to the point where grammar always wins.

But what is it, precisely, students of the Bible ought to know about grammar? I’ve already written about the parts of speech. This post will now explain the concepts of inflection and tense, which function like personality traits for words.

Definitions

Inflection refers to the minor changes in words to signal their functions or attributes. For example, the word “run” can change to runs, ran, or running to signal how the word functions in a sentence. Those differences are called the inflection.Words can change inflection based on many factors, including:

Number. Singular or plural.
Gender. Masculine, feminine, or neuter. In English, it is typically only pronouns that have gender built into them (he, she, it).
Person. First person (talking about oneself: I, me, we, us), second person (talking to someone: you), or third person (talking about someone: he, she, it, they).
Case. Subject (I, we, he, she, they), or object (me, us, him, her, them).

Tense refers to different verb forms and functions. In English tense almost always has to do with time (past, present, or future), though the original languages of the Bible use tenses in ways other than with respect to time.

Past tense refers something that completely in the past. I ran. He swam. They believed.
Present tenses refers, believe it or not, to something taking place in the present. I run. He swims. They believe.
Future tense refers to actions completely in the future. I will run. He will swim. They will believe.

Some tenses add more nuance to this simple sense of time:

Present perfect tense refers to something that happened the past that has ongoing ramifications in the present. I have run. He has swum. They have believed.
Past perfect tense refers to something that happened in the distant past that had ongoing ramifications until the near past. I had run. He had swum. They had believed.
Past progressive tense refers to something in the past that was continuing for a time or was incomplete. I was running. He was swimming. They were believing.

English has 6 more tenses that are much less common, especially when it comes to Bible study. So I will spare you further detail.

Why It Matters

Inflection and tense are some things we ought to observe of the words in a passage to help us follow an author’s train of thought. For example, notice how Paul shifts between second person (“you”) and first person (“we”) in Ephesians 2:1-10. Many people read right through the paragraph without noticing the shifts, but some have suggested that the shifts carry interpretive weight. Could it be that “we” refers to Jewish believers and “you” refers to Gentile believers among Paul’s audience? Eph 2:11, 14 suggests that there may be something to this. But we must observe closely in order to be able to evaluate the argument being made.

The verb tenses in a passage such as 1 Peter 5:1-5 highlight the passage’s argument. The brackets of what happened in the past (1 Pet 5:1) and what will happen in the future (1 Pet 5:1b, 4) ought to motivate a certain set of behaviors in the present (1 Pet 5:2-3). Paul uses a similar past-present-future approach to craft his argument in 2 Timothy 1:8-18. Know how the grammar works, and you’ll be better equipped to come along for the ride.

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Paul’s Letter With the Most OT Quotations

November 23, 2022 By Peter Krol

Last week, we saw a sudden bump in traffic to our list of New Testament books that quote the Old Testament, thanks to the game show Jeopardy!

On November 16, the clue to the final round was “Paul’s letter to them is the New Testament epistle with the most Old Testament quotations.” And there was much uproar when the contestant who responded with “Who are the Hebrews” was credited with being correct. So the fact-checkers among the show’s fans have been visiting our site in droves to observe that we’ve actually got Romans at the top of the list.

The biggest online uproar has been over the fact that most contemporary scholars believe Paul didn’t even write Hebrews, despite the King James Bible crediting the book to him. But I think the bigger issue is simply: What counts as a “quotation”? Because Hebrews has more OT references than Romans only if you count allusions (such that you count every reference to Moses, covenant, priest, or sacrifice). But by any measure of clear quotations or explicit citations of an OT text, Romans wins.

The Jeopardy! contestant with the correct answer should have blown out the others but instead lost the game!

Dr. Greg Lanier from Reformed Theological Seminary agrees that this is the more substantive problem with the Jeopardy! clue. His piece at the Gospel Coalition blog explains with much clarity and detail.

Check it out!

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A Parable on the Dangers of Speculation in Bible Study

November 21, 2022 By Ryan Higginbottom

Amy tossed her phone on the bed. “Any idea what happened between John and Zack?”

From across the room, her husband David answered, “What do you mean?”

“Well, John always gets invited to Zack’s birthday party. But not this year.”

David and Amy Goodwin’s eleven-year-old son John was friends with Zack Thomas, who lived in the neighborhood. Today was Zack’s birthday, so Amy had just texted Charlotte, Zack’s mother.

Charlotte’s reply was pleasant enough. But Amy was hoping for more. Over the past two weeks she had been expecting a colorful card in the mailbox, announcing some big production: paint ball, or ice hockey, or white water rafting. John loved Zack’s parties, so Amy thought her message would trigger a forgotten invitation for her son. No such luck.

“I don’t know of any problems between the boys,” said David. “Maybe Zack isn’t having a party this year.”

“Yeah, maybe,” said Amy. “It’s just that Charlotte’s text seemed so brief. I gave her an opening to mention a party, and there’s just nothing.”

“Can I see?” asked David.

Amy turned her phone toward her husband.

AMY: Happy birthday to Zack! Hope your new TWELVE year old has a great day! Any big plans?

CHARLOTTE: Thanks! Can’t believe he’s 12!

“I see what you mean,” said David. “But maybe she’s just short on time. You could be reading too much into something that isn’t there.”

“Maybe. I just think if that friendship was important to Zack, Charlotte would have said something—one way or the other. I hope John will be okay.”

Amy made a mental note to talk with her son about Zack. She knew John didn’t have any friends to spare.

A few weeks later, the Goodwins were heading over to the local pool on a Saturday afternoon. John, who wasn’t phased by any previous birthday drama, asked his father if he could bring Zack along.

“Great idea,” said David. “I’ll text Mr. Thomas.”

David pulled his phone from his pocket and tapped out a message.

DAVID: We’re headed to the pool. Do you want to join us? Or we can just pick up Zack on our way.

A reply pinged on David’s phone within 30 seconds.

JOSH: Sorry, we can’t. Charlotte’s parents are in town this weekend.

DAVID: No problem. Hope you have a good visit!

JOSH: Thanks. It will be a blast.

When they got to the pool, David relayed his text exchange with Josh to Amy.

“That’s a little weird, right?” asked David.

“What do you mean?” asked Amy.

“Well, I thought Josh liked his in-laws. But it sounds like he’s bracing for a hard weekend.”

“What? He said the visit would be a blast,” Amy said.

“No, he’s being sarcastic. Don’t you see? No exclamation point, no emoji. There’s no way he’s having fun,” said David.

Amy frowned. “You’re drawing a big conclusion from that little phrase. I’m not sure you’re hearing his intended tone.”

“I think it’s pretty clear,” said David. “I’ll have to stop by their house tonight on my walk. I bet Josh could use the interruption. We’ll throw the football in the yard for a while.”

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Re-Train Yourself in How to Read

November 16, 2022 By Peter Krol

We just launched our 2023 Bible reading challenge, and Tommy Keene has some good advice to help you along your way. He discusses “The Problem with Reading the Bible Verse by Verse,” and gives many practical suggestions for becoming better readers of the Bible.

Over the years we have trained ourselves to read the Bible in an unnatural way, so we’re going to have to break some bad habits. We are trained to read the Bible verse-by-verse, but in keeping with the “ordinary reading principle” we need to change our habits. We should ordinarily be reading the Bible paragraph-by-paragraph or, even better, book-by-book.

To re-train ourselves, we must discipline ourselves to read and get swept up in the grand literature of the Bible. We must be content not to read commentaries or study notes every time we have a question. We ought to devour the Scripture in gobbles rather than nibbles.

Keene discusses the benefits of reader’s editions and audio Bibles, all of which are encouraged in our reading challenge. Let Keene strengthen your conviction to read God’s word this year as though it was something God gave you to be read (because it was).

Check it out!

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Grammar Crash Course: Parts of Speech

November 11, 2022 By Peter Krol

But what is it, precisely, students of the Bible ought to know about grammar? The first thing to learn is the parts of speech, which function in a sentence like tiles in a mosaic.

Definitions

A noun is a person, place, or thing. Examples: God, Jesus, disciple, house, Israel, field, covenant, bread, water, faith.

A pronoun replaces a noun so the writer doesn’t have to keep repeating the noun. Examples: I, me, you, he, him, she, her, it, we, they, them, yourself, myself, themselves. Pronouns can also be possessive: my, your, his, her, their, our. An antecedent is the noun that came earlier, which the pronoun now replaces. For example, in the sentence “Peter wrote his blog post,” the pronoun “his” refers to the antecedent “Peter.”

A verb shows what something is or does. Examples of being verbs: am, is, was, were, are, be, being, been, become. Examples of action verbs: sit, eat, run, said, believe, fight, went, worshiped.

An adjective modifies (describes) a noun in some way. Examples: green, beautiful, holy, wise, tall, foolish, slow, high, great, all.

An adverb modifies something other than a noun (usually a verb or adjective) in some way. Examples: very, nearly, slowly, inside, soon, completely, never.

A conjunction connects words, phrases, or clauses in some way. Examples: and, but, or, therefore, because, since, when, if, however.

A preposition describes the location of something in time or space. Examples: to, in, with, behind, before, around, under, above, by, near, after, along.

Some words can occur as more than one part of speech. The context and syntax must determine the word’s use in the sentence. For example, consider the word “for.” In Eph 1:20 it serves as both a conjunction (“For by grace”) and a preposition (“for good works”).

Why it Matters

Why should students of the Bible be able to observe and recognize the parts of speech? Because these parts of speech are the building blocks of communication. If the goal of interpretation is to determine the author’s main point in a passage, we need to have some objective way for figuring that out. The parts of speech are not sufficient in themselves to signal the author’s main point, but it is not possible recognize that main point without first recognizing the functions of the most pertinent parts of speech in the discourse.

For example, in 1 Corinthians 14:4-7, Paul describes love in lavish terms. “Love” is a noun (the thing under scrutiny). He stacks up a pile of adjectives (describing the noun): patient, kind, arrogant, rude, irritable, resentful—describing what love is or is not. He also stacks a pile of verbs, describing what love does or doesn’t do: envy, boast, insist, rejoice, bears, believes, hopes, endures. The idea of this brief paragraph is to paint a word picture of what love is and does.* That is a good start toward following the train of thought in the entire letter, which is all about how the Corinthian church is currently not any of the things that love is, and they need to grow up.

For another example, Ephesians 1:7-10 uses the pronouns he, him, and his many times. In each case, we need to figure out who is the proper antecedent: God the Father, or the Lord Jesus Christ? In Eph 1:7, “in him” and “his blood” certainly refer to Christ. But what about “his grace” in Eph 1:7 or “he lavished” in Eph 1:8? They could still be referring to Christ, but are you sure? And then what about “his will” and “his purpose” in Eph 1:9? Is that still Christ, or is it back to the Father? Because the “he” of “he set forth in Christ” must have the Father as the antecedent. So the details of the parts of speech make a real difference on what exactly you conclude is happening in this extended blessing of the Triune God!

More crash courses in grammar and syntax are on their way.

*With this example, I am helping English-speaking students of the English Bible learn to observe their English grammar. Greek scholars will point out that, in the original text, the words I’ve listed are all verbs; none of them are adjectives. That doesn’t change the point, however, that some of the verbs describe what love is, and other verbs describe what love does.

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Is There a Place for Christian Prayers of Cursing?

November 9, 2022 By Peter Krol

The Psalms are often described as a hymnbook or prayer book for God’s people. Yet any reader of the Psalms can’t get far into the book without needing to ask a fundamental question: Are these prayers still fitting for God’s people who live after the cross and the teaching of Jesus? C. John Collins states the matter like this:

Many psalms call on God for help as the faithful are threatened with harm from enemies. In a number of places, the form of the requested help is God’s punishment of these enemies. Christians, with the teaching and example of Jesus (e.g., Matt. 5:38–48; Luke 23:34; 1 Pet. 2:19–23; cf. Acts 7:6), wonder what to make of such curses. How can it possibly be right for God’s people to pray in this way?

Collins’s answer is surprisingly thorough for how concise it is. I encourage you to see what he has to say.

Check it out!

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How to Make the Bible Come Alive

November 7, 2022 By Ryan Higginbottom

If you lead a Bible study or teach the Bible in any capacity, and if you love God and his word, you want the Bible to come alive for your people. You want their hearts to catch fire as they read, listen, and engage.

The bad news is that we cannot do anything to make the Bible come alive. The good news is that we don’t need to make the Bible come alive, because the Bible is already living and active.

For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. (Hebrews 4:12)

The best way for us to “make” the word of God come alive for our friends is to recognize and act like it is already living and active.

Active in You and Others

If the Bible is indeed active, then it will change us as we encounter it. In particular, as we prepare to lead Bible studies or teach the Bible, we should be different people because of the text we have been preparing!

The most powerful evidence of the truth of the Bible is often the leader’s own testimony of its transforming power. Like all Christians, we should be growing in our love for God, growing in our love for our neighbors, growing in the fruit of the Spirit. We should not put ourselves as the focus of our discussion, but we should plan to testify to the ways God has been at work in us.

Sharing will not look like victory upon victory. That’s not my experience of walking with God, and I don’t hear that from others. Rather, the Bible works in us in many ways—to teach, to reprove, to correct, and to train us in righteousness (2 Tim 3:16). Once we stop trying to be impressive, we can share about both the ways God is correcting us and the ways he is training us in righteousness.

Ideally this sort of discussion will help to create a culture within a Bible study group. Eventually, everyone will talk about the ways God’s word has been changing them.

What Do You Expect?

When we teach the Bible, our expectations influence our actions and interactions. Are we expecting people to be bored by the Bible or transformed by it?

Some leaders break out the bells and whistles. They think that if they jazz up the setting, or the presentation, or the activities, then people will really pay attention and get a lot out of the Bible study. However, this approach is doomed from the start. It presumes that the Bible is (at worst) boring or (at best) inert, and that what God really needs is a good carnival barker. If we expect people to be bored by the Bible, they will be.

A better approach is to recognize that the Scriptures are sharp and powerful. They may not affect every person the same way at the same time, but God’s word will accomplish what he wants (Is 55:10–11). If God’s word is at work within believers (1 Thess 2:13), then we should act as though that were true! This approach will affect the way we read the Bible out loud, how we ask questions, and how we pray for our friends.

The Living Word of God

How powerful is the Bible? To what degree is it living and active?

Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart, since you have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God; (1 Peter 1:22–23)

The word of God is living. It is abiding. It is an imperishable seed that brings new life to the dead. And it works mightily in God’s people.

We dare not act like it is boring or harmless. And we dare not presume that we can make that which is already living come alive.

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Announcing our 2023 Bible Reading Challenge

November 4, 2022 By Peter Krol

We believe one of the best ways to learn to study the Bible is to read it. A lot of it. Over and over again. That won’t give you everything you need to understand it, but it will get you quite a long way toward the goal. As in marching through Kadesh all the way to the peaks of Pisgah. All you have to do is look down toward the valley, trust that God meant what he said, and finish the job from there. Don’t listen to those fools who speak of giants and grasshoppers. Look at the size of those grapes. And the size of the God who gives them.

If you’re not sure what I mean by all this Kadesh/Pisgah stuff, then maybe this is your year to read the entire Bible in 90 days. Milk and honey are yours for the taking. Not the under-the-tongue sort (Song 4:11) but the flowing-land sort (Deut 26:9). Though, of course, there is a theological connection between the two.

But I digress and perhaps ought to get to the point.

The Challenge

I’m writing to announce our 8th annual Bible reading challenge. The challenge is to read the entire Bible within 90 days. If you wish, you may begin today. Regardless of when you begin, your 90-day period must end no later than March 31, 2023.

And why—you ask—would you embark on such a strange venture? (“Madness,” they say. “Sheer madness.”) I can think of at least three reasons. One: Your grasp of the Bible’s big picture will surge like a COVID case count in winter. Two: Your reward in heaven will be great. And three: We’ve got a sweet set of prizes to urge you on in the present age.

All who complete the challenge are invited to fill out the form below (which we’ll share again as the twilight of March draws nigh). One grand prize winner will be selected at random to win their choice of ESV Scripture Journals (Old Testament or New Testament), generously provided by the good people at Crossway Bibles. One additional winner will be selected to receive a one-volume reader’s Bible of their choice. Physical prizes are limited to the continental United States. Winners in other parts of the world will receive a $50 Amazon gift card via email.

If you’d like a checklist to help you stay on pace, here are three. You may make a copy and update the dates, if you plan to start on a date other than January 1.

Or here is an iOS app that can help you track your plan. You may also want to consider making a reading plan in the Dwell listening app if you prefer audio.

You may now begin any time, and may this be the ride of your life.

Official Rules

Here are the rules:

You must read (not scan or skim) all 66 books of the Protestant Bible. You may choose the translation and reading plan (canonical, chronological, etc.). You don’t have to stop and meditate on every detail, but the Lord sees and knows when you are being honest about reading and not skimming. Listening to an unabridged audio Bible is acceptable. You may also use any combination of audio and visual reading, as long as you’ve read or listened to the entire Bible within the allotted time period.
You must read the entire Bible within a 90-day period.
The last day of that 90-day period must be between November 6, 2022 and March 31, 2023. If you’d like to understand why we recommend such fast-paced reading, see our Bible reading plan for readers.
To enter the drawing, you must fill out the survey below, letting us know the dates you read and what you thought of the speed-reading process. Your thoughts do not have to be glowing, but they should be honest; you’ll still be entered into the drawing if you didn’t enjoy your speed-read.
Any submissions to the form below that don’t meet the requirements or appear to be fabricated will be deleted. For example: multiple entries with different data, date of completion not between November 4, 2022 and March 31, 2023, “What I thought about the experience” has nothing to do with Bible reading, or date of completion is later than the date of entry submission (please don’t try to enter the drawing if you plan to read the Bible; only enter once you have completed reading it).
In the first week of April 2023, we will randomly select 2 winners from those who have submitted the form. We will email the winners to get their shipping addresses. If a winner does not respond to our request for a shipping address within 1 week, a new winner will be selected in their place.
The first prize winner (if US) will get their choice of the Old or New Testament ESV Scripture Journals. The second prize winner (if US) will get their choice of a one-volume reader’s Bible (While these are not your only options, we have reviewed the following: ESV, CSB, NIV.). Any winner outside the continental US will receive a $50 Amazon gift card via email.
Unfortunately, though they are terrific people doing marvelous work for the sake of Christ, staff members of DiscipleMakers are not eligible to win the drawing.