Yesterday I posted a piece about
When people overlay a definition upon the bible, they rarely looking at the context of the passage. (Yep, I’m
Fr’instance. Years ago a fellow teacher was trying to teach his kids about planning for the future, for “where there is no vision, the people perish.”
But my fellow teacher didn’t give a sloppy crap about what “vision” actually means. He just wanted to correct his kids who had no goals, and wanted to use the bible to help him smack ’em on the head. So he taught what he pleased. Context shmontext.
The same thing happens whenever Christians fixate on the dictionary in our word studies. We start with a word or concept we like; one which we already sorta know the definition of. We find a dictionary which gives us the definition we like. We dig out a bunch of verses and paste that definition over them, then try to interpret the scriptures by them, then marvel at all the new “revelation” we’re getting.
Hey, if Christians take the bible out of context in our regular, day-to-day bible reading, better than average chance we’re gonna take it out of context in our word studies. Such people don’t think context is important, and don’t care. But if we’re planning to live our lives based on these bible verses, context is always important. When Jesus said “Love your neighbor,” he proceeded to spell out in detail just who our neighbors are, lest we found a Webster’s Dictionary which suggests a neighbor is only someone we like.
Treating languages like codes.
Here’s a mistake I regularly find among Americans: This belief that a foreign language is just like a code. So, translation is just like decoding. Find out the English equivalent to every word, and there y’are.
Anyone who’s ever studied a foreign language, be it Spanish, French, German, Portuguese—or, if your first language isn’t English, English—knows better. A word is a label for an idea. Some words are the labels for many or multiple ideas.
Fr’instance the Greek verb
Most of the people who make this mistake tend to be monolingual: They speak only one language. (Usually English. Not necessarily well.) So of course they don’t understand how translation works. This is why they keep demanding
The trouble with treating a language like a code is people are gonna assume a word has the very same meaning, every time. So they assume when Jesus used the verb
Problem is, no they weren’t necessarily. Note the verses Jesus quoted from the Old Testament, like “Love your neighbor.”
Now. Lots of preachers like to make a big fuss about Jesus’s conversation with Simon Peter after his resurrection, where he asked Simon, “Do you
But here’s the thing: In ancient Greek culture, ayapáo and filéo frequently were interchangeable. Simon might’ve earnestly meant he cared more about Jesus than anything, but just couldn’t bring himself to use aghapáo—much like any immature adult who describes their romances with “really, really like” because they can’t bring themselves to say “love.” Same idea, different word. Because translation isn’t merely decoding. We gotta study context, motives, character, all sorts of additional stuff. Every translator of every language does.
If it helps, bear in mind the bible isn’t simply one book with one author. It’s many books, many authors, each of whom reserved the right to use words in their own way. Much like English-language authors, they had their own quirks, own favorite turns of phrase, own odd little way of meaning something slightly out of the ordinary with their particular vocabularies. Paul sometimes redefined words to suit his discussions. So did John. Luke did not. So it’s not wise to assume Paul, John, and Luke meant the very same thing with the same words. They might—but never just assume they do.
Having too few examples.
The more instances of a word in the bible, the more accurate your word study is gonna be. But sometimes you’re gonna study a word which only appears five times. Or four, or three, or two… or once. The technical term for a word which only appears once is a
When you have too few examples, it’s really hard to do a word study. Not impossible, but not easy. Because the dictionary still comes last… but now you only have two or three verses to read (or even just one), and the last step is the dictionary, and you get to that last step mighty fast. Sometimes you really have to look it up: It’s near impossible to deduce the meaning of your word from certain individual verses.
Give you an example:
Isaiah 50.3 KWL - “I make the skies wear dark clothes.
- I use sackcloth to cover them.”
This is the only time the word
Dictionary. See, the word is similar, probably related, to the verb
But do I know “qadrút” means dark clothes? Not for certain. After all, I’m not a Hebrew-speaker from the 700s
And that’s my point: I wouldn’t bet my life on it. When we’re studying bible, and unearth hard facts, we should be able to bet our lives on them. After all, we’re trying to follow Jesus, and trying to get the scriptures to help us in the task. Following Jesus can be risky though. Worthwhile, but still risky. So we want lots of evidence before we take risks: Our word study had better include loads of verses so we can know what the scriptures teach. I can hang my hat on this interpretation… but will I trust it to suspend me from a helicopter, without snapping off and dropping me into jagged rocks? Nah. I’d need more verses.
In the same way, sometimes we need more verses in our word study. Two will make us more certain of the word’s meaning. Three is better. Ten is way better. And so forth.
