Well, this morning, continuing in our study of systematic theology, we are looking at, continuing in looking at hermeneutics, looking at practical tools for Bible study this morning. Of course, as we study the scripture and as we learn the scripture, not just on a devotional level, but to truly be students of the Word of God, of course, 2 Timothy 2.15 tells us, be diligent to present yourselves approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth, rightly handling the scripture. As we've looked at languages in context and all of the different aspects of hermeneutics, we're going to review just some tools that are available to us now to help us in Bible study, to take Bible study to a little bit deeper level. And then the next four weeks, Lord willing, we're going to go next through D. A. Carson's book, Exegetical Fallacies. four types of errors that you can run into in your interpretation of scripture and how to avoid those. But again, this morning we're just looking at some practical tools. This is a list that R.C. Sproul put together, and it's funny because he first wrote the book that we're using, The Knowing Scripture, he first wrote that in the 80s, And I think he's revised it four times, and of course now he's in glory, so now he knows it all. But as he was writing, and each update brought new things, as there are new tools available, especially online now for Bible study. If you think about the 80s, not everybody had computers, not everybody had emails, not everybody had dumb phones, you know, where you could just look anything up right there in the spur of the moment. So he mentions a few that are print, but everything that we're going to talk about now, a lot of it is available online as well for us to use today. Kylie knows what a book is, right? She knows a book. Where you open it, you got the pages and you got the smell of the book, and I'm a book person. But anyway. It's all online now, but as we look at it, the first thing that we need to know is, of course, there are different Bible translations, and the question that always gets asked is, what translation should I use for my personal Bible study? What translations are best? And there are some notable differences between translations that we need to recognize. Three types of translations. The first is known as the formal equivalence, where the translators seek to follow the Greek and Hebrew text as closely as possible in a word-by-word pattern. It's translating word-by-word, or as close as you can get to it, going from one language to another. That does ensure verbal accuracy. That's important, of course, for us because we know that the Scripture is inspired. so the words matter, and we know that Jesus said there's not even a pen stroke that's going to pass away. So it's down to the words, to the letters, to the pen strokes of the scripture inspired as they were written. But we do know that due to the nature of translating, Sometimes if you take those languages, Greek, especially the Koine New Testament Greek, or you take Hebrew, which fell out of use for years and years and years, you look at those ancient languages and you want to translate that into a modern English, then that can result sometimes in the text being a little difficult to read or a little difficult to grasp. Sometimes it sounds a little awkward to have just an absolute plain word-for-word translation. So part of the work of the translators is to do some interpreting. The formal equivalence school of thought is that we want word for word as close as we can get, and we want to try to work with it so that it doesn't sound too awkward. Of course, most of these are the ones that we would recommend that we use, the top three, the NASB, the New American Standard, the New King James, and the ESV. Those are formal equivalents. Of course, the King James based on word for word and then the new King James in the 1980s, updating that just a bit for readability. I learned as I started to learn and to preach with King James because that was the prominent English translation. The NIV came out shortly after I started preaching and I was convinced that that was just a horrendous version. It's not as bad as I thought. It's gotten worse. as they progressed. But growing up and preaching King James, I found preaching, especially to young people, that I had to explain the English before I could get to anything else. I had to tell them what those words meant in the King James Bible because some of the language is outdated. Not a lot of it, not as much as you would think. But in updating that, the New King James, the New American Standard. Of course, MacArthur uses the New American Standard and now they have the new translation that they've come out with based off the NASB and taking that a step further. and the ESV. And these are good, solid, word-for-word, formal equivalence translations. The second type is a functional equivalence. This is also known as the dynamic equivalence, or a thought-for-thought. And it's the idea that we want the scripture to be readable, But these translations, you've got a reading style with minimum verbal distortions, and since words put together produce thoughts, this method attempts to translate the thought, even if some of the words may not be needed to convey the idea. So a thought-for-thought Bible may not be translating every word, but they're trying to capture the thought behind the statement. Examples of this type are the new revised standard and the NIV. Again, the original NIV is probably the best of the NIVs that there have been, very readable. In fact, I know that my pastor preached from that. when I was in high school and you got used to hearing it, it was very readable, it was understandable. Now, there have been other now new NIV versions, the new NIV and several others up to the point that the latest one just recently released has gone gender neutral. in the translation of Scripture. And I'm sorry, that's beyond thought for thought, that's blasphemy. You're messing with the Word of God at this point. Thought for thought to me is dangerous enough, because you still are leaving words out. There are still things that you may be skipping over trying to make a thought, but the problem is, because there is interpretation involved in translation, if you get the wrong thought, miss the idiom or the language and you get the wrong thought, then you've messed that verse completely up. And there are some that stand out, you can find examples online if you do comparisons, where you'll read a verse in the NASB or the New King James or the ESV and then read it in the NIV or one of the others, the New Revised, and it's not even the same idea. And that's where the danger comes in in a thought for thought. And the third type is the paraphrase, or known as a free translation. And this actually began trying to make the Bible more understandable, especially easy. And of course, the most famous example is the Living Bible. And the Living Bible was translated, not, it's a paraphrase. The guy who did it, did it for his children, so that they could read and understand the scripture. Well, the problem is, it's a paraphrase that then started to be sold as if it was a version of the Bible. The worst example of a paraphrase is the message. If you have a message Bible, you better be using it for kindling. It's not a Bible, it's not scripture. It's horrendous what is done to doctrinal concepts and words and formulations in the word of God that are so dumbed down that they lose all theological meaning. It may sound reasonable, it may sound like you're talking on the street, but folks, this is the word of God. There needs to be some formality to what we're doing as we're dealing with the words of God. The paraphrase strives to make the text so simple that ideas are conveyed actually by changing words and by thoughts to match the context and understanding of the reader so that they will use modern phrases and things that don't mean what they used to mean. And it's really just a dangerous practice to get into. Now, some will tell you that there is a living Bible translation now. And that's true. It's a living Bible translation trying to meld a thought for thought and a paraphrase. It's still not a good translation. It's bad as a paraphrase. It's bad as a translation. I would not recommend it at all. So the Mornay translation moves toward that paraphrase, that free translation, the greater the danger of distortion of the Word of God. And when we're talking about the Word of God, I mean, you understand, there are those even some who have been involved in communist takeover, socialist movements, even in the West, who as they strategize how to influence culture and society, they talk about translating the scripture and changing phrases and concepts and dumbing it down. Because they understand people committed to the scripture are going to be a little bit more committed, a little more feisty when it comes to what the government is doing when it comes and tries to take the place of God and be your savior. Absolutely. We're going to give you an approved church to go to and an approved translation to use. Well, once you've done that, throw it out. If the government's telling you how to translate the Word of God, no. No. Interesting. Interesting. Just this last week, 300 and some odd years ago, or longer than that, I'll get the date, Tyndale was burned at the stake for translating the Bible into English. That was considered a heretical action to give people the Bible in their own language. Well, how much more dangerous is it then when it's the government who's telling you, use this translation, this is state approved. They shouldn't have any say on that. Come on in. Good morning. This is a chart that I can send you. I think we've used it before as we talk about the types of Bible translations. This just lays them out for you, showing you the different kinds and the different translations that fall into those different categories. The formal equivalence, the word-for-word, the thought-for-thought, and the paraphrase. There are actually a lot more on the paraphrase side of it than you would imagine. Lots of Bibles out there that people are changing what it says and how it's to be taken. Another tool that we have for practical Bible study are study Bibles. If we are studying the Scripture, these are Bibles that have marginal notes, they have footnotes that have been added to many editions. This goes all the way back to the Geneva Bible, one of the first English translations in 1599 that included, for the first time in English and in the Bible, chapter and verse designations, so you had an address to know where to go find a verse, and also marginal notes. which they borrowed from many of the leaders of the Reformation, putting in notes in the margins of the Scripture to help explain words and concepts, doctrinal and theological concepts. Those marginal notes also include textual variants, help with archaic words, and of course, cross-references. If you have a cross-reference Bible, most of mine all have the center cross-reference, where you will have a verse, and if you want to apply the analogy of faith and look at scripture upon scripture, you find these things in the center reference, and you can find other verses that relate. Commentary notes can also be helpful to explain the text. Good study Bibles that are out there now are the Reformation Study Bible, of course, the MacArthur Study Bible, and the ESV Study Bible. And these will have, at the bottom of each page, notes, commentary notes, on the text that's on the page to help with some explanation. You do have to be careful with study Bibles. There are a lot of study Bibles out there that shouldn't be out there. There are a lot of notes that really take it a direction it doesn't need to go. And while study Bibles can be helpful for new believers, the dangers include equating the notes with the text of Scripture itself or introducing error or even false doctrine. While they're helpful, we have to be careful because you can, again, you're dealing with commentary from men, you're putting it on the same page right there next to the Scripture, and if somebody doesn't know any better, they'll believe that that's the right interpretation and that's the only way to take a verse. So we have to be diligent then to study the Scripture, knowing we have notes that are helpful, but ultimately, the authority for us is the Word of God. When we talk about the King James Bible, when we talk about the work that was accomplished through Tyndale, With his translation of the scripture, much of which the phrasing the translators of the King James Bible actually kept and used, we have that translation that enjoys a preeminent position of acceptance and usage over a long period of time. When you stop to think about the work of Bible translations and you realize how long the King James has been around, and how long it was the prominent English translation. It is a significant work, and it is a good translation of the scripture. There are those who will protest if you think that there are other versions that can be used. There are those who we know them as King James onlyest. They will say that you've got to have only the King James, that that's the only inspired Bible, that that's the only one authorized for use. The story behind that, actually, if you're familiar with Texas history, is that there was a question about which translation of the Bible was to be taught to school children in Texas when Ma Ferguson was governor. If you don't remember Ma and Pa Ferguson, some of y'all might be old enough to remember. If you remember, Ma Ferguson was asked about and she said, of course, we were going to use the King James English Bible to teach that to Texas school children because if that translation was good enough for the Apostle Paul and Jesus himself, it was good enough for the school children of Texas. Speak English like Jesus did. And that's the danger. The influence of the King James really cannot be overstated. I mean, it can be overstated. It can't be overstated because it is an accurate word-for-word translation. It introduced many phrases into the English language that previously had not existed. However, we have to confess there is no inspired translation of the Bible. The Bible in its original autographs was inspired. But translations, by their very nature, because interpretation has to happen to translate from one language to another, sometimes that meaning of the text can be obscured. And those who think that the King James Version is the only inspired Bible on the planet, by the way, those who are logically consistent will tell you that the job of the missionary is to teach people in foreign countries English first, so that then they can read the Bible and understand it. and that's just nonsense. There are good translations of the scripture in most of the languages of the world. Of course, if you'd like to support Wycliffe Bible Translators because they are actively working to find groups, especially unreached groups and groups that do not have a written scripture in their languages. Wycliffe is wonderful because they will find places that have a spoken language and they don't even have a written form of their language, so they'll develop it. From the speaking, they will develop a written language and a grammar so that they can translate the scripture so that the first book those people ever read is the Word of God in their own language. We also have as another tool commentaries. Again, all of these can be very good and can be very bad. You have to know who to listen to, where to go, who to read, what to look for. Commentaries can be indispensable as a tool for students of the Bible. Competent commentaries help us to avoid relying on our own judgment. It helps us avoid private interpretations, serving as a check and balance for our own presidential tendencies or pet doctrines. The good commentaries will take us back and show us the history from church history of how a text has been interpreted for generations. In fact, if in your Bible study you come across something that you think you're the first one ever to have seen it in the history of the world, just stop, you're wrong. You're not the first to do that. In fact, I think it's more difficult for us now because there are so many translations, so many commentaries, so many different views that are so readily available that it's very easy to get lost in the weeds and to lose the meaning of the text. Some of the problem with commentaries are there are commentaries that are bent toward a certain doctrinal viewpoint and bend everything to fit that doctrinal viewpoint. There are single volume, whole Bible commentaries that can be pretty simple, pretty devotional. Some of them can be actually very good study tools. And there are commentaries that are extremely technical. There are a few commentaries that are recommended if you are good with the original languages, with Greek, with Hebrew, with Latin, with a few of the other languages, theological languages, because some of those will rely heavily on that in drawing out and applying the meaning of the text. Some commentaries are great because they are very pastoral, or they are very devotional in their exposition, and others are really highly critical, meaning it's a high-level exegesis. I like to do a mix of both, where I will use technical commentaries, but my favorite are the pastoral commentaries, where they're really seeking to make application of the word of God to people's lives. That's why I love commentaries by James Boyce and a few others like that. That it is theologically sound and it is doctrinally deep, but it's also very pastorally practical. Taking the text and applying it to the lives of people in the pew. Commentary sets come in all levels. Some individual series are good, that's a good option, but also an expensive option to have to buy every commentary, especially if they're single ones on every book of the Bible. I've only got a few complete commentary sets. Matthew Henry is one, Calvin is another. There are a few like that that I will have. But there are others that just to own the whole set would be astronomical. So I just buy a few at a time depending on what book I'm going to preach, and at the rate I go, that means I'll have to buy commentaries every two years. So that's not bad. But you want to look for commentaries that are sound, that are solid, obviously, that are in line historically with the tradition of the church, with the Protestant church and the Reformed church. Ligonier. put together, actually before Archbishop Pearl's death, put together a list of the best and top commentaries for each book on the Bible. And I've got the link here in the notes that you were sent. And you can look, pick the book of the Bible, and it will give you the top five or six commentaries with a few other runners up that are there. And that's where I start. When I'm starting and getting ready and I know I'm going to be planning to preach a book, I'll look through that list and see who I like and who I need and who I prefer so I know which of those to order. Because I get asked all the time, pastors get asked all the time, what's a good commentary on this book? Now, I just have to send you a link. It's a pretty solid list. Most of the commentaries that they do recommend are good and they do break it out from the technical to the pastoral so you can see what you'd like and what you're looking for. There's also concordances. I was typing my notes last night and I kept typing the word concordance. It's not a concordance, concordances. Looking to find a book, a source here that shows you, First, it serves as a dictionary to define the language, the words that are used. But it also gives you a list of every verse where a specific word occurs throughout the scripture. If you are like me, before the age of the internet, you probably might have a Strong's Concordance. If you've got a big red Strong's Concordance at home on your shelf, big thick book. And you gotta look through it, and you gotta find your word, and it tells you that you're strong. It's got your Greek number. Be careful there, because it's usually just a root word. And then you look all the way down, it gives every single verse where that word occurs in the King James Bible. I think they've updated Strong's now to a couple of the newer... the newer New King James, the NSP translations. But looking to find everywhere that that word appears, which of course helps in studying for context. The great news about concordances now is there's Bible software available that not only will give you that word in every verse it appears in, but it will break it out and show you in the context how that word is being used in all the similar verses that use it in that way. So the computer has made study time much easier when you're doing word studies. Good Bible dictionaries. Of course, they're helpful. They include the Anchor Bible Dictionary, Holman Illustrated, Nelson's New Illustrated, or Zondervan Pictorial Bible Encyclopedias. These are good just to have, just to look up Bible words, just to see. And what we learn is there are, when you look at that, there are about a thousand words that are used over and over in scripture to the point that those are usually the top that make it into that dictionary, and just help give you an understanding of the language of the Bible. If you don't have a Bible atlas, of course, back here beyond the inspired concordance in the back of your Bibles, you usually have maps, and an atlas is just a big book of maps. It just shows you the maps of the Bible times, where these things happened, where Paul's missionary journeys were, where these events were taking place to help give us some geographical context. Word studies, rule five for biblical interpretation that we examined, is the importance of the meaning of words. And there are several word study books again, that take a collection of the most used vocabulary in scripture and give us a dictionary and contextual information. Vine's Expository Dictionary, the Complete Word Study of the New Testament, the Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, and the Theological Workbook of the Old Testament are all helpful to use. And again, used to you had to buy these and they were big huge books that went on your bookshelf. Now you can find most of all of this information online. When it comes to languages, when we've talked about Greek and Hebrew, got into some of the context of the languages, a few tools to use while working or learning the biblical languages. The first that you need for the New Testament especially is an interlinear. My dad actually gave me an interlinear that he had. after he had first been saved. But it is just line for line where you have the Greek text and then you have the English text underneath it. And at times they will give one or two different English translations. And the first line is just word for word, not even grammatically reconstructed so you can read it in English. Just word for word. What do these words mean? And then you can see how it's been translated so that it becomes readable and understandable. Metzger's frequency list, again, this is the one that takes every word that appears ten or more times in the New Testament, and that is the thousand Greek words that he's got, and it gives you a working knowledge of the New Testament vocabulary. Greek grammars are available. as seminary level textbooks or they can be geared to the ordinary reader. There are several software programs now that teach Greek. I keep getting asked if I would teach Greek and we just might have to do that at some point in time if you're interested. It's Greek. If you understand English, it's not that difficult. It's actually very similar in the way it looks, the way it sounds. But when you get into it, the grammar is horrendous. Greek grammar is exceptionally difficult. I took Greek first and I know now why they did that to us and made us do that because Greek was hard and it made Hebrew easy. Because Hebrew looks like you dipped a chicken's feet and let him run backwards across the page. It's just totally foreign literally to us. the grammar is so much easier than the Greek grammar working with the Hebrew text. So once you get through Greek, tackle Hebrew. There are Greek lexicons and these are Greek dictionaries. They do the same thing. They'll take the Greek word and show how it can be translated, what it means in different context, and list every verse that that word is in. That's one of the biggest books on my shelf and now thankfully that's all online. because now I can do that, just click the word and it does an automatic search and pops it all up. Used to you had to flip through the book. That's the first thing you did was you learned the Greek alphabet, and then you learn the Greek vocabulary so that you'd use the Greek dictionary and knew where to find the word, and then you had to find all the prefixes, and the suffixes, and the root words, and what it all meant. The standard has been the Greek English lexicon of the New Testament and other early Christian literature by Bauer, Arndt, and Gingrich. The lexicon Thayer's Greek English lexicon is also another one that is useful. Other tools, there are other analytical and topical concordances of the Greek New Testament and of the Septuagint, again, the Greek translation of the Old Testament. A good Hebrew lexicon includes the Hebrew and English lexicon of the Old Testament by Brown, Driver, and Briggs. Again, all of these were required in Bible college and seminary, but they are available to you, christianbook.com or Amazon. You can order and have those if you would like to study more about the languages. I recommend the software, of course. There are software programs now. that do all of this for you. Some of them that you can add books and commentaries and notes and do all sorts of wonderful things with. Again, it can get pricey. But as you start out with that, I always recommend people going to the free sites first, go to Bible Gateway, the Blue Letter Bible, crosswalk.com. regreek.com. These are sites where you can go, they have a concordance, you can put in a word, it'll show you every verse it's in. You can click on commentary links from there to read about it, and usually the commentaries are pretty solid, still you got to be careful. But stick with the ones that you know that are out there, that are available, and you can learn that way. BibleWorks, Logos, the PC Study Bible, and WordSearch are all also very helpful. I use BibleWorks, some people use Logos because there's more flexibility. People who use Logos like to have all the books that are there on the computer. I don't do that. I've got all the books on the shelf. So what I do is Bible works that's got mainly for the Greek and the Hebrew doing the word studies and things like that. So did you have? Really? Okay. Well, that's an update even since the last R.C. Sproul edition, so good to know. But Logos does some of what BibleWorks does with the languages, but then also allows you to add all sorts of other books online for online digital access for your study. Some people like doing it all on the computer, and I like doing it in my chair with the book. So put the Greek up on the screen so I don't have to pull the lexicon down and then use all my other books to do everything else. There are also Bible reading programs. Obviously, usually these all start at the first of the year and have you read through the Bible in a year. There are others that you can read on certain comics or focus on certain books to read through the Bible. The key there, have a plan. Have a plan to read and stick to it. Consistency and discipline are really the two keys beyond all the tools that are there. We look at the tools, we look at the Greek, we look at the Hebrew, we look at the commentaries. If you don't start though by just sitting down and reading the scripture. Be careful because sometimes what we do with the reading programs is we know how much we have to read every day, and it gets to the point that, I get to the end of the day, I haven't read my reading for the day, I'm going to get behind, so I'm going to read my reading for the day, and then you read your reading for the day, and you check it off that you read your reading for the day, and you don't even remember a word you just read. because it just becomes a formality, it just becomes a ritual. Spend time in the Word of God. You should be hungry for it anyway. And as you desire the Word, spend time. I really like MacArthur's approach. What he will say is, pick a book and read that book of the Bible every day for a month. and what you will know and glean from that just from the repetition of the Word of God. The sanctifying effect on our minds, renewing our minds, being in the Word of God. The point is we need to be reading it, we need to be memorizing it, and we need to be meditating on it. You understand meditation is not clearing your mind, it's not just picking a word and focusing on a word. Meditation is reciting and dwelling on and singing and praying the Word of God. When we do that, that's when we learn the word, that's when it really becomes enrooted in our minds and in our hearts, and that's when we bear fruit. Sproul in his conclusion said, we who live in the Western world are living in a post-Christian era. The influence of the church has been greatly eroded in our culture. That means the influence of Christian people has been weak. I believe that a critical key for church renewal is to be found in adult education. I dream of a multitude of articulate and knowledgeable Christians making a new impact on our society. That dream cannot be realized unless we know and use the tools of intelligent Bible study. We also have to be prepared, as you mentioned China, where there's a state-approved church, there's a state-approved version of the scriptures. It is not uncommon for regimes like that to completely outlaw the scripture and you can't own it, you can't have it. If you're caught with it, you're going to jail or you're going to be put to death. for years in the Chinese church and in the underground churches of the places in the world, where if they could actually get a copy of the scripture, they would just share it page by page so that somebody had a Bible to read during the week. And if any of it got caught, it was immediately confiscated and there would be consequences. This is another reason to hide it in your heart. We have the blessing of all of these tools, but this is the danger. We've learned a few things over the last two years between what the government has done and what the weather has done. If you don't have electricity, you can't get online, can't use the computer. If you've been separated from your books, all you have is what's in your head and what's in your heart. Not going to surprise me when there is a time in this country, won't be the same country, but in this nation, where we won't be allowed to have the Word of God. That'll be an act of rebellion. Listen, if you protest at a school board meeting now, you are labeled by the current administration a domestic terrorist. Can you imagine when they come for the scriptures and they come for the church? You need to know the Word of God. Study it now with the tools you have. so that you can rely upon it then. Because there's going to come a time, there may come a time in our lifetime when all of the word of God we have is what we have hidden in our hearts. Then it'll be precious. But I promise you, when that time comes, no matter how much we've got, we will wish we had more. So study the scripture now. Use these practical tools now while you are able to know and to understand the Word of God. Next week again, we'll begin Exegetical Fallacies, D. A. Carson's book, the second edition of Exegetical Fallacies, and we'll start with Word Study Fallacies. How if you just rely on a root word and a strong concordance to do your word study in your original languages, you're probably going to be wrong. We'll show you the fallacies to avoid doing word studies. This morning, the admonition, study the Word of God. Be diligent to present yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. Let's pray together. Father, we do thank you this morning for giving your word to us, for the good translations that we do have available, for all the tools that have been provided for us. Father, most of all we thank you for your word and your spirit given to us. Father, here you've given us all we need. Here are all things that pertain to life and godliness. Here in this word, this is our final inspired authority to reveal to us your will and the works that you have for us to accomplish. We thank you for revealing yourself to us on its pages and for ultimately showing us that all of this points us to Jesus. Thank you for the living word who has given us his written word so that we might commune with you. We pray these things this morning in his precious name. Amen.