Welcome back to Biblical Hermeneutics. This is Dave Ward and I want to give you just a quick low-tech on-screen tutorial on how to use a free resource, BibleHub.com. Please take note of that, BibleHub.com. I hope that you'll begin playing with it if you haven't already. I just want to walk you through some of the things that you can do with BibleHub.com to deepen your biblical preaching and teaching with a free resource that everybody can have access to if they have access to the internet.
You can use this either on your desktop like I am doing currently or you can download the free BibleHub app and use it on your phone. So the first thing to know is if I want to go to a passage I'm studying this Sunday, I preached on Luke 15, today's Sunday. That's what I was preaching on.
Then I can either go to a whole chapter, and it will take me right to that chapter in whatever version I've set as my standard, or I can go directly to a verse. If I go to a verse, I'll see it in a parallel set of versions on the left, and it will start to give me the context to remind me what's around it, cross-references that I could link to, that the website has... discerned as being important for the study of it, and other locations where it might be helpful. But most importantly for me is the multiple versions.
If I see major differences between those versions, that's telling me there's something going on in the language, the Greek or the Hebrew, depending where I'm at, that I might want to look into. Why are those different words there? For example, publicans, sinners, notorious sinners, and forgive me for saying publicans. That's just a reversal of the order there.
That's related to tax collectors. So we have sinners and notorious sinners, and we have tax collectors and publicans, two different ways of translating them, what's going on. I might also go into verse 2 and see that there were different words being connected.
So receiving sinners versus associating with or welcoming, etc. So all of those would be things that I might dig into in my biblical study, just already from a parallel connection. But for the most part, what I will do is start reading in the English Standard Version because it's a more literal translation and make sure I've got a sense of the context. I can do that here, right on the screen, or I can do it in my physical Bible, should I choose. But let me go to the part of the passage that I was assigned for this Sunday, which is the parable.
of the prodigal son. Now, if I want to study a particular verse, so the younger son said to his father, give me my share of the estate, or in the English Standard Version, the younger of them said to his father, Father, give me the share of property that is coming to me. If I want to study that verse and go underneath the English, I can get to a layman's sense of the Greek.
by simply clicking on this interline button, which is short for interlinear. That means that the Greek and the English are in interlinear format, where I can see the Greek and then what English words are connected to them, even though they're in the order of the Greek in a very wooden way. That allows me to see the inspired original text, also seeing it right next to the English. Now, above it, it tells me... what's called the Strong's number for each word, so that I can look it up in a concordance that gives me a basic definition.
And I can also look it up in the Englishman's concordance that shows me all the places where that is used. And then I can look down below and see what part of speech it is. This is a conjunction.
This is a verb. This is an article. This is an adjective. Then it also tells me number, case, et cetera. So it gives me all the grammatical data that I might need to interpret things if I want to go really far down the road with it.
But often, you don't need to. The English version has done most of that work for you. Now, for me, one of the things that I asked, because I was curious about it, is what is the form of the original Greek word that says, give to me the property? In the English, it is an imperative.
It's in the form of an imperative. I wanted to know if that was the form in the Greek. An imperative is a command. Here you'll see it is. so what seemed to be present on the surface is verified underneath the surface and now i can preach on that with confidence the younger son is giving a command to his elder father And I know, given my basic cultural background of Jewish culture and hierarchical cultures, patriarchal cultures, this is an act of insubordination. There's no question.
He's not saying, would you please be, would you be willing? Or, Father, please. Or, before you die, would you assign to me so that I don't lose what is coming to me?
None of that going on. It is a command. It is a directive. This is insubordinate activity.
So you can see how preaching material emerges. out of that. Now, here's something I'm noticing just now as I'm looking at it after I've preached it. There's two words here for property.
I'm just glancing down here, and I saw property, property. I didn't notice this in my detailed observations first time through. That wasn't a word that I focused on, but I could have. When you see the same English word translating two Greek words or two Hebrew words, something's going on.
Now, sometimes it's the reverse, but here it's the same English word with two different. Greek words. I can go see what those mean. Let me just click on the Strong's number. Now, if I go back, it'll give you the quick thumbnail of it.
I'll just hover over it, and up it will pop. Property, wealth, substance. Now, if I hover over this one quickly, it will tell me a primary word, life.
In example, the present state of existence, or by implication, the means of livelihood. Now, I'll go into these in just a second so I can see the full entry in the Strong's. But notice it's already giving me a contrast. This isn't just a stylistic difference. The son, now this is very interesting.
The son says, give me the portion of the stuff, the wealth, the substance, stuff that's coming to me. He's focused on stuff. I want my stuff.
And the father then divides his livelihood. To the son, it's just things, property, wealth, substance. Give me the stuff.
To the father, it's the means of living. the son asks for his portion of the inheritance for the father to be able to give it to him he has to cut into and cut out his means of livelihood now that will preach that is more than just a stylistic piece and the english is hiding it by saying property property now i'm not saying that's a bad translation those are in both places That is a faithful translation of that Greek word. But the Greek has a nuance to it that isn't present in the English word property. Often when I go to the interlinear, that's what I'm gaining.
I'm not necessarily gaining a new meaning of the word. I'm gaining a nuance, a connotation more than a denotation. Connotation, if you want to look that up in Google, Pause the video, look it up in Google to see what that means. Connotation is the emotional weight the word carries. Denotation is its intellectual content.
So denotation is one form of meaning, intellectual content. Connotation is another form of meaning, emotive expression or tone or the surrounding connoted ideas that are connected to it. So there was just a quick glance. at this one verse, I've already got some insights that I wouldn't have had just looking at the English with a free tool that you could have on your desktop or on your phone.
Let me just show you another cool thing that I did find the other day that the interlinear would have showed me. In Luke 15 chapter 1, now the tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to him, but were grumbling, both the Pharisees and the scribes, saying, this man eats with and receives sinners. So the word for grumbling, if you want to look at it, is this word, to murmur greatly, to continue murmuring from dia and ganguzo, to complain throughout a crowd.
Now when I clicked and got the larger entry, it shows me the places where it's used in the New Testament. Interestingly enough, the same word is coming up later in chapter 19 in the same book. That's what Dr. Bernius called a context study, and this context is in the central ring of context.
It's with... in this same author's same book. So I want to go look at that. But before I do, it tells me that it is a term imitating the sound of cooing doves and humming bees. Now that's interesting, isn't it?
The word itself sounds like what it means. Now, if you don't know how to pronounce a word, here's a little trick. Copy it, open a new tab, paste it, type in pronounce. And voila, I can see how to pronounce this word, even when I don't know Greek. Now, it's loading it for me, but it will say it in just a second, Diaganguzo.
Now, it's probably not playing back because I'm recording the screen. That is probably blocking it. So let me just close that out.
But if I didn't know how to pronounce it, I could just quickly look it up that way and not look silly when I go up into the pulpit and not have to say, no, I don't know how to pronounce this word. It's Diagon Guzzo. There it is.
Diagon Guzzo. So now listen to it. Diagon Guzzo. Diagon Guzzo. Diagon Guzzo.
Diagon Guzzo. Diagon Guzzo. Do you hear it? Kind of a murmuring, cooing that's happening in the crowd that you could hear if a thousand people are gathered.
you can start to hear the murmuring, the rumbling. So there's one of the senses. One of the things I like to do in preaching is make sure that I'm engaging as many of the senses of the listener as I can so they can see and taste and smell and hear and feel what's going on in the text because I want the Bible to come alive for them. So when I come across what's called an onomatopoeia, a word that sounds like what it means, I love that because I could give them a sense of the...
Diagon, gudzo, diagon, gudzo, diagon, gudzo, diagon, gudzo, diagon, gudzo. That's going on around Jesus. That's just driving him bananas. So that's another fun piece of what you can find with the inner linear that is here.
So you might look at all of those kinds of things. Now, for some of these grammar elements to become more meaningful for you, you'll have to know what words mean. I think we learn these things best by using them. If I looked here and saw that it was nominative. you could simply go into your next tab and type nominative grammar relating to or denoting a case of nouns, pronouns, and adjectives used for the subject of a verb.
So nominative then simply means it's the subject. So the Pharisees now are the subject and nominative here again. The scribes are the subject of this verb nominative masculine plural. legantes, saying. So both the Pharisees and the scribes subject are the ones saying.
Now in my detailed observations I might write in what does it mean for the Pharisees and scribes to be the ones who are grumbling? Why are they grumbling? What's causing them to grumble?
How far back in the crowd were they? How close to Jesus were they? How loud was this grumbling? What was their particular way of grumbling? And I might go through and either answer those with details from the text or imagine it.
to give people a possibility. But all of those are interpretive possibilities that come from just looking at this interlinear. Now, let me go back to my assigned text, 1512, and show you something else.
So, the younger of them said to the father, give to me the portion of the property falling to me. And he divided him the property for 1513. And after not many days, having gathered together all, the younger son went away into a country distant, and there he wasted the estate of him living prodigally. So here I'm finding what the word prodigal comes from.
In my English version, it just said reckless, wasted his property on reckless living. Now here I can hover over this word that means prodigal, wasteful, prodigal living, adverb from the same as asotia, dissolutely. Now you might be saying, what in the word does that mean?
So I know what that means, but I'm just going to type it in for you to see what that means, this immoral word. Lacking restraint, especially marked by indulgences, things such as drink or promiscuous sex that are deemed vices. Leading a dissolute lifestyle and a dissolute and degrading aspects of human nature.
Quickly, I found an English definition of that word, so I know what in the world it's talking about when I look at the definition of this word. I want to go into the deeper reference. So I look in here.
One of the things this always tells me is how many times it's used in the New Testament. Interestingly enough, it only occurs here. Sometimes that's discouraging to me when I find what they call the hapax legomena, a word that only occurs once within the text, because I can't do the context study, what some people call the word study. But you can look at similar roots. See here, it comes from a word that's very close to it, asotia.
And if I click on that Strong's reference point, now I have three occurrences that I can start to read. And if you read these, you'll realize that these are all connected to what we call sin lists in the New Testament. And in a confirming way, they're connected to gluttony, drunkenness, promiscuous living, orgies, and the like.
So the root word itself that is often called prodigal, excessive behavior, and the dire consequences it brings. The root word that it's related to, and I have to be careful here because words don't carry all the meaning of their root, but the connotation here sure seems to be pointing to a debauched and profligate. lifestyle. So here we have that 811 word, and it already told me that here, but it's confirmed by the sin lists of the New Testament. And when I go back, it's confirmed later on by the older son who says, this son of yours who wasted your property on prostitutes.
So the passage gives us a very clear picture of what this young man was prodigal about. Gluttony, drunkenness, sexuality. He was seeking the party lifestyle and partying hard to feel what he wanted to feel today. So all of that is stuff that we'll preach.
Now, so that's the interlinear. That's, in my mind, the most helpful piece of BibleHub.com. But I want to point to you one other thing.
In case you don't have a way of getting to commentaries, if I click on the comment tab, I'll be given a set of varying levels of commentaries. Now, if you don't have any other access, this can give you informative information, some of it better than others. For example, the Expositors Greek Testament gives me usually some very helpful things connected to the original language. Anything connected to the original language is, in my mind, more helpful to me. so here he went away as soon as possible when he had time to realize his property in haste to escape into wild liberty or license and it gives me sort of these little preaching points but it does it in a way that's connected to the text itself farther away the better the far country distant get me far away so asotos meaning almost unsavably the process of reckless waste it's given away Free reign given to every passion must go on until nothing is left. It's a picture of addiction.
Do you see what this gives me? It gives me the substantive nature of the text. I can now preach on.
Cambridge Bible gives me a collection of some people's thoughts. That's okay. Ellicott's commentary for English readers is usually less useful for me.
Benson's has a more verse-by-verse feeling to it. and sometimes helps me see something that I might have missed. For example, to feed swine, an employment to which I will remain a disagreeable, this unhappy youth who had once lived in so much plenty and splendor was forced to submit.
Thus sinners, by wandering far from God into the ways of vice and misery, join themselves to Satan and his servants, the genuine citizens of that country, which is far from God, etc., etc., etc. So I might not have noticed that he is... forced, in a sense, to submit to this degrading and humiliating activity. But it's not as directly connected to the original language as Expositors is.
You'll notice here, exegetical versus English Bible. So I tend to lean on this far right column, glance through this left column, and I might look at some other things. But I have, of course, commentaries that I use that are in written form. that I have in my own library. But if you don't have them, this helps you get to a general sense of what's going on.
Now, remember, you can also look up historical background, geographical background on the passages that you're reading in Google. For example, not too long ago, I was reading about the way Jesus went to go through Samaria on his way back from Jerusalem. Jerusalem. to Galilee map. Now, if I type that in and I just go to images, I quickly see all kinds of things when I'm looking online that I could glance at.
And one of the things that I'll notice, let's just click on this first one, is that if he's down here in Jerusalem, the natural way would be to go through Samaria. But... That makes it look like he has to go, except if I read in some commentaries, etc. There's other maps that would tell me this.
There's another path that goes by the river route to get you there. So that tells you the different ways that you might get to Samaria. Jesus didn't have to go that way. There are other ways to go. And I can click through this.
I could also click through other more biblically oriented links. that tell me those things and follow them ad nauseum. But that's Google.
So I might start here in Bible Hub. And when I find a connection point that I want to research, go over to Google real quick and come back. And in that way, I'm using free resources that I can find on my computer or in my phone. And let me just say a couple of the things. Avoid this tab right here.
Just avoid it. Every scholar who's well-trained should be able to draw out old and new things from the scriptures. So we should be able to do that without reading what somebody else said.
If we draw out something old that somebody else had said, that's just fine, but we'll have the joy of discovery for ourselves. And it's possible that if we read these things first, our mind will be so crowded out by what others have said, we won't see what God wants to say to our people. So study it as directly as you can.
and pay attention to what's there. One thing we haven't covered is the use of the lexicon, and this gives me something like an interlinear, but gives me right next to it a general gloss, if you don't mind me saying it that way, a meaning of each of the words as you go through it. I find that that clutters my vision, and I'm just as well going through the interlinear, then clicking on Strong's for that to help me. But that's BibleHub.com. I hope you'll start using that for this coming Sunday.
Even 5, 10, 15, 20 minutes would help you. If you're not preaching sometime soon, in one of your devotional times, when you read a passage, you notice a couple of interesting words, go to BibleHub.com and play around with it. Look at what's underneath the surface.
I think you'll start to see that the more you use it, the more quickly insights will come from it, and this will become one of your favorite tools. Thanks for your faithfulness to the gospel. Thank you for your faithfulness to interpret scripture.
Study to show yourself approved, one who will rightly divide the word of truth. This is one of those tools to help us divide it rightly. Let me pray for you. Lord, thank you for these students. I don't know where each of them is sitting right now.
I don't know their current circumstances, but Lord, I pray that you would help them not to be overwhelmed with what is shared, but to be encouraged by what is shared. If this is old information for them, I pray that you would encourage them to press even deeper into the tools and knowledge they have to sharpen the skills they have to be an even better workman for you. If this is new information for them and overwhelming, I pray that you would help them to piece by piece, step by step, one portion at a time, learn each of these things so that they become familiar, so that over time they might be better equipped to continue to teach and lead, disciple. and proclaim the good news of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.
In Jesus'name we pray. Amen. Thank you for your time listening to the video. Until next time, God bless.