Page 33 - Personal Spiritual Life Syllabus w videos

Four Key Areas that Must Be Understood to Properly Divide God’s Word from John MacArthur’s Book,
How to Study the Bible.
1. The language
We speak English, but the Bible was written in Hebrew and Greek, and a few parts in
Aramaic (which is similar to Hebrew). So we have a language gap that must be bridged,
otherwise, we won’t fully be able to understand the Scripture. For example, in 1 Corinthians
4:1 the apostle Paul says, “Let a man so account of us, as of the ministers of Christ.” Now
that sounds great, Paul; you’re a minister of Christ. When we think of the English word
minister, we think of a prime minister or the minister of defense. A minister is an elevated
position; it’s a dignified term. But the Greek word is huperetes, which means a third-level
galley slave on a ship. Paul said that when the record goes in for him, let it be said that he
was nothing more than a third-level galley slave for Jesus Christ. You would never get that
out of the English term. Why? It is because there’s a language gap.

Another example is in the book of Hebrews. When you look at the word perfection in the
book (6:1; 7:11), you can get completely confused on how you comprehend Hebrews unless
you understand that perfection has to do with salvation, not spiritual maturity. That’s what
you’ll find out as you study the words and their relationships in the text. It is very important
to do this. And to study the words in the Bible, particularly in the New Testament, you
should get W. E. Vine’s An Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words (Moody Press,
1985). It’s very helpful for someone who doesn’t know Greek. You can look up every English
word, and it will tell you the Greek meaning. It will be a great help to you as a Bible student.
Also, a good concordance will help you in the study of words.

2. The culture
The cultural gap must be bridged, because cultures can be very
different. If we don’t understand the culture of the time in which
the Bible was written, we’ll never understand its meaning. For
example: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was
with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1). What does that
mean? Why didn’t he say, “In the beginning was Jesus”? Well, he
used “the Word” because that was the vernacular at that time.
To the Greeks the term Word was used to refer to a floating kind
of cause, a kind of ethereal, spatial kind of energy that was
floating around. John said to the Greeks that that floating cause,
that thing which caused everything, that spatial energy, that cosmic power, is none other
than that Word which became flesh (1:14).

To the Jew, the term Word was always the manifestation of God, because “the Word of the
Lord” was always God emanating His personality. So when John said “the Word was made
flesh and dwelt among us,” he was identifying Jesus Christ, the incarnate Christ, as the very
emanation of God. In the text, therefore, he meets the Greek mind and Hebrew mind with
the right word that grabs both at vital points.

And this goes on all throughout the Bible. If you don’t understand the Gnosticism existent at
the time of the writing of Colossians, you may not understand the purpose of the book. If

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