December 24, 2010
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How to prepare a teaching by Pastor Don
Taught 11/19/10
Pastor Don shared with us some of what he uses to make sure that when he teaches the Word it is rightly dividing the Word of truth. One problem that we have is with language. The Bible is written in Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic, and when words are translated the meaning of a passage can be altered by the choice of the word used. It gets complicated if we take a current usage of a word that in the past had a different meaning. For example the word “gay” years ago meant happy, but today it is used in reference to a sexual orientation.
Pastor Don demonstrated the use of Strong’s Concordance. He reminded us that if a term is in the Old Testament you look in the Hebrew, in the New Testament you would look in the Greek.
In Strong’s the first part is a listing of all the words used in the Bible. You find the Word you want to understand. We looked up the word “hypocrite”. Strong’s gives you part of the sentence with the word and the verse that it is used in. Find the verse you want to find the meaning of the word in, and look for the Strong’s number that is next to that verse.
For example Hypocrite is found in Job 13:16 and it’s Strong’s number is 2611 (Hebrew)
In Matthew 7:5 Hypocrite is 5273 (Greek)You would then go to the back of Strong’s and look either in the Hebrew or the Greek dictionary depending on where the word is used in Scripture.
(I don’t know how to put the accent marks)
In Hebrew the meaning is: 2610 chaneph – to soil, espec. in a moral sense: – corrupt, defile, greatly pollute, profane
Other words near that are 2611 chaneph – from 2610 (so we would look at 2610) moral filth, i.e. wickedness – hypocrisy.
2612 – choneph – from 2610 moral filth, i.e. wickedness – hypocrisy
5271 Hupokrinomai – from 5259 and 2919 – to decide (speak or act) under a false part, i.e. dissemble (pretend): feign
5272 Hupokrisis – from 5271 acting under a feigned part, i.e. (fig.) deceit (“hypocrisy”) condemnation, dissimulation, hypocrisy
5273 hupokrites from 5271 an actor under an assumed character (stage-player) i.e. dissembler, hypocrite
Pastor Don also looks up the word in Webster’s Dictionary. Why Webster? Because Webster was a Christian – Pastor suggests using the oldest version of the dictionary you can find for it has the closer meanings to the words of the Bible. Really old Webster dictionaries had a salvation message printed in them.
From Webster’s:
hypocrisy – 1. a pretense of having a virtuous character, moral or religious beliefs or principles, etc. that one doe not really possess. 3. a pretense of having some desirable or publicly approved attitude. 3. an act or instance of hypocrisy. Webster’s gives the Greek hypokrisis – play acting, equi to hypokri(nesthai) to play a part, explain. Hypo -krinein to distinguish, separate. It was reintroduced in the 16th century.
Hypocrite. 1. a person who pretends to have virtues, moral or religious beliefs, principles, etc. that he or she does not actually possess, esp. a person whose actions belie stated beliefs. 2. a person who feigns some desirable or publicly approved attitude, esp. one whose private life, opinions, or statements belie his or her public statements. hypokirtes – gr a stage actor, hence one who pretends to be what he is not.
Pastor Don suggests that we look at the whole meaning of all the definitions (Greek and Hebrew) so that we get a whole picture of what the word means.
If we don’t get to the original meaning of the words we end up reading Scripture with a 2010 filter.
Churches want to be seeker friendly, and revise the tenets of the Church to what the seeker friendly church feels is an acceptable meaning for the heathen.
Jesus preached the truth, and sometimes His words offended the listener, but He spoke the truth. His goal was to reach people with the truth, not make them feel comfortable.
When Jesus comes all the churches are going to be in trouble when they have to face up to the fact that they have altered the meaning of what Jesus said.
We need to understand Key Words in the passage so that we get to the import of the passage.
Pastor Don uses a Key Word study Bible, and also reads the same passage in various translations like the Amplified, King James, New King James, Message, and other translations so that he sees the meaning of the passage.
We need to study the Word to stop the spin. ”The spin stops here.”
Jesus spoke to the Pharisees, and He used Hebrew to speak, but the New Testament is written in Greek. So when we see a Word in the Greek, we should also check out the Hebrew meaning of the Word.
The church fathers are not holding pastors accountable to the Word.
We all are priests and kings, so everyone from the pastor to the congregation has to make sure that the scripture is rightly taught. If you have a question, at least in our church, we can respectfully ask for clarification – where did the pastor find it in the Word? The Spirit and the Word must agree.
One of the words on the same page as “hypocrite” is the word “hyssop”. Someone asked Pastor about hyssop, and he told the person to research hyssop and present this at the next Bible study. She did and did it beautifully as you will see in a later post.
Pastor Don told us that when we teach our studies we should also look deeply into the meanings of the Words so that we rightly divide the Word of truth.
I pray this helps you wield the Sword of Truth (the Word of God) even more powerfully.
Heather
