Lecture 1: Biblical Hebrew Exegesis I - Dr. Bill Barrick

as we begin today I trust that you have already gone to the course page on joule and i'm going to turn there just now to remind you of what's on this page and how to utilize it when you go there you'll see the welcome to hebrew exegesis one and then you have a schedule and where it says course syllabus you'll find that when you go there it will give the professor's name it will list the textbooks both required and recommended it lists the various policies the attendance policy we have to put Disability Services policy down as a school with approval in the state of California the schedule is also listed there as well as earlier in the site and if you go down through you'll find out if you click on week one reading that you have a quiz to take it's a true/false quiz and it will look somewhat like this and you will answer true if you can say I have completed this week's required reading on each date on the schedule there's reading there was reading required for today all reading is to be done prior to the class for which it is assigned so if you're already behind please try to catch up as quickly as possible and then there's a question here not only did you complete this week's required reading but you completed this reading on time and if you were late on it then please mark that to let me know I check these and find out who's read what and how far we're getting along together as a class remember according to syllabus that there are pop quizzes that can be given on reading relax I'm not giving one today but you might have one next week and a pop quiz means just one major question from the reading for that day and if you look at your schedule in fact I'll go back here so you can see the schedule if I go the course syllabus and go to the schedule itself you'll see there that the reading today was Chism pages 7 to 18 the course syllabus pages 1 to 5 the study notes pages 6 37 in actuality I think those study notes are pages like pages 41 or 43 through a different number I need to change that because I decided to put them up in consecutive pagination instead of separate pagination for each part one for the study notes and one for the syllabus so I'll get that changed next week you have Chisolm pages 19 to 29 as as reading so those pages 19 to 29 our quiz about next week on Thursday you have a written translation due next week we'll talk about that as well and you have a choice of text due next week and for the choice of text you will be uploading that choice as you go down and look at week 2 let me pull this up a little bit higher so those UNIVAC can see it clearly besides the week 2 reading quiz you have a choice of text when you click on that you have a description of what is required so that you can see there what is given in the syllabus about it or a reference to pages the syllabus to go to and then you can submit your choice of text your paper your proposal that has several elements for elements that must be included and that will be uploaded and then I will receive that I will grade it electronically mark it electronically return it to you via email attachment and then the written translation the same way there's a description of what is required with the written with the written translation this is also in the syllabus on pages 11 to 16 and then you submit that when you have it ready you do it in a Microsoft Word document and then you upload it to the website to the Jul page Dana Waller sent out an email that included all the description of the details and instructions for using Joule and for uploading your papers all papers must be submitted on Jul must be uploaded there if you have an issue or a problem with that please contact to me because we'll need to talk about it and it needs to be done the college students a thousand college students have been doing this type of thing for years submitting every single assignment electronically doing everything online and by the way I've been told by professors out there 99% or 99.9 % turn them in on time without being late I won't try to contrast that with the experience here at the seminary but offer that as a challenge to you that if undergraduate students can do these things then graduate students certainly should be able to excel even more so so if you have some issues here or need some extra learning please take the time to find out more Dana Waller in the office is also available in case you have questions on jewel we also have James Street in the seminary who also works at the college in the department that deals with jewel so if you have any problems or issues he can be of help to if you have some of the questions or problems please contact me as well if I can I'll try to help you if I can't I'll refer you to either mrs. Waller or to James Street any questions about the use of jewel at this point have all of you received the email from mrs. Waller about jewel ok if you have not please see her and try to find out why you have not received it it's very important that you do so all of the classes all of the things we do here at the seminary are being changed to this system completely and this is a semester of transition so don't be bashful if you're having problems keep in mind your professors are also having some issues and problems and we're trying to get them worked out one by one I spent 2 hours of the day just trying to upload a revised syllabus and it's it's sometimes frustrating and I what will we'll share with you one thing I learned you are allowed if you've turned in or uploaded an assignment on time but before it is actually due the morning that you come here to class you decide that there's something you want to adjust on it you can adjust that and re-upload your assignment as long as it's done before 10:40 if you do that before 10:40 please remember to rename that file either put revised in its name or something else because there's an issue with Joule that if you try to upload the identical file name it will keep the old one in memory and reject your new one even though your new ones the only one left on your computer it's somehow caught in their system in its caught in cyberspace and you cannot get it out of there until you delete it entirely or replace it with a document with a totally different name so just keep that in mind if you ever do that that remember to change the name when you upload it'll save you time they'll save you some pain in working on it alright let's go on and as we're going on I'm going to pass these around just a reminder of the seriousness of the tasks we have before us in studying the Hebrew language and in coming to terms with what God would have us to learn the sheet that's coming around is a quote from Jim Eliot his wife Elizabeth quoted it in shadow of the Almighty that she wrote and published in 1958 if you have that book this quote is on page 82 Jim Elliott a missionary to South America who was murdered by the akka Indians and gave his life as a martyr for the faith wrote this about Hebrew I can think of nothing I'd like better better than to be able to pick up a page of Hebrew Old Testament and read it at site end of quote gentlemen that ought to be your love that ought to be your desire to regardless of what kind of ministry God is leading you to whether to the mission field whether it's to a pastor it here in the United States or elsewhere whether it's in teaching or whatever the Lord would lead you to do this ought to be a passion of yours remember that Christ is so to speak the husband of the church and the language that he speaks is a language that we his bride ought to learn remember what was taught in Nehemiah about those women who taught their children their language rather than their husbands language we need to learn the language of our Savior and the language of our Savior was Hebrew he also spoke Aramaic and he also understood Greek and Latin now and we're not having a class here on all four of those languages we're just studying Hebrew in here and it's a the language of nearly two thirds to three fourths of the entire Bible it's a language that can help you better understand God's Word if you learn it well believe it or not it is an easier language than English English is a far more exotic language and far more difficult for someone to learn who does not have English as a first language than Hebrew is Hebrew is actually one of the lesser difficulty languages it doesn't even ranked the median of where difficult languages are English is above that median at about halfway to the top of the most difficult languages in the world Chinese is the most difficult there are a few others out there that vie for it for difficulty but Hebrew is not really that difficult we've been told that if you take a child at the age of six and you hand them this basics of Biblical Hebrew that can be summarized on the front and back of a single eight-and-a-half by 11 sheet of paper that child can learn it within one week now when that child is 15 it takes three weeks when that individual turns 21 it takes four weeks when they turn 30 it takes four months when they turn 40 it takes two years when they turn 60 it takes four years so if you're younger in here you've got an advantage if you're older it's more difficult I'm learning that myself and trying to learn another language and at my age I find it coming very slowly and I'm more reluctant even to use it and it's just a difficulty but many of you are young and you're you've had one year of Hebrew under your belts already you're in your second year of Hebrew stay with it you have a learning lag a learning lag is always present don't be discouraged if you say well you know I made it for the first year but the last month or two it's beyond me I don't remember it and I have difficulty trying to assimilate it that's normal don't let that bother you that's normal in language acquisition for the majority of normal people now some people some of you looked at that said hey I got everything all the way through I didn't have a trouble following praise the Lord thank him for the gift he's given you and realized that there are others who do not have it come so easily but by the time you finish the second year of Hebrew I guarantee that you will be at least up to the midpoint of this year in your knowledge and your awareness and you can look back with comfort on having grasped three semesters of Hebrew that fourth semester may present a little bit more issue to you on some of the points that we cover but that's also because you're gradually increasing the difficulty of the texts that you're dealing with and translating so keep with it stay with it it will benefit you in the end and you will love the results because you will love the Lord and His Word therefore you desire to read it in his language how many if you're married to a woman who speaks a different language than you spoke anyone all right several of you when you have that occurred do you decide that doesn't matter what language your wife speaks or do you try to learn her language so that you can speak to her heart in her heart language that is our goal is it not as a husband to speak to the heart of our wives therefore we seek to learn their language their heart language their first language and the same it is with Scripture if we love the Word of God if we love our Lord we ought to seek to speak into his heart his mind in his language we ought to learn that language which with which he first addressed mankind and that's where we are with Hebrew it's a task that you'll either love or hate if you have neither love nor hate then you're just like the lukewarm water that is spewed forth from the mouth someone who hates the language is sometimes easier to teach than one who has no feeling for it one way or the other but those who love the language will have the greatest ease in gaining it because you love what you're about and the goal you love let's move on on the screen with this little ivory pomegranate that was found near the temple area in Jerusalem has an inscription on it in ancient Hebrew it says belonging to the temple of Yahweh holy to the priests when we look at the Hebrew language we have to keep in mind this is the language of the priests this is the language that Yahweh used to speak to his people this is the language in which the name Yahweh is formed and is made the Covenant name of the eternal God who desires to provide for his people and have a personal relationship to them and his language expresses the depths of theology please never approach this class or any Hebrew class with concept that its second best that first best is Greek and the New Testament and now don't have the ideal concept that God had the New Testament written in Greek because it is more capable of expressing sophisticated theological concepts there isn't a single theological concept in the New Testament but one that is not found already expressed in the Hebrew Old Testament only one doctrine is not found in the Old Testament as an explicit doctrine and that is the doctrine of the church it is the mystery that was hidden from ages past and is now revealed but all other doctrines that you can think of every major tenets of the faith has already been revealed in the Old Testament and describes sometimes in explicit and excruciating detail in Hebrew there is not any theological concept that cannot be expressed by Hebrew Hebrew is not just a language of ignorant farmers working on the land and seeking to survive it's a language that expresses their faith and expresses their hearts and expresses their love for God always keep that in mind now the subject areas of 603 for this fall are principles of translation syntactical analysis diagrammatical analysis textual analysis and lexical analysis next semester we will go beyond that to literary analysis ancient Near Eastern backgrounds and exposition the goal in these two semesters is for you to learn the exegetical method and if you learn the exegetical method well we also want you to learn the transition from exegesis to exposition notice the title of one of our chief textbooks by Bob Chisholm from exegesis to exposition you're here at the Masters seminary to prepare to expound the Word of God you've come here to be preachers and teachers you want to open the word and you want to be able to teach it to others to express its truths forcefully and clearly and accurately and that's what our goal is in these two semesters and your final paper in this course in OT 604 next semester will be a sermon and that sermon will be based upon all the other studies and papers you do prior to that time because as we're looking at these different areas you'll be translating your text you will be doing syntactical analysis of your text and presenting a paper and syntactical analysis you'll also be presenting a paper in diagrammatical analysis you'll diagrammatically analyze the text that you choose you will do textual analysis learning textual critisism you'll do lexical analysis a word study actually do two word studies out of your text by the end of this semester to be the last paper you turn in will be your word study paper and then next semester you'll have a literary analysis to do of your text and ancient near-eastern backgrounds analysis to do and then the exposition so you're going to spend two semesters immersing yourselves in one text of the Hebrew Bible every single week now that does not mean we don't have other texts we'll deal with and look at in here we look at a number of them you'll be doing some translation in text other than what you choose for your papers and for your exposition but that you have three choices that are given the syllabus the one you choose is the one you will live with from now until next May so choose wisely choose well and do it this way prayerfully seek God's guidance in which of those three texts you choose and expect God to bless you with that text to teach you from that text to change your life from that text every assignment you have in this class should be approached devotionally and spiritually not purely academically if you approach this class as just an academic exercise or a series of academic assignments you will not do well and you will not do well in your ministry because you and I need to learn that anytime we open God's Word for whatever purpose we've got to be ready and willing for God to speak to us from it therefore whatever your assignment in here next week's assignment translating Genesis three one to seven approach that prayerfully and ask God to teach you from that as you translate and to speak to you from his word if you do that you'll find your assignments a greater joy and a greater blessing and you will have the Word of God sink into your life and it will change you so please pursue them that way and keep in mind our goal here is ultimately a sermon so for from now until may be thinking about that with every assignment that you do how will this apply to my sermon how can this reveal something to me that I will want to share with others and challenge their lives and bring them to a point of decision in their lives and ask God to show you that in the syllabus you'll find the TMS curriculum statement and I think it Premal pretty well States and summarizes some of the things I've already explained to you about my philosophy and approach to this class and to your assignments TMS exists to equip godly men to be pastors and/or trainers of pastors for service to Christ in strategic fields of Christian ministry through an educational program and an environment of spiritual fellowship and relationships which emphasize unreserved commitment to the worship of God submission to the authority of the Scriptures a life of personal holiness the priority of the local church and the mission of penetrating the world with the truth and yes studying Hebrew gets involved in this and as we go through this class I hope you learned that from my teaching and from my example as well I spent 15 years on the mission field in Bangladesh doing Bible translation work church planting starting two different seminaries one in Bangladesh and one in Thailand and also involved in teaching the Bible Institute preparing and translating Christian literature and being involved in many other ministries on the mission field you wear many hats you have many opportunities to serve God and many challenges and I look at no other work as clearly as that as having prepared me best for teaching this class it's not just the Bible translation side of it that prepared me best for this class it was the entirety of that and I praise God for it every day that he gave me the opportunity to serve him there in Bangladesh for 15 years it's a privilege to serve Him and I can tell you honestly and clearly that it has increased my love for the word of God and for the Hebrew language the Old Testament curriculums statement is that coursework in the area of Old Testament advances critical thinking skills in linguistic exegetical and apologetic alas pecks of Old Testament study and promotes growth in disciplined habits for ongoing independent study of the Old Testament notice what it says there about promotes growth and disciplined habits you might say well you know I could go through school if it weren't for the fact we had all these assignments they were due at a certain time and I have to work a full-time job I have a family at home to care for all these things together and I'm not just in dr. Barracks class I'm in four other classes and all my professors are making the same exorbitant demands of me in my time gentlemen this is a cakewalk compared to the ministry how many of you already served as full-time pastors anywhere any of you okay one all right Aaron's been involved in almost full-time ministry as a worship leader anyone else been involved in ministries even close close to full-time okay once you are there you will find out you'll be glad you look back and say man I had it easy in seminary you see in seminary there are those days when you come in and you say I'm just not ready and you decide to let it pass you can't do that when you walk into the pulpit in your church you can't get up on Sunday morning and say to your people I'm sorry I didn't have time to repair prepare know when you step in that pulpit you have to preach the word you don't have any choice and it can't be late you can't say to them I love once you come back tomorrow and I'll give you my sermon then so don't start now saying your professor can I turn this in tomorrow this is part of the process of seminary it's boot camp it's boot camp for the ministry if you don't learn discipline now you won't have discipline in the ministry so learn to be and use that as a blessing of God on your life to help train you and it doesn't stop there I'm a 65 year old man I get up at 3:45 it is the discipline of God on my life to make certain I spend time in his word that I'd spend time in prayer that I'm prepared when I step into this classroom and I thank God for that it keeps me disciplined and it reminds me of other responsibilities I have that I need to take care of and I must stay disciplined in caring for those in our home we have no children now they're all gone we have four married children and 14 grandchildren and my wife and I are alone and she cooks and I do the dishes and gentlemen I don't give an excuse well I've got an exam to grade or I got papers to grade or I've got this assignment to write or I've got this editing to do for this a commentary project or I've got this or this or I'm going to preach Sunday or whatever I don't use that excuse my wife I do those dishes because that's our commitment and when our children call and have a need we make certain we're available when my pastor calls and there's a need I make certain I'm avail because I have commitments in the church I'm aller elder in the church I teach an adult Bible Fellowship class and so I must be prepared every Sunday to step into that role and that role begins this Sunday after a sabbatical that they graciously gave me from the class while I had a sabbatical from the seminary and that has to do you have to do it it's there there's no way out of it we have to keep our commitments and we have to make in turn maintain our relationships to our family so that discipline will turn out to be a great blessing to you if you allow God to discipline you through seminary in Hebrew grammar one and two that you finished last year you demonstrated the mastery of basic Hebrew vocabulary you gained an understanding of key grammatical and syntactical features you were translating from major literary types with the use of basic aids this semester you will syntactically analyze Hebrew phrases and sentences you'll identify key witnesses involved in Old Testament textual critisism you'll exegete a Hebrew text within its context according to the methodology presented in this course when you take Old Testament introduction ot 796 you'll defend Old Testament inspiration inerrancy and canonicity you'll seek to understand key aspects of biblical geography you'll be introduced to ancient Near Eastern and Israelite history and you'll learn to define the role of archaeology and Old Testament studies these are the required courses that you have in Old Testament in your MD program you'll also describe the types of Old Testament criticism their problems and contributions to Old Testament studies and you'll be able to outline past and present trans null Testament studies when you take that Old Testament introduction course what is the course rationale for OT 603 this semester's course the rationale is basically this that exegesis is our primary task when we approach the Bible we must seek to understand it and this exegetical methodology is best learned by being exercised Aaron does anyone you know of that you teach piano - or you teach any music to get anything if they don't practice no practice makes perfect exercise i'm remind that by my doctor he said you don't take care of you know being more worldly because you're bigger around at the equator then you are at the poles you don't take care of shrinking your equator unless you get exercise you don't keep your cholesterol down unless you exercise you don't learn exegesis unless you exercise it unless you practice it classroom reading homework assignments discussion of selected texts all will provide you with an atmosphere for learning the specific principles that are involved in exegete in the Hebrew Scriptures what are the student learning outcomes for this course first of all we want you to be able to identify and define key grammatical elements in your chosen text from the Hebrew Bible but beyond that we want to understand the major exegetically significant elements of Hebrew grammar there are 12 of those specifically they're listed in your syllabus in the course study notes and we will talk about those if you can grasp those 12 elements that are exegetically significant you will significantly impact your knowledge of the Hebrew Bible and your use of it secondly you should be able to translate your chosen text from the Hebrew text and biblia hebraica Stuttgart insya and I hope that you study the Hebrew of your chosen text so well that by the end of the second semester you're actually perhaps able to cite it from memory in the Hebrew and do so without needing an interpreter so that you don't violate first Corinthians chapter 14 okay you should be able to define and illustrate the principles of Hebrew exegesis the treatment of your chosen text you should be able to produce a logical block diagram of your chosen text and you should be able to interpret the mass or parva and the text critical apparatus of biblia hebraica Stuttgart NC a-- within the context of your chosen text and that you will be able to produce a preliminary text critical analysis of your chosen text if you don't know what the mass or parva are yet you will find out you will learn and I might just say this right now that from time to time I will be telling you one class ahead bring your laptop's or your iPads or whatever with you to class because there will be work sessions in class where you will work together and team up with another individual to work on some of the assignments for the papers for this class my goal is that you use parts of this class anywhere from a half hour to an hour on those sessions to help you jump-start your work on a certain paper or understand exactly what is required by the description that's given to you in the syllabus and so one of those for example will be when you do the textual critical analysis another one the first one will be the the syntactical analysis but then the tax critical analysis as well you'll bring come in and we'll sit down and those of you as you're working through your own text as you have questions you raise your hand I come and give you direction as to how to answer that or help you understand it we sometimes share those with everyone when it involves something that everyone's going to learn from so there are actually laboratory sessions in this course both this semester next semester where you want to bring your laptop or your iPad with you so you can work on that in class together with one other individual now it might behoove you once you've chosen your text to find out who else in class has chosen the same text and to pair up I do not have anything against having two of you joined together in a team to team study a text and to share information just to remember this that everything you have in your paper you are personally responsible for so don't just automatically adopt what your partner has said first of all you better understand it second of all you better make certain it's not wrong because once it's in your paper and once it's submitted there's no way back from that so remember you're ultimately responsible the buck stops with you you have to be aware of what you're putting in that paper we also want you to be able to perform adequately : alysus of two key words in your chosen text we'll talk more about that later on how to choose it there are portfolio assignments they're collected throughout your MD program and put on permanent electronic file with a seminary that are accessible by the accrediting agency when they make their visits they're making a visit to our seminary in February they'll be here for two or three days and they'll be going over all of our paperwork and so when you have these portfolio assignments they're marked as portfolio in your course schedule please on those do not your name the title page will not have your name it will only have your ID number your student ID number portfolio assignments only alright and you already did one of those in ot 504 whether you realize it or not your Old Testament narrative translation was submitted and put on permanent file from ot 504 you have not only that to fulfill this outcome of translating Hebrew text but you have additional one in this course of an Old Testament poetry or prophetic translation that will be required and will be placed in your portfolio a third outcomes syntactic analysis analyzed Hebrew phrases and sentences you have this in tactical analysis paper will be a portfolio assignment and then to exegete a Hebrew text within its context your Hebrew exegesis prod project in OT 604 which is in this course in my section is a sermon in dr. Grisanti section he chose not to require a sermon he just has an exegetical project but in this course you will do a sermon for me and that is what is put in that portfolio assignment and treated as a Hebrew exegesis project demonstrating your ability and skill to transfer your exegesis into sound and accurate exposition and another one will be in your oti course where your oti project is also added to your portfolio these are the portfolio items we collect in the Old Testament division while you're in your MD program textbooks for this course Ellis bratzman Old Testament textual critisism a practical introduction very basic very good the required reading please follow the schedule the schedule tell you when to read it and remember this is Quizzle as you read it and come in the advantage of this book and to have it on your shelf as a pastor is that not only is a very basic explanation of toshka criticism but it walks you through the entire Book of Ruth treating each and every major textual problem in the Book of Ruth and guiding you to a result that's a great value in this volume then we also have Chisolm from X Jesus to exposition this is our main textbook it is a review of grammar and syntax as well as introducing you to matters of literary analysis and in the back of it our list of questions that he gives in leading you through the exercises of exegete and preparing for exposition Putnam Hebrew Bible insert you should have had this in your 503 504 course and you need to have it pretty well in hand you'll find in the syllabus a scripture index for Hebrew Bible insert and use this use it well this is an excellent summary turn to it again again it would not hurt you at all to read through this every semester you are at the master seminary it's brief it's short you can read a few pages a day and you can get through it very quickly it's only got the about 50 pages of material and it is valuable it helps summarize the major points of Hebrew grammar in an excellent fashion and then Scott a simplified guide to BHS try to get the fourth edition but if you end up with a third edition that's no problem either one will work third or fourth edition it's a simplified guide to BHS you'll be asked to bring it to class with you when we get into the textual critical aspect of the text the Hebrew and Aramaic lexicon of the Old Testament by Kohler and Baumgartner is the lexicon of choice you should have already purchased that in OT 503 504 it's the required one to use here as well and of course your Hebrew Bible biblia hebraica Stuttgart NC a-- and please keep in mind that if you have an electronic edition that's fine and you can bring that to class but if your electronic Edition does not also include your critical apparatus you're going to be at a distinct disadvantage in class discussion so if you don't have that electronically bring your hard copy so you have access to the textual critical apparatus if you have Lagos liber onyx they do have an edition of VHS that includes the textual critical apparatus and I know that that's probably expensive for you as a seminary student to add that in so it may be even cheaper just to have bring your Hebrew Bible other recommended textbooks Arnold and Choi a guide to Biblical Hebrew syntax the best intermediate summary of grammar and syntax I know of available today there are others who are trying to produce intermediate grammars but some of them just fall flat and many of them don't manage communicate essentials the way Arnold and Choi have they've done an excellent job in that holidays concise Hebrew and Aramaic lexicon of the Old Testament please don't consider this just a clone of Kohler and Baumgartner Holliday has made some of his own decisions there are a large number of differences between what he gives for meaning of words and identify identification of words than what color and Baumgartner gave the nice thing about this concise lexicon is you can carry it with you easier than you can carry the large one by Kohler and Baumgartner that's two volumes and so you know something like this if you have don't sell it keep it or if you can find it used somewhere get hold of it it's nice to carry with you also Kaiser toward next jet achill theology he is the one who first began to describe the use of logical block diagramming and gives examples along with a parallel parallel exegetical outline if you get holds a little book on Malachi he is outlined the entire book of Malachi and provided an exegetical outline for the entire book as well and then Kelly Minot and Crawford have produced the volume to be used on the muscle of BHS and it's in the library I believe it's a reserve copy there so you can't check it out but this is a key text to use as you're doing your assignment for textual critisism later we'll come back to you again then for those of you that are just looking for additional helps to try to make sense of your Hebrew maybe try to solidify first your Hebrew and get a jump in here Gary lungs grammatical concepts 101 for Biblical Hebrew I highly recommend if you have difficulty just identifying the grammatical elements or grammatical concepts if that's your problem this is an easy way to approach it he provides the name of the element he provides a definition he provides examples in English he diagrams it in English and then he provides examples and explanation for the Hebrew it is very well done but if you're looking at that and say well I don't have problem understanding what a participle is what an infinitive is what an imperfect is my problem is I look at the text and it just doesn't congeal i I can't just I can't get a grasp of it it I look at it and still chicken scratches on the page I stumbled through my pronunciation but my problem is trying to put it together in a sensible running translation that is accurate and clear it may be you need something to help you understand how the language works and James Seltzer and John and Tom Finley have produced this volume how biblical languages work that covers both New Testament Greek and Old Testament Hebrew and it is an excellent introduction to both languages just explaining how they work and some students have found this extremely helpful and just given that added boost of getting over the hump in being able to understand how the Hebrew language works now I have one other volume up here that will mention later on but it's a cumulative index the grammar and syntax of Biblical Hebrew by Fred Putnam when you look at it it has page after page of the various books chapters and verses of the Hebrew Bible and it gives you all of the references in all of the major Hebrew grammars where this that particular verse is mentioned for one reason or another it's a fantastic tool when you're doing your syntactical analysis I believe it's on reference in the library what you do is you go in there you find the text that you choose and have approved by me and you go and photocopy the one or two pages because they'll be no more than two pages you need to photocopy and the key is at the bottom of every page so you don't have to copy something out of the front or back and keep that and it will lead you to the grammars and two statements about your verses that you will find helpful as you do that syntactical analysis your choice of text is due next week so be thinking now about your text syntactical analysis paper will be due October 13th it's a portfolio assignment your diagrammatical analysis is due November 3rd your texts critical analysis is due December 1st your lexical analysis is due December 8th and by the way before I go to the next slide let me explain something here don't get put off by this your biggest assignment here is the syntactical analysis when you've got that over you've got the worst of the papers behind you because a number of these papers will only be two three or four pages of content and then a title page and a bibliography so keep that in mind some of these papers are very brief your lexical analysis pay for the last one done that is to be two words and you're limited to two pages per word so that's a four page paper on lexical analysis so these aren't big 10 or 20 or 30 page papers we're requiring they're smaller papers the biggest one will be your syntactical analysis the texts that you may choose from our job 19:25 227 Psalm 33 6 to 9 in Isaiah 1:18 to 20 so start today looking at those three and praying about which one you should choose because you will live with that text you choose from now until next May you'll produce six papers and a sermon on this text so choose wisely choose well choose prayerfully and not with just a view of fulfilling academic assignments with a view of having a text that you expect God to speak to you from and that you fully expect to preach from okay those are the three on your choice of text there's a description of that on page 9 section 10.1 in the syllabus it tells you there that the first upload you do next week to jewel must be a paper put your name on it your ID number on it and put a title on it it does not have to have a separate title page for this one it does not need a bibliography it only needs to be a half page single-spaced but cover these four things number one identify which the three texts you are choosing or requesting number two specify at least one exegetical problem that you might be aware of in reading and I'm not asking here do research don't go to the commentaries don't do research just read the text and see what exegetical problem you think might be here I know that some of the some of you will put down something that later you'll say man that was sure foolish it wasn't even right but that's part of the process of coming the text and learning it we will ask the wrong questions we will make the wrong observations and the purpose of exegesis is to purify us in those cleanses from them and correct us so don't be ashamed of that at all don't be don't to hold back at all just go ahead and be bold and step out and say what you think is next to that exegetical problem number three indicate a theological or interpretive the theological or interpretive significance of the text what do you expect to use this text for what does it teach what's its main point theologically what's its significance and number four describe its expositional value what do you expect this text to contribute as far as a sermon is concerned as far as leading the people who hear you to a point of decision about something they must do for God what do you see is potential here and again you'll find this will may change completely by the time you get to your sermon at the end of next semester but I want to see that you've begun thinking about it now and that you've begun asking questions about your text even now even before you've translated from Hebrew perhaps just read it in English I want to know that you're thinking about it and that you're willing to put down some thoughts on paper that you may later correct some of you are asking about the Stuttgart textual critical apparatus and it's somewhat expensive what they've got on there and I'm finding that my Edition is one version too old and it's going to cost me somebody updated as well but this is what it looks like when you look at the text you have the Hebrew text then you have the letters here and then you your you have a list that provides you with all the text critical apparatus as well and I see there they still don't have a correction on the C here which should be a gothic C for the Cairo Genizah but that's maybe that's corrected in version 3 as well so if I want to get it corrected I've got to get that but that's what it is it's a Stuttgart electronic Study Bible and it's now up to version 3 I've got version 2 and that's what we were talking about it's available electronically okay let's talk about the translation assignments your first translation assignment is due next week Genesis 3 1 2 7 then we have the next few verses the following week and then the following week the rest of the chapters so for three weeks in a row you have a translation assignment every week and it involves about seven or eight verses per time and it's a very no your text of Scripture so you should be familiar with context if you in translating feel like the meaning that you've come up with just does not seem to fit the context you're aware of you're probably right and so go with your gut and choose something different and I know one mistake that always occurs in these translations I keep having to mark and tell me on about is that some of you will spell the word woman as WOM en and my response is I never knew that Adam had more than one wife all right en is the plural a n is the singular so watch that as you type it up it's your wife is going to have problems with you too if you put women in there because you're then demonstrating that is what you think was God's original pattern to have more than one wife when you translate that way remember your translation has theological and practical implications even your mistakes like one student had turned in his translation assignment in Psalms and it said let us in unto God exultant Li he left a G off of sing it's not a good thing to do or the student who turned in his translation of justice 37 in OT 504 some years ago and he said that Jacob wrapped his waist in sackcloth he meant this waist WAIS T but he spelled it W a s te that brings a totally different picture so beware beware October 6 is a portfolio assignment 2nd Samuel chapter 8 verses 1 to 15 October 27th is Isaiah 42 verses 1 through 10 and November 17th is a portfolio assignment Psalm 95 so keep these in mind just to talk about translations remember always type double-spaced no footnotes please no footnotes I don't want to see one letter of Hebrew on your translations I don't want to see one footnote in your translations it is to be translation alone period good smoothly accurate English type double-spaced maintain verse numbers make sure you have a verse number at the beginning of each verse use paragraphing do not paragraph with that reverse put verses together in paragraphs use normal English paragraphing methodology and the first line of the paragraph is to have a paragraph indentation so don't take it out to the margin then use extra space between paragraphs use equal space between paragraphs paragraphs the same as you do between the lines within the paragraph don't have different spacing and use paragraphing use smooth English use correct punctuation if someone is saying something you put it in double quotes think public reading when you are doing your translation it wouldn't hurt you to read it to your wife or to your children and ask them if any pictures come to mind or just ask your children after you've read them your translation to draw a picture of what daddy had read to them and you might find out that your translation gave a misunderstanding just by the wording you chose just yesterday I was doing translation work in the book of Job and for a translation project and noted that someone had translated this one area there as Marshmallow that the juice of the marshmallow was tasteless but if you use that that's confused with a concept that little white puffy thing that's sweet a confection that you might roast over the fire and brown to eat marshmallow it's spelled the same identical ma RS h ma ll o w but they're two totally different things so i my suggestion was they not use marshmallow but use mallow which is a specific plant in that case so watch those things think public reading what are people thinking when they read or hear your translation when you say Lord people cannot tell whether you mean lowercase L Ord capital L lowercase Ord or capital L capital o capital R capital D therefore for the name Yahweh the Tetragrammaton please use Yahweh or yhw H do not use Lord you do not want your name messed up and not used rightly please do not use God's name wrongly the one Lord capital L lowercase Ord is Adonai that is a different name than Yahweh they do not mean the same Yahweh that in ear English translations is unfortunately represented by the same word but with different punctuation the use of all capital letters is very confusing and that began with the ancient Jewish translators in Alexandria Egypt in translating Yahweh as correos in the Greek Septuagint and it leads to confusion and part of the way they tried to rationalize that was to declare that they should not pronounce the name Yahweh and gave the excuse as being the third commandment that you should not take the name of the Lord your God in vain well just read the article in the encyclopedia Judaica which has the imprimatur of the chief rabbi in israel and they state very plainly in their number one the name is pronounced Yahweh number two it was always pronounced number three the Jewish heretics in Alexandria Egypt misused and misinterpreted and miss applied the third commandment alright so don't you two go and do the same thing let's make certain we keep those names distinct in your translation I have a friend who may visit class sometime he's right now in Maryland he as an Orthodox lay rabbi his name is Joe Charnas he and his wife Sarah she is a reformed Jewish rabbi she is a chaplain the United States Air Force and we have had contact with them for the last five and a half to six years dr. booze Nets and his wife and I and my wife and we've been witnessing to them all during that time and he comes to class occasion and sits in classes and I asked him the first time he came in I said Joe will you be offended if I say Yahweh instead of just saying Hashem or Lord or something else or Adonai he said well why would you not say Yahweh he says that's what it is it's Yahweh he says the only time I would eject is if you're using it in profane speech but when you're dealing with spiritual matters and talking about the Scriptures he says that we pronounce it it's pronounced Yahweh so gentleman learn from that and get away from this heretical viewpoint that some of you learn in other schools that is built upon a false hood that has been perpetuated it's like an urban myth that gets perpetuated generation after generation and even the Encyclopedia Judaica has the right story and tells you with the imprimatur of the rabbi the chief rabbi of Israel so get rid of that thinking that you have to avoid pronouncing the name Yahweh and learn to use it please your translations when they return to you electronically there will be underlined text that means it's good there'll be circled text those are problems a question mark will mean well I'll let it go no points off but I don't know if I really like it that well and I means it's inaccurate a J means that you have violated the context all right there's a number of capital letters that are listed for you on one of the pages in the syllabus that tell you how I will mark your translation one comes back and when it comes back you'll look at it and say man alive I must have got an F on this it's all marked up there's red ink all over the place yes I found out how to use red ink even electronically all right it saves a lot of ink pens to do it electronically but keep this in mind only the eyes J's and B's are counted against you all the other letters are not counted against you and in your initial translation I'm only translating the eyes against you on this very first one and I gradually move you into that and there's a table there of how I grade and how I count on these as you go through and look at it and it's in trying to teach you it's another opportunity to me to mentor you on translation on points of translation even those that aren't counted against you or for you to give you some more ideas of how best to translate the Word of God yes sir I'm calling once I can't see me I you will have yes the guide is in your syllabus already yes mm-hmm then if you're colorblind send me an email telling me what colors I need to use because I don't want to use wrong colors if you're colorblind to read and can't see read that's a big problem all right it's wrong of a dark dark yes all right this one does drop and it doesn't show up very well here for others too and I'll have to watch that and change that I need probably change this to yellow on the screen here to show up thanks for pointing that out try to keep that in mind I know our my brother out there at the at the college dr. Boyd has a color-coded way of teaching Hebrew in Hebrew grammar but he's found out that 20 percent of the men he teaches have color blindness and his color code doesn't mean anything to them and it's one of those trials I mean he spent years and years putting this beautiful thing together and then it doesn't work for everyone and that's what you just forgot to remember and I've got to remember when I do these so thanks for the reminder your grades 30% of your total course grade is on your translations assignments 40% is on papers one through four 15% on your final exam and 15% on required reading okay now let's finish up today with a brief introduction into the area of exegesis of the Hebrew Bible if I were to summarize this course both semesters in a 8 second or less soundbite it would be this statement I've got up here a biblical expositor exhaustively exegetes Andalou sedates what the text says not what he wishes the text to say that's the key point that's the takeaway out of the entire course we don't make the text say what we want it to say we let the text say what it says the older I get the less time I spend on the white spaces in my Bible okay I just look at the text and what it says I don't try to deal with those things that are between the words of the text I don't try to deal with those things that are so Watts behind the text in that way I deal with what the text says simplify and learn to do that for your people that your teaching and your preaching stick to the text how can they on Sunday afternoon when they prop up their feet turn off the television pick up their Bible and pick up their notes how can they see in the text exactly what you told them or do they when they compare your notes with a text look and say I don't understand how in the world he got this meaning out of this text make certain you teach it plainly and clearly HH Rowley said one who made it his life's work to interpret French literature but who could only read it in an English translation would not be taken seriously yet it is remarkable how many ministers a religion week-by-week expound a literature that they are unable to read save in translation now some of your going to have children are going to grow up and go off to college or university and you're going to find someone maybe your daughter is taking a French class and she comes home one day and she's dad I learned something surprising today Oh what did you learn my professor can't read French but he's teaching me French and French literature and you're saying and I paid for that right we expect someone who teaches on a literature to understand the language that literature my son is a Russian expert he reads the Russian classics in Russian and he feels it's a violation of trust for a university professor to stand and teach Russian literature who can't read a word of it in the original Russian it is equally bad for us to stand in the pulpit and teach the scriptures which are written in Greek and Hebrew and Aramaic in our Bibles and not be able to read it in the original languages Nigel Turner said just as a sentence is more revealing than a single word so the examination of a writer syntax and style is that much more important to a biblical commentator gentlemen don't get wrapped up in doing only Word studies for your sermons and for your lessons when you do only word studies you're missing the real gold these are propositional statements and truths here in Scripture and you need to learn them pay attention to context moisei Silva said it this way we learn much more about the doctrine of sin by John statement sin is the transgression of the law than by a word study of hamartia a word study of hamartia will not give you that propositional statement you'll be off thinking about oh it must mean something about missing a mark and talking about it missing the mark you're missing the mark by not understanding that the scripture has propositional statements about what sin is that cannot be gained from a study of the word by itself study the statements of Scripture about the topic rather than just the word itself similarly tracing the history of the word Hagios Holy One is relatively unimportant for the doctrine of sanctification once we have examined Romans six through eight and related passages whether you Ripa DS wrote day or cray-2 different Greek words both of them have to do with meaning aught or must or should whether Euripides a classical writer wrote either one of these words in the given passage is hardly of metaphysical import Robert Rena Han was a Roman Catholic priest classics professor he says but we must assume that he made a choice between them this is sufficient justification for concerning ourselves with the problem it made a difference to the poet it should make a difference to us so in our Hebrew text when we see two different words used synonyms we need to ask the question why did the writer choose a different word here rather than using the same word sometimes he's using it with the identical meaning the context will prove it but many times he's using it for other reasons and you need to find out what that reason is Charles Spurgeon also remind us we have a spiritual responsibility within ourselves as we approach the text of Scripture he says I must watch carefully I must watchfully maintain the tenderness which is in Christ Jesus it will be in vain for me to stock my library or to fill up my laptop or my iPad or my Kindle or organized society's start churches or project schemes plan a year of sermons or prepare a project for the church whether its musical or whether its mission or otherwise if I neglect the culture of myself for books and agencies and systems are only remotely the instruments of my holy calling my own spirit soul and body are my nearest machinery for sacred service my spiritual faculties of my inner life are my battle axe and weapons of war how are you keeping your salesmen when you start struggling in seminary I can guarantee you it will boil down to this somewhere along the line you've not taken care of your own soul you've gotten away from reading the word regularly you've got away from prayer you've got away from a path of obedience determined disciplined purposeful obedience to God's Word watch that carefully it will affect how you interpret the words pray with the psalmist let the words my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight o Yahweh my rock and my Redeemer a text without its context is pretext keep that in mind as you're choosing one of these three texts to live with until they wouldn't hurt you to read the whole context just to find out what all is involved exposition without expiation as exploitation if you've not come to Christ as your personal Savior you need to you say wait a minute you're asking a seminary student that I was accepted in the school because I already marked a little box that said I'm born again oh I know but I also know every year we have a student or two that comes to Christ because that was just a formality that did not have reality and there's something you need to know if you're struggling with classes of the seminary if you're struggling with your studies if you're struggling with spiritual battles you need to examine yourself whether or not you're in the faith and I sincerely say to you you cannot preach until you're born again you must experience the expiation of the blood of the Lamb of God before you can stand and preach the Word of God with power otherwise you're nothing more than Balaam's donkey all right it's very important gentlemen take it seriously and also preaching without prayer is presumption I loved it last Sunday to preach and a little Church in Santa Clarita and the men said would you pray with us as before we go into the service that to me is the way every church ought to operate we were just talking about that on our elder board recently that we've been lacks in the area we need to be praying before every service we need to be praying with our pastor not just for our pastor as we go into a service we have a brother over there I know prays with the people on the worship team every time you have a worship I see them up there they're praying gentlemen we do that for singing and worship and we don't do it for preaching be careful it ought to be done for all every ministry of the church ought to be bathed in prayer and that pulpit will be protected by you if you spend time in prayer both for you and for those you invite into that pulpit pray with them preaching without prayer is presumption and it ends up being preaching without power the exegetical procedure that we follow is a seven step procedure translation is the first thing that you do with the text so once you've chosen your text and has been approved begin to translate it begin to work on it observe there's observations you want to look for in the text you want to ask some questions about it you want to identify certain things in the text syntactically you want to examine the text in its context you want to solve certain interpretive problems you want to consult solid commentaries and resources and then you want to evaluate how well you've done and what you need to do the next time you come to the text because you always will come the text and have more from the text than you can possibly preach this Sunday I'm preaching from Revelation chapter 1 verses 1 through 8 and primarily I'm looking at only one or two verses and following a theme through the book of Revelation as kind of a kickoff for the book of Revelation and that means that when I finish that I will not have covered everything I could possibly say and any time we try to that ask dr. MacArthur if after nine years of preaching on Luke there was still a lot that he didn't say and he will tell you I could go another nine years so you can never hope to exhaust the text and you can always return to a text later on and preach it again and cover ground you didn't even cover before but keep record of that a value it yourself how well did you do what's missing what were some of the problems you didn't solve that you would like to solve take a look at that first of all on translation basically all that is the first thing I ask of you and on your first paper you'll have a translation of your chosen text not the proposal but paper number one that's in tactical analysis and you'll have your preliminary translation do not slave over your translation of your chosen text for paper number one because you have six papers over which to get it right and I hope to help you in that process of refining now some of you're going to reach the final refine product within two or three papers but some of you are going to struggle with the text until the very last paper expect that I've been involved in 14 different Bible translation projects and I can tell you that every one of those projects has gone to refinement after refinement after refinement after refinement after refinement and there's not a one of them that I would say are perfect and in need of no further revision or work so remember our goal is accuracy in the representation of the truth of God's Word and we never shut the door on completing that process because our knowledge is limited let's admit our ignorance and realize it's because of our limited knowledge our own ignorance that we can't shut the door ultimately and finally on any such project be open to revision we come the second step observation here you have to ask questions the text who who's involved who's speaking to whom is it written where where is the author does it make any difference where is that where are those who receiving the text when was it written what is written why was it written how does he expect us to behave those are things questions you to ask and gathering information as you're looking at your text jot them down a fella by name of Gersten Berger wrote the commentary on Leviticus in the interpreters Bible come in the interpretation commentary series not interpreters but interpretation and he one of the great values of his commentary is his thousands of questions because he just writes a whole paragraph of questions every time he approaches a text the questions that need to be asked to the text to find the solutions then he proceeds to try to answer some of them at least but it's an excellent exercise in seeing the types of questions we ought to ask about the text then identification is the third step what do we want to identify we want to identify the grammar and syntax we want to identify the relationships between words for example in Psalm 1 1 through 6 are there increasing degrees of involvement in associations with the ungodly when it talks there about not sitting not standing not walking are the three different degrees or these just three ways of talking about one thing is verse 2 simply a continuation the verse 1 or is it ended independent element standing by itself what about the word 4 at the beginning of verse 6 does it mean because giving the cause and reason for what preceded or is it emphatic and should be translated as indeed what is the relationship of verse 6 to verse 5 are the three negative statements in verse 1 emphatic just by means of the fact that they are repeated that blessed is the man who does not who does not who does not is blessed at the beginning the first word emphatic by its position or word order does the key a stick arrangement of the first two negative statements place emphasis on in the council and in the path these are involved in identification you also want to go to forms of expression what idioms are in the text what are the literary forms what's the theme of the text what are the literary devices that are used and then word studies also get involved here what are the meanings of the words where are their valuable word studies that produce exegetical gold the idiom knows the way in verse six in Psalm one is that refer to election when it says that God knows the way of the righteous does that mean he has chosen the way of the righteous is about election or is about care he knows the way means he cares for them their lives or is it simply a non idiomatic phrase referring to God's omniscience you see those the type of questions you have to ask about the text those are significant exegetical issues dealing with the text what does it say what does it mean Psalm 1 is poetry so when we look at that there are different types of Hebrew poetry this appears to be either a wisdom psalm or a torah solemn or perhaps it has characteristics of both what impact does such a classification have if any on your interpretation of the psalm what's the significance of the assonance the way the sentence begins in verse one with three olives in a row ashtray each a share ashtray ha a share is that significant does it have a meaning is it to signal this is the first psalm therefore all of the same as number one that the art author has just purposely written it that way to emphasize its position in the Psalter or is he using a literary device in order to gather our attention to that first phrase and focus on a beatitude what is the significance of the key azzaman verse one walks not in the counsel of the ungodly in the path of sinners nor stands that's the order in the Hebrew and a center part of a key azzam is normally the place where the focus is and so it would be on the counsel of the ungodly and the path of sinners word studies what about the word ASHRAE what does it mean how does it differ from the word Baruch which also means blessed what about the word for scoffers late seem what is the meaning of being a scoffer are there other ways to translate it what about haha the word for meditate in verse two what's its meaning what's related to and doesn't have any impact on my interpretation of the text the theme the theme of Psalm one is the two paths of living the path of the godly or the path of the ungodly number four examine as we examine the text we have to look at the context and there are different kinds of context we want to look at and we'll be looking at these in the different papers you do as well in Psalm 1:1 to 6 what kind of context can be identified for Psalm 1 it's a separate song so many treat it as being isolated without a context but wait a minute why is it Psalm 1 why is it the first song why isn't there a psalm heading on it why is it that Psalm 2 doesn't have a heading on it also why is it the psalm one begins with blessed and Psalm 2 ends with blessed why is it that the rest of book 1 of the Psalms through psalm 41 has only one more Psalm without a heading you know we have to stop and think okay there is a context here there's a canonical context to deal with how to psalm 1 relate to Psalm 2 how to Psalm 1 relate to book one of the Psalms how to Psalm 1 relate to the entire Book of Psalms how's it relate to the Old Testament how does it relate to the New Testament Psalm 1 says to meditate on the law of God day and night where else do we hear of that phrase where else do we see that joshua chapter 1 verses 7 and 8 why does it occur there in here how many parts of the Hebrew Canon are there how many big sections of the Hebrew Bible are there 3 the Tanakh tnk t 4 torah and 4 Niva m the prophet and k4 KITT Duveen the writings where does Joshua one come in the organization of the Tanakh it comes between the T and the end between the Torah and the prophets where to Psalm one come in the Tanakh it comes between the prophets and the writings these are the two canonical seams of the entire Hebrew Bible and the focus of both of them is on obedience to the Word of God meditating on a day and night and obeying it keeping it in order to be prosperous or successful that's not accidental John sale hammering has worked on the narrative structure of the Hebrew Bible in the narrative structure the Pentateuch and on his meaning of the Pentateuch has focused on that and brought it out quite clearly it is an intention of the divine author that the writers were led in such a way to compose this scripture in this fashion so we need to pay attention to it it has a key theme and a key element to all of Scripture what about parallel passages when we just mentioned one of them Joshua one but what about Jeremiah 17 because it not only has a beatitude blessed is the man but it also has the same comparison he shall be like a tree planted by the waters so what do these contribute to one another how do they interrelate what about the inner textual relationships we have within scripture then we come to solution or solving when we solve problems we have to realize we've got some problems when you're reading for example the text you're working on I've asked you to identify at least one exegetical problem at least tentatively even working just from the English a question would come to mind of the meaning of something within the text you choose as you go along you need to list all the potential solutions you run across in your research and study and thinking and to decide how significant those are and which one is best and you need to choose one as your preferred solution when you walk into the pulpit you can only walk in there so many times and say I'm sorry but there's a problem here in this text and I don't understand it completely and there are two major viewpoints and I'm not choosing between them this morning now you can get away with saying that occasionally and you ought to say that occasionally all right let's be transparent about our ignorance with our people number one that will help them realize that we are not much better than they all right remember they have the same organ of spiritual perception interpretation we have the indwelling Spirit of God they have the same scripture and scripture interpret scripture Francis Schaeffer stood before a group in Denver Colorado some years back and I was there listening to him speak and he had a break where they had a QA and a young man walked the plat to the microphone in the balcony and he said dr. Schafer when you read the Word of God and you come to a problem you come to something you say I don't understand this what do you do and dr. Schafer didn't miss a beat he immediately said I just keep reading because sooner or later the word is going to answer that question for me and that's what everyone has everyone has that never approached the lay people in your congregation who are truly born again as people that are unable to understand the Word of God or incapable of knowing something about the Word of God that you might not even know I don't care if you have had twenty years of seminary have all kinds of of alphabet spaghetti behind your name and had years in ministry in Bible translation missions or in teaching or in pastoring I don't care if you're 85 years old there's always things in the word that we have not yet learned but which God has already taught to someone else who was better capable of understanding it or receiving it than we were God gives us the truths that he knows we can take and that we need at the right time in the right way and he does that with other people and every one of us grows at a different rate and has different issues we face in our lives when you preach a sermon and people walk out of the church don't be disappointed if one person says pastor Wow what a what a sermon that one thought you brought out just blew me away and you say that wasn't my main point all right or someone else walks out and he says pastor boy what struck me from the word today was and he quotes the text and you find out wait a minute that was beyond the text that was on the other page but you see while you were preaching and he's listening to you he was reading the context and he and something in the word caught his eye on the opposite page a text you were not preaching on and that's why you want people to have an open Bible in front of them to allow God the opportunity to speak to them and the Holy Spirit taught them something they went out of that service learning and a truth they needed but didn't come from you you were used as an instrument you set a table that put them in close proximity to the food that God wanted to give them please learn that lesson that not everyone your congregation learns the same things the same time don't get impatient with them when they don't learn a truth that you thought you've hammered through in the sermon after sermon over an entire month of Sundays because they may not be ready for that one yet in their lives God may have other work he's busy yet in their lives and you and I need to realize that we need to come there and give testimony to that in our lives that we are still learning and that there are things we do not know but be careful how many times you say you don't know from the pulpit you can get away with saying a lot more I don't knows when people ask you personally then you ever can by standing in the pulpit and saying I don't know what this means but I'm just going to move on from here you've got to have some solution and you've got to say something like there are two major viewpoints here and I am leaning toward this one because at this point in my life and study it seems to have the best solution and that's what you've got to aim for give your people direction don't give them a smorgasbord that says there are three views and you choose whichever one you want give them some means some direction don't be a Donald Guthrie a New Testament reduction who gives you every possible viewpoint in the text every possible problem in the text and every possible argument pro and con but never tells you which B holds to that always frustrated me and it still frustrates me to pick a commentary up like that or pick up an introduction whether New Testament or Old Testament that way that doesn't take a stand doesn't make a choice and explain this is why I think this is the strongest point the strongest viewpoint try to avoid ambiguity then consultation check the commentaries now on here I have checking the commentaries fairly late you are not to refer to any commentary for your text until halfway through this semester you're not referred to any commentary for the first three papers your first papers and tactical analysis no commentaries your second paper is I think diagrammatical analysis or textual critical analysis that's second and third don't look at a commentary you can start looking commentaries for paper number four lexical analysis all right so don't get into the commentaries for those other three papers I want you personally involved in the text and the text alone and any tools outside of commentaries will help you lexicons dictionaries using grammars and syntaxes these are the things you want to use these the tools you want to mine the texts with and then later come to the commentaries your conservative commentaries use them for interpretation and application your liberal commentaries happen to be very good on original languages and background so don't throw them out just because they're liberal look for alternative interpretations look for additional problems maybe problems you never even thought about sometimes you read a text and don't realize there's a problem to be asked or a question be asked and answered until we've been in the text for months and all of a sudden we say oh I'm ready to preach this but suddenly I realize I don't know why it says this this way then you've got more work to do you got to go back last step evaluation number seven and here be willing to modify and/or refine your conclusions acknowledge any uncertainties ambiguities lack of knowledge and/or need for additional information if you preach a sermon put it in the file either in your computer or in your physical file drawer where you have written down the questions you still have about that text even after you've preached them and sometimes questions you have because you've preached them listen to dr. MacArthur he says many times in preaching the text he sees things he never saw in all the study of the text up to that point sometimes suddenly things come together that just didn't seem to come together in all those months of study but suddenly come as he's speaking about in the text he has clarity and other times he says suddenly he realizes there are issues he hasn't even touched upon and there are questions he hasn't even asked and what do you do with those when you finish that sermon go write them down lest you forget because you want to remember that before you preach it the next time around that's what we mean by evaluation and outline a method for conducting further investigation plan on doing follow-up study two sermons that you preach don't neglect it's important it's how you allow the Word of God to work in your life abbreviated the exegetical procedure instead of seven steps can really be put down to three information relationship and emphasis what kind of information do I need to know to understand this text what are the relationships of the words phrases clauses sentences paragraphs within the text and what is being emphasized where is the emphasis and how do I identify okay

Channel: The Master's Seminary

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Keywords: 2011, Barrick, Hebrew, Lecture, 01

Id: joDB5azc_CM

Length: 90min 58sec (5458 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 18 2012