Hermeneutics - Lesson 13

The next section here, we’re going to drill down to the smallest particle of meaning, and that would be the word. I do believe that the sentence is the smallest unit of meeting, but the building blocks of the sentence, of course, are words. How do we use words? How do we use word studies? How do we determine the meaning of a word? 

Well, in Axiom #12, the most important thing I want you to realize about words is that words have meanings—plural, not meaning. But they have meaning in context. 

Now, this range of meanings that a word can have is called the semantic range. And the sentence will give the context that allows us to interpret the words. Any time we hear a word in a specific context, we sort through the possible meanings and apply, if we’re thinking rightly, the correct meaning depending on what the context is. 

So, for example, think of the word “trunk.” What could I be referring to when I say “trunk”? Well, there’s a semantic range isn’t there? It could be a tree trunk. It could be a bodily trunk. It could be a trunk in the attic that you put old clothes in. It could be the trunk of a car. It could be the nose of an elephant. There’s a variety of things that it could be. 

Think of the word “green.” Green has an enormous semantic range. Green is just a color. Green can refer to money. Green can refer to marijuana. Green can refer to being, I think I said, environmentally friendly. A putting surface. Green can refer to being like a newbie or inexperienced in something. Green can mean that you’re sick. Green can mean that you’re jealous. There’s a host of different meanings for these. 

Now imagine, imagine if you were talking to someone and you said to them, “Yeah, I hit the ball up on the green and then was able to putt from there.” And they took your meaning to think you hit the ball up on to a bunch of marijuana? “What are you doing with all that marijuana?” Or, you know, something like that. And you go, “No, no, no, that’s not what I meant.” And they said, “Well, it could mean that, it could mean that and that’s what I chose to make it mean.” 

And you would talk to this person, you would think, “I am not sure I want to keep talking to you because you’re doing absurd things with my speech. What I meant is what I meant. The sentence meant what I meant it to mean, not whatever you want to make of it just because, you know, you have a dictionary, you can look up different meanings for the words because words have meaning in context.” 

Now, I just described things, though, that take place all too often in Bible studies where a person will come to the text—and I’ve sat in these studies where people have done this. And at first I was kind of jealous, where they would say something like, “You know, I read this verse and then I looked at this verse up and I discovered there’s a bunch of different possible meanings to that word. And then when I applied the different meanings to that word into this sentence, it’s just like God was just blowing things up for me. It was just awesome.” 

And my first thought there, I must confess, was like, “Man, they did like real research. I didn’t do that; I just read the verse.” But then, like on second thought, it’s like, I think you did something with the Bible that you would never do with anybody else. That’s ridiculous, what you just did. Words have meanings, not meaning. But a word will have meaning, singular, in context. 

Now, the exception to this would be where an individual uses a word intentionally with two different meanings. That can be called like “double entendre,” I suppose, but more commonly that would be a pun. A pun. Now, how many of you like puns? So, I get a variety of responses there. Yeah, I find people who think they’re clever with puns to be very annoying. But even the people who speak in puns a lot very rarely do it, right? It’s clever on the occasion that they do. That just shows that normally 99% of the time, even with the annoying people who really like to use puns, 99% of the time they have one meaning in context for the words that they’re using, and it’s probably more like 99.99% of the time. Okay. 

So, the problem with finding the meaning of words, though, is that we’re not as interested in what a word means in our translation, we want to know what the word meant as it was used in the original language. And so, it seems to me that if the Bible is what we profess it to be, we should make every effort to read it in the original language or use tools wisely to help us with these studies. 

Now etymology is the study of the original meaning of a word, and it is an important tool in deciphering unknown words and correcting wrong ideas. Something that I’ll say now and I’ll say it at the end, is that the word study, the word study is probably the most valuable Bible study tool that you have at your disposal. And oftentimes you can do a decent word study with the concordance that you have in the back of your Bible. The concordance that you have is probably the most valuable Bible study tool that you have at your disposal. So, you’ll have to pick a Bible based on how heavy do I want it to be versus how big a concordance do I want to have in it? 

So, let’s think about how etymology at times can help with this. Here’s a few words. In 1Timothy 3:1, Paul is talking about qualifications for an elder and (some translations might say bishop or overseer), and the Greek word there is episkopos. And episkopos is a compound word where there’s a preposition, epi, which means upon or over, and skopos is sight or seeing. So, you put those two things together and you get “overseer.” And that’s kind of helpful. Kind of helpful. 

It’s not entirely helpful because when Paul uses the term overseer, or episkopos, he has something very technical in mind, which is more than just someone who looks over. But sometimes, not always, but sometimes we can take the parts of a compound word, put them together, and it gives some insight into what the word means. I’ll give you some exceptions to that here in a moment. 

Apostle is the Greek word apostolos, and it’s basically “to send out.” So, an apostle is a sent out one. Stelo – to send, apo – from. So, a sent out one and that’s what an apostle was, a “sent out one.” 

But of course, again when apostle is used in the Bible, it’s more than just someone, usually more than just someone who is sent out. There’s a technical meaning with it, especially when Paul is talking about his apostolic authority. 

Now there’s exceptions to that. We ought not to think that in every instance the meaning of a word is the sum of its parts. In English we have compound words and sometimes the meaning is bound up in the sum of its parts. So, a rubberband would be a band made from rubber. That’s helpful. But a pineapple is not an apple that’s made from wood. Doesn’t really work that way. Or a butterfly is not an insect made of dairy products. And so, Greek is no exception to that. Sometimes the meaning of the word, yeah, it’s helpful to look at the sum of the parts. Other times, not so much. Not so much. 

We should be careful to look at a word’s origin. How was it used and what did it mean when it was actually used? And we want to keep in mind, and you’re well aware of this in English, that words change in meaning over time. And one example of this that I’ll give later is the word martys or witness and I’ll walk you through the development of what martys has meant in Greek and then how we use it in English. That’s where we get our word “martyr” but it’s usually translated “witness” in our New Testaments. 

Words have multiple meanings. As I’ve said, there’s a semantic range to them. The 500 most commonly used English words, for example, have an average of 23 meanings. So, the 500 most common English words have a semantic range of 23 possible meanings. That should give us pause when we are careless, I suppose with word meaning. 

There are books and tools at your disposal for synonyms and in the biblical languages there are plenty of synonyms. The English word “receive” Vine’s [referring to Vine’s Expository Dictionary of NT Words], which is a lexicon of sorts for laypeople, gives 19 verbs in Greek that translate the English “to receive.” Now, I’m going to give you a caution about Vine’s here in a moment, but at any rate, that it’s a helpful illustration there. 

For example, there’s the word lambano, which means to “take without feeling.” But proslambano is used in Romans 14:1, it’s an idea of embracing, perhaps without doubting. Dechomai in 1 Corinthians 2:14 is also translated “receive,” and that means to take something eagerly. So, there’s lots of Greek words that can translate into this one English word. 

We need to be cognizant of that when we’re doing word studies, because if we just go to the back of our Bible, the concordance, and we look up all the instances of an English word, we might not be looking up all the instances of that particular Greek word that was used by the biblical author. So, we need to be careful with that. 

Another example here, the word “know” in English, there’s a couple of different Greek words that translate into the English word “know.” Oida, for example, is usually used to reflect according to innate knowledge. It’s more cognitive, versus ginosko is more experiential, more experiential. Now those are two different Greek words, but we usually translate it just with one English word “to know.” 

And another place where this comes into application is the English word “life” translates a number of Greek words. And sometimes we see multiple Greek words that are translated “life” in the same passage. John 10:10-11, for example, 

“The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly. I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.” 

Well, what’s going on there? There’s a number of Greek words that translate into the one English word “life,” like zoe, for example. This is oftentimes depending on the context, but oftentimes life in God, it’s qualitative, it’s intensive. This would be, you know, like to have eternal life. But psychē as a word for soul in Greek in the dictionaries/Greek translations that I consulted) or soul is oftentimes translated as “life” as well, and this is the word that we find in John 10:11. 

So, “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life…” That is, zoe, this qualitative life, but again, it’s just translated “life” in our English translation. 

“Have it abundantly. I am the Good Shepherd. The Good Shepherd lays down his,” qualitative life in God? No, he lays down his soul, but we translate it life. The same English words, two very different meanings but there’s two different Greek words there, so it can get a bit confusing at time. That’s why word studies can be helpful. 

And another word, another biblical word that’s translated “life” is bios. We find that say in 1 John 3:17. All three of those Greek words are commonly translated by one English word, “life.” 

So, if you’re doing a word study and you just go to the back of your Bible, look up the word “life” in your concordance, you might not be getting a study of one Greek word. You might be getting a study of a variety of Greek words with different meanings and you’re thinking you’re just doing a word study on one word. So be careful. Be careful of that. 

Here are some principles. And so, I’ve already said I’ll say it one more time, the word study is probably the most powerful Bible study tool that you have, but with great power comes great responsibility. You can make all sorts of mistakes. 

There’s a great book by D. A. Carson called Exegetical Fallacies. I would highly recommend that. I’m going to walk you through a few of the fallacies that I learned from him as he wrote about them, not as he actually did them in his study. 

One of those is: Beware of the root fallacy. Beware of the root fallacy. This is the assumption, again, that the true meaning of a word is bound up with its roots or maybe even the sum of its parts. I already explained to you that in English our compound words, sometimes the meaning is the sum of the parts, other times it’s not. Other languages are not any different in that regard. So, language communicates thoughts and ideas, not just words. And certainly, anything that we can say in one language, we can say in another, but we can’t always say it in the same way or in the same number of words. 

I mentioned Vine’s earlier. With all due respect, I think when people say, “I know just enough Greek to be dangerous,” what they really mean is, “I have a Vine’s and I’m not afraid to use it.” Because unless you know Greek, I’m not sure that you should be using a Vine’s because you can make all sorts of mistakes, including many of the different fallacies that we’re going to talk about here. 

Here is an example of that. The Greek word for love. What’s the Greek word for love that pretty much every Christian knows? It’s agape, agape. And what does agape mean? What do we know that agape means? Something like unconditional love or godly love, self-sacrificing love, something like that. Right? 

Well, what happens when we get to the 2 Timothy 4:10, where we read, 

“For Demas, in love with this present world, has deserted me and gone to Thessalonica.” 

If we just take a technical meaning, disregard context, and plug that meaning into the sentence, we would think, “For Demas, who has a godly, self-sacrificing, unconditional love for the world, has deserted me and gone to Thessalonica.” And we might think that Demas had done something really good, but I don’t think that’s what Paul means here. I think it means that Demas loves the world and so chose the world and its ungodly system over and against ministry with Paul. And Paul was heartbroken over that. But the word that’s used there, agape. 

Even worse, the Greek translation of the Old Testament. 2 Samuel 13, that creepy story of Amnon and Tamar, where Amnon incestuously rapes Tamar. The Septuagint uses both phileo and agapao to translate the words for love. The Septuagint translators use the word agape, the verb form agapao to describe the love that Amnon had for Tamar. Would anyone suggest that Amnon’s love for Tamar was godly, unconditional, self-sacrificing? 

Be very careful about assigning a technical meaning and having that override the context. The best indicator of what words mean is the context, not a dictionary definition. Dictionary definitions will help you in terms of range of possible meanings, but be very careful. And again, it would be ridiculous to read this passage, “For Demas in love with the present world” or read about Amnon “loving” Tamar and then look up the word in the dictionary and say, “Wow, this word means unconditional love or godly love,” and just plug that in without any regard to the context. The context moves us towards the best meaning of the word. 

Another caution: etymology can give insight when the word is rare and not often used. Sometimes the etymology will line up with the meaning and it can provide help but not always. Not always. You cannot assume that the meaning of the word is just tied up in its roots or the sum of its parts. Again, what’s the best indicator of what a word means? Context. Context. 

Remember the three most important things in biblical interpretation? Context, context, context. 

Question? 

Student: What’s etymology? 

Dr. Miles: Etymology is the study of the origin of a word, and its original meaning. And then oftentimes looking at the sum of the parts and how they contribute to the meaning. Yeah. Good. 

Avoid—I got this from D. A. Carson, too—avoid reverse etymology. And this is so true and Christians do this all the time. This is where we take a word that has changed over the years in English and we read that meaning back into the Greek. And here’s what it looks like. Again, you have a Vine’s, you’re not afraid to use it. You’re reading Romans 1:16, 

“I am not ashamed of the gospel because it is the power of God.” 

And you look up “power” and you discover that it is the Greek word dunamis, which, when we transliterate it into English, we changed the upsilon (or the u sound) into a y, and it’s d-y-n-a-m-i-s, and that looks like the word “dynamite.” Dynamite. And that’s where we get our word “dynamite” from that Greek word. 

And so, “Wow, I looked this word up in the Greek, and it’s dunamis, the dynamite of God. It blows things up.” Of course, that’s not what Romans 1:16 is saying at all. The gospel doesn’t blow things up. The gospel is the power of God to reconcile people to God. 

Or 2 Corinthians 9:7, 

“God loves a cheerful giver.” 

Oh, I looked up the word “cheerful,” and it’s the Greek word hilasmos [recte hilarós]. That’s where we get our English word “hilarious.” God wants me laughing all the way to the offering box. Probably not. Probably not. God does not want a hilarious giver; God wants a cheerful, intentional giver. 

So, avoid reverse etymology. Don’t look a word up in Greek, see how we use it in English and assume that’s what it meant in Greek. Your Bible translators do a better job of taking you from Greek to English than we might, by going from Greek to an English word that has that Greek root. Trust your Bible translators at that point. They usually do pretty good work. By usually I mean they always do really good work. 

Be aware of how words change their meaning with time. I mentioned this earlier. I said I would give you the example of martys. Martys is a word that commonly means “a witness.” But in the Greco-Roman world, this Greek word changed in meaning over time as it was used. 

At first it meant one who gives witness and evidence in a court. So, a martys would give testimony in a legal proceeding of sorts. Then it meant one who gave just a solemn affirmation but it didn’t have to be in court. It could be you’re making a vow, you’re solemnly affirming something. 

Well, then by the time you get to the second century, it became a word that meant one who witnesses even under threat of death. And so, there’s going to be some Christian context, there, as you’re witnessing to Jesus, under threat of death. 

Then by the time we get into the third and fourth centuries more, the patristic usage of it, you’ll find that a martys in Greek was someone who witnessed or testified, even under acceptance of death. Oftentimes their death was their witness. 

Then later on it meant someone who died for a belief, regardless of belief. So, I mean, they might have been wrong, but they were still a martys, a witness. 

Then eventually, especially in the English, as we use the word “martyr,” it’s just someone who feels sorry for himself. 

What did the word mean at the time that the Bible was written, though? More of that someone who gives solemn affirmation of something outside of court. When Jesus in Acts 1:8 said, “You will be my witnesses,” the word he used was martys. Yes. That’s where we get our English word martyr, but he’s not saying, “You will be my martyrs.” He’s saying “You will be my witnesses.” There’s a reason why the biblical translators in English use the word witness and not martyr because it didn’t mean necessarily martyr. You might end up, certainly, dying for your testimony but what Jesus was interested in was not primarily what happened to you after your testimony, he was interested in your testimony. 

Now, of course, Jesus cares about what happens after your testimony, too but in that command, “Go to Jerusalem, you will be my witnesses when the Holy Spirit comes,” he is talking about their testimony. So, we need to understand what a word meant at that time. And there are lots of Bible study tools that that are helpful there for that. 

Avoid verbal parallelomania. This is another one I got from Carson. It’s a kind of mania that seeks parallels to every single thing. If I can find a parallel, that means what I want then you can basically do anything with it. This would be like poor use of cross references where you find a verse in one passage and then you look up in your concordance where that same word is used somewhere else. And then you take the meaning of that other verse and you plug it into this present verse that you’re using. 

Again, let the Bible speak. Let the biblical authors mean what they say. And the best clue to what a word means in a sentence is the context of the sentence itself. Be careful with cross-references. They’re very, very useful. But again, with great power comes great responsibility. Use them wisely and use them intuitively. Don’t do with the Bible something that you would never do with your friend. 

Sometimes the appeals to parallels can be useful, though. They provide a broader picture of how a word was often used. Going to a parallel passage or another verse where that same word is used, it can be insightful at times. 

Be careful about linking language with mentality. Oftentimes I hear things like, “The Hebrew mind was just incapable of distinguishing between first and second causes or between primary and secondary causes.” So, for example, who was responsible for the suffering that that Job underwent? Was it God? Or was it Satan? And I’ve heard people say, “Well, the Hebrew mind was just incapable of distinguishing between primary and secondary causes.” Well, that’s kind of culturally snobbish. I think they weren’t morons. I think they could distinguish between those things. 

Now, it’s true that some languages have words for concepts that other languages do not. That’s certainly the case. Language does shape the way we think for sure. But be careful about making assumptions there. 

And then recognize that different authors will use words differently. And here’s where finding, you know, using your concordance might get you into trouble. The word righteousness, for example, the Greek word dikaiosynē. For Paul, oftentimes that Greek word meant justification. You have to look at the context because Paul doesn’t always use it that way. In Matthew, most of the time when he uses it, it doesn’t necessarily mean justification. It probably means something like righteousness. And so, recognize that different authors might use words differently, the same words. 

Learn to recognize the diversity of metaphors as well. Is there a difference between a literal meaning and a metaphorical meaning? Yes, of course there is. And we will discuss how to interpret figures of speech more later. But Jesus was fond of using metaphors. He did often. He said, “I am the door.” I think that would be ridiculous to take that literally. Jesus is said to be the Lion of Judah. Satan is also described as a lion, a prowling lion. Well, I suspect when Jesus is the Lion of Judah, that’s a little bit different than Satan being a prowling lion. And so, we need to recognize that even the same words used metaphorically can have very different meanings. So again, be very careful about assigning a technical meaning to any one word and just plugging that into your study. 

I’ve given you a lot of warnings about how to use word studies. The reason I’m giving you warnings is, again, I’ll repeat it, the word study is a very valuable, very valuable Bible study tool. But with great power comes great responsibility. Just as it can be a powerful tool, it can be used in very negative ways. And so be very careful about that. 

So, do word studies. Use your concordance, use cross-references. Look at how different biblical authors use the same words. Oftentimes there’s insight, but use them sensibly. And I don’t have technical guidance to give you other than just Jesus’s golden rule: don’t do to the biblical authors what you would not want done to yourself.