Sunday, December 30, 2007

God Preserves His Word

"For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled." Matthew 5:18

The word translated "jot" is the greek word "iota", which often transliterates into the english letter "i". The word"tittle" appears only here and in Luke 16:17. Significantly it appears without connection to "jot" in the Luke passage.

Iota, as a greek letter, thus identifies with the New Testament. "Tittle, by virtue of its being featured alone in Luke 16 and in connection with the phrase "the law" identifies with the Old Testament.

Since these two words are brought together in Matthew 5, we can see God emphasizing here that BOTH the Old and New Testaments are the LAW of God. And as the law of God, the divine promise is that the record of God's law will not fall victim to corruption to the point that the perfectly preserved Word of God will no longer exist in the world. What a precous promise this is.

"7 The law of the LORD is perfect, converting the soul: the testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple. 8 The statutes of the LORD are right, rejoicing the heart: the commandment of the LORD is pure, enlightening the eyes. 9 The fear of the LORD is clean, enduring for ever: the judgments of the LORD are true and righteous altogether. 10 More to be desired are they than gold, yea, than much fine gold: sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb. 11 Moreover by them is thy servant warned: and in keeping of them there is great reward."

Psalm 19:7-11

Thursday, December 27, 2007

Biblical Hebrew

Just to clarify an earlier post a bit:

I am not necessarily advocating beating your way through the recommended Hebrew book and learning the language. Rather, I suggest getting the Hebrew grammar book to have handy on your shelf as a research tool. If you know the Hebrew alphabet, then you can use the book to find out if Hebrew word(s) is/are nouns, verbs, singular, plural, etc. Sometimes these distinctions are quite significant, and you can't discern them by looking at Strong's numbers. And sometimes the interlinear rendering is off, too, so you can't just assume that is always correct.

While I am thinking about it, I would also like to heartily recommend the hardbound Englishman's Concordances (two volumes, one for NT one for OT) by Wigram. These volumes are organized by Strong's numbers, and, significantly, many concordance computer programs are based on the information set forth in these books. However, sometimes cracking these volumes open allows you to discover important closely related word(s) to the one(s) you are studying. Every computer program I have ever tried almost always miss such relations, so it is good when to have these additional tools also on your Bible Study bookshelf.

Saturday, December 22, 2007

Thelo, Strongs Greek Word# 2309

This word means "to will". In contexts where the will cannot be immediately be exercised, then the idea conveyed is one of potential exercise of the will, or desire. Anyway, I recommend you spend some time this Sunday reading through each and every use of this word in the Bible. This is an exercise that is very, VERY revealing.

Wednesday, December 19, 2007

Phillipians 2:13

"For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of [his] good pleasure."

The word, "to will" is the greek thelo (Strongs 2309) which has to do literally with the exercising of the will.

God works in the true believer to incline the believer to WILL and thus consequently to DO of God's pleasure. That is why the true believer rightly gives God all the glory and all the praise for anything the true believer might do in his life that might align at all with the will of God.

How can it be then, that UNSAVED man can do things that are "pleasing to God" all by himself, without the inworking of God, as we are told repeatedly man can do and does do in IHGWSM?

I am vexed beyond words about this; hence the somewhat off-beat (though some might say not offbeat for me) posts of the last two days. I had to get my mind off it for a while...