How To Study The Bible - Week 4 Session 2

What I want to do is go through and show you the basics of Blue Letter Bible and how to use it. I would encourage you to set up a free account. Up in the corner, I know it's very small and you won't be able to see it, but it says my name, Miles, right there. When you have a free account, you can set this up a little bit more specifically for yourself. This means you can choose your default Bible version; mine right now is the New King James Version. You can also decide whether you want it to show up as verse by verse or in paragraph format. We will look at some of these options in a moment.

You can set this up specifically for yourself, and it will maintain those settings as your defaults when you log in. It will also apply to the app if you download it on your phone or tablet.

Now, hold on a second. Here we go. This is what you will see if you use the phone or tablet; this is the Blue Letter Bible app. I will show you some of this as well, but you can log in using the account you created for Blue Letter Bible on the app as well.

If you look in the upper right-hand corner, you can register. All you have to do is register. When you go to blueletterbible.org or blb.com, it will show up like this on our computer. It will look a little bit different on a tablet.

It's not letting me zoom in here. Hold on one second; my thing is not zooming. Anyway, I’m going to type in Philippians chapter one. Once I go into Philippians, it would really help me if I could zoom in. It was working a second ago. I realize this is going to be small, but I’m going to walk you through these tools as you are looking at them. Hold on; it has to give me a way to do this. Yes, that will help. There we go. As you can see right now, we are at...

Philippians chapter one. If I click right up here at the top, I know it's very small, but you can see there's a check mark next to the verse. If I click "paragraph," that'll switch into the paragraph mode, so now I can read it as a paragraph versus reading it verse by verse. Generally, when I'm studying, I like to have it as verse by verse so I can go through rather quickly, looking at all the verses in the passage. However, going into paragraph mode helps you to see where the breaks are for the paragraphs and also the sections. That's just a quick little key feature that is really helpful. Of course, you can set that as your default when you register and log into the site.

Let me log in here. There we go. Changing from verse by verse to paragraph is just that button near the top. If you want to listen to the Scriptures, there's also, right next to that, the option to listen to this passage. You can listen to it in the King James Version, narrated, the New King James Version, narrated, and this will be kind of like sounds and speaking through dramatized voices with music in the background. It drives me crazy, but you might like that. So, King James, New King James, NIV, NLT—there are all these different versions for listening to the Scriptures. That will take you through the entire letter of the Apostle to the Philippians.

We have some music activity: "Bond Servants of Jesus Christ to all the saints in Christ Jesus who are in Philippi, with the Bishops." If that's too slow, I thank my God on every remembrance of you. I always listen to everything at double speed, so that's probably why I talk so fast. I've trained myself to talk that way. You can turn on the red letters, which will show up if you're in the Gospels and it's a passage where Jesus is speaking.

We will go through some more of these features as we continue, but the key feature of every great Bible program is fundamentally a search program; it's a concordance. It used to be that if you wanted a concordance, you would buy a big Strong's Exhaustive Concordance, which was like this giant doorstop of a book. Some of you probably have that, and some are collecting dust on a bookshelf somewhere. You would open it up and look for a word like "love," and then you would see every place in the Bible that "love" was used. You could find whatever verse you were looking for that had "love" in it. Fundamentally, Blue Letter Bible, Logos, Accordance, Bible Soft, and all these different Bible programs that are out there, like Bible Hub and Bible Gateway, these are...

There are other websites available that serve as a concordance and a search program. This means that not only can I input a verse, such as John 3:16, and be taken directly to that verse, but I can also search for phrases like "for God so loved." The program will then bring up every instance where "for God so loved" is found in the Bible.

It's a search feature and a concordance. For example, if I search for the word "God," I can find that it appears in the Bible 4,407 times across 3,844 verses, starting with Genesis and continuing through Exodus. On the side, I can select different translations, such as the King James Version, the New Living Translation, the New International Version, the English Standard Version, the Legacy Standard Bible, the New American Standard Bible 1995, the New Standard Version 2020, or the Christian Standard Bible. If I choose the CSB, it shows me that "God" appears 4,179 times in 3,640 verses.

You might wonder why "God" shows up more in one translation than another. This is often because some Bibles use "He" with a capital "H" for God, while others may choose to use "God" instead. Different translations can lead to variations in word usage.

If I want to see every instance of "God" in the Book of Job, I can search by book and find that "God" is used 113 times across 113 verses. This allows me to see every verse in the Book of Job where "God" appears.

This is just a one-word search. If I search for "faith," I can see that it occurs 245 times in 229 verses in the New King James Version, providing me with pages of references for every instance of "faith" in the Bible.

If I want to conduct a multiple-word search, I can input "faith and Christ." This combination shows that "faith" and "Christ" appear together 84 times in 39 verses. I could also simply search for "faith Christ," which would yield similar results. There are specific search terms that can enhance this process, and I will demonstrate those as we continue. However, if I want to refine my search further, I can specify that I want "faith."

In Christ, the problem is that it's going to show me not just where faith in Christ shows up as a phrase, but it's going to be "faith in Jesus Christ" or "faith in Christ" that will show up in the verse. If I put quotation marks around it, I don't want emojis; quotation marks now will just focus on "faith in Christ."

So now it's zeroing in on just those words. Faith in Christ shows up six times in six verses in the New King James Version. However, maybe I want to see it in the New Living Translation. In that version, "faith in Christ" appears as well. Are you seeing how helpful this can be?

You just type in here at the very top "grace of God," and I'm going to put it in quotation marks. This will bring all this up right here. This is just the same search in the search bar, just in a different location.

So, "grace of God" in the Bible shows up 24 times in 23 verses. I want to find "Jesus," "Christ," and "love." Here are all the times that those three words show up in the scriptures. Or maybe I want to see "Jesus" but not "Christ." By just searching for "Jesus," I can exclude "Christ" from the results.

They promote me; they're very kind. In fact, it was kind of funny. My wife was doing her nurse practitioner classes at Azusa Pacific, which is a Christian school. They require basic classes on the Bible, and the teacher said, "I want to show you this great tool today: Blue Letter Bible." When they went there, my face showed up on the site. Her friend leaned over and said, "Isn't that your husband?" She was like, "Shh, be quiet." It was kind of funny, but my face was right there for a while, so it was kind of weird.

In the Old Testament, specifically in Genesis, there is Abram, but then God changes his name to Abraham. I will refer to him as Abram or Abraham. His name is changed a bit later on in the narrative.

If I type "faith," I can see it up there. By using the asterisk (shift eight), it will show me every instance of "faith," "faithful," "faithless," "faithfulness," and "faithfully." Similarly, if I type "call" followed by an asterisk, it will return results for "call," "calls," "calling," and so on. For example, I could search for "God," "Paul," and "God called" or "God calls," which will yield various results.

You may notice the little red markings above. These indicate secondary wildcard dictionaries and lexicons. The wildcard search functions similarly, so if I click on this, it will look for "call," "called," "calling," and "calls." It also includes secondary searches, which can provide additional insights.

In addition to searching the Bible, this software also searches Bible dictionaries and lexicons, which I will explain in a moment. The primary focus is right here, where we see "God called."

A good Bible software program fundamentally serves as a search tool. Blue Letter Bible offers various resources, including a help area at the very bottom, video tutorials, and search tutorials that demonstrate all the different ways you can utilize this program.

This really helps you to find verses very quickly or to reference passages. There are many times when I know that some of you won't believe this, but I haven't memorized the whole Bible. There are times when I remember a verse that said something about Lot and Abraham. I know it's somewhere in Genesis, but I don't remember where it was. If I put "Lot" and "Abraham," there we go; there's Lot and Abraham, and then I can jump right to that verse.

This is just the search feature. There are tons of things you can do with it. There are a lot of great helps just on the site. At the very bottom and in the middle, there is a help section where you can go through and get assistance on how to search and access some tutorials on all that. So, there are some really helpful things there. The chief thing to think about is that this is a search tool.

If I just typed "abraham" and "lot" in lowercase, it will show every time "Abraham" and "Lot" or the word "and" appears. If I type "A-N-D" in capital letters, it tells the search engine that I'm not looking for the word "and"; I'm looking for those two things. The same applies to "or" or "not." For example, "God or Christ" will look for every instance where "God" or "Christ" is found in the Scriptures. However, if I type "God" or in lowercase, it will look for "God," the word "or," and the word "Christ."

The next major tool that is key is found in Philippians. If we go to Philippians chapter one, to the left of the verse, you will see it says "tools." If I hover over this, it will give me a list of different tools that I can use. One of them is "Interlinear," which we will get to in a moment. The "Bibles" option gives me that same verse in multiple translations: King James, New King James, New Living Translation. Now I can read that same verse in multiple translations just by looking at it right here. If I don't want the New King James at the top, I would rather have...

Sorry, King James. I'd rather have the New King James. I grab the little hand and move that up, and then maybe I want the New International Version right after that, followed by the English Standard Version. If I've created an account, it'll save this, and from now on, every time I open it, the New King James will be at the top, followed by the New International Version and the ESV, however I want.

There are a whole bunch of different versions available, even if I can read Greek, Arabic, or Spanish. So, those are the Bibles. Next to that, if I hold over this, it brings up a list. Once I open it, that same list just shows up here: Interlinear Bibles, cross-references, commentaries, dictionaries, and miscellaneous resources.

The next one here, the purple one, is one of my favorite tools. It's called the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, and it's a cross-reference tool. What it does is highlight in that verse, "Paul and Timothy, servants of Jesus Christ, to the saints in Christ Jesus who are at Philippi, to the bishops and the deacons." Every time it highlights in red, this indicates a cross-reference section.

For example, this is going to be a verse that cross-references to Philippians chapter 1. Romans 1:1 says, "Paul, a bondservant of Jesus Christ." First Corinthians 1:1 states, "Paul, called to be an apostle of Jesus Christ." You can see there's a cross-reference there.

What about Timothy? Here are some other passages where Timothy shows up. Maybe I want to know who this Timothy guy is, and I see that Acts chapter 16 tells me something about him. This is where we are first introduced to Timothy when Paul was ministering on his first missionary trip in Galatia, where he met Timothy. Then, on his second missionary trip, he picks him up, as noted in Acts chapter 16.

Now I get to do a study about Timothy, but I can also see he is mentioned in First Corinthians 16:10, Second Corinthians 1:1, Colossians 1:1, and First Thessalonians 1:1. So, Timothy shows up in various places.

Here are cross-references to the word "servants." In a whole bunch of other passages of Scripture, the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge is showing me places where I can find more about the servants of Christ or the saints. The saints who are at Philippi are also referenced in Romans 1:7, which says, "To all who are in Rome, beloved of God, called to be saints." There's that same word again.

We see it down here in First Corinthians 1:2, which states, "Sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints." You can see this is a cross-reference. Philippi references Acts chapter 16 and First Thessalonians chapter 2. The bishops are spoken of in this passage, and here are some other passages in the New Testament that deal with bishops.

Cross-references in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge are very helpful. When I'm studying a passage, I may want to see what other passages point to. For example, if I'm in Jeremiah 29:11, which we were talking about earlier, and I look at the cross-references, I can see if there are any other places in Scripture where the idea of an expected end shows up.

There are indeed other passages where that idea appears. Scrolling down, I see a lot of verses. Sometimes my computer does funny things, but here we go. The cross-references include the thoughts I think towards you, and there are several references for that. There are many verses related to this concept, which is why it seems overwhelming. I will have to talk with them about fixing this. Jordan at Blue Letter Bible will be happy I found a bug.

The cross-references, such as in Philippians chapter one, are part of the tools we have. We have Bibles and cross-references, which are part of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge. This tool correlates one passage with another. Remember that graphic I showed you that looked like a big rainbow? It has all the cross-references where you can jump from one place to the next and see how these verses connect to each other.

This is really helpful when you're studying through a book like Jeremiah or Isaiah, and you want to see where it corresponds in the books of Second Kings or Second Chronicles. For instance, if I go to Isaiah 6, which mentions, "In the year that King Uzziah died," and I click on the cross-references, it will likely provide information about that specific year.

This takes me to Second Kings, chapter 15. This passage discusses the events surrounding the death of Uzziah, which was quite a significant occurrence. It is mentioned in both Second Kings 15 and Second Chronicles 26. In these passages, we learn that Uzziah died under unfortunate circumstances. If you read Isaiah 6, it states, "In the year that King Uzziah died," but you might wonder what that means. By looking at Kings and Chronicles, you realize that he did something he should not have done and ultimately died a leper after disobeying the Lord.

The cross-reference tool is incredibly helpful. For instance, I often use Philippians 1 as a key reference point. If I navigate to the tools and select dictionaries, I can find articles related to Philippians 1. For example, I might want to learn more about the city of Philippi. I can explore various dictionaries, such as Smith's Bible Dictionary, which provides information about Caesarea Philippi, although that is not the same as Philippi.

If I click on the "more" option, I can access an article in Smith's Bible Dictionary that gives a brief overview of Philippi, a city in Macedonia. There are multiple entries, so I can also check Easton's Bible Dictionary. By clicking on the "more" tab there, I can find additional information about Philippi and start to expand my understanding of the people to whom Paul is writing.

In addition to dictionaries, commentaries offer insights from other scholars on the scripture in Philippians chapter one. Notable commentators include John Corson, Chuck Smith, Bob Hoekstra, Jay Vernon McGee, Bob Davis, Trent Douglas, and Raul Reese, among others. Many of these individuals are associated with Calvary Chapel, as Jim Milligan and Frank were also part of that movement.

John MacArthur's study notes are available, as well as David Guzik's notes for Philippians chapter one. If I click on Guzik's study, I can read through his insights on this chapter. For more resources, you can visit enduringword.com.

The ones on Enduring Word are the most recent edits. If I go to enduringword.com and scroll down to the bottom to Philippians 1, it is the same text. Of course, now it zooms on that website, so this is the same, but enduringword.com has the most recent edits. This has been a nonstop effort in editing. What you'll find on enduringword.com are the most recent edits. Once we have an entire book or a collection of books, we send them over to Blue Letter Bible, and they add them to their list of changes in their system.

Are there any other questions at this point? We have looked at the search feature, and I am just beginning to scratch the surface of what you can do with it. I'm sure you can see that it makes finding things quickly really easy. There are Bible dictionaries, commentaries, outlines, and audio commentaries available.

If I go back to Philippians chapter 1, we have text commentaries as well as audio and video commentaries. You can listen to someone teach through that passage, and there are some outlines for the book as well. We just added some biblical resources to Blue Letter Bible recently, and many of these resources are very helpful. They provide brief outlines for each chapter throughout the whole Bible, which are great tools.

I particularly like this verse: "Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling," from Philippians chapter 2, verse 12. There we go; now it's working. I don't know what happened; there was a hiccup for a while.

If I go over to the tools, the last tool I am going to show you here is one that we will be using next week for homework, and that's the Interlinear Bible. The New Testament was written in Greek, while the Old Testament was written mostly in Hebrew and some Aramaic. Here is Philippians chapter 2, verse 12 in Greek. For the vast majority of you in here, that is all Greek to you and means nothing. However, if I click on "Forward Interlinear" and go to full page, this will now give us the breakdown of this verse, Philippians 2, verse 12. Here is the Greek for this.

Then this is the breakdown of that whole conjunction, and this is the breakdown of this whole verb, really, but adjectival verb. This breaks everything down so I can look at it, and I just want to show you how this works a little bit. This is just a really quick overview of this because I don't expect any of you to go and take Greek and learn all of this stuff.

Paul says to work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. If I go down to this word "salvation," this is a noun, and in this passage, it tells me some information about it and how it's used. It is the Greek word "soteria." If I click on this, it is going to take me into some information about this word. Hold on one second; I can get some info. Let me find it here for a second. I want to go down to "soterion." Here it is right here.

So, "soteria," if I click on this number 4991, this is the Strong's number. This is going to take me into the definition and some information about this word. Here is the definition: deliverance, preservation, safety, salvation, salvation as the present possession of all true Christians. It is just giving me information about this word, and this is how you do a very simple Bible word study.

Maybe you want to know how to say it with a really strong Southern accent: Strong's G 4991, "soteria." That's my friend Justin Alfred. Justin's a great guy; he's probably, I'd say, almost 80 by now. About 10 or 12 years ago, when I was much more into martial arts, I used to go and spar with a group of guys, and Justin Alfred would come and spar with us. This guy played football for Mississippi State, and he looks like a giant nose guard.

At the time, he was in his late 60s or early 70s, and he'd get out there and spar with us. We would say, "All right, we're going to spar at like 30 percent speed." He knows nothing of 30 percent speed; everything is at 100 percent. If you're not careful, this guy will destroy you. He would always kick at my knees, and I had to be really quick to get away from him. But he's a great guy with a big, thick Southern accent.

Our strong language expert, Sotelia, mentioned that you will not use these tools often. I hear someone using the tool over there. You probably won't use these word tools frequently, but I do find them to be very helpful. I'm going to encourage you to use some of them in the homework for this class.

One of the reasons these tools are helpful is that they can provide deeper insights into scripture. I've mentioned this before, but I want to show you how they can be beneficial. For example, in Matthew chapter 5, verse 48, it says, "Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in Heaven is perfect." How many of you have read that verse before?

For pretty much all of my Christian life, until about a year and a half ago, I always read that as a commandment: "You shall be perfect, just as your Father in Heaven is perfect." However, when I looked at this in the original language, I found that where it says "you shall be perfect," it is actually in the indicative mood. This means it is indicating that you will be perfect. So, it's not a command; it's indicating that you will be perfect.

How is this possible? If we look a little further, it says, "You've heard that it has been said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I say to you, love your enemies and bless those who curse you. Do good to those who hate you and pray for those who spitefully use and persecute you."

If you love your enemies, then you may be sons of your Father in Heaven, for He makes the sun rise on the evil and the good and sends rain on the just and the unjust. If you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet your brethren only, what do you do more than others? Do not even the tax collectors do the same?

Therefore, you shall be perfect, just as your Father in Heaven is perfect. It's not a command; it's saying that if you love your neighbor or your enemy, you will be perfect, just like your Father in Heaven is perfect. By understanding some of these tools and looking at the original language, we can gain a clearer understanding of the scripture.

Look at this parsing right here. It says it's in the indicative mood; it's not in the imperative mood. The imperative would be a command, but this is the indicative. It's indicating something, so this is a truth to believe more than it is a command to do.

"You shall be perfect as your Father in Heaven is perfect" if you love your enemy. Of course, you can't love your enemy without the help of the Holy Spirit to help you do that, but He helps us to do that.

Another interesting example I came across several years ago is in Luke Chapter 19. There's a story about Zacchaeus. Zacchaeus was a wee little man; a wee little man was he. He climbed up in a sycamore tree to see what he could see. How many of you know that one? Remember when Zacchaeus, if you've ever read this passage of Scripture, was told by Jesus to come down? Jesus said, "I'm going to dine with you tonight."

Everybody complained. In verse 7, when they saw it, they all complained, saying, "He's gone to be the guest of a man who is a sinner." Then Zacchaeus stood and said, "Lord, look! Lord, I give half my goods to the poor, and if I have taken anything from anyone by false accusation, I restore it fourfold."

I have always heard this taught for many years as if this was a form of his repentance, as if when Jesus called him, he then said, "Look, I'm going to now give my goods to the poor, and if I've taken anything by false accusation, I'll restore it." However, I looked at this in the original language and discovered that he said unto the Lord, "Behold, Lord, half my goods I give to the poor."

The parsing for "I give" is not something he's going to do in the future; it's a present active indicative. Right here, he's indicating what he currently does, which is rather strange because we have this mindset about Zacchaeus that he was this wicked hoarder who kept everything back to himself. But in reality, maybe that's not how we should read that.

He's indicating what his actual current state was: "Presently, actively, I give half my goods to the poor, and if I've taken anything by false accusation, I restore it." The word "restore" is also in the present active indicative.

Now, I realize that these things are not something that I'm expecting you to look up and try to understand, but I just want to show that word studies are important because they help us to see things that we wouldn't otherwise see in the English text. There are certain assumptions that we make when we read.

Things in the English language are not entirely clear until you start to look at some very basic details. I'm not asking you to learn all these words or to say them like Justin Alfred does with a nice thick accent. Strong's G591, apoditomy of identity, is just one example. By knowing some basics about this stuff, you can start to discover some key things.

We will talk more about word study tools in the future, but just so you know, they are there. You can begin to see how these scriptures come together. They come from the Greek and are translated by scholars who are Greek and Hebrew experts. These scholars really understand how these words work in their original contexts and are able to put them together with a comprehensive understanding of how the Greek language functions.

The Greek language is a phenomenal language; it's very technical. Each verb has a tense, a voice, a mood, a person, and a number. This particular verb shows all the different aspects of it. It is present active indicative first person singular, which means some significant things. You can study what all that means by looking at this. For example, if I click on indicative mood, it will give me some understanding of what the indicative mood is.

What does that mean when a word is in the indicative mood? It is a simple statement of fact, something that has really occurred. These tools are very helpful when trying to understand what the original word meant. Doing a word study involves looking at a verse or a word and then pulling up that word. For instance, I can go to G1325 and get more information about how it is used in biblical usage, such as "to give," "to grant," or "to give to one asking."

This brings me to what I’m going to ask you to do for homework this next week, which has to do with this word study. I understand you might be apprehensive about this, but I will simplify it. It’s not going to be terribly difficult.

Your homework this week is to do a word study using the Blue Letter Bible on one of the following passages: John chapter 20, verses 3 through 10, or John 21, verses 15 through 17.

In John 20, we will examine the word "saw," and in John 21, we will focus on the word "love." Let me show you what I'm looking at here.

In John 20, verse 3, it states, "Peter therefore went out and the other disciple, and they were going to the tomb." They both ran together, and the other disciple outran Peter and came to the tomb first. He, stooping down and looking in, saw the linen cloth lying there; yet he did not go in. Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb. He saw the linen cloths lying there, and the handkerchief that had been around His head, not lying with the linen cloths but folded together in a place by itself.

Then the other disciple, who came to the tomb first, went in and also saw and believed. For as yet, they did not know the scripture that He must rise again from the dead. Then the disciples went away again to their homes.

We see that the English word "saw" appears three times in this passage. If we go over to the Blue Letter Bible and look at John 20, verse 3, and click on tools, we can access the Interlinear.

Scrolling down to verse 5, we find that he, stooping down and looking in, saw. The Greek word here is "blepo." It is a verb in the present active indicative, third person singular. If I click on this, it will provide a definition for "blepo." Here it is: to see, to discern with the bodily eye.

You can read through all the different aspects of the definition and how it is used. However, I want you to look in that passage and see if "saw" in verse 5 is the same as "saw" in verse 6 and if it is the same as "saw" in verse 8. I simply want you to examine and take notes. You can write down the English transliteration; you don't have to try and write out the Greek word.

Write out the English transliteration "blepo" (b-l-e-p-o). That's all you need to write down. Write down a few definitions. What does it mean? Then go down to verse 6 and see if the word "saw" is different in verse 6 than it is in verse 5. Is it "blepo," or is it something different? If it's something different, then look at the definition and see what it says about that word.

In verse 8, see if that word "saw" is the same as the one in verse 6 or the one in verse 5, or is it different? Write down what that word is, and then write down what the differences are. I want you to look at those and see if they are different or the same. Why might John have chosen to use different words in this instance?

When we are doing a Bible study, we'll talk about this next week when we discuss inductive Bible study. One of the things we are going to look for is repeated words. In this passage, there is a repeated word: "saw, saw, saw." It is repeated in English, but it might not be quite the same in the original language, which would not be clear if I just read this. Is there something going on there that John is trying to convey as he uses these words?

So, that's the first one. You can choose this one: John 20, verses 3 through 10, or there's that word "blepo." You can also use this passage: John 21. Let's see if there is any repeated word. You can already tell because I underlined and made them bold.

When they had eaten breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, "Simon, son of Jonah, do you love me more than these?" He said to him, "Yes, Lord, you know that I love you." Jesus said to him, "Feed my lambs." He said to him again a second time, "Simon, son of Jonah, do you love me?" He said to him, "Yes, Lord, you know that I love you." Jesus said to him, "Tend my sheep."

He said to him a third time, "Simon, son of Jonah, do you love me?" Peter was grieved that he said to him a third time, "Do you love me?" He said to him, "Lord, you know all things; you know that I love you." Jesus said to him, "Feed my sheep."

I want you to do the same thing with this passage using the tools that are found at Blue Letter Bible. Go through the tools, go to the Interlinear, and try to find "love" in verse 15. Then find "love" used by Peter and "love" used by Jesus. See if they are the same or if they are different. In English, the word "love" is repeated over and over again. Is there something more going on there?

Write down what words are used. Jesus uses this word, Peter uses this word, Jesus uses this word, and Peter uses this word. See how they are used and what John is communicating there.

What's happening in this passage is significant because there is something that is unlocked when you look at it in the original language that is not clear in English. You don't have to be a scholar of Greek; you just need to know how to click things on Blue Letter Bible and read a few entries. It won't even take you ten pages of reading; it's just a matter of looking at a few things.

One of the discoveries you will make is that one of the words in this passage, "lovest thou me," is the Greek word "agapao." The verb "agapao" is related to the Greek noun "agape," which some of you may have heard before. However, there might be another word used in this passage. I know this can be a challenging task, but it is simpler than you might think. Just choose one of these two passages and examine how these words are used. Write them down, noting what word is used and the basic meaning of each one. Then, discover if there is anything different going on. What do you think John is communicating in this passage? Share your thoughts on what is being conveyed through the usage of the words in these passages.

That's a lot of information! I promised I would show you one other tool: Precept Austin. This resource is incredible. I'm going to go to Philippians because I really like that book. When I select "Collections of Commentaries and Sermons" and choose the book of Philippians, it takes me to a page filled with content.

As I scroll, you can see how much material this individual has compiled. The scroll bar on the far right indicates the extensive content available. He has gathered information from all over the Internet, including resources from Blue Letter Bible, Bible Gateway, John MacArthur, David Guzik, and many others. This is just for the book of Philippians, and he has done this for every book of the Bible. The amount of information he has is truly phenomenal. This is one person in Texas, and I don't think he sleeps! The content is broken up by verse, so you can easily navigate through it.

If I scroll up a little bit, I can show you Marvin Vincent's commentary on Philippians. This is a critical exegetical commentary, and it's not just on his website; it points you to archive.org, which is an amazing tool. Archive.org has an entire exegetical commentary on the book of Philippians.

He has done extensive work, and here’s Chris Vogel, who I don't even know, with sermons on Philippians 1:1 and 2. He points to other websites to find all of this information, scouring the internet for resources. John Walford has also contributed to Philippians chapter one, and his passage on Philippians 1 is included as well. The amount of work this guy has put in is hard for me to even imagine. David Guzik spent some time with him and mentioned that he is quite a character.

I know I’ve thrown a lot of information at you, and it might feel overwhelming. However, this word study exercise is not something to be afraid of. It’s a very simple task. You’re just going to go to John 20, look at that passage with "saw, saw, saw," and then see how "saw" is used in that context. Write it down and prepare your questions.

Before we wrap up tonight, let me see if I can pull up blb.org. There it is, live map. This is happening right now in real time. In the time we've been on here, 330 pages have been accessed, which is 22 pages per second. Of course, in certain parts of the world, it’s very dark right now, and people are asleep, so they’re not really looking at it. However, you can follow the activity. Let me make some changes here. Hold on one moment.

Where's the key? It's one person looking at the site at that moment. There's another way to bring it up. I'll have to ask my guys at Blue Letter Bible. There is one other way that we can bring this up that is amazing. Hold on one second.

I just want you guys to recognize that you are a part of this church. You are a part of this work, and it's fruit to your account because you're involved in this. The church has freed me up to be a part of this and to serve with them and help with them. It's just mind-blowing what God is doing through this. I mean, there are 1,200 total pages in 53 seconds. His name is Paul.

Come on! No new people are coming on when it pops up there; it's a new hit to the site. They just ran well. At the bottom, you can see they're on the homepage, Bible tabs, search tabs, commentary, study. It's pretty cool. I'll figure out how to bring up the other live feature. I don't remember what it is, but there's this alternate way of viewing it that also gives us some more features that we can add to it.

Other questions? I have a deep, deep study of the words, the meaning, the differences from one another. My question is, do you have that in different languages like Arabic, Spanish, or Italian? The study tools that are available on Blue Letter Bible right now are all the English study tools, and they are working very hard to get the tools into other languages. This is one of the big things that we're working on.

With Enduring Word, we have a goal over the next ten years to translate all of David Guzik's commentaries into the fifteen most used languages in the world. Right now, we have commentary in English, Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, Arabic, Farsi, Russian, French, Italian, Dutch, and Tamil. We do have certain bits of the commentary in other languages, and it is being translated into various languages. However, most of the tools are English tools at the moment.

I want to show you something quickly. This is Logos, and I know it looks like a big jumbled mess, but when I mentioned recently how words can be challenging to translate into English, it’s because some words have such a large meaning. For example, it says "Jesus loved." If I bring this up, I can do a Bible word study on this word. It will show the Greek word "phileo," which is another Greek word for love.

If I open it up in this tool, I can make the text a little bigger. The meaning of "phileo" and how it's used is not just in the Bible; it can also be found in the works of Homer, Josephus, and Plutarch. This word has been used in different contexts and times, which illustrates how one word can have a variety of meanings. This is why it is a challenge for translators to provide a precise definition.

In English, we might say, "I love my wife," "I love my dog," and "I love burritos," and hopefully, those loves are not the same. We have a semantic range for how we use that word, but it is an implied semantic range. In the original language, Greek, the choice of words can convey much more nuance.

There are four primary words for love that are used in ancient Greek. Three of those words are found in the Bible: agape, phileo, storge, and eros. The way these words are used is different. A great book on this topic is "The Four Loves" by C.S. Lewis. If you've never read it, it's a short read.

I know I've given you a whole bunch of information, but here's your homework. All you need is the Blue Letter Bible and John 20, verses 3 through 10. You are going to study the word "saw." For John 21, verses 15 through 17, study the word "love." You only have to choose one of these; you don't have to do both. If you get really ambitious, you can do both, but you only have to do one.

I'll stick around afterward if you have any questions. I'd love to answer those for you. If you would like, you can text your questions, and we'll talk about them at the beginning of next week.

Before we go, let's pray. God, I pray that you would give us understanding and wisdom as we study your word this week. Give us a passion and love for your word and the time spent with you. I pray that this word study would not be a discouragement and that it would not be too big of a hill to climb. I don't think it will be, but would you just open our hearts and minds to receive from you and to see how your word speaks and how you speak through it? Lord, draw us into a deeper fellowship with you through your word. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.

All right, we'll see you next week. We're going to talk about inductive Bible study next week.