How to Study the Bible - Week 5 Session 2

Seats as you are. Some questions came in. You can text your questions to the phone number on the screen.

Do you allow late homework? Sure, I'll allow late homework. Another question: Are you going to grade the homework and give it back? I'm not going to grade it, but I will give it back to you if you'd like to have it for your own notes to keep.

What were the Nephilim? That's a study for another day. Regarding the preacher on the radio that you mentioned, who interprets things that aren't necessarily there, how should we take their other teachings? Should we follow them or disregard what they say because some of it is wrong?

Generally speaking, I do think it's a good plan to be a Berean. This comes from Acts chapter 17, where the author of the book of Acts said that those who were of the city of Berea, which is the place where Paul ministered after he left the city of Thessalonica, were more noble than those in Thessalonica. They heard the things that Paul taught them and searched the Scriptures daily to see if those things were so. In a sense, that was like first-century fact-checking.

I do think it is important that we all know the smell test. You find something in the back of the refrigerator, and you're not really sure if it's still good. You open it and realize it doesn't pass the smell test. There are certain things we will hear, especially if you've been part of a church for any length of time, sitting under good teaching, where you think, "That doesn't sound quite right." You should go and search the Scriptures to see if you can determine what is being said.

The way I try to teach the Scriptures is by making it very clear where this is coming from. Observation, interpretation, application: if I'm giving you a point of application, my aim is that it comes directly out of the Scriptures, and the line back to the Scriptures is really clear. That's my aim.

In a sense, you do have to evaluate everything you're hearing when you're taking in teaching from other people. Learn to eat the fish and spit out the bones. It should cause you to be a better student of the Scriptures, to be a Berean, and to search the Scriptures to see if those things are so. Recognize that I am not the foremost expert or leading authority on what the Bible says, nor are those people who are on the radio. There are some things they say that I just...

Outright strange, weird, or wrong, and it's okay to say, "Yeah, I'm not really sure that I see that in the text." The individual that I'm talking about is very much focused on application. In fact, he's written an application commentary, not an exegetical commentary.

There are different kinds of commentaries, and we'll talk more about commentaries later. Commentaries are the writings of a student of the Scriptures on the passage of Scripture that they read or studied. An exegetical commentary is normally put together by a scholar, like a Biblical scholar who is probably a professor at a seminary somewhere and has done extensive study and research on the text that they are commenting on.

There are also devotional commentaries, which are basically when someone reads a passage and gives a paragraph or two of devotional thoughts about that passage. It probably does not flow from a correct exegesis of the text, and they might draw out things that you go, "I'm not really sure that's there, but okay, it administered; it was nice." It doesn't seem heretical, but it's not an exegesis of the text.

Then there are application commentaries that are primarily focused on bringing out applications for you from the text. I would generally read those as like a devotional; I wouldn't look at them as my place for really trying to determine what this text is saying from a scholarly standpoint.

So, recognize that there are ways in which some fish have more bones than others, and some teaching gives you very little fish, if you will. You eat the fish and spit out the bones.

All right, we are going to look at this inductive model of breaking down a text, and we're going to focus pretty much entirely on observation, just trying to see what is there in the text. Taking the exact passage that I gave you as homework, some of you used this passage in John chapter 20, where we read, "Peter therefore went out and the other disciple, and they were going to the tomb." So they both ran together, and the other disciple outran Peter. I love that! He came to the tomb first, and he, the one who outran Peter, stooping down and looking in, saw the linen cloths lying there. Yet he did not go in. Then Simon Peter came following him and went into the tomb, and he saw the...

Linen cloths were lying there, and the handkerchief that had been around His head was not lying with the linen cloths but was folded together in a place by itself. Then the other disciple, who came to the tomb first, went in also, and he 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 to their own homes.

We are going to slowly and systematically walk through this text over the next 25 or 30 minutes, looking at all the different things that are going on and highlighting some key points as we go. The first step is to look at who is in the passage. We also want to remember that this is a Gospel, so it reads more like a narrative. You will find that there are many indicative verbs indicating certain things, while there are very few imperative verbs. In fact, there is nothing in this text that is a command; it simply tells us what was happening.

As we read through it quickly, we could probably summarize what went on here. You could read it in the New Living Translation or the New International Version, but basically, we want to walk through and see who the people in this passage are. We will focus on the basic who, what, when, and where questions. The "why" is an interpretive question, but for now, we will stick to the basics.

First, it starts with Peter. Peter, therefore, went out. Here we have Simon Peter. This brings up an interesting point: Peter is also called Simon because Simon was his given name, while Peter was the name that Jesus called him by. You could even take a moment to look back and do a little character study on who this Simon Peter character is, especially if you are only looking at this passage of scripture. However, by this point, if you are reading through the Gospel of John systematically, you have already read through 19 chapters before getting here and have some idea of who Simon Peter is.

Peter shows up quite a bit in this narrative. We see him here, and he saw the linen cloths lying there. So, right now, we are just going through and identifying Peter's role in the passage. I am using the lens of reading the Bible with purpose, focusing solely on Peter as we go through and try to find him.

Then I go back to another character. He's not named; he's just called the other disciple. We see the other disciple here again, and I am differentiating him so I can look at this and see who the various people are and where they are mentioned in this text. You can simply go through this slowly, identifying all the different places where the other disciple shows up in the passage.

So, there we have Peter and the other disciple. By this point, it takes a little bit of time. I mean, I'm running through this rather quickly, but if you're reading through this multiple times—I've read through it multiple times in different versions—then I'm reading through it just identifying who the very first person I see is. Okay, that's Peter. Now I'm going through and just looking for Peter, but then there's the other disciple. I don't really know who the other disciple is unless I've read through the Gospel of John before. I've had some prior interaction with this text.

I'll give you a little spoiler alert: it's John. He's very modest; he doesn't name himself, except he does inform us that he outran Peter. He also informs us that he's the Beloved disciple. We'll get to that more in a moment. If you watch The Chosen, there are some great things happening between these guys, and the show is really good.

So, we take a text and go through it, highlighting and underlining. Some of you who have been around churches like Calvary Chapels for a long time may have even done an inductive Bible study course using K. Arthur's inductive Bible study program. They had every possible symbol you could imagine, with key symbols and heart symbols. Every time you found the word "love," you put a heart around it. You ended up with a Bible that looks more like hieroglyphics than a Bible, just filled with every possible thing you could imagine.

This is basically what you're doing: breaking the scripture apart. We're going to do this even more when we break it down into separate propositions and clauses next week. What you'll see is that there are a lot of pastors I know who, when they're reading a passage of scripture, will actually do this in Greek. They will diagram the sentences in Greek, and I'll show you what Greek diagramming in a sentence looks like.

It looks crazy the first time you look at it, but then when you start to understand, you realize why you're doing what you're doing. All of a sudden, the passage becomes a little bit clearer if you understand how to do these things. By doing this, we have a simplified version of breaking it apart. Right now, we're just identifying the people.

We see Peter and the other disciple, and we've differentiated between the two of them with a different color. We also see them together, so I'm going to highlight this in green. They both ran together. Then, down in verse nine, we see that the disciples went back to their homes. I'm just identifying where these individuals are in the text so I can see what's going on. We have two individuals; they are seen independently and together in the text. I'm breaking it apart so I can see where they're at.

There's a third individual mentioned here right in the middle of verse seven. His head, the handkerchief that had been around his head, shows up again down in verse nine, where it states that he must rise from the dead. At this point, we're just looking at the subjects of the passage. Who are the subjects? We have Peter, another disciple who is apparently very fast and very loved, and then we have this other one with the handkerchief around his head.

Next, we're going to move from the subjects to the actions—the verbs and predicates. This is a grammatical study. Peter, therefore, went out. I'm just underlining the different verbs that I see in this passage. He went out, indicating what he did. The other disciple, where were they going? They were going to the tomb. They both ran together, going to the tomb quickly. There's some urgency going on here; something is compelling them to go quickly.

Why? Well, that's interpretive, and we're not going to get to that point yet. We're just noticing that they went out together to the tomb, and they want to get there quickly. They're running, and the other disciple outran Peter. We love that—so modest.

He outran Peter and came to the tomb first. When he got there, what did he do? He stooped down and looked in. This is a picture of a tomb, located in the northern part of Israel. I didn't have anything in this picture to show size comparison, but that opening is only about two and a half to three feet tall and is sitting about eight inches off the ground. It's not very high, so you can imagine a tomb from ancient times. This particular tomb was found when they were making a road; they were digging and discovered it under the ground. This gives you an idea of what the tombs looked like in that region during that period of time. They were hewn out of stone.

He got to the tomb first, stooped down, and looked in. He saw the linen cloth lying there, but he did not go in. Simon Peter came following, arriving a little later because he was slower. He must have been older or something. He went into the tomb. We see a difference here: the other disciple, who was faster and more loved, got there quicker but stayed outside, stooping down to look in. He saw something, but we'll get to that in a moment.

Notice how we are going in slowly and meticulously. Peter arrives and just goes right into the tomb. You can almost see his bull-in-a-china-shop personality in this passage. He goes straight in. As we get further down in verse 8, we see that the other disciple, who came to the tomb first, also went in.

At this point, we've broken down to see who the subjects in the passage are. We have Peter and the other disciple. I could be taking notes on a piece of paper, writing down who the characters in this passage are: Peter, the other disciple, the beloved disciple, who we presume is John. We'll get to that more later. We also have Jesus mentioned in this passage, as he must rise again.

This is the story of them going to the tomb, and at this point, you would have no problem summarizing this little bit of scripture in John chapter 20. You can't quote it word for word, but you can certainly summarize it.

Maybe you could say Peter and another disciple ran to the tomb early in the morning. The other disciple got there first, looked in, and saw the whole situation. When Peter arrived, he burst in.

Now, we go back to the beginning again. We have this word "therefore." Whenever we see the word "therefore," we have to figure out what it's there for; it always points backward. We want to get context. Just before this, we started in verse three, but in John chapter 20, verses 1 and 2, we read: "Now on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene"—so we have a third, or perhaps a fourth, individual in this passage—"went to the tomb early while it was still dark."

Now, knowing some of the other Gospels, is it only Mary Magdalene? No, but here in this passage, she is the focus. Some people make big issues about contradictions in the Bible. Mark talks about several people going to the tomb, while John says it was Mary Magdalene. Just because he identifies Mary Magdalene doesn't mean there were not other people; he is just focusing on this situation. It's not a contradiction; it's just a different telling of the same story.

So, on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb early while it was still dark and saw the stone that had been taken away from the tomb. Then she ran and came to Simon Peter and to the other disciple whom Jesus loved—gotta love John—and said to them, "They have taken away the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know"—notice the use of "we." For those who want to get upset that there are other people not mentioned, she says, "We don't know where they laid him."

Therefore, Peter went out, and the other disciple, and they were going to the tomb. They ran both together. Why are they running speedily? Why are they getting there quickly? Well, there is some information in the previous verses that gives me understanding as I go through these things slowly and carefully. The word "therefore" is there for context to point us back to the context.

How many of you who spent some time with the homework this week chose this passage for looking at a word study? A number of you did. At this point, we are going to go back and look at these words. The first one is "saw," which is there in verse five.

He, who's the "he" in that passage? Well, just because I highlighted it in blue, I know it's the other disciple who got there first. John got there first, and he's stooping down. He looked in and saw the linen cloths lying there. The Greek word for "saw" is "blepo." It's a verb that has a basic meaning of looking. According to Strong's Concordance, it means to see, to discern, to discover, or to look at. So, he just casually sees; he's looking at what's going on there and assessing the situation.

But then, in verse 6, Simon Peter came following him and went into the tomb. He saw the linen cloths lying there. What did they both see? They saw the linen cloths lying there. That's twice; they saw the linen cloths lying there. However, this word "saw" is different. It's the Greek word "ferreo," from which we get our English word "theorize." What does that mean? If you look at the definition in Strong's, it means to view attentively, to take a survey of, to view mentally, to consider, or to think about it.

John just sees it; he sees, "Yep, the body's not there." She said the body's not there. Peter goes in, and he looks and starts to think about this. Something's wrong here. As he's theorizing, notice it says that John, looking in, saw the linen cloths lying there, yet he did not go in. Then Simon Peter came, following him, went into the tomb, and saw the linen cloths lying there.

What else did he see? He saw the handkerchief that had been around his head, not lying with the linen cloth but folded together in a place by itself. He sees more as he's thinking about this, theorizing, and trying to put it all together. The body's not here, but the linen cloths are here, and there was some sort of cloth they called a handkerchief over his head that's now meticulously folded over in the corner, not with the linen cloths.

He's trying to put all this together. Then, the other disciple, in verse 8, who came to the tomb first, went in and saw. This is the Greek word "Eido," which means to see, to know, or to understand. Now he puts it all together and understands what's going on here.

What is the result after he saw with understanding? He saw, and what he saw, he believed. There are a lot of key things going on here in this passage. They saw the linen cloths there; they both saw the linen cloths, yet he did not go in. I'm highlighting some other things in this passage. They saw the linen cloth lying there, and the handkerchief that had been around his head was noted in the past tense. It was around his head; it's not around his head anymore.

I'm breaking this all apart, highlighting different things with different colors, underlining things, and using circles and squares to emphasize various elements in this passage. They saw that what had been around his head was not lying with the linen cloth but was folded together in a place by itself. After that, the other disciple who came into the tomb first went in also, and he saw and believed.

Now we are putting it all together. There is a very important turning word in verse nine: "For why did they not understand this at first? For as yet they did not know the scripture that he must rise again from the dead." If you take the time to slowly walk through the passage word by word, verse by verse, and sentence by sentence, you can really break it down. Ask those questions: who, what, when, where? What is actually going on in this text? You should know it well enough that if you took this off the screen, you could summarize and explain the structure of what's going on there.

Also, remember those three repeated words. When we go through an observation, one of the things we look for is repeated words. When I want to try and get meaning and interpretation, I have to go back and look at these repeated words and examine the interplay of words here. We do have a little bit of a lack in our language as it relates to this passage because we have three words: saw, saw, saw. If some of you might be wondering, when Mary went there and saw, what word is used? It's the Greek word "blepo," the very first word that's used in this passage. Like John, she just saw it but didn't understand what was going on.

He came to the wrong conclusion. She came and told Peter and John, "They've taken away the Lord, and we don't know where they've taken Him." It's a wrong conclusion. But John, when he finally really takes it all in and understands, he discerns what's going on here: He's not here, and He has been raised.

There are some great things happening in this passage, just by breaking it all down. Now, I want to show you a little tool that was put together by Blue Letter Bible. I'm showing you my iPad. This is called Scripture Mark. You can go to scripturemark.org. This was developed by Blue Letter Bible a couple of years ago. We released this in beta about two years ago. It's still under a lot of work, but you can do this on your computer. It works very effectively with a tablet. I have the little Apple Pencil here.

If I tap on the scripture, it brings up this scripture tool. I'm going to go to John chapter 20, verses 3 through 10. It's in the New King James Version because I've signed in with my setup here. Now, I've added that passage of scripture up on the screen. Using the stylus or your finger, you can go through and highlight. If I select the highlighter tool over here, I can highlight Peter. I can go through and do all these things that I just did with this tool.

I can also use the actual pen tool to circle things in different colors, underline, and put a square around things. I can write a note down here, whatever I want to do. You can do all of this for free. Scripturemark.org does a lot of the same things that I was doing on the screen in a different way. Scripture Mark is totally free for you. Blueletterbible.org is a spectacular tool to be able to do all of this stuff.

I have several friends who are pastors who preach the scriptures on a regular basis. They start every study of the scripture by printing a passage of scripture out.

Normally, on a landscape piece of paper, you sit down with a pen or pencil and go through the text. You underline, highlight, write notes in the margin, and connect things. This process involves observing what is in the text because you are trying to see all that is there so that you can properly interpret and apply it. My whole goal, and my perspective on approaching the Scriptures, is to see what the Bible says, what the Bible means, and then apply that for us today, straight out of the Scriptures.

The sad fact is that this approach is rather unique. There are billions of Christians, yet many people simply read a passage and then read a commentary, without really breaking it down to see what the text says. A lot of times, this is just because people don’t know how to do that. However, it really is not rocket science. It takes time, diligence, and work, but it is not overly complicated. I believe you can do it, especially because you have the Holy Spirit to help you and open your eyes. It involves slowly going through the text to see what it says.

Now, for homework—don’t worry, it’s fairly simple. It’s one piece of paper, front and back. Pick a passage; I highly recommend choosing something from the New Testament narrative, such as a passage from the Gospels or the Epistles. Write down the passage, and then identify the genre. Is it narrative, an epistle, poetry, or law? If you’re trying to figure out the genre, look at the front of a study Bible for guidance.

Next, you will go through observations, interpretations, correlations, and applications. There is a little bit of explanation next to each section about what you are looking for. As I said, it is not rocket science; you are simply going through a passage of Scripture. You can break it apart, and maybe you want to print out the passage and circle, underline, or highlight whatever you want to do with it. Then, you can turn it in or staple it together.

Together, turn both of them in, but just go through the text slowly and carefully. I recommend picking one paragraph; don't do an entire chapter because it will be too small for you to make your observations. Write down your observations and interpretations, which is basically a summary of what's going on. What does it mean in this passage? Then, write down your correlations. Are there any passages that this correlates to?

You can use the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge at Blue Letter Bible, or if you have a Bible that has a center column reference, look for the small writing in between the two columns. If you have a Bible with a column on one side and another on the other, that little center column contains references. It will say there’s a tiny letter "A" next to a verse that you read, and then you can look over to see that it references Romans chapter 2, verse 8, or something similar.

So, if you have any correlations, that’s great. If you don’t have any correlations, that’s fine too. Remember, the process involves observation, interpretation, and application. I will leave these up front; you can grab them before you go. If you have additional questions, I will stick around to answer those questions.

Let me pray. Lord, I pray that you would help us to grow in our understanding of your Word, but also to grow in our desire to spend time with you in the Scriptures. Holy Spirit, open our eyes to behold wonders from your law, for we ask this in Jesus' name. Amen. We will see you next week.