How To Decide What Words Mean in Scripture [Class Summary]

Last week's homework assignment was, "If you're reading a piece of literature (it could be anything), and you run across a word with which you're not familiar or perhaps has a wide range of possible meanings, how do you decide what that word means? What do you look for?" The amount of detail put into responses is always somewhat amusing to me. Some kids are rather parsimonious with their words, e.g., "I would look at the context." One student took a more conversational approach: "The first answer that I think of, and also think you are looking for, from my limited knowledge of you as a teacher, is 'context'." The most interesting answer, however, goes to the student who explained how his current studies in Latin have helped him parse words and derive meaning. Wow. Seriously? Clearly, I need to up my game with scholars like this in my class!

A couple of students offered up answers more along the lines of "look it up in a dictionary." But, that can sometimes leave us just as muddled as we were before we cracked open Mr. Webster's font of knowledge. To demonstrate this point, I looked up a definition for "saved," and wrote down what the Googles revealed to me:

save (v.); past tense: saved, past participle: saved

1. keep safe or rescue (someone or something) from harm or danger

a. physical - saved from drowning

b. spiritual - saved from eternal judgment

2. keep and store up for future use

3. keep (data) by moving a copy to a storage location, especially from memory

4. avoid the need to use up or send

5. prevent an opponent from scoring

With those definitions in mind (and on the whiteboard), we turned our attention to the Scriptures.

After him came Shamgar the son of Anath, who struck down six hundred Philistines with an oxgoad; and he also saved Israel. — Judges 3:31

What is meant by "saved" here? Are we to believe that Shamgar saved Israel from their sins? Well, of course not. Shamgar was a bad dude (how many people do you know who could kill 600 soldiers with a pointy stick?), but he was not Israel's spiritual savior. When we consider the full context of the book of Judges which records seven cycles of Israel's rebellion against God (Israel rebels, God sends a foreign nation to oppress them, the people whine, God sends a judge to deliver them, the people repent and walk with God, later, rinse repeat), then it becomes very clear what kind of saving that Gideon, Shamgar, et al., brought to Israel—it was political and physical deliverance.

The king is not saved by a mighty army; A warrior is not delivered by great strength. — Psalm 33:16

What's going on here? Is this spiritual salvation, or is it physical? Well, it could be either if we're just looking at this verse...it depends upon how you parse it. But we want to know what the author's intent was, not try to see how fanciful and creative we can be in teasing a verse apart, right? When we consider the very next verse, "A horse is a false hope for victory; nor does it deliver anyone by its great strength" and then in verse 19, "to deliver their soul from death and to keep them alive in famine," it seems pretty clear that we're talking about physical deliverance here again.

O God, restore us and cause Your face to shine upon us, and we will be saved — Psalm 80:3, 7

Hrmm...this one's not so obvious on its face. It's poetry, so there are quite a few metaphors and figurative language in this psalm. But, I think we're going to have to lean pretty strongly in the direction of physical deliverance (from Israel's enemies) because of verse 6, "You make us an object of contention to our neighbors, and our enemies laugh among themselves."

“Turn to Me and be saved, all the ends of the earth; For I am God, and there is no other. — Isaiah 45:22 (cf. 25)

Again, I think we have spiritual deliverance in view here: "...turn to me and be saved, all the ends of the earth..." especially when God talks about "...all the offspring of Israel will be justified and will glory" in verse 25. To justified is to be put in a position of right standing before God, to be declared righteous...which is most definitely a spiritual term, not a physical one.

“And it will come about that whoever calls on the name of the LORD Will be delivered; For on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem There will be those who escape, As the LORD has said, Even among the survivors whom the LORD calls. — Joel 2:32 (cf. Acts 2:14-21)

It seems like Joel might be talking about spiritual deliverance (i.e., salvation) here since he's referring to the "great and awesome day of the LORD" (i.e., judgment day), but a case could possibly be made for physical deliverance as well ("for on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there will be those who escape"). This passage (vv. 28-32) is actually brought into crisper focus when we flip over to Peter's sermon on the day of Pentecost in Acts 2:14-21, where at its conclusion, Peter says "Repent, and each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit." (38)

As the late Ken Hutcherson used to say, "The best commentary on the Bible is the Bible." Theologians who are not acquainted with Hutch would say, "Scripture interprets scripture," and this is a great example of that principle.

And He said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.” — Luke 7:50 (cf. 48)

What kind of salvation is in view here? This one's pretty easy—it's spiritual salvation, because Jesus declares that the woman's sins have been forgiven in verse 50.

And the people stood by, looking on. And even the rulers were sneering at Him, saying, “He saved others; let Him save Himself if this is the Christ of God, His Chosen One.” — Luke 23:35

Physical...the onlookers were jeering Christ because He was up on the cross, powerless (or so they thought) to rescue Himself from the death sentence He'd received.

that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved — Romans 10:9

Spiritual...if it were physical, then we'd probably never hear of anyone being martyred.

But women will be preserved ["saved" in the KJV, NKJV, ESV, and NIV] through the bearing of children if they continue in faith and love and sanctity with self-restraint. — 1 Timothy 2:15

This was a bonus passage. Theologians and garden-variety Christians from all walks of life have been arguing about this verse for the past two millennia. There are, apparently, seven different major views on what Paul means by "saved" here, and there doesn't seem to be much in the way of consensus regarding its meaning (cf. 2 Peter 3:16). The only thing that's crystal clear here is that God does not have two separate plans of salvation—one for men, another for women—because that would contradict other scriptures (Ephesians 2:8, 9; Romans 10:9, immediately come to mind). So what's the lesson here? When you're not sure what a passage means, at the very least it cannot contradict any verses anywhere else because God cannot argue against Himself. Sometimes, the best we can do with a given passage is say "I dunno what it means, exactly, but I know what it does not mean."

There was a lot of discussion that went into these passages, and as you can see, we worked through a fair number of passages together, exegeting the Word of God together. Now, it's time for the kids to put to practice what they've learned in class with a more relevant exercise, which brings us to the...

Homework

Read Genesis 1:1 – 2:4. Find all the uses of the word "day," define each usage, and justify your answer with Scripture. We'll discuss your answers in two weeks.

Hint: There are three distinct meanings of the word "day" used in this passage, but in order to find it, you will have to use one of the versions that leans more towards the "formal equivalence" (i.e., "word-for-word") end of the translation spectrum. If you use the NIV, NLT, CSB, HCSB, CEV, GNT, NAB, NET, or NWT, you will miss the third usage. If you're new to the world of translation philosophy and how that affects what we wind up reading in English, check out my blog post on this topic: Are Our Current Bible Translations Reliable?