Lesson 4 | The Fourth Pass: Label, Part 1
The Tools of the Trade
In order to be successful at any sort of discipline, whether it is being an auto mechanic or a graphic designer or a dressmaker, you need to master the tools of your trade. You need to not only be familiar with the terminology (see Step 2.2), but also to have access to and skill handling a set of tools. You need to be able to remove tight bolts without breaking anything, or to be able to get a specific design out of your head and onto your computer screen using software, or to be able to maneuver cloth through a sewing machine on the right settings and at the right speed.
Phrasing is a discipline as well, and even if it is not your career, the results of your Phrasing can influence people’s understanding of themselves, of sin, of God, of their whole lives. So whether your plan is to use Phrasing as a tool for personal Bible study, for teaching a small group class at church, or for your Sunday morning sermons, there are several helpful tools that you should take advantage of, both on Biblearc and elsewhere.
Multiple Translations
Reading the same passage in multiple translations helps get the message behind the words of the biblical authors across. In other words, it can help to make God’s truth fresh to your mind. Translational differences can also expose difficulties in the text for you to dig deeper into.
Lexicons
Lexicons are basically dictionaries of the original languages of the Bible. Turn to a lexicon if you want to find out the spectrum of meaning of a Greek or Hebrew or Aramaic word, and see what other passages use the same word.
For Greek, the standard modern lexicon is A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, 3rd edition (edited and revised by Frederick William Danker), often abbreviated as BDAG. If you are serious about studying the Greek NT, BDAG is a must-have, although it is pricey. The Biblearc Bible gives full definitions of original language words from an older lexicon by 19th-century scholar Joseph Henry Thayer, which is a helpful quick go-to resource.
For Hebrew and Aramaic, the Biblearc Bible gives glosses using the still-helpful Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon (often abbreviated as BDB). If you want access to the latest research, the Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament, by Koehler, Baumgartner and Stamm, is the best choice (although its pricing is prohibitive unless you’re serious about using Hebrew).
Concordances
You can use the Search on Biblearc for this, looking up words and combinations of words in various ranges of books in the Bible, or in the Bible as a whole. This is helpful if you know the wording of a verse but not its reference, or if you are studying a word in a specific verse and want to find out what other verses use that same word.
Commentaries
There is a treasure trove of insights on the biblical text by godly scholars available out there, the fruit of combined centuries of labor! Of course, there are also commentaries with much unbelief and bad interpretation, so you want to be careful which commentaries you choose.
I suggest you ask your pastor or seminary professor for specific commentaries they’ve used and benefited from when studying a particular book. I don’t recommend buying entire sets, generally speaking, as they are often a mixed bag of quality.