Yes, even the grammar matters

When it comes to understanding what God is saying through the scriptures, there are a few fundamental perspectives, or postures, that have to be considered – if they’re not, you may not only miss what God is saying, but get it totally wrong. There are a few “if’s” that we must consider

1. If all of scripture is ‘God-breathed'(2 Timothy 3:16-17), and if all scripture was written by people who were divinely inspired and ‘carried along by the Holy Spirit’ (2 Peter 1:21), then we believe that that what was written by human hands is actually the inspired words of God Almighty.
2. If it’s true that Jesus said, ‘until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass’ (Matthew 5:18) and again he said ‘Heaven and Earth will pass away, but the Word of God never will’ (Matthew 24:35) then we believe that his Word is everlasting, enduring – including every iota and dot and not just every idea and thought.

until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass’

Matthew 5:18

every iota?

Iota: the smallest letter of the Greek alphabet, also corresponding to the smallest letter in Hebrew and Aramaic, yodh [mfn] Swanson, J. (1997). Dictionary of Biblical Languages with Semantic Domains: Greek (New Testament) (electronic ed.). Oak Harbor: Logos Research Systems, Inc.[/mfn] Miriam Webster defines it as an infinitesimal amount. It’s tiny, a seemingly inconsequential item or amount. This modern use of iota, when someone does not even give an iota of concern, comes from this Greek letter being so small.

every dot?

Jesus said that not an iota, not a dot, would pass away. This has often been left as an issue for scholars and preachers, but it’s not! This is something every Christian should be aware of because it shapes how you approach scripture, and therefore how you approach the words that God has inspired, spoken and written down for us. When he said ‘dot’, did he just mean every full stop? Not exactly…

dot: κεραία, ας f: is a part of a letter of the alphabet— it’s a ‘stroke, short mark, short line of a letter, part of a letter’[mfn] Louw, J. P., & Nida, E. A. (1996). Greek-English lexicon of the New Testament: based on semantic domains (electronic ed. of the 2nd edition., Vol. 1, p. 392). New York: United Bible Societies.[/mfn]

According to Louw & Nida, you could actually translate what Jesus is saying here as this:

not one small letter or part of a letter shall pass away from the Law

Imagine for a moment that you are Moses, you’re on top of Mt Sinai and the powerful presence and glory of God is all around you – it’s more than you can bear. But God infuses strength into your mortal frame so that you can remain upright and conscious. He begins to speak and tells you to write everything exactly as he says it. What do you do?

Now picture yourself on the green hillside above the lake at Galilee. You’re Matthew. You’re intelligent, educated and you are one of the few people in the crowd that can actually read and write; and you have your scribing pad with you. Jesus begins to speak, blessed are the poor in spirit… what do you do?

You would write, and you would do so with precise, intricate accuracy.

The words that were recorded by the prophets, by the Kings and priests, by the apostles and their scribes were recorded meticulously, copied accurately and passed on from one generation to the next with near flawless repetition. So the question is, are we meant to take every dot and iota as inspired, or just the general theme of each paragraph? Should we study the grammar and the technical aspects of the original writing, or do we just read a paraphrase because it carries the gist of what God said? Imagine reading through Ezekiel or Isaiah and instead of seeing ‘and thus says the Lord’ or ‘this is what the Lord said’ – what if it read, ‘this is kind of what God said’, or, ‘I’m pretty sure God said something along these lines’ – you would throw it away! (This is why understanding Bible Translations and how they are produced is important – you can read more about that here in this previous post).

The Bible truly is the most remarkable and miraculous book ever produced

Jesus declaration concerning the immovable quality of every iota and dot should heighten our appreciation and regard for the accuracy and inherency (faultless quality, perfectly true) of every aspect of scripture. The Bible truly is the most remarkable and miraculous book ever produced. It also makes far more sense as to why those who teach will be held to a much higher level of judgement when they stand before God, a thought terrifies me ever so slightly (James 3:1).

But this shouldn’t just concern teachers and preachers. Believers should care about this, after all, Jesus is the one we follow and he is the Word of God made flesh! (John 1:14)

• Jesus said: If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples – John 8:31
• Jesus said: You are my friends if you do what I command you – John 15:14
• And the Lord said to Joshua, ‘this Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it’ – Joshua 1:8, emphasis added
• And let’s not forget that the first strategy employed by satan against humanity (which he still does) was to challenge the integrity of God’s exact words, ‘Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’ – Genesis 3:1, emphasis added

Friendship with Jesus is tied up in our abiding in and obedience to his written word, and every dot and iota matters.

Expository teaching

That’s a big word which basically means breaking down scripture to look at and consider all of its parts to get the best and most accurate sense of its meaning. It’s looking at the original language the text was written in, considering the context, the original intended audience as well as the prophetically intended audience. It’s the opposite to cherry picking preaching or subject based daily devotionals. Expository preaching is often viewed as ‘less cool’ or not as ‘trendy’ in a world of subject or theme based preaching and sermon series. I recall being part of a small weekly Bible Study in my younger, earlier years as a fairly new Christian. We would read scripture, discuss it, study it and dig into it for a couple hours each week. The couple that hosted the group lead us chunk by chunk, chapter by chapter through the Gospel of John – it took us almost the whole year and was amazing! (which is also why my favourite Gospel is John).

Subject and theme based teaching is important and powerful too. Jesus preached on subjects and themes, so why wouldn’t we? In fact, most of my preaching is more thematic than it is verse-by-verse exposition. I do a bit of both I guess. The point is, we need all kinds of preaching and teaching in the Church to give us a well balanced diet of solid Biblical food. But expository teaching and preaching allows for a richer understanding of the text due to its intentional method of slowing down, diving deep, and considering every one of the dots and iotas that carry significant meaning that lead us into greater devotion, wonderful encounter and warmer adoration of the One who is speaking to us through His divinely breathed out Word.

I encourage you to find a few good expository preachers and teachers to add to your podcast playlist, from a variety of denominations and cultural positions, then find a variety of Bible commentaries for your personal study.

In 2014, John MacArthur, a well known expository preacher, wrote a great article on the importance of each dot and iota, here’s an except that I thought was worth sharing. He is speaking about the religious leaders, the Sadducees, who are trying to trap Jesus with what they think is a really hard theological question. These Sadducees don’t believe in the resurrection and they only really stick to the first 5 books of the Old Testament (the Pentateuch). For them, if they can’t argue their point from the Pentateuch, then it’s invalid. In Matthew 22 they use the idea of people remarrying, and the resurrection, as the context for trying to trap Jesus. MacArthur shows us the brilliance of Jesus response by looking at how Jesus appeals to the grammatical structure of an Old Testament scripture because yes, even the grammar matters. Enjoy.

Just How high was Jesus’ view of scripture? [mfn]Taken from Expositor Magazine 01 Edition, Sep/Oct 2014[/mfn]

…So they posed to Him a riddle that had always confounded their enemies, the Pharisees. It was the story of a woman whose husband died before she had children. Under the principle of levirate marriage spelled out in Deuteronomy 25:5-10, it was the duty of her unmarried brother-in-law to marry her and raise up an heir for the elder brother. In the Sadducees’ parable, the eldest of seven brothers died, and each younger sibling married the widow and died in succession, “down to the seventh. Last of all, the woman died” (Matt 22:26-27). The question that occurs to me is why anyone agreed to marry her at all after the death of the third or fourth brother. The question the Sadducees asked Jesus, however, was supposed to stump Him: “In the resurrection, therefore, whose wife of the seven will she be? For they all had her” (v. 28). But note well His answer: “You are mistaken, not understanding the Scriptures nor the power of God” (v. 29, emphasis added). I love the direct approach Jesus takes: “You are wrong.”

He uses a strong term (the Greek word planē, from which we get the English word planet), suggesting that they are totally unhinged and wandering in the blackness of darkness. But even more to the point, He says (bitingly) that these men who fancied themselves experts in biblical scholarship didn’t really know the Scriptures at all: “But regarding the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was spoken to you by God: ‘I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not the God of the dead but of the living'” (vv. 3132).

Notice the powerful force of the argument: Jesus is quoting Exodus 3:6, from the heart of the Pentateuch—a text whose doctrine they could not dispute. And the logic of the argument hinges on the verb tense inherent in God’s name: “I AM”—present, continuous tense.

And the logic of the argument hinges on the verb tense inherent in God’s name

God Himself is speaking, long after the deaths of the original patriarchs. What is the inference? Jesus Himself makes it embarrassingly obvious in a simple statement that perfectly and conclusively answers the Sadducees’ most infamous error: “He is not God of the dead, but of the living.” And the Sadducees were silenced.

A Definitive and Biblical Answer: What stands out here is that Jesus’ answer to these self-styled biblicists was a biblical answer, and a definitive one. Notice three key principles it reveals about Jesus’ own supremely high view of Scripture:

First, it shows that the authority and inerrancy of Scripture extends to every element of the text, including not only the tiny jots and tittles that were used to spell the actual words, but also the verb tenses. Jesus’ whole point was based on the tense of the simplest, most common verb in the Hebrew language.

Second, it proves that the truth of Scripture includes every valid implication that can be drawn from the text; not just the explicit statements. Obviously, we must read Scripture with conscientious care. Only our valid inferences are true, but if we can indeed draw a proper deduction by good and necessary consequence through the application of sound logical principles, the implications of the biblical text are just as true as the straightforward propositions explicitly set forth therein. Jesus’ entire point here is a truth that is implicit in the verse He quoted—and that truth is nowhere stated explicitly in any of the writings of Moses. Yet He clearly regarded it as authoritative revelation that the Sadducees ought to have recognized and armed. He says emphatically that they were in error for not doing so.

And third, a true knowledge of Scripture entails more than mere familiarity with the words of the text. Even though they were full of scholarly head knowledge, in reality the Sadducees had no true understanding of either “the Scriptures [or] the power of God.” And that was the case precisely because their interest in such things was academic only. Their pedantic obsession with disputes and details was motivated not by faith, but by a desire for status in the eyes of others. That same spirit is precisely why it is en vogue nowadays for evangelical academics to question or downplay the inerrancy of Scripture. But our goal as believers should be to view Scripture the way Jesus did—and that means we must elevate our view of Scripture, not lower it.

To which I say, Amen and amen.