Fifth Greek New Testament Lesson. John 1:19ff and Reviewing the Rules

 This Facebook Page is for all video Greek NT lessons
and the blog posts -
Bethany Lutheran Greek New Testament Lessons.

This is the Ustream link where we broadcast live and store the videos, but the videos are also stored on the FB page above, and appear on the blog and my personal FB page.  

Video of Fifth Greek Lesson ---
Remember the rules for reading a new language:
1. Look for the subject and verb.
2. Spot the obvious words and ones with derivatives.
3. Guess the other words.
4. Never leave the English version open, but use it as a last resort.

Well known passages - 

ΠΡΟΣ ΤΙΜΟΘΕΟΝ Β΄ 3:161550 Stephanus New Testament (TR1550)

16 πασα γραφη θεοπνευστος και ωφελιμος προς διδασκαλιαν προς ελεγχον προς επανορθωσιν προς παιδειαν την εν δικαιοσυνη

---

1 John 4:8

8 ο μη αγαπων ουκ εγνω τον θεον οτι ο θεος αγαπη εστιν

---

John 1:19 καὶ αὕτη ἐστὶν ἡ μαρτυρία τοῦ ἰωάννου, ὅτε ἀπέστειλαν [πρὸς αὐτὸν] οἱ ἰουδαῖοι ἐξ ἱεροσολύμων ἱερεῖς καὶ λευίτας ἵνα ἐρωτήσωσιν αὐτόν, σὺ τίς εἶ;

20 καὶ ὡμολόγησεν καὶ οὐκ ἠρνήσατο, καὶ ὡμολόγησεν ὅτι ἐγὼ οὐκ εἰμὶ ὁ χριστός.

21 καὶ ἠρώτησαν αὐτόν, τί οὗν; σύ ἠλίας εἶ; καὶ λέγει, οὐκ εἰμί. ὁ προφήτης εἶ σύ; καὶ ἀπεκρίθη, οὔ.

22 εἶπαν οὗν αὐτῶ, τίς εἶ; ἵνα ἀπόκρισιν δῶμεν τοῖς πέμψασιν ἡμᾶς· τί λέγεις περὶ σεαυτοῦ;

23 ἔφη, ἐγὼ φωνὴ βοῶντος ἐν τῇ ἐρήμῳ, εὐθύνατε τὴν ὁδὸν κυρίου, καθὼς εἶπεν ἠσαΐας ὁ προφήτης.

24 καὶ ἀπεσταλμένοι ἦσαν ἐκ τῶν φαρισαίων.

25 καὶ ἠρώτησαν αὐτὸν καὶ εἶπαν αὐτῶ, τί οὗν βαπτίζεις εἰ σὺ οὐκ εἶ ὁ χριστὸς οὐδὲ ἠλίας οὐδὲ ὁ προφήτης;

26 ἀπεκρίθη αὐτοῖς ὁ ἰωάννης λέγων, ἐγὼ βαπτίζω ἐν ὕδατι· μέσος ὑμῶν ἕστηκεν ὃν ὑμεῖς οὐκ οἴδατε,

27 ὁ ὀπίσω μου ἐρχόμενος, οὖ οὐκ εἰμὶ [ἐγὼ] ἄξιος ἵνα λύσω αὐτοῦ τὸν ἱμάντα τοῦ ὑποδήματος.

28 ταῦτα ἐν βηθανίᾳ ἐγένετο πέραν τοῦ ἰορδάνου, ὅπου ἦν ὁ ἰωάννης βαπτίζων.

Celebrate the Reformation's 500th by Printing Your Own Amazon Books. Self-Publish in Your Own Congregation

The new humor book by CFW Walther, his Pastoral Theology, provided by Concordia Publishing House for $40, got me thinking out loud with a faithful Lutheran.

That Walther book - hardback, in black and white - costs about $3 to print. There are development costs, like those five-martini lunches, but they melt away with a big printing. A large printing is little more than the cost of paper and ink. Why the new Bible translation every month? Because Bible publishing is like a printing money.

I know the cost of Amazon books, because I publish them often. Creation Gardening, full color cover and interior, is only $5 at my cost. The retail cost goes mostly to Amazon.

Making Disciples, with a color cover and black and white interior - that is only $2 at my cost. That is an old tradition. The author of any published work gets a discount so he can give away books to reviewers, relatives, and friends.

How Does This Work in a Parish?
When I worked with The Lutheran magazine, long ago, the marketing guy told us that hand-outs have a very short life with any individual. Like newspapers, they get tossed quickly.

Magazines last much longer, a month or so.

Books last for years. People do not easily throw away a bound book. My garage is an example, and most homes have orphaned books that no one can quite throw away.

A congregation can put together a worthwhile booklet that teaches traditional worship, Lutheran doctrine, and other spiritual matters, add abundant illustrations, and print it any number for $2 each. That would have a full color cover, front and back, and black and white interior.

Vanity Presses
Vanity presses make it feasible to print more books for almost the same price. Thus 500 books cost only a little less than a thousand, or two thousand. Why not 5,000?

Print on Demand
But Amazon prints for the same price each, the only bargain being shipping to the same address. One at a time is a big chunk of money compared to the book itself. If a large box is sent, the shipping is minimal per copy.

Kindle E-Books
I publish everything first as printed books and also as Kindle E-books. Those who pay their Kindle $10 fee get them free. The rest get them at whatever price is established. No author's discount there.

Putting Them Together
I pay Janie Sullivan to get the final version ready for Amazon/Create Space. She takes care of format issues, typos here and there, and porting the work to Kindle. Amazon (Create Space) also has people who do this for a fee.

If a congregation believes in what the Sower and the Seed teaches, then it will have no doubts about sowing the Word carelessly, not measuring the soil (as the Fulleroids do) but trusting in the Word.

Matthew 13 The same day went Jesus out of the house, and sat by the sea side.

2 And great multitudes were gathered together unto him, so that he went into a ship, and sat; and the whole multitude stood on the shore.

3 And he spake many things unto them in parables, saying, Behold, a sower went forth to sow;

4 And when he sowed, some seeds fell by the way side, and the fowls came and devoured them up:

5 Some fell upon stony places, where they had not much earth: and forthwith they sprung up, because they had no deepness of earth:

6 And when the sun was up, they were scorched; and because they had no root, they withered away.

7 And some fell among thorns; and the thorns sprung up, and choked them:

8 But other fell into good ground, and brought forth fruit, some an hundredfold, some sixtyfold, some thirtyfold.

9 Who hath ears to hear, let him hear.

10 And the disciples came, and said unto him, Why speakest thou unto them in parables?

11 He answered and said unto them, Because it is given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given.

12 For whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance: but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that he hath.

13 Therefore speak I to them in parables: because they seeing see not; and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand.

14 And in them is fulfilled the prophecy of Esaias, which saith, By hearing ye shall hear, and shall not understand; and seeing ye shall see, and shall not perceive:

15 For this people's heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed; lest at any time they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them.

16 But blessed are your eyes, for they see: and your ears, for they hear.

17 For verily I say unto you, That many prophets and righteous men have desired to see those things which ye see, and have not seen them; and to hear those things which ye hear, and have not heard them.

18 Hear ye therefore the parable of the sower.

19 When any one heareth the word of the kingdom, and understandeth it not, then cometh the wicked one, and catcheth away that which was sown in his heart. This is he which received seed by the way side.

20 But he that received the seed into stony places, the same is he that heareth the word, and anon with joy receiveth it;

21 Yet hath he not root in himself, but dureth for a while: for when tribulation or persecution ariseth because of the word, by and by he is offended.

22 He also that received seed among the thorns is he that heareth the word; and the care of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, choke the word, and he becometh unfruitful.

23 But he that received seed into the good ground is he that heareth the word, and understandeth it; which also beareth fruit, and bringeth forth, some an hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.

 Count the seeds that grew from one seed.

Everyday Wonders of Creation Are Waiting To Be Observed

 The comparison with rain and snow teaches us
how effective the Word of God is.

February is going to be warm in this area, according to predictions. I was overdressed in a sweater yesterday afternoon. Bird food lasts longer at the feeder on warm days, because the bugs start to come and provide a more attractive meal.

The fun of Creation Gardening is making a small move and seeing the results from it For example, I knew toads were good for the garden, but Sharon Lovejoy's chapter on them in A Blessing of Toads made me realize how beneficial they are.

 Logs are birdfeeders, bird perches,toad shelters, and more.
Fungus converts wood into food, and earthworms adore them.

I began to leave logs on the ground, to provide shade and food for the toads, instead of having the city haul them away. Pruning trees can create a lot of opportunities. So - one day I moved an old log. There sat a large toad - unmoved, unscared, unblinking. He did not hop away, perhaps recognizing me as his kindly landlord. Since then I have made a point to set up shallow pans around the yard, to catch rain and water from the soaker hoses.

 Ichneumon Wasp.

I grew up with the idea of most insects being beneficial. But I had little idea about how many spiders and bugs feed upon pests, until I read Jessica Walliser's How To Attract Beneficial Bugs To Your Garden.

Lovejoy also wrote about them. I bent over the roses on a calm day, and tiny Flower Flies and Ichneumon Wasps working the flowers. Tiny does not mean insignificant. They feed on nectar and pollen in the adult stage but begin life by dining on pests. Some are eggs laid on top of pests. Others begin by being planted in pests. Still others hatch near pests and devour what they find.

Darwin found beneficial bugs disgrossting. How could a benevolent Creator have creatures eating creatures? That moved Darwin toward evolution, a theory already promulgated but one which he promoted heavily. I wonder if anyone said, "Mr. Darwin, creatures eat creatures all the way up the food chain."

When a bug landed on my car, instead of brushing it away, I leaned in closer to identify it. Sadly, that was the beginning of the summer of Japanese beetles - shiny metallic shells - destroyers of roses. As Walliser warned, I began to see the bug life as more dynamic than the growth of plants.

The Creating Word did not fashion the universe and let things run on their own. Every single living thing has a purpose, which is so easy to see in the garden. When our Army Ranger friend calls my yard a jungle, I ask him, "How many roses do you have?" He muttered, "You do have nice roses."

Those beneficial bugs and spiders protect the roses from pests, especially the devastating aphids, which destroy rose buds before they can open up. I had to learn this - Pests are food for pest-eaters, so let them imagine they are in charge, before the beneficials move in to establish their own families.

I got into higher education through computer science, because my first intentions were to enhance what I could do with publishing. Along the way I learned quite a bit about computers, enough to hold my own against 12 year-olds, and began teaching about them as well. The key to networking is an elaborate system of computers talking to each other, swapping information, and managing problems on their own.

Plants, bugs, spiders, and microbes do the same thing. They send signals that keep everything working, as long as we do not bomb them with pesticides, herbicides, and fungicides.

Beneficial bugs fly to the rescue when damaged flowers send out chemical signals - "Help us!" The sounds of insects munching and sipping are another distress signal. Without this network, the beneficials would die and the plants would suffer. My task is simply to let the network function and not kick out the power cord that enables it.

How can anyone miss the fact that this relationship was engineered at Creation and is managed today by divine grace? My Almost Eden neighbor dumped trucks of topsoil on his lot. Soon after, the mounds were covered with a wide variety of plants, all serving to feed birds, bugs, and other wildlife.

Sassy and I walked onto the lot, and I thought, "He is not relying on a stuffed owl to scare away birds!" We approached the place where the large, unmoving bird was perched above the planting area. No movement. "He is going to have to move that thing to keep it working," I thought. I moved to the side - the head moved. My nearsighted eyes now focused on a very large hawk glowering at us, measuring us as potential food for his little ones. AE told us, "I get hawks all the time, because I have so many rabbits in the field."

This works as well in our little congregation with the world-wide footprint. We broadcast Means of Grace services, teach the Scriptures and the Book of Concord, and publish Lutheran materials. God's will and God's Word are the same, so the effect is always divine.  Some are quite antagonistic about the Word and Confessions, no matter what their station in life. In this Age of Apostasy, the greater the deviation, the more influential the person.

The Reformation was long in building up, about 100 years from the execution of Huss. But the printing press, a remodeled wine press, made it possible to print hundreds of Bibles and works of Luther. The Word was effective in uniting the Gospel party and opposing the system of works and punishments of Rome.

Luther's only plan was to preach the Word as is. As Jacobs taught, the purer the Word, the more powerful it is.