The Little Words That Join Thoughts

Most Bible readers who start learning Greek go straight for the big words: grace, faith, righteousness, love. That is natural, and the next module of this track is about exactly those words. But the words that tell you what a passage is doing are usually the small ones. A sentence beginning with 'Therefore' is a conclusion. A sentence beginning with 'For' is a reason. A clause beginning with 'so that' is a goal. Miss those and you can read every big word correctly and still not know whether you are holding a premise, a result or a command.

Count them and the point makes itself. In the SBL Greek New Testament (SBLGNT), as tagged by the free MorphGNT project, there are 137,554 words. Of those, καί (kai, and) appears 8,973 times, δέ (de, and or but) 2,766 times, γάρ (gar, for) 1,039 times, ἵνα (hina, so that) 662 times, ἀλλά (alla, but) 638 times and οὖν (oun, therefore) 494 times. Those six words alone make up more than one word in ten. Other editions and other counting methods give slightly different totals, but the proportion does not change: you cannot read a page of Paul without meeting them in almost every line.

Grammarians have traditionally called these words conjunctions. More recent work on how Greek texts hang together, especially Stephen Levinsohn's Discourse Features of New Testament Greek (second edition 2000) and Steven Runge's Discourse Grammar of the Greek New Testament (2010), prefers to speak of connectives or discourse markers, because their job is not only to join two clauses but to tell the reader how to take the second one. Runge's working question is a good one for any student: what is this little word telling me about the relationship between what came before and what comes next? You do not need either book to use that question. You need an interlinear and a notebook.

Three of the six, γάρ, δέ and οὖν, have a feature that helps you find them. They are postpositive, which means they never stand first in their clause; they come second, or occasionally a little later. Romans 12:1 opens Παρακαλῶ οὖν (parakalō oun, I urge therefore), and English has to move the word to the front: 'Therefore I urge you.' So when you are scanning a Greek line on your phone for its connective, look at the second word. If it is one of these three, you have found the joint.

One more preliminary, and it matters for everything that follows. English translations do not put a word into English for every one of these Greek words, and they are often right not to. English does not need an 'and' at the head of every sentence, and the work a Greek connective does is sometimes done in English by a full stop, a new paragraph or a change of word order. That is translation, not concealment. But it means you cannot study the joints of an argument from an English Bible alone. This is one of the places where the interlinear you learned to use in Module 2 earns its keep.

καί is the most common word in the New Testament after the article. Most of the time it means and, joining two things that the writer treats as belonging together. But it has two other uses a student must recognise. It can mean also or too: Romans 11:31 has οὕτως καὶ οὗτοι (houtōs kai houtoi, so also these), which the BSB gives as 'so they too'. And it can mean even: in 1 Peter 3:14, εἰ καὶ πάσχοιτε (ei kai paschoite) is 'even if you should suffer'. When καί appears twice in a row, καί... καί, it usually means both... and. A tool's gloss will often just say and; let the sentence tell you which of these it is.

Mark's Gospel shows how much this one word shapes a writer's voice. In the SBLGNT, Mark uses καί 1,089 times and δέ only 161 times. Story after story runs 'and... and... and', a style common in Hebrew narrative and in plain spoken Greek alike, and Module 7 will come back to how much of it reflects Semitic habits. Read Mark 1:9-13 in an interlinear: every one of its five verses begins with καί, and the last has two more. Then read the BSB and you will see the translators keeping a few of those ands and turning the rest into fresh sentences that open In those days, As soon as and At once. Nothing is lost in meaning; something is lost in breathlessness, which is part of how Mark tells a story.

δέ is usually taught as but, and that is the first thing a student must unlearn. Look at what the BSB does with it in John 11:18-20. In 11:18 it is 'Now Bethany was near Jerusalem'. In 11:19 it is 'and many of the Jews had come'. In 11:20 it is 'but Mary stayed at home'. Three verses, three renderings, and each one is right. δέ can mark a mild contrast, but very often it simply moves the account on to the next step, the next speaker or the next piece of background.

Runge describes δέ as a marker of development: the writer uses it to signal that what follows is a new and distinct step, where καί joins things presented as all of a piece. Not every grammarian frames it in those terms; older grammars describe δέ as sometimes adversative and sometimes merely continuative and leave the choice to context. Notice that both approaches arrive at the same practical rule. Never assume δέ means but. Ask what new step the writer is taking, and only call it a contrast when the two things on either side of it actually pull against each other.

δέ also has a partner. When a writer wants a balanced pair, he puts μέν (men) in the first half and δέ in the second, roughly on the one hand... on the other. Matthew 9:37 has Ὁ μὲν θερισμὸς πολύς, οἱ δὲ ἐργάται ὀλίγοι (ho men therismos polys, hoi de ergatai oligoi), which the BSB renders 'The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few.' The μέν is not translated, and it does not need to be: its whole job was to warn the first-century hearer that a matching half was coming. When you see μέν in an interlinear, look ahead for the δέ that answers it, and you will have found the two sides of a contrast the writer built on purpose.

Galatians 2:20, the anchor of the next lesson, is a fine place to practise. It has three δέ in a single verse: ζῶ δὲ οὐκέτι ἐγώ (I no longer live), ζῇ δὲ ἐν ἐμοὶ Χριστός (Christ lives in me), ὃ δὲ νῦν ζῶ (what I now live). The BSB gives the first as and, the second as but, and the third no word at all. Read the verse again with that in mind and you will hear Paul taking three distinct steps, each marked, rather than one long flow.

γάρ (gar) is the word that looks backward. It introduces a reason, a ground or an explanation for what has just been said, and it usually comes out in English as for or because. Romans 1:15-18 is the classic chain. Paul says he is eager to preach the gospel in Rome. Then four γάρ follow in three verses: Οὐ γὰρ ἐπαισχύνομαι, for I am not ashamed of the gospel; δύναμις γὰρ θεοῦ ἐστιν, for it is the power of God; δικαιοσύνη γὰρ θεοῦ, for in it the righteousness of God is revealed; Ἀποκαλύπτεται γὰρ ὀργὴ θεοῦ, for the wrath of God is being revealed. Each clause props up the one before it, like a row of supports under a beam.

Now look at the BSB. 'I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes...' 'For the gospel reveals the righteousness of God...' 'The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven...' Of the four, one has become because, one has become For, and two have no English word. That is a defensible choice for readable English, and the BSB is not alone in it. But a reader of the English alone would never guess that 1:18 is tied to 1:17 by a for, and the question of what exactly it ties to is one commentators genuinely argue about. Some read 1:18 as grounding the whole announcement of 1:16-17: the gospel is needed because God's wrath is already being revealed. Others read it more loosely, as the start of the long indictment that runs to 3:20, with the γάρ marking a connection rather than a strict reason. Either way, the connection is there in the Greek, and you can only weigh the options if you know it is.

γάρ is not always a strict because. Often it is explanatory: it fills in what the previous statement meant. John 3:16 begins Οὕτως γὰρ ἠγάπησεν ὁ θεός (houtōs gar ēgapēsen ho theos, for God so loved). The γάρ ties the verse to 3:14-15, where the Son of Man must be lifted up so that everyone who believes may have eternal life. Verse 16 does not so much prove that statement as explain it: here is the love that lies behind the lifting up. When you meet a γάρ, ask two things. What statement does it hang on? And is it proving that statement, or explaining it?

οὖν (oun) is the word that draws a conclusion. Where γάρ looks back for a reason, οὖν looks back for a premise and then moves forward to what follows from it: therefore, so, then. Romans is built on it. Romans 5:1, Δικαιωθέντες οὖν ἐκ πίστεως, therefore having been justified by faith. Romans 6:1, Τί οὖν ἐροῦμεν; What then shall we say? Romans 12:1, Παρακαλῶ οὖν, therefore I urge you. Each time, a long stretch of argument is gathered up and turned toward its consequence.

But οὖν has a second life, and John is where you meet it. Of the 494 times οὖν appears in the SBLGNT, 197 are in John's Gospel, two in every five. Most of those are not logical conclusions at all. They simply move the story along, the way an English storyteller says so or well then. In John 11:17 Ἐλθὼν οὖν ὁ Ἰησοῦς is just 'When Jesus arrived'. In 11:21 εἶπεν οὖν ἡ Μάρθα is just 'Martha said'. The BSB leaves both untranslated, and it is right to. A preacher who announced that every οὖν in John marks a deep logical step would be reading Paul's habits into John's prose.

ἄρα (ara) is rarer, 49 times in the SBLGNT, and stronger: so then, consequently, it follows. It is easy to miss because English translations usually give it the same word as οὖν. Romans 8:1, Οὐδὲν ἄρα νῦν κατάκριμα (ouden ara nyn katakrima), is 'Therefore, there is now no condemnation' in the BSB, and many readers assume a οὖν stands behind it. It does not. You will meet ἄρα again in 1 Corinthians 15:18, where it drives the grim chain of consequences in the third lesson of this module.

ἀλλά (alla) is the strong but, and its typical home is after a negative: not this, but that. Romans 12:2 is the model: μὴ συσχηματίζεσθε τῷ αἰῶνι τούτῳ, ἀλλὰ μεταμορφοῦσθε (mē syschēmatizesthe tō aiōni toutō, alla metamorphousthe), do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed. John 3:16 has the same shape: not perish, but have eternal life. Learn the difference between δέ and ἀλλά early, because it is a real difference in meaning. δέ usually takes the next step. ἀλλά usually replaces one thing with another. Where δέ says and now this, ἀλλά says not that, this.

ἵνα (hina) almost always introduces a clause with its verb in the subjunctive, and the first meaning every student learns is purpose: in order that, so that. John 3:16 is purpose: God gave his Son, ἵνα πᾶς ὁ πιστεύων εἰς αὐτὸν μὴ ἀπόληται (hina pas ho pisteuōn eis auton mē apolētai), so that everyone who believes in him should not perish. Galatians 2:19 is purpose: ἵνα θεῷ ζήσω, 'so that I might live to God'. Romans 11:32 is purpose: God has consigned everyone to disobedience ἵνα τοὺς πάντας ἐλεήσῃ, 'so that He may have mercy on everyone'.

But ἵνα does other work too, and the tools will not always warn you. Often it gives the content of something rather than its aim. In John 17:3, αὕτη δέ ἐστιν ἡ αἰώνιος ζωὴ ἵνα γινώσκωσι σέ, the BSB has 'Now this is eternal life, that they may know You'. The ἵνα clause does not say why eternal life exists; it says what eternal life is. And after verbs of asking, urging or commanding, ἵνα often just gives the content of the request. In Matthew 4:3 the tempter says εἰπὲ ἵνα οἱ λίθοι οὗτοι ἄρτοι γένωνται, which the BSB rightly turns into 'tell these stones to become bread'. To render that as speak in order that these stones may become bread would be wooden and slightly wrong.

Between purpose and result there is a grey zone, and grammarians admit it. A result clause says what actually happened; a purpose clause says what someone intended. When the one intending is God, the two can be hard to pull apart, because what God intends happens. Daniel Wallace's Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics (1996) has a category for exactly these places, which he calls purpose-result. 1 John 1:9 is a useful example to think about: after 'He is faithful and just' comes ἵνα ἀφῇ ἡμῖν τὰς ἁμαρτίας, which the BSB renders 'to forgive us our sins'. Is forgiveness the purpose of God's faithfulness, its result, or simply what his faithfulness consists of in that situation? Readers differ, and the difference is small. What matters is that a student who only knows 'in order that' will make the verse say something odder than John meant.

Sometimes the hard case is not the meaning of ἵνα but what it attaches to. John 9:3 reads, in the SBLGNT, Οὔτε οὗτος ἥμαρτεν οὔτε οἱ γονεῖς αὐτοῦ, ἀλλʼ ἵνα φανερωθῇ τὰ ἔργα τοῦ θεοῦ ἐν αὐτῷ: neither this man sinned nor his parents, but so that the works of God might be revealed in him. Notice that there is no main verb for the ἵνα clause to hang on. The BSB supplies one: 'but this happened so that the works of God would be displayed in him'. That is the majority reading, and it makes the man's blindness serve a divine purpose that is revealed in his healing.

A minority of interpreters have proposed a different punctuation, joining the ἵνα clause to what follows in 9:4: but so that the works of God may be displayed in him, we must work the works of Him who sent me. The earliest manuscripts had little or no punctuation, so the Greek allows both. The majority reading is defended on the ground that the elliptical ἀλλʼ ἵνα is a normal Johannine way of speaking and that the sentence most naturally answers the disciples' question about the cause of the blindness. The minority reading is defended on the ground that 9:4 opens abruptly without a connective and reads smoothly as the main clause, and that it shifts the focus from why the man was born blind to what Jesus and his disciples must now do. A student need not settle it to see the lesson. A small word with nothing obvious to attach to has forced every translator into a decision, and the decision matters at a sickbed.

Now put the tools to work on the anchor. In the SBLGNT, Romans 12:1 begins Παρακαλῶ οὖν ὑμᾶς, ἀδελφοί, διὰ τῶν οἰκτιρμῶν τοῦ θεοῦ παραστῆσαι τὰ σώματα ὑμῶν θυσίαν ζῶσαν. Παρακαλῶ (parakalō) is present active indicative, first person singular, of παρακαλέω: I urge. παραστῆσαι (parastēsai) is an aorist active infinitive of παρίστημι: to present, to offer. And οἰκτιρμῶν (oiktirmōn), mercies, is genitive plural; the BSB renders the phrase 'on account of God's mercy'. The verse is an appeal, and the οὖν, the second word, tells you it is an appeal that follows from something.

From what, exactly? This is the question the preacher's old saying is meant to provoke: when you see a therefore, ask what it is there for. It is good advice, with one refinement. Ask also how far back it reaches. There are three serious answers for Romans 12:1. It may reach back to the doxology of 11:33-36, so that worship in praise becomes worship in life. It may reach back to 11:30-32, where mercy is the theme of every verse: you have received mercy, they too may receive mercy, God has consigned all to disobedience that he may have mercy on all. Or it may reach back over the whole of chapters 1 to 11, so that the mercies of God are everything Paul has unfolded since 1:16.

Many commentators take the widest view, and it has real strength: the shift at 12:1 from teaching to exhortation is the biggest seam in the letter, and an οὖν at such a seam naturally gathers up all that has gone before. The narrower view also has strength: the thought of God's mercy is still ringing from 11:30-32, and readers in Rome would have heard the appeal through the mercy they had just been told about. Notice, though, that 11:30-32 uses words from the ἔλεος family, the noun for mercy and its verb, while 12:1 uses οἰκτιρμός, a different word from a different root. That does not rule out the connection, since the two are near synonyms, but it is exactly the kind of detail a student should check before preaching on it. The options differ in emphasis more than in substance. Every one of them agrees that the command of 12:1 stands on a foundation laid before it.

Then follow the joints forward. Romans 12:2 opens with καί and then gives the not... but shape: μὴ συσχηματίζεσθε... ἀλλὰ μεταμορφοῦσθε, do not be conformed, but be transformed. Romans 12:3 opens Λέγω γάρ, 'For by the grace given me I say to every one of you', and the γάρ shows that what follows explains or grounds 12:1-2: here is the first concrete shape the offered life takes, which is not thinking of yourself more highly than you ought. In three verses you have an inference, a corrective contrast and an explanation. That is an argument, and you found it by its joints.

Here, then, is the method, and it works on any passage. Read the passage in the interlinear and write down every connective with its verse. Beside each, write one of these labels: adds (καί), develops (δέ), grounds or explains (γάρ), infers (οὖν, ἄρα), corrects (ἀλλά), aims or gives content (ἵνα). Then draw an arrow from each connective back to the statement it hangs on. Where you cannot tell, put a question mark rather than forcing it, and compare two or three translations to see how they decided. You will find, very quickly, that the arrows show you the shape of a passage more clearly than any outline in a study Bible.

Four warnings belong beside the method. Do not hang a sermon on a single δέ; it is too common and too flexible to bear weight alone. Do not treat an untranslated connective as a word the translators suppressed; they usually had a good reason. Do not force because onto every γάρ; ask whether it proves or explains. And do not assume an οὖν in a story is an argument; in John especially, it is often just the next thing that happened.

Your step this week: if you have already chosen the passage you will study for the capstone at the end of this track, use it; if not, use Romans 12:1-8. Open it in the STEP Bible or Blue Letter Bible interlinear on your phone. On a fresh notebook page headed Connectives, list every γάρ, οὖν, ἄρα, δέ, καί, ἀλλά and ἵνα, with verse, label and an arrow to what it hangs on. Then write two sentences at the bottom: the main thing the passage asks, and the main reason it gives. Keep the page. In the last lesson of this module you will turn it into a full phrasing of the passage.