Participles

A participle is a word made from a verb that can do the work of an adjective. English has them: the running water, a broken promise, having eaten, they left. Greek has far more of them, uses them far more often, and packs more information into each one. A Greek participle has tense and voice like a verb, and it has case, number and gender like an adjective. Because it has case, number and gender, it agrees with the noun or pronoun it belongs to, and that agreement tells you what it is attached to even when the noun is a long way off or not written at all.

So a full parsing of a participle has six parts: tense, voice, the word participle in the mood slot, and then case, number and gender. In the codes STEP Bible and Blue Letter Bible show, the letter P in the mood slot means participle, and the three letters after the hyphen give case, number and gender. V-PAP-NPM, for example, is a present active participle, nominative plural masculine. Lesson 2 noted that participles sit in the mood slot without being moods in the full sense. They have no person, because they are not the main verb of a clause; they hang on one.

Now the anchor and the verse after it in the SBL Greek New Testament (SBLGNT). Matthew 28:19-20 runs πορευθέντες οὖν μαθητεύσατε πάντα τὰ ἔθνη, βαπτίζοντες αὐτούς ... διδάσκοντες αὐτοὺς τηρεῖν πάντα ὅσα ἐνετειλάμην ὑμῖν (poreuthentes oun mathēteusate panta ta ethnē, baptizontes autous ... didaskontes autous tērein panta hosa eneteilamēn hymin, having gone therefore, make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them ... teaching them to keep all that I commanded you). The only imperative is μαθητεύσατε (mathēteusate, make disciples), aorist active imperative, second person plural. πορευθέντες (poreuthentes, having gone) is an aorist participle, passive in form and active in meaning, nominative plural masculine; STEP codes it V-AOP-NPM, with O for passive deponent. βαπτίζοντες (baptizontes, baptizing) and διδάσκοντες (didaskontes, teaching) are present active participles, nominative plural masculine. τηρεῖν (tērein, to keep) is a present active infinitive, the subject of the next lesson, and ἐνετειλάμην (eneteilamēn, I commanded) is an aorist middle indicative, first person singular, of a verb that, like those in lesson 1, appears only in middle forms.

One more feature of participles must be learned early, because it is the root of many confident mistakes. The tense of a participle does not, by itself, tell you when the action happens. It tells you, first of all, the aspect, the way the action is viewed, which Module 4 discussed with the debate between Porter, Fanning and Campbell left open. In practice an aorist participle usually describes an action before the main verb, and a present participle an action at the same time as the main verb, which is why πορευθέντες is often rendered having gone and βαπτίζοντες as baptizing. That is a tendency of usage, relative to the main verb, and there are exceptions. Never preach a past tense from an aorist participle as if the form required it.

The first decision with any participle is whether it is adjectival or adverbial: whether it describes a person or thing, or describes the action of the main verb. The surest signal is the article. A participle with the article in front of it is almost always adjectival, either modifying a noun or standing in for one.

When it stands in for a noun it is called substantival, and it is everywhere in the New Testament. John 3:16 in the SBLGNT has ἵνα πᾶς ὁ πιστεύων εἰς αὐτὸν μὴ ἀπόληται (hina pas ho pisteuōn eis auton mē apolētai), where ὁ πιστεύων (ho pisteuōn, the one believing) is a present active participle with the article, nominative singular masculine, and the BSB renders the phrase 'everyone who believes in Him'. Philippians 2:13, from lesson 1, has ὁ ἐνεργῶν (ho energōn, the one working), 'it is God who works in you'. Matthew 5:4 has μακάριοι οἱ πενθοῦντες (makarioi hoi penthountes), 'Blessed are those who mourn'. In each case the article plus the participle makes a phrase that means the person who does this, and English usually needs who to render it.

Here a well-known argument begins, and you should hear both sides. Some interpreters, noticing how often John uses the present participle ὁ πιστεύων for the one who is saved, argue that the present aspect is significant: John is describing not a single act of believing but a person characterised by ongoing belief, and a preacher may rightly say that saving faith is a faith that continues. The point is pressed especially in 1 John, where present participles describe the one who practises righteousness or the one who keeps on sinning. Others reply that substantival participles often function simply as names for a class of people, the believer, the mourner, the sower, and that their aspect is muted when they do. They point out that John can also use the aorist for the same people: John 20:29 ends μακάριοι οἱ μὴ ἰδόντες καὶ πιστεύσαντες (makarioi hoi mē idontes kai pisteusantes), 'blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed', with aorist participles, and John 7:39 speaks of οἱ πιστεύσαντες (hoi pisteusantes, those who believed). Both arguments are made by serious grammarians, and the theological claim that true faith perseveres is held by many who would not rest it on the present participle alone.

The practical rule is this. When you meet ὁ with a participle, translate it as the one who, or those who, and ask what kind of person is being described. If you want to say something about continuous action, find support for it in the context or in the writer's other statements, not in the tense of the participle alone. That is a habit that keeps you on the right side of both arguments.

A participle without the article usually describes the action of a main verb: when it happens, why, how, by what means, in spite of what, or with what result. Grammars give these uses names: temporal, causal, means, manner, conditional, concessive, purpose, result, and attendant circumstance. Daniel Wallace's Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics (1996) sets them out with examples and is the standard reference most English-speaking students meet.

The single most important thing to understand about these labels is that the Greek does not contain them. Greek has one form, the participle. English has to choose a word to link the participle to the main verb: when, after, since, because, by, although, if, so that. That choice is interpretation, made by the translator on the basis of context, and two translators can make different ones from the same Greek. When you see since or although or by in front of an English -ing word or a having been phrase, check the Greek. Very often there is nothing there but a participle.

Romans 5:1 is a good example to keep. It begins Δικαιωθέντες οὖν ἐκ πίστεως (dikaiōthentes oun ek pisteōs, having been justified therefore by faith), with Δικαιωθέντες an aorist passive participle, nominative plural masculine, agreeing with the we of the main verb. The KJV renders it 'Therefore being justified by faith' (KJV), which leaves the link open, as the Greek does. The BSB renders it 'Therefore, since we have been justified through faith', which chooses a causal reading. The BSB's choice is well supported, since Romans 3 and 4 have argued that justification is the ground of everything that follows. But the word since is the translator's, and a student should know that.

One special construction is worth recognising by sight because it is common in narrative. When a participle and its subject both stand in the genitive case, loosely attached to the sentence, the construction is called a genitive absolute, and it usually sets the scene. Matthew 2:13 begins Ἀναχωρησάντων δὲ αὐτῶν (anachōrēsantōn de autōn, and they having departed), an aorist active participle, genitive plural masculine, with its subject αὐτῶν (autōn, they) also in the genitive. The BSB renders it 'When the Magi had gone', supplying the Magi from the previous verse. Your tool will show you two genitive words together at the start of a sentence; when you see that, think when or while, and look for the main verb.

One adverbial use needs its own section, because so much preaching depends on it. An attendant circumstance participle describes an action that goes along with the main verb and shares its force, so that in English it is best translated as a second main verb joined by and. Wallace sets out the pattern in which it usually appears: the participle is aorist, the main verb is aorist, the main verb is an imperative or an indicative, the participle comes before the main verb, and the construction is frequent in narrative. When those conditions hold, the participle normally takes on the mood of the main verb. If the main verb is a command, the participle is part of the command.

Matthew uses the pattern repeatedly, and you can check it on your phone. In Matthew 2:8 Herod tells the Magi, Πορευθέντες ἐξετάσατε (poreuthentes exetasate, having gone, search), which the BSB renders 'Go and search carefully for the Child'. In Matthew 2:13 the angel tells Joseph, Ἐγερθεὶς παράλαβε (egertheis paralabe, having got up, take), and the BSB has 'Get up!' followed by 'Take the Child and His mother'. In Matthew 28:7 the angel tells the women ταχὺ πορευθεῖσαι εἴπατε (tachy poreutheisai eipate, quickly having gone, tell), which the BSB renders 'go quickly and tell His disciples'. In every case the BSB turns the participle into a command, and in every case the hearer could not obey the main command without doing what the participle describes.

Matthew 28:19 fits the pattern exactly: an aorist participle, πορευθέντες, before an aorist imperative, μαθητεύσατε. The Missions track's lesson The Great Commission works through what follows from this, including the popular claim that go is only as you go, and the answer grammarians give to it. Read that lesson's second section rather than having it repeated here. This lesson adds two things. First, a small detail from the context: Matthew 28:16 uses the same verb in the indicative, ἐπορεύθησαν (eporeuthēsan, they went), for the eleven going to Galilee, so the verb has just been used of real travel. Readers who take go as a real part of the command note this. Those who stress that the participle is subordinate do not deny that going is involved; their point, at its strongest, is that the participle borrows its force from make disciples, so that the commission's weight falls on discipling wherever the church finds itself, near or far. Second, the participles that follow the command, which are a different case.

βαπτίζοντες and διδάσκοντες do not fit the attendant circumstance pattern. They are present, not aorist, and they follow the main verb rather than preceding it. So most grammarians read them as adverbial participles of a different kind, and there are two main readings. On one, they are participles of means: disciples are made by baptizing and by teaching. On the other, they are participles of manner, or explanatory: they describe what disciple-making consists of and involves. The two readings overlap a good deal, and many interpreters move between them. Some translations go further and render them as separate commands, baptize them and teach them, on the reasoning that anything which is the means of obeying a command is itself commanded. The BSB keeps them as participles, baptizing and teaching, which leaves their exact relation to the command for the reader to weigh. What every reading agrees on is the grammar's centre of gravity. There is one imperative. Going is part of it; baptizing and teaching describe how it is carried out; the goal is disciples.

Ephesians 5:18, the anchor of lesson 5, gives a command: πληροῦσθε ἐν πνεύματι (plērousthe en pneumati, be filled by or with the Spirit). Then come five participles, all present, all nominative plural masculine, all agreeing with the you of the command: λαλοῦντες (lalountes, speaking), ᾄδοντες (adontes, singing), ψάλλοντες (psallontes, making music), εὐχαριστοῦντες (eucharistountes, giving thanks) and ὑποτασσόμενοι (hypotassomenoi, submitting). In Greek this is one sentence running from verse 18 to verse 21, and the participles hang on the command.

How do they relate to it? Three answers are given. Wallace argues that they are participles of result: being filled by the Spirit results in speaking, singing, making music, giving thanks and submitting. On this reading the participles describe the evidence of the Spirit's filling, and a church that wants to know whether it is filled should look at its worship, its gratitude and its relationships. Others read them as participles of means: believers are filled as they speak to one another, sing, give thanks and submit, so that these practices are the way the command is obeyed. On that reading the corporate life of the church is where filling happens. A third reading takes them as manner, describing what a Spirit-filled life looks like without saying which comes first. Each reading has able defenders and each fits the grammar, and they lead to different emphases in preaching. Note also that the command is passive, and lesson 5 discusses what it means to obey a passive imperative.

Now look at what the BSB does with the sentence. It renders 5:19 as a command, 'Speak to one another with psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. Sing and make music in your hearts to the Lord', keeps 5:20 as a participle, 'always giving thanks to God the Father for everything', and renders 5:21 as a command, 'Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.' Many translations do something like this, because a five-participle sentence is hard to read aloud in English. That is a legitimate decision, but it hides the structure. A reader of the English alone would not know that verse 21 is the last of a series of participles depending on be filled.

And verse 21 matters, because of what follows it. Ephesians 5:22 in the SBLGNT reads Αἱ γυναῖκες τοῖς ἰδίοις ἀνδράσιν ὡς τῷ κυρίῳ (hai gynaikes tois idiois andrasin hōs tō kyriō, the wives to their own husbands as to the Lord). There is no verb in it. The verb has to be supplied from the participle ὑποτασσόμενοι in verse 21. Some manuscripts add a verb in 5:22, in two different forms, while the earliest papyrus of Paul's letters and Codex Vaticanus have none. The SBLGNT marks the place with a variant sign and, like most modern editions, prints the shorter text without a verb, judging the additions to be scribes' attempts to fill the gap. So the household instructions of 5:22-6:9 grow grammatically out of the participle in 5:21, which grows out of the command to be filled.

This grammatical fact is common ground in a sharp disagreement, and you should know both sides. Egalitarian interpreters, among them Craig Keener in Paul, Women and Wives (1992), argue that 5:21 sets a principle of mutual submission among all believers, and that the instructions to wives, husbands, children, parents, slaves and masters are applications of that mutual submission in the household structures of the time. They point out that the same pronoun is fully mutual elsewhere in the letter (4:2, 4:32), that the wives' verb in 5:22 is borrowed from this mutual command, and that the husband's duty in 5:25 to give himself up for his wife is itself a form of laying down one's own interests. Complementarian interpreters, among them Wayne Grudem, argue that the pronoun ἀλλήλοις (allēlois, one another) can mean some to others, as the same pronoun does when Revelation 6:4 speaks of men who 'slay one another', and that the instructions which follow specify who submits to whom: wives to husbands, children to parents, slaves to masters, with no instruction for the reverse. Each side reads the same grammar, and each has a serious case from the wider letter. The Christian Ethics track's lesson Men, Women and Gender takes the question further. What a student of Greek can say with certainty is that 5:22 borrows its verb from 5:21, and that a sermon on 5:22 which never mentions 5:21 has cut the verse off from its grammar.

Open your verb table again. Add a column headed Participle. For every row your tool has marked as a participle, fill it in with three things: the case, number and gender; the word the participle agrees with, which you find by matching case, number and gender with a noun or pronoun nearby, or with the subject of the main verb; and the main verb it hangs on, with its verse.

Then classify each participle in pencil, so that you can change your mind. If it has the article, write adjectival and translate it as the one who, or those who. If it has no article, write adverbial and choose one link word: when, since, by, although, if, so that, or and for an attendant circumstance. Beside each adverbial participle, write which English word the BSB uses, and whether the BSB has turned the participle into a main verb, as it does with go in Matthew 28:19 and submit in Ephesians 5:21.

Choose the one participle in your passage whose classification makes the most difference to the meaning. Write its verse at the foot of the page and two short sentences, one for each of the two most likely readings, saying what each would mean in a sermon. If you have a second free tool or a second translation, check what it does. Do not decide yet which reading is right; the capstone will ask you to weigh it with everything else.

Finally, look for any place where your translation's sentence break falls in the middle of a Greek sentence, as the BSB's does at Ephesians 5:21. Your tool's punctuation of the SBLGNT will show you where the Greek sentence really ends. Mark each such place with a vertical line in your notebook. Module 6 will teach you to trace the whole Greek sentence; for now, knowing where it runs is enough.