Your Passage

Everything in this track has been aimed at one act: opening a passage of the New Testament so that its light reaches people. 'The unfolding of Your words gives light; it informs the simple' (Psalm 119:130). The Hebrew word behind unfolding is pethach, from the verb to open; it is the opening of a door, or the spreading out of something folded. The light is already in the words. The work of study is to open them, and the people who benefit are the simple, not the learned. That is a good measure for a capstone. When you have finished, the question is not whether your notebook is impressive, but whether you can now open this passage to someone who could not open it alone.

This lesson gathers the whole track into a single path of twelve steps, in the order a working pastor would use them. Each step names the earlier lessons where its skills were taught, so you can go back to any step that is unclear. The steps are arranged so that what is most important comes first and what is most technical comes in the middle, where it belongs, and then the study turns back toward people at the end. It will take longer than the weekly routine of Greek in the Study, because it is meant to be thorough. Allow two or three weeks.

Beside your own passage, we will work one passage the whole way through, so that you can see each step done: Ephesians 2:8-10. It is short, it is much loved and much preached, and it touches nearly every part of the grammar this track has taught. It is not necessarily the best passage for you. Choose your own.

Step 1: choose and bound the passage. For this capstone, choose a passage of three to ten verses from the New Testament: a paragraph of a letter, a short narrative, a parable or a saying of Jesus. Choose something you will actually teach, so the work is not wasted. Do not choose the hardest passage you know to prove you can; the Greek of Hebrews and of the opening of Luke is far harder than that of John or Mark, and Philippians 2 was worked in A Worked Passage, so choose something else. Check where your unit begins and ends by reading the chapter around it, as the Homiletics lesson Choosing and Bounding the Text explains. Write the reference at the top of a fresh double page. For the worked example: Ephesians 2:8-10 is the close of a paragraph that begins at 2:1 with 'you were dead in your trespasses and sins.' Strictly, the unit is 2:1-10, and you should read all of it; we will focus the Greek work on its last three verses.

Step 2: read it in your own language, many times. Before you open any Greek, read your passage at least ten times across several days, once aloud, and read the whole letter or book it belongs to if you possibly can. Write down everything you notice and every question you have. This is day one of the routine in Greek in the Study, made longer. In the worked example, reading 2:1-10 shows that verse 8 is not new: verse 5 has already said, in the middle of a sentence, 'It is by grace you have been saved!' Paul has interrupted himself with the point, and verse 8 comes back to explain it. You also notice that the paragraph begins with how they used to walk (2:2) and ends with walking in good works (2:10).

Step 3: compare translations (Comparing Translations, Why Translations Differ). Read your passage in three or four translations side by side on STEP Bible or Blue Letter Bible and mark every difference that changes the sense. Those differences are your list for the Greek work. In the worked example the translations agree closely in verses 8-9. In verse 10 the BSB has 'which God prepared in advance as our way of life', where other translations say something like that we should walk in them. Write that difference down; it points to a verb.

Step 4: sound out the Greek and read it in the interlinear (The Alphabet, Parts 1 and 2; Breathings, Accents and Sound; Reading Your First Verse; Using an Interlinear). Open your passage in an interlinear and read the Greek aloud, word by word, slowly. Then read it again. Do not skip this because it feels elementary; reading aloud forces your eye to see every letter, and you will notice repeated words that a glance misses. In the SBL Greek New Testament (SBLGNT), Ephesians 2:8 begins τῇ γὰρ χάριτί ἐστε σεσῳσμένοι διὰ πίστεως (tē gar chariti este sesōsmenoi dia pisteōs, for by grace you have been saved through faith). Reading verses 8-10 aloud, you hear ἔργων (ergōn, works) in verse 9 and ἔργοις (ergois, works) in verse 10: the same noun twice, in different cases, after different prepositions. Mark it.

Step 5: check the text (Manuscripts and Variants, Weighing a Variant). Look at the SBLGNT apparatus on your phone, or at the textual notes in STEP Bible, for your passage. Note every place the editions or the manuscripts differ, and ask whether any of them affects the sense. Most will not. If one does, weigh it with the internal and external evidence as Weighing a Variant taught, and mark in your notebook that the point is textually uncertain, so that you never build a sermon on it. In Ephesians 2:8-10 the SBLGNT apparatus marks one small point, at the phrase through faith; look at it in your tool and decide for yourself whether it changes the meaning. Then write the result down, even if it is nothing. Knowing that a passage's text is secure is itself a finding.

Step 6: parse every verb (How a Greek Verb Works; Reading the Parsing Codes; Tense and Aspect; The Present and the Imperfect; The Aorist; The Perfect; Active, Middle and Passive; Mood: Fact, Possibility, Command; Participles; Infinitives; Commands and Prohibitions). List every verb, participle and infinitive in your passage with the parsing the tools give, and check the main verbs in two tools. Then ask what each parsing contributes, without making the tense do more than it can. In the worked example: ἐστε (este, you are) is present active indicative, second person plural, of εἰμί, and σεσῳσμένοι (sesōsmenoi, having been saved) is a perfect passive participle, nominative plural masculine, of σῴζω. Together they form what grammarians call a periphrastic perfect, you are in the state of having been saved, which is why translations say you have been saved. As The Perfect taught, the perfect presents a completed action with its continuing result. The passive leaves the agent unnamed, but the context names him: God, who is rich in mercy (2:4). καυχήσηται (kauchēsētai, he might boast) is an aorist subjunctive, middle in form, after ἵνα μή, so that not. κτισθέντες (ktisthentes, having been created) is an aorist passive participle. προητοίμασεν (proētoimasen, he prepared beforehand) is aorist active indicative, third person singular. And περιπατήσωμεν (peripatēsōmen, we should walk) is aorist active subjunctive, first person plural, after ἵνα: that is the verb behind the BSB's as our way of life, which renders the Hebrew-shaped idiom of walking as a way of living. The difference you marked in step 3 is a translator's decision between a literal and a functional rendering, and both are faithful.

Step 7: the nouns, the article and the prepositions (What Case Is; The Article; The Genitive; The Dative; Prepositions). Go through the nouns, noting their case and what the case is doing, and give special attention to every preposition, because prepositions carry much of the theology of a passage. In the worked example: τῇ χάριτι (tē chariti, by grace) is dative, and the dative here expresses means, as The Dative taught. διὰ πίστεως (dia pisteōs, through faith) is διά with the genitive, meaning through, the channel by which salvation is received. Then come the two prepositions you marked in step 4: οὐκ ἐξ ἔργων (ouk ex ergōn, not from works), ἐκ with the genitive, source; and ἐπὶ ἔργοις ἀγαθοῖς (epi ergois agathois, for good works), ἐπί with the dative, here expressing purpose. Works are excluded as the source of salvation and included as its purpose, and the whole of Paul's teaching on grace and conduct sits in those two prepositions. That is a point worth teaching, and you can show it in English: not by works, in verse 9, and to do good works, in verse 10.

Step 8: the connections, the word order and the phrasing (The Little Words That Join Thoughts; Word Order and Emphasis; "If" Sentences; Reading a Whole Paragraph; Phrasing a Passage). Mark every connecting word, then write your passage out in phrases, main clauses at the margin, dependent clauses indented under what they explain. Note any word that has been moved forward from its usual place, and remember the warning of Word Order and Emphasis against over-reading emphasis. In the worked example: γάρ (gar, for) in verse 8 makes it the explanation of the exclamation in verse 5, and γάρ again in verse 10 gives the reason why no one can boast. In verse 10, αὐτοῦ γάρ ἐσμεν ποίημα (autou gar esmen poiēma, for his workmanship we are) puts αὐτοῦ, his, first. Fronting a word like this often gives it prominence, and here the sense fits: his workmanship, not ours. But mark that as probable, not certain, because Greek word order has more than one reason for moving a word. Your phrasing should show three main statements at the margin: you have been saved by grace through faith; we are his workmanship; and, under the second, the purpose clause, so that we should walk in good works.

Step 9: the key words (Strong's Numbers and Lexicons; The Words That Matter Most; Word Families; Word Studies Done Right; Range and Context; Idioms and Hebraisms; What the Tools Cannot Do). Choose two or three words your passage turns on. For each, look at the lexicon's range of meanings, look at where the same author uses the word, let the context choose the meaning, and check yourself against every fallacy in What the Tools Cannot Do. In the worked example, the word to test is ποίημα (poiēma, something made, workmanship). It is often preached as God's poem or masterpiece, because the English word poem comes from it. That is exactly the error the lesson warned against: an English descendant does not tell you what the Greek ancestor meant. The concordance shows ποίημα in only one other place in the New Testament, Romans 1:20, where God's invisible qualities have been 'understood from His workmanship', that is, from the things he has made, the created world. In Ephesians 2:10 the next word is κτισθέντες, created. So the meaning is something made by God, his handiwork, a new creation in Christ. That is a richer point than poem, and it is true.

Step 10: weigh the translation and name the debates (Why Translations Differ; Weighing a Translation Yourself; A Worked Passage). With all your findings in front of you, test your main translation against the Greek honestly, as Weighing a Translation Yourself taught, and write down where it has made a choice and whether you think the choice is sound. Then identify any place where the church or the scholars are genuinely divided, and write each position as its own best defenders would state it. Ephesians 2:8 has one such place. καὶ τοῦτο οὐκ ἐξ ὑμῶν (kai touto ouk ex hymōn, and this not from yourselves): τοῦτο (touto, this) is neuter, while χάρις, grace, and πίστις, faith, are both feminine. So this does not refer to grace alone or to faith alone by grammatical agreement; most commentators take it to refer to the whole preceding idea, salvation by grace through faith, as the gift of God.

That much is widely agreed. What is debated is whether faith itself is part of what is given. Many in the Reformed and Augustinian tradition argue that it is: the whole of salvation, including the faith by which it is received, is from God. They point first to the paragraph itself, where those who believe were dead in trespasses until God made them alive (2:1, 2:5), and the dead do not believe until they are raised; and they point to Philippians 1:29, 'it has been granted to you on behalf of Christ not only to believe in Him', and Acts 18:27, 'those who by grace had believed.' Many in the Arminian and Wesleyan traditions, and others, argue that faith is the human response that God's grace enables and invites but does not perform, so that the gift in view here is salvation, received through a faith that is truly the believer's own; they point to the many commands to believe, such as 'Believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved' (Acts 16:31), and to Romans 4:16, where the promise 'comes by faith, so that it may rest on grace.' Both sides agree that faith is not a work that earns anything, which is the point of verse 9. The grammar of τοῦτο does not settle their disagreement, because on both readings faith falls inside the whole that this refers to; the question is how. Write both positions in your notebook, and teach this verse without pretending the debate does not exist or that the neuter pronoun has ended it.

This is also the step at which you should finally read anything others have written, if you have it: a commentary, a study Bible, notes from a teacher. Read them after your own work, not instead of it, and compare. Where they saw something you missed, add it in a different colour, so that you can see what you found and what you were shown. Where you disagree with them, ask which of you has the better evidence. Often it will be them. Sometimes, because you have looked so carefully, it will be you.

Step 11: state the main idea and sort what you will say (Greek in the Study; Greek in the Pulpit). Write one sentence that states what your passage is about and what it says about it, in the passage's own terms. Then go through your notebook and, beside every finding, check the confidence column: certain, probable or possible. Choose at most one or two Greek observations to mention when you teach, using the four tests of Greek in the Pulpit, and write out in plain words what you will say about each, ending by pointing to a verse in the hearers' own Bible. In the worked example, the main idea might be: God has saved us by his grace through faith, not from our works, so that no one can boast, and he has made us his new creation for the good works he prepared for us to walk in. The Greek observation most worth teaching is the pair of prepositions, not from works and for good works, which can be shown in any translation. The poem myth, if it is common where you teach, deserves one gentle sentence. The debate about whether faith is the gift should be stated fairly if you teach a class on it, and need not be raised in a sermon whose point does not depend on it.

Step 12: share it and keep going (Keeping Your Greek Alive). Teach what you have studied, in a sermon, a Bible study, a youth group or a class, as soon as you can. Ask two or three people afterwards what they understood. Then show your notebook pages to your reading group, or to a pastor or teacher who knows more Greek, and ask them to check the parts you marked probable and possible. Finally, put the pages where you can find them again. You will return to this passage, and the next time you will see more.

You will notice that the steps describe a study far more thorough than you will manage every week. That is deliberate. The weekly routine of Greek in the Study is this capstone compressed. Once you have done the full study carefully on one passage, the weekly version will make sense, because you will know what each shortcut leaves out.

Copy what follows into the front of your notebook, or keep it on your phone, and use it whenever you study a passage closely. It is the whole track in twelve lines. If a line is missing when you come to teach, go back to it.

1. Passage. I have chosen one unit of three to ten verses, checked where it begins and ends, read its whole chapter and if possible its whole book, and written the reference at the top of my page.

2. Reading. I have read the passage at least ten times in my own language, once aloud, and written down what I noticed and what I asked, before opening any Greek tool.

3. Translations. I have compared three or four translations and listed every difference that changes the sense.

4. Sounding out. I have read the Greek of the passage aloud in an interlinear, word by word, and marked words that repeat.

5. Text. I have checked the apparatus or textual notes, and I know whether any point in my passage is textually uncertain.

6. Verbs. I have parsed every verb, participle and infinitive, checked the main verbs in two tools, and written what each parsing contributes without making a tense say more than it can.

7. Nouns and prepositions. I have noted the case of the key nouns and what each case is doing, and I have looked closely at every preposition.

8. Connections and phrasing. I have marked every connecting word, noted any word moved forward without over-reading it, and written the passage out in phrases with the main clauses at the margin.

9. Words. I have studied two or three key words by their range and their use by the same author, let the context choose, and tested myself against the word-study fallacies.

10. Translation and debates. I have weighed my translation against the Greek, written down where it made a choice, and stated every genuinely debated point as each side's best defenders would.

11. Main idea and confidence. I have written the passage's main idea in one sentence, marked every finding certain, probable or possible, and chosen at most one or two Greek points to teach, in plain words, pointing to the hearers' own Bible.

12. Sharing and keeping. I have taught the passage or planned when I will, asked someone who knows more to check my probable and possible points, and kept my pages where I can find them.

Your practical step now. Choose your passage today, if you have not already, and write it at the top of a fresh double page. Over the next two or three weeks, work the twelve steps in order, writing your results for each step in your notebook, with the confidence column beside them. When you reach step 11, write your main idea and the one or two Greek points you will teach. Then teach the passage, in whatever setting is open to you: a sermon, a home group, a youth meeting, a class of new believers. Afterwards, go back through the checklist and mark which steps you did well and which you will do better next time. That study is the fruit of this whole track. It will not be the most learned study ever written on your passage. It will be yours, done with your own eyes on the words the apostles wrote, and the unfolding of those words gives light.