Examine: Words, Sentences and Passages

🎯 Objectives

By the end of this lesson you will be able to:

mark out a passage and place it within the structure of the book;
read a verse in the light of what comes before and what follows;
observe key words, verbs, repetitions and connecting words, and compare several translations.

📖 Receive

Read Matthew 28:16-20, the commission the risen Jesus entrusts to his disciples. Read it twice: the first time all the way through, the second time slowly, underlining every verb.

Then read Nehemiah 8:8: the Levites read the book of the Law clearly, explained its meaning and helped the people understand. Reading well and explaining well are two sides of the same service.

🔍 Examine

From the world behind the text to the text itself

In the previous lesson we received the world behind the text: author, recipients, history, culture. Now we enter into the text. This is the step the believers in Berea took every day: they searched the Scriptures.

Examining means observing carefully before concluding. A good detective does not decide who the culprit is as soon as he enters the room: he looks, takes notes, asks questions. The same is true for the Bible reader. The more you observe, the less you will have to invent.

We proceed like a lens that narrows the frame: from the whole book to the passage, from the passage to the sentences, from the sentences to the words.

flowchart TD
  L["📚 The book and its structure"] --> B["📄 The passage: beginning and end"]
  B --> C["↔️ What comes before and after"]
  C --> F["✍️ Sentences: verbs and connectors"]
  F --> P["🔤 Words in their context"]

Each level of the diagram corresponds to one of the sections that follow. Moving from top to bottom keeps us from fixing on an isolated word while forgetting the book it belongs to.

1. The wider context: the structure of the book

Every book of the Bible has a design. Knowing it helps you understand where the passage is and what role it plays.

Genesis is an example. The book is marked by an expression that returns several times: “these are the generations of…” (Genesis 2:4; 5:1; 6:9; 11:27; 25:19; 37:2 and others). Each time a new section opens. Along this thread the book tells of creation, the fall and the spread of sin (chapters 1-11), then the story of Abraham and the patriarchs, through whom God begins to carry out his plan of blessing (chapters 12-50).

You don’t have to build the outline of every book on your own: study Bibles and introductions provide one. But try doing it at least once, for the books you read most often: it is one of the most useful exercises you can do.

2. The passage: where it begins and where it ends

The divisions into chapters and verses were added many centuries after the Bible was written. They are very useful for finding texts, but sometimes they cut an argument in half.

To mark out a passage, look for changes: of place, time, characters, topic or form (from a narrative to a speech, from praise to exhortation). A passage is a unit of thought: always read it in full.

3. The immediate context: what comes before and after

A verse cut off from its context can be used to say almost anything. That is why, before asking what a verse means, read at least the whole passage and what comes before and after it.

Think of Jeremiah 29:11, where the Lord says he has thoughts of peace and not of evil for his people, to give them a future and a hope. It is a beautiful promise, often written on cards and pictures. But to whom is it addressed? The chapter opens with a letter from Jeremiah to the Israelites deported to Babylon (29:1). The prophet urges them to build houses, plant gardens and seek the good of the city where they are exiles (29:5-7), because the return will come only after seventy years (29:10).

The context does not extinguish the promise: it makes it deeper. God does not promise to spare us every difficulty, but to remain faithful within the difficulty, even when the wait is long. It is a hope with roots, not a vague good wish.

4. Sentences: verbs, connectors and repetitions

Now bring the lens closer to individual sentences. Three elements deserve special attention.

Verbs: who performs the action? Is it a command, a promise, a narrative? Is it past, present or future?
Connecting words: words such as because, therefore, so, but, so that, as… so. They link ideas and show the author’s reasoning. An old piece of advice says: whenever you find a “therefore”, always ask what it is there for. In Romans 12:1, for example, the appeal to present our bodies as a living sacrifice rests on everything Paul has said about God’s mercy in the previous chapters.
Repetitions: when an author repeats a word or an idea, he is usually pointing us to his theme. Try counting how many times the word “love” or the verb “to love” appears in 1 John 4:7-21.

📌 Worked example: Matthew 28:19-20

Jesus’ commission is often summed up in a single verb: “Go!”. But look at the sentence more closely.

In the Greek text the main verb, the only one in the imperative, is “make disciples”. The other three verbs (go, baptize, teach) are participles: they describe how that command is carried out.

going: as you live and move about in the world;

baptizing them: bringing those who believe into the community of disciples;

teaching them to observe everything Jesus commanded.

And the sentence ends with a promise: “lo, I am with you alway”.

The result: the heart of the commission is not just leaving, but forming disciples who obey Jesus. It is a task for those who go far away and for those who stay, and it is always carried out in the Lord’s presence. You don’t need to know Greek to get there: many study Bibles and commentaries point it out, and careful observation of the verbs already puts you on the right track.

5. Words: meaning in context

Words often have several meanings, and context decides the right one. The word “flesh”, for example, can mean in the Bible the body, the human being in his weakness, or human nature marked by sin. Only the passage tells us which sense is in play.

Two practical tips:

don’t load a word with all its possible meanings in every verse: the author usually intends one;
for important words, look at how the same author uses them elsewhere in the same book.

6. Comparing several translations

Every translation makes choices. Some follow the form of the original closely, others render its meaning in words closer to today’s language. Comparing them is one of the simplest and most effective tools at your disposal.

When translations differ a lot, you have found a point to study more carefully. In 1 Corinthians 7:36, for example, some versions speak of a father and his unmarried daughter, others of a man and his fiancée. The original text allows both readings, and a commentary will help you understand why. The difference does not touch the faith, but it reminds us that every translation is already an interpretation.

✅ “Examine” checklist: use it with every passage

Where is the passage in the structure of the book?

Where does it begin and end? Look for changes of place, time, characters or topic.

What comes before and what comes after?

The six questions: who? what? where? when? why? how?

Verbs: who acts? Is it a command, a promise, a narrative?

Connecting words: look for because, therefore, but, so that and follow the reasoning.

Repetitions and key words: what is the author emphasizing?

Translations: compare at least two versions and note the differences.

🔗 Connect

The Bible itself invites careful observation of its words:

Nehemiah 8:8: the public reading of the Law was accompanied by an explanation of its meaning, so that the people would understand.
Matthew 22:31-32: Jesus answers the Sadducees by relying on the tense of a verb: God is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, not was.
Galatians 3:16: Paul builds an argument on the difference between “seed” in the singular and in the plural.
2 Timothy 2:15: handling the word of truth accurately is the task of every workman of God.

Jesus and the apostles took the details of the text seriously, because they knew that every word of Scripture comes from God. Examining carefully is not academic coldness: it is respect for the One who speaks.

🙏 Apply

Take a few minutes, on your own or with your study group:

Do you have a favorite verse? Read the whole chapter it belongs to. Does the context confirm, enrich or correct the way you have always read it?
Reread Matthew 28:19-20. What does “making disciples” concretely mean for you, in the place where you live?
Choose a short passage from the epistles and try the “Examine” checklist: which details do you discover that you had not noticed before?
Ask the Lord for attentive eyes and a patient heart, so that you don’t stop at your first impression.

📚 Go Deeper

Read Jeremiah 29:1-14 in full and note what the text says about waiting, prayer and hope.
Read Romans 12:1-2 and go back to Romans 11:33-36: how does the praise of God prepare the exhortation?
Compare 1 Corinthians 7:36 in two different translations and note the difference.
Read 1 John 4:7-21 and count the repetitions of “love” and “to love”: what is the central message of the passage?

In the next lesson we take the third step: Connect. We will read each passage in the light of the whole of Scripture and learn to move from “there and then” to “here and now”.