Title: 13
Author: JBG
Last saved by: Auth User
Company: Auth CO

© 2000  Joe Griffin

00-06-18-B.JSH-332 /

The Inscrutable Question: Stream of Consciousness: Vocabulary Storage, Deut 8:3 cp. with Matt 4:4; Isa 28:9-10

	C.	Vocabulary Storage.
1.	The soul’s dictionary for words, phrases, terms, and doctrines that are retained in long-term memory in Wernicke’s area of the brain.
2.	Wernicke’s area is the brain’s processing center for decoding audio signals from the auditory area.  The location of vocabulary storage and the area that handles semantics.
3.	No person can think beyond his vocabulary which is itself a system of memory.  
4.	Study of the Bible is an arduous exercise that seeks to organize and categorize the thinking of an infinite God.  Every human discipline e.g., the sciences, the arts, trades, professions, and even athletics, develops a system of technical language in order to communicate effectively.
5.	Such is also true for theology.  The subject matter of the Bible is categorized into 11 areas of systematic theology.  Subjects of Scripture are classified by terminology such as the Gospel, the Law, the church, etc.
6.	We have developed technical vocabulary to help us easily define the areas of Scripture we examine.  For example: the Grace Apparatus for Perception, the stream of consciousness, the problem-solving devices and its categories of rebound, faith-rest, etc., wheel-tracks, the Jornada, and Santa Fé.
7.	After salvation the believer has no theological vocabulary.  Without its development he is unable to pursue an organized advance in the spiritual life.
8.	Spiritual growth is based on cognizance of divine thought and the building blocks of that thought are words from the mouth of God.
Deuteronomy 8:3 -	“He humbled you and let you be hungry and fed you with manna which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that He might make you understand that man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord.”
9.	In this verse the word “word” is in italic indicating that the actual word for “word” is not found.  The Hebrew word for “word” is rbD dabar / dah-BAR / and means “word, speech, speaking.”  Basically it refers in Scripture to what God says. 
10.	The word actually found in Deuteronomy 8:3 is lK kol / kole /.  It means “all or everything.”  The correct translation should be “everything that proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord.”
11.	However, to translate kol as “word” is authorized by none other than the Lord Himself when He quotes Deuteronomy 8:3 in:
Matthew 4:4 -	But Jesus answered Satan and said, “It is written [ Deuteronomy 8:3 ] ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.’”
12.	The Lord’s word for “word” is the Greek noun
	·Áma / rhema / -  “Word.”  Denotes that which is spoken or uttered in speech or writing.  The definition is expanded by:
Vine, W. E.  An Expository Dictionary of Biblical Words.  (Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1984), 1242:
The significance of ·Áma / rhema / as distinct from lÒgoj / logos / is exemplified in the injunction to take “the Sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God,” in Ephesians 6:17; here the reference is not to the whole Bible as such, but to the individual scripture which the Spirit brings to our remembrance for use in time of need, a prerequisite being the regular storing of the mind with Scripture.  Logos is reasoned speech, rhema, an utterance.
13.	Consequently, every word that proceeds out from the mouth of the Lord is a word that needs to be seriously considered in the analysis of Scripture and the development of one’s theology.
14.	Isaiah stresses the importance of word-by-word exegesis in:
Isaiah 28:9 -	Whom shall God teach knowledge? [ The great problem in Isaiah’s day was that his congregation would not listen to him.  He taught, but they would not learn. ]  Whom shall God make to understand doctrine?  Those just weaned from milk; those just drawn from the breast [ apostate believers are like babies ]?
v 10 -	 For He says, “Principle on biblical principle, principle on biblical principle, line on line, line on line, [ Bible doctrine must be analyzed word by word and line by line ], a little here, a little there [ continually plugging away, constantly increasing your vocabulary in order to learn more doctrine ].

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