Hello, this is Pastor Steven Anderson from Faithful Word Baptist Church in Tempe, Arizona.
Today we're going to be talking about John chapter 1 verse 6 from the Greek New Testament.
Now in English this verse says, there was a man sent from God whose name was John.
In Greek this verse reads, einato anthropos apest almenos para theou, onoma aftou yoanis.
Let's go through this word by word.
The first word here, einato, is a word that we've already seen a few times in this chapter.
Let me remind you that it comes from the word yinome, it's a form of the word yinome.
This will be the dictionary form that you'll look up and yinome means be or become.
Now in the previous verses it had more the meaning of become or come into being.
Like when it was in the verse, all things were made by him and without him was not anything
made that was made.
It was talking about things being made or coming into being in the past tense.
We also talked about how einato is often translated in the King James Bible, it came
to pass in certain situations.
But here it's more the meaning of be, because remember yinome is be or become.
This one's more be, but it's in the past tense, so yinato is the aorist past tense form.
And so einato here just means was, past tense of be, was, there was.
Einato anthropos, anthropos means man.
Now in the King James it says there was a man, einato anthropos, there was a man.
But in Greek there is no such thing as the indefinite article, a or an does not exist
in Greek.
They don't use the indefinite article, they just have nothing, just the absence of the
definite article.
So in this case it would be translated there was, einato anthropos, a man.
The next word is apestalmenos.
Now apestalmenos is a past participle form of the verb apostelo, let me write it out
for you so you can see it.
Apostelo means I send forth, and if you remember in the Bible the apostles are people who were
sent forth by Jesus Christ, he sent them out to preach two by two, he sent out twelve that
he called apostles, later he ordained another seventy that he sent out.
And so this verb apostelo means I send forth, and apestalmenos because it's a past participle
form would be sent.
And there are a lot of participles that are used in the New Testament, much more than
when you're reading the New Testament in English.
You come across the participle forms a lot when you're reading the Greek New Testament.
So we'll go into more of the finer points of these things later on, but at this point
just get used to seeing this o type of an ending on the end of verbs that are acting
as participles, whether past participle or other types of participles.
So egeneto anthropos, there was a man, apestalmenos sent para theou, from God.
Now of course when we see theou we know that it is in the genitive case, which is the one
that's associated with of or from in English.
But remember the objects of prepositions can take either accusative, genitive, or dative
case.
And para is one of those prepositions that could take all three.
Sometimes you'll see para with accusative, sometimes you'll see para with dative, sometimes
you'll see it with genitive.
Let me explain to you the difference, and I'm going to draw the chart that I drew earlier
in the lessons.
I'm going to draw it again because I just feel that it is such an important chart.
It really helps me to understand these case endings in regard to objects of prepositions.
Of course we know nominative case is the subject of the sentence.
Accusative case is the direct object.
Genitive case is the one that's associated with of or from or possession.
And then the dative case is the indirect object.
But when it comes to prepositions, accusative, dative, or genitive can all be used as the
objects of prepositions.
Now when we think about a preposition like para that can use all three, you say, well,
how do I know when to use which case?
Well para is going to have three different meanings depending on which case it's used
with.
And I always like to draw this chart, and this is the chart that shows how objects of
prepositions take their case endings.
So this line going into the circle, we're going to call that accusative case right here.
And then inside the circle we're going to call dative case.
And then coming out of the circle or from the circle, we're going to call genitive case.
So let me just explain this chart to you.
Prepositions that have to do with getting somewhere are using accusative objects.
Prepositions that have to do with just where something is, just stationary, use dative.
And then prepositions that have to do with the source of something or where it came from
take a genitive.
So let's take this preposition as our example, para.
When para is used with the genitive case, it means from, okay?
Which makes perfect sense, like when you're coming from the circle, okay?
Para theu, it's going to be from.
When this particular preposition is used with the dative case, a more stationary meaning,
it means beside.
And when it's used with accusative, it's going to be to or toward, okay?
So when you see para, you don't really know if it means to, beside, or from until you
look at the object and you see what case it's in.
You see that it's that genitive, boom, from, from God.
There was a man sent from God.
Think about the verses that we've already gone over in John chapter one.
For example, in the beginning, would that be getting somewhere or
just being somewhere or coming from somewhere?
Well, in the beginning, that's where you are, dative, okay?
In the beginning was the word.
The word was with God, the word was God.
The same was in the beginning with God.
All things were made by him.
By him, the off to, if you remember verse three,
will take a genitive ending because that's the source.
I mean, that's who made everything.
It was made by him.
That's why it takes a genitive there.
All things were made by him.
Without him was not anything made that was made.
And him was life.
Think about this, in him was life.
The word in there is gonna take a dative because it's just in him was life.
It's not getting into him, it's not coming out of him, it's just in him.
In him was life.
So I hope that this chart helps you to understand objects of prepositions.
I find it very helpful to think of it in this way.
So let's continue on with our verse here.
Vieneto anthropos a pestalmenos para theu onoma offto yo anis.
Now onoma means name.
Offto is the personal pronoun.
What case is it in?
Well, you see that yota subscript?
That's the telltale sign of the dative case, singular.
So when we see this him or personal pronoun
in the dative case, remember the dative case is usually used for indirect objects.
And the dative case, usually when it's acting as an indirect object,
is always gonna answer the question to whom or for whom.
So in this case, the way it's being used, it's like name, for him.
Cuz offto with the yota subscript means to him or for him.
Unless it's following a different preposition.
So you could translate this literally as name, for him, John, yo anis.
Now this is very similar to the German name for John, because John in German
is Johannes, so you can see where it comes from, cuz in Greek it's yo anis.
So let's go through the whole verse again.
Vieneto anthropos a pestalmenos para theu onoma
offto yo anis.
There was a man sent from God
whose name, or name for him, whose name, John.
Notice there is no word was here.
We say whose name was John.
Here it just says name John, okay?
Onoma offto yo anis.
Next lesson, we're gonna talk about verse number seven.