Ten more days to go, and I am getting close to making it through the Bible in both Greek and English in 2011!
| Section | Greek | English |
| OT | 929/929 | 889*/929 |
| NT | 194/260 | 260/260 |
| Bible | 1123/1189 | 1149/1189 |
*Includes listening to 369 chapters of the OT from the Bible on MP3
Copyright © 2011-2024 by Rajesh Gandhi. All rights reserved.
Luke is the only Gospel writer to record Gabriel’s first announcement of Jesus’ upcoming birth (1:26-38):
And in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God unto a city of Galilee, named Nazareth, To a virgin espoused to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin’s name was Mary. And the angel came in unto her, and said, Hail, thou that art highly favoured, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women. And when she saw him, she was troubled at his saying, and cast in her mind what manner of salutation this should be. And the angel said unto her, Fear not, Mary: for thou hast found favour with God. And, behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name JESUS. He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest: and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David: And he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end. Then said Mary unto the angel, How shall this be, seeing I know not a man? And the angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God. And, behold, thy cousin Elisabeth, she hath also conceived a son in her old age: and this is the sixth month with her, who was called barren. For with God nothing shall be impossible. And Mary said, Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word. And the angel departed from her.
Gabriel declared to Mary that she would give the name Jesus to her miraculously conceived Son (1:31). She was also told that the Lord God would give Him the throne that He would one day have in His eternal kingdom (1:32).
Hearing these statements, a perplexed Mary inquired how she as a virgin would conceive and bear a Son (1:34). Gabriel answered that these miraculous events would be the result of the Holy Spirit’s coming upon her and of the power of the Highest that would overshadow her (1:35).
Because of the work of both the Lord God and the Holy Spirit, Jesus would therefore be called “the Son of God” (1:35). This statement along with several other aspects of all the statements that Gabriel made to Mary does show that her Son would Himself be God.
These angelic declarations, however, do more than announce the fact that Jesus would be God Himself. Among other things, the references to Jesus, the Lord God, and the Holy Ghost in Gabriel’s statements to Mary show that she was given a Trinitarian announcement of the birth of her divine Son.
Mary’s ready acceptance of this marvelous announcement (1:38) displays that she believed the Trinitarian message that she received from Gabriel. Like Mary, anyone after her who would receive Jesus aright must accept not just that He is God Himself but also the Trinitarian truths (cf. Matt. 1:20; Lk. 1:45; 2:26; 30-31) that a right proclamation of the meaning of His name communicates.
Copyright © 2011-2024 by Rajesh Gandhi. All rights reserved.
Learning intervals well is an important part of playing the guitar properly. My Interval Chart helps with learning this concept.
Copyright © 2011-2024 by Rajesh Gandhi. All rights reserved.
I recently revised a guitar handout that I originally made a number of years ago for a guitar class that I taught. This revised version, Primary Strumming Chords Handout, provides the I, IV, and V7 chords in the keys of Do, Sol, Re, La, Mi, and Fa, which are some of the main keys used for guitar music in solfeggio format for Spanish musicians.
Copyright © 2011-2024 by Rajesh Gandhi. All rights reserved.
Acts relates how Saul of Tarsus fiercely persecuted the church prior to his conversion (8:1-3). Luke specifies that Paul was thorough in his persecution of the church: “As for Saul, he made havock of the church, entering into every house, and haling men and women committed them to prison” (8:3). Saul was entering “every house” (Gk., kata tous oikous) and dragging away both men and women to jail. Given his intense hatred of believers, we should understand that he was assaulting them as thoroughly as possible.
Interestingly, Luke uses essentially the same expression (Gk., kat’ oikous) to record Paul’s thoroughness in witnessing after he had been converted: “And how I kept back nothing that was profitable unto you, but have shewed you, and have taught you publickly, and from house to house” (20:20).
This comparison shows that Paul was a thorough persecutor who became a thorough witness. His zeal against Christians was transformed into a zeal for Christ that made him one who evangelized both publicly and “from house to house.”
Learning from his example, we should continue to engage systematically in “house to house” evangelism as long as it is possible.
Copyright © 2011-2024 by Rajesh Gandhi. All rights reserved.
Yesterday, I finished my first semester of tutoring first semester Hebrew. After my final tutoring session, I produced this handout that helps with learning the verbs by grouping the verbs by the paradigm that they follow: Classification of First Semester Hebrew Verbs by Paradigm.
Copyright © 2011-2024 by Rajesh Gandhi. All rights reserved.
With 24 days left in 2011, I’m still hoping to make it through the Bible in both Greek and English this year.
| Section | Greek | English |
| OT | 929/929 | 783*/929 |
| NT | 131/260 | 260/260 |
| Bible | 1060/1189 | 1043/1189 |
*Includes listening to 273 chapters of the OT from the Bible on MP3
Copyright © 2011-2024 by Rajesh Gandhi. All rights reserved.
Over the years, in addition to English, I have extensively studied Biblical Greek more than any other language. In addition, I have taken two years of Biblical Hebrew and done additional independent study in that language.
I have also worked on learning Hindi in various ways at more than one point in my life. Other languages that I have learned to a lesser extent are the following: Modern German (preparatory class and work for passing a German translation proficiency test); French (1 year in High School and 1 year in College), and Spanish (only 1 semester in Junior High).
Based on my experience, I say unhesitatingly that diligently memorizing vocabulary words in each language has been an essential aspect of my attaining whatever levels of proficiency I have attained. In my opinion, failure to learn the vocabulary properly is a root cause of many people’s poor levels of learning other languages.
A key in my learning vocabulary words in other languages has been what I would call a comparative analysis and memorization of the vocabulary. What I mean by this expression is a diligent and thorough examination of all the words that goes beyond just making flash cards and learning the meanings of individual words in an unconnected manner.
For example, in studying Greek, I did much more than just thoroughly learn the meanings of all the words that I had to learn. I also learned words in categories by gender, part of speech, and common characteristics (such as what kind of accent marks a word has).
Similarly, by sorting words into various groups beyond what was provided in the Hebrew syllabus that I learned Hebrew from, I was able to learn the Hebrew vocabulary quite well. I also employed similar steps to learn a large amount of German vocabulary for the test that I had to take.
Just today, I used some of these same techniques to help a beginning Hebrew student prepare for his first semester final. By my guiding him through pairing words with each other based on similarity of meaning and or spelling, he was able to make considerable advances in his learning of vocabulary words that he had not thus far mastered during the semester.
I am hopeful that these techniques will help him to earn a satisfactory grade on the final. As time allows, I hope to share more about these techniques in future posts.
Copyright © 2011-2024 by Rajesh Gandhi. All rights reserved.
Jesus addressed his disciples as His friends on several occasions (Matt. 26:50; Lk. 12:4; John11:11;15:14-15). On one such occasion, He counseled His friends with teaching that guides us all about a key issue:
And I say unto you My friends, Be not afraid of them that kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do. But I will forewarn you whom ye shall fear: Fear Him, which after He hath killed hath power to cast into hell; yea, I say unto you, Fear Him (Luke 12:4-5).
With these words, Jesus informed His friends that they should not fear those who would put them to death physically but then not be able to harm them any further. He thereby confronted them with the reality that physical death is not the ultimate thing to fear.
Rather, He warned His friends that they must supremely fear the One who has the authority to cast into hell those whom He has killed physically. We thus must fear God supremely, rather than the people who would kill us physically.
Have you heeded this counsel from Jesus to His friends? If so, have you then become a true friend to your friends by sharing this counsel with them?
To do both of these things is to heed truly Jesus’ counsel to His friends.
Copyright © 2011-2024 by Rajesh Gandhi. All rights reserved.
When playing guitar music in any given key, the chords that you will often use the most are the diatonic chords in that key. The diatonic chords for a key are as follows: major chords for scale degrees I and IV; minor chords for ii, iii, and vi; dominant seventh for V; and diminished for vii. My diatonic chord chart provides chord diagrams for these main chords in the keys of C, G, D, A, E, and F.
Copyright © 2011-2024 by Rajesh Gandhi. All rights reserved.
Rajesh Gandhi holds a Ph.D. in New Testament Interpretation from Bob Jones Seminary; he's a long-time member of Mount Calvary Baptist Church in Greenville, SC.
