Word Study Fallacies

Perhaps the principle reason why word studies constitute a particularly rich source for exegetical fallacies is that many preachers and Bible teachers know Greek only well enough to use concordances, or perhaps a little more...the temptation [is] to display what has been learned in study, which as often as not is a great deal of lexical information without the restraining influence of context. -D.A. Carson

Why Study Errors?

As we finish our brief examination of terms, it is worthwhile to spend some time learning how to explore these terms in greater detail. If there is a term that is particularly troubling or a term that is key to the passage, we may want to gain a better understanding of that term. To that end, we will now consider how to do word studies.

Sometimes the best way to understand how to do something is to understand how not to do it. So before we get into how to do word studies we will briefly consider some common pitfalls. This is not meant to be an exhaustive list, but merely to point out a few of the more frequent errors. For a more extended treatment of word study fallacies, one could purchase D.A. Carson's book Exegetical Fallacies where he devotes an entire chapter to word study fallacies.

Common Mistakes

1. English Only Fallacy- This is a rather simple fallacy, which is easy to overcome, but it is very widespread. A good translation and a modern translation are helpful here, but even these do not fallacy-proof us. Often as we read the scriptures we may come across a word which means one thing in English, but the Greek meaning is different. Thus we may read into the passage an English meaning that does not quite fit. For example:
   1. In John 3:16 we read, "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life." The word so is often understood to mean sooo much, but this is not the real meaning. The Greek term means "in this way." Paraphrasing, "For God loved the world in this way, that He gave His only begotten Son…" It is true that God does love us sooo much, but John 3:16 does not expound that truth, John 3:16 describes the way or the manner in which He loved the world.
      The same word is used in John 5:21 "For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son also gives life to whom He wishes" This passage does not describe how much life the Son gives, but the way or manner in which he gives life...the same way as the Father.
   2. Another example
2. Technical Fallacy - This fallacy results from reading your doctrinal understanding in technical terms into a particular word. For instance:
   1. Sanctification is a theological term that describes the continued moral cleansing that takes place in a Christian over his life. But this is not, often, the way scripture uses the term. 1 Cor 7:14 states that, "the unbelieving husband is sanctified through his wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified through her believing husband." This is not another way of salvation, sanctification is being used here in a different way, namely, a setting apart.
   2. In John 2:23 we have another example of a passage that is liable to misunderstanding because we are reading in a theological definition of a term. It reads, "Now when He was in Jerusalem at the Passover, during the feast, many believed in His name, observing His signs which He was doing." We usually understand the term "believed" to mean a trusting in the substitutionary work of Christ for the forgiveness of our sins. However, reading on a bit it does not seem that this is the correct definition for this context. Rather what is in view here seems to be an intellectual belief that Jesus is from God, but it lacks the personal trust in Him that we normally associate with the word "believe."
3. Root Fallacy - This fallacy is a favorite of pastors. The guilty party in this scenario will read the root, or the original meaning of a term into its biblical occurrence. In English, the word "nice" comes from the Latin nescius meaning "ignorant." Yet this is not at all the meaning we have in mind today when we refer to someone as "nice." Another example is the word "cute." It originally meant bow-legged. So again, the root meaning is vastly different from the modern usage of that term. We encounter the same problem in Greek.
   1. In John 3:16 we read that God gave "His only begotten Son." Although there are two words in English, the phrase "only begotten" is actually just one Greek word - monogenes. It comes from the word mono meaning single, or alone, and from the word genao which means "I bear or beget." The Jehovah Witnesses will try to capitalize on this to prove that Jesus is not God. If he was begotten, if he was born at some point in time, then he is not eternal, and therefore not God. But a better understanding of that term is the unique Son. He is one of a kind. This is clear from Heb 17:11 where Isaac is referred to as Abraham's only begotten son, when in fact Isaac was Abraham's second son.
   2. Another example of this is the word apostolos (apostle) which is related to the verb apastoleo which means "I send." In some sense apostles are "sent ones," but there is a much deeper meaning of this term than simply "one who is sent." I may send my dog to get the paper, but it would be incorrect to identify my dog as an apostle in the biblical sense. An apostle in the biblical sense is one who has been commissioned from God, who act as authoritative spokesperson's of God. In fact it is the highest office that God ever gave to the church.
4. Semantic Anachronism - In this case, the meaning of a modern word is read back into the biblical occurance. For instance:
   1. Rom 1:16 says, "I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes." The Greek word for power is dunamis, this is where we get our English word dynamite. Of course, Paul had no idea what dynamite was, and that was not the picture he had in his head when he used the term dunamis.
   2. Another example is found in 1 Cor 9:7 where we are told that, "God loves a cheerful giver." The term "cheerful" comes from the Greek word hilaron which is where we get our English word "hilarious." It would be a mistake to infer from this that tithing should cause us to break out in boisterous laughter. The NAS translates this term quite accurately as "cheerful."
5. Overload Fallacy - This is where we read into a word any or all of its possible meanings. This is where we really need to let the context rule. We are not free to look up all the possible meanings of a word, and pick from that list the one we like the most. Rather, the context will determine which of those possible definitions is, in fact, the correct one.