DO 23929/86

—And Grammar Made Simple!

1. (David: Thank You Lord for this time we can have a Bible Study with Grandpa! We pray, Jesus, that You'll please bless & anoint Grandpa to give us a good Bible Study! Help us to be attentive students & to really learn from Your Word today‚ in Jesus' name, amen!) Amen! Hallelujah!

PSALM 91, VERSES 5 & 6

2. What Psalm are we studying? (David: Psalm 91!)—Right! What verse are we on? (David: 2 or 3?) We finished 2 & we finished 3, remember, about the noisome pestilence, & I think we even read verse 4 to the end, because it was the verse, "He shall cover thee with His feathers & under His wings shalt thou trust."

3. You mean God has wings & feathers? (David: We learned it's symbolic.)—Right, it's symbolic. That's very good! It's symbolic of what?—What has wings & feathers? (David: A mother hen.) More like a mama hen. Jesus Himself said, "How oft would I have gathered you as a hen gathereth her chicks, but ye would not!"—Mat.23:37. So Jesus compared Himself to a mother hen wanting to protect her kitchens—or chickens!—Ha! Mother hens usually like to protect their kitchens too, don't they? Ha! Our 'mama hens' are human mamas. But anyhow, it's comparing the Lord to a bird who tries to protect her little birdies.

4. And "His Truth shall be thy shield & buckler." I think we even finished that verse, didn't we? A shield is what?—It's a big round metal piece. In one house we lived in there were a whole bunch of shields hanging on the wall, remember? (Techi: And I know what a buckler is!) Okay, tell me! (Techi: It's a little shield that you wear around your wrist.) You buckle it around your wrist like a wrist watch so you can use it quickly. They used to carry the big shield on their left arm‚ & then would buckle this little shield around this wrist here & carry their sword in this hand. They used the big one to protect their body & then could catch any little thrust of the other guy's sword or spear with this little buckler, & that was very handy.

5. So Who's our shield & buckler? (Techi: Jesus!) That's right! And it says, "His Truth shall be thy shield & buckler." How can Truth protect you? (David: Truth protects you from the lies of the Enemy.)—Exactly! It protects you from the sword thrusts & the fiery darts & the lies & the delusions of the Enemy! They get caught on the Shield of Faith & the Buckler of Truth! PTL!

6. (Verse 5:) "Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night." What's a terror by night? Have you ever had any terrors in your night?—Grandpa has & so have you! (David: Bad dreams.) What do we call those? (Techi: Nightmares!) I don't know why they call them "night mares," because a mare is a female horse! (David: Night horses!) I don't know why they call them that! (David: Is that the word in the dictionary?) They don't say "night stallions," they say "night mares"! Well, maybe if we had a big dictionary it would explain where it came from. Those great big huge dictionaries can tell you where the roots of the words came from & what they mean. It'd be nice if we could get one of those big dictionaries, Mama. (David: We have a Funk & Wagnalls. It's this thick!) But that's an encyclopedia, that's different.

GRAMMAR MADE SIMPLE!

7. What's the difference between an encyclopedia & a dictionary? Let's see what's similar about them. They all have words in them, & they all have words listed in alphabetical order. (Techi: A dictionary has the meaning of the word, & I think an encyclopedia has where the word came from, but I don't really know.) An encyclopedia is a book of information on all subjects‚ while a dictionary simply lists words & their meanings.

8. A dictionary contains all kinds of words that you use in your language‚ like normal nouns. And now notice this, not proper nouns, not names of people & places & things like that, there are too many of those for a dictionary. But it just uses the normal nouns of ordinary things in your life, & it contains verbs. What is a noun? (David: It's like an animal, like the names of things.)—Persons, places or things. But actually it doesn't give the proper names of specific people or places or things, it just gives general names.

9. And verbs are what? (David: Action words‚ like running, walking‚ sleeping!)—Yes! Anything that you do! Then also in conjunction with nouns, there are pronouns. What is a pronoun? (Techi: It takes the place of a noun.) Exactly right! "Pro" means "for," so a pronoun is a word you use for a noun. Give me some examples. (David: Like if you said, "David is going to the garden shed," you could say‚ "I am going to the garden shed.") That's right, you could say "I" instead of "David." (Techi: That's what I was going to say!) It's a word you use instead of your name or somebody else's name or even a place or a thing.—"It," "they," "them," "I," "you," "me," "he‚" "him," "she," "her," all those are pronouns.

10. So we've got nouns, pronouns, verbs & there are also adverbs. What is an adverb?—Just what it says! (David: Add a verb!) It's something you add to a verb! It describes the action. (Maria: They never told me that in school! If they'd told me that I could have remembered it a lot better!) (Fam: You gave us an English course in five minutes‚ it's so easy!) Well, it's plain as day! An adverb is something you add to a verb to describe the action! "Run" is a verb‚ right? Can you add a word to that to describe how you run? (David: Fast!)—Fast, exactly right, "I ran fast!" How about sleep, can you even add a verb to that? (David: Slept soundly.)—Slept soundly, exactly right!

11. So there you have adverbs, something that describes action! You may say, "Well, sleep is not action!" Well, it's kind of an action, its inaction, it's what you're doing, you're sleeping, right? (David: An adjective is describing anything, like the wall is brown or big.)—Exactly! An adjective is something you add to the subject. The subject is what? (David: What you're talking about!)—Yes, a person‚ place or thing‚ the actual subject of your sentence‚ it's what you're talking about. So the subject always has to be a noun or a pronoun because it's the one who is doing the action, it is the one who is involved in the thing.

12. They've sort of abbreviated it & instead of saying "adding to your subject," they just say "adjective." (Maria: Too bad they didn't explain it to us that way! It's so simple! You see, Grandpa simplifies everything. It took us years & years to tell the difference between adjectives & adverbs!) I had to! I was teaching a bunch of dumb Junior High students who hadn't gotten anything out of Grade School. This was their first year in Junior High School & I had to make everything simple, & that was part of it!

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