Paragraph 6:28–31
In the previous paragraph Jesus claimed that God approved of him. Now the people who were listening asked Jesus what they could do to do the works of God. Jesus told them to believe in him. The people then asked what miraculous sign he would show them.
6:28
Then: This new paragraph connects to the previous paragraph with a conjunction that indicates a result. It is often translated as “therefore.” The Berean Standard Bible translates it as Then. The question that follows was a response to what Jesus had just said.
Here are other ways to translate this word:
So (Good News Translation)
-or-
Therefore (New American Standard Bible)
they inquired: The quotation that follows is a question. So it may be natural to indicate that here. For example:
they asked him (Good News Translation)
If you started a new paragraph here, it may be natural to make it explicit that they refers to the people. For example:
the people asked
What must we do to perform the works of God?: The Greek phrase that the Berean Standard Bible has translated literally as perform the works of God here refers to doing what pleases God.
Here are other ways to translate this question:
What can we do in order to do what God wants us to do? (Good News Translation)
-or-
What are the things God wants us to do? (New Century Version)
-or-
We want to perform God’s works too. What should we do? (New Living Translation (2004))
-or-
What exactly does God want us to do? (Contemporary English Version)
we: The pronoun we is exclusive in this context. It does not include Jesus. The speakers understood that God already approved of him (6:27d).
perform: The Greek word that the Berean Standard Bible translates as perform means “to work” or “to do.”
the works of God: This phrase refers to the deeds that God wants people to do (not to the deeds that God does). In some languages it may be necessary to translate this noun phrase using a verb phrase. For example:
what God wants us to do (Good News Translation)
© 2020 by SIL International®
Made available under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License (CC BY-SA) creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0.
All Scripture quotations in this publication, unless otherwise indicated, are from The Holy Bible, Berean Standard Bible.
BSB is produced in cooperation with Bible Hub, Discovery Bible, OpenBible.com, and the Berean Bible Translation Committee.