Why Greek? What do you, Grasshopper, hope to achieve by learning New Testament Greek? I’ve posed this question a couple of times because I really would like to hear your answer.
How would you complete this sentence:
“If I knew New Testament Greek, I could…
Note: I’d especially like to hear from you if you don’t know any Greek at this time.
Additional reading: The Epistles of John (Part 26): 1 John 3:4–6, It’s All Greek to Me, Christian Seminary Language Education: It’s Pretty Sad
Previous posts in this series: Seeing Double, Letting Go
…be a better judge of all those preachers–experts after studying Greek for one year–who use Greek to prove their point. (I studied Greek for a year, and know they shouldn’t be so presumptuous.)
Pull up David whenever he makes mistakes. Is there any other reason?
Hey! Wait a minute…
I don’t know a lot of Greek (actually, it’s more true that I forgot most of what I learned). But the thing I like most about knowing a little bit is: knowing the alphabet, so I can look up words in my Nida and Louw lexicon. I love that book, because it gives good definitions and shows connections between Greek words in the New Testament as well as differences between them.
Because learning a language is not just learning the words they use(d), but the ideas and thoughts they shared with that language, I think it would not only be valuable in studying the Greek text, but also in giving me a whole new set of thoughts and concepts to explore in my daily life.