At Tennent, we are passionate about helping believers connect the dots between theology and doxology (worship), between the intricacies of biblical study and the feet-on-the-pavement way we live out our faith. Can you find connections between Leviticus and, say, youth ministry? Between Moses and missions? If you would like to learn more about integrating your understanding of the Bible with your personal worship or your ongoing ministry, check out Tennent’s philosophy of education. We would love to help you worship God with all of your heart and soul, mind and strength.
There are few experiences in life as humbling as learning another language. I vividly remember my first bid to teach the Bible in Portuguese to two children on the steps of a Brazilian orphanage. Emboldened by my burgeoning proficiency in the language, a notion inflated by the exaggerated praise of my tutor, I attempted to recount the simple story of David and Goliath. It was painful. Painful for those two unfortunate boys who had forsaken twenty coveted minutes of video games to sit through it. Painful for me to realize that my retelling of this epic story had elicited only one question from them—“what language have you been speaking?” Such is the discouragement that most of us face when venturing outside of our native tongue.
So, when faced with the challenge of learning Biblical Greek, it’s valid to question why we would subject ourselves to this type of discouragement when others have already done the work of translation. After all, isn’t it a lot of effort for relatively little gain? What blessings—what joy-enhancing benefits could possibly allure us to this discipline? As a student of the language, I would name two—a more profound appreciation for God’s word and a more intense delight in His worth. And there are at least four ways that the study of Koine Greek secures these mercies.
1. It honors God’s chosen and efficacious means of revelation. In accordance with the orthodox view of the verbal, plenary inspiration of the Scriptures, the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy affirms that “Scripture and all its parts, down to the very words of the original, were given by divine inspiration.” The perfection of God’s word is rooted in His superintendence over it, His intimate involvement with every element down to word choice. Jeremiah 1:9 states this idea succinctly when God declares to the prophet, “Behold, I have put my words in your mouth [emphasis added].” This means that, through the Scriptures, God has spoken for Himself. The Truth has expressed Himself in His own words. That’s what makes seeking to understand these words as they were given so compelling. Reading the text in the original language represents a sacrifice that displays our deference to the authority of His words and our delight in His glorious revelation. In the end, this sacrifice is a spiritual act of worship.
2. It heightens our sensitivities to more subtle beauties. The phrase lost in translation exists because this process is never simply a word-for-word exchange. No, there’s an art to it, an art that seeks to create a bridge of meaning and understanding from the rubble of Babel’s tower. But, similar to Old Testament sacrifices, translation is a violent process. For as ideas cross linguistic borders, they suffer numerous adjustments and adaptations to fit their new context. These adjustments and adaptations inevitably obscure elements easily identifiable in the native language. Wordplay, alliteration, assonance, and other literary devices that bring clarity or enhance retention are among translation’s victims. Through the study of Koine Greek, these victims are resurrected. We recover the significance of Paul’s wordplay on προνεῖν (to think) in Romans 12:3. We recapture the proper emphasis of the imperfected filling of the Spirit referenced in Ephesians 5:18 through a right understanding of verbal aspect. We repossess the certainty of God’s covenant-keeping promises through the five negatives in Hebrews 13:5. The beauty of these verses veiled through translation shines forth in glorious radiance once again.
3. It makes us chew our spiritual food. If pastors were as determined as mothers to exhort those in their care to chew their food, God’s children wouldn’t be so spiritually malnourished. What I’m driving at is that many of us consume the Bible in the same way we inhale fast food french fries. There is no savoring, no relishing, no tasting and delighting. There’s just speed and mechanics. But there is immense spiritual benefit to slowing our pace when reading God’s word. Studying the text through the lens of the original language gives us no other choice. It obliges us to sit with a word, to mine for its meaning by considering its semantical range. It forces us to employ other tools like lexica, grammars, and commentaries to unpack its grammatical elements. It compels us to analyze the relationship between clauses or to distinguish between sentence structures. In short, it makes us chew our spiritual food and allows us to truly savor every bite.
4. It puts us on the path of the saints of old. The study of Biblical languages is neither a novel pursuit nor a passing fancy. Instead, it is a tried-and-true discipline, a mark of Biblical discipleship embraced by heroes of the faith throughout the history of the church. Such study puts us in the good company of Jerome, Augustine, Luther, Calvin, Wesley, Edwards and Spurgeon—all saints that were well-versed in Biblical Greek. Their devotion and understanding attest to the sanctifying value of this endeavor. To draw on their influence as a final appeal for the study of original languages, I leave you with the words of Charles Spurgeon, who offered this poignant recommendation: “A man to comment well should be able to read the Bible in the original. Every minister should aim at a tolerable proficiency both in the Hebrew and the Greek. These two languages will give him a library at a small expense, an inexhaustible thesaurus, a mine of spiritual wealth.” Let us be men and women equipped to comment well.
Jeremy Conrad serves as the Associate Executive Director of the Calvary Family of Churches, a family of churches committed to making Jesus non-ignorable. His passion is to make joyful disciples of Jesus, and he’s had the privilege of doing so among at-risk youth in inner city Atlanta, in the orphanages and slums of Rio de Janeiro, and among the homeless in Denver. He’s also served as a pastor/elder at different churches, most recently at Calvary Wellspring.