Thanks for writing this post. I think your concerns are certainly valid; I share your distaste for some preacher’s misuse of their limited Greek knowledge.

My Greek professor at seminary highly suggested that we refrain from mentioning anything of the original languages, especially with regards to verb/tense forms. We ought to be able to preach, make the sermon’s point, to communicate in such a way that the lay person can be assured of the clarity of God’s Word.

Pastor’s certainly should keep abreast in biblical scholarship, especially concerning the biblical languages. Amen to that.

(Con is preaching for us at our Gospel for the Gong Good Friday afternoon rally. It’s a public holiday in Australia, so after our own church services in the morning, a number of reformed evangelical churches and ministries are getting together in the afternoon!)

Con Campbell also has a book about verbal aspect pitched at the introductory level called, Basics of Verbal Aspect in Biblical Greek published by Zondervan. What I find helpful about this book on the introductory level is that it introduces the major players (Porter, McKay, Campbell, Fanning) and their views – where they differ, but most importantly, where they agree. I disagree with his incorporation of Aktionsart (‘kind of action’) as a useful pragmatic category but my whole point in the blog was in keeping up with at least where they all agree.

For a helpful summary of Porter’s view there are two excellent resources. Andy Naselli has written an introduction to verbal aspect in the DBSJ: http://andynaselli.com/wp-content/uploads/2007_verbal_aspect.pdf?9d7bd4
Rod Decker has also written a summary of Porter’s main monograph in verbal aspect: http://ntresources.com/documents/porter.pdf

Actually I’m going to put these in a main blog post. Thanks for asking the question. I hope these resources help.