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The Profit of Employing the Languages

A new Themelios journal has just been released. The issue contains an article by Jason DeRouchie entitled, “The Profit of Employing the Biblical Languages: Scriptural and Historical Reflections.”

He asks why the church needs some in it who can skillfully handle the biblical languages and gives 4 reasons:

  1. Using the biblical languages exalts Jesus by affirming God’s wisdom in giving us his Word in a book (God’s Word as foundation).
  2. Using the biblical languages gives us greater certainty that we have grasped the meaning of God’s Book (studying God’s Word).
  3. Using the biblical languages can assist in developing Christian maturity that validates our witness in the world (practicing God’s Word).
  4. Using the biblical languages enables a fresh and bold expression and defense of the truth in preaching and teaching (teaching God’s Word).

Reading Linguistics and Greek Grammar (in Light of Cancer)

The subtitle here is important since without it this would be a fairly easy post.

The reason I’m studying what I’m studying (biblical studies/New Testament with especial focus in Greek and linguistics – and I mean informally right now) is simple: because I feel called of God to study and teach the Word and these items I’m especially passionate about. That’s an easy question for me. Why these disciplines are important can be highlighted another time.

But the subtitle adds something I haven’t yet brought up on this blog. I have cancer.

On December 23, 2011 (yes, the Friday before Christmas), I was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia. How close to death I was, only God knows (but likely a few weeks). The chemotherapy started two days after Christmas and managed to put me into remission by the end of January (less than 5% leukemic cells in my bone marrow) and I remain in remission right now, going through cycles of chemotherapy while I await a match for a stem-cell transplant. The day to day is currently easier than it was in January, but it still has its challenges. The doctors are treating me with the intention of curing me.

I have had outlets for talking about what I’m going through. I mainly used Facebook to share the gospel through my illness in late December and onward. I purposely decided to start the blog without mentioning it at first and the reason for the blog was to exercise my gifts in teaching since I can’t commit to teaching in the church setting at the moment when I don’t know if I’ll be in the hospital or not on any given week. I can’t really plan much more than a week to two weeks ahead; somethings I can’t plan a few days ahead. But blogging can be done from the hospital or at home, easy enough.

That’s actually preamble to what I wanted to talk about, though it gives the necessary background since most of the readers won’t have heard it yet.

So, in light of my cancer, why do I continue to read linguistics and Greek grammar books? In light of the possibility that I don’t have long to live (and I don’t know what God’s plan actually is) why am I not running the streets telling everyone about Jesus and only reading the Bible?

Well, I am reading the Bible lots (both in English and in Greek) and I’m trying to use the gift God has given me (yes, cancer has been a gift) to glorify him and share Jesus through it to as many as will listen. I have been doing that on my Facebook, through my church, and other things like TV interviews and the like. Bringing glory to God is my number one goal and purpose in this time of cancer.

But, I haven’t stopped reading linguistics and Greek grammatical material. Why not? Well if I knew I only had a few months to live I would probably at least drop the mind boggling linguistics books! But I find that even in the face of death, I want to continue to grow in my knowledge of the Word and that requires continuing to understand the language of the Word. For that reason I continue to study these disciplines and apply them to the Bible. I’ve seen my knowledge of Jesus grow immensely in this time and I want to get to know him better and better and proclaim him better to those around me. For these reasons it seems reasonable to continue reading what I’m reading. That’s not everyone’s path but I believe it is mine.

Now that I’ve broken the ice with this post, I may write a bit on how my theology of suffering prepared me for this time, how this cancer has been a gift to our family, and things like that. And in the midst of this, I want to continue to try to share what I’m learning about the Word and teach it to those who will listen, so that, in the words of the apostle John, “you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and by believing may have life in his name.”

Ten Benefits to Memorizing Scripture

Every so often I get back on a kick and want to memorize the whole New Testament. I think, “Hey, if I still have several years ahead of me [itself uncertain], it is entirely possible. And how beneficial it would be!”

The only problem is, I had these sentiments 7 years ago, 4 years ago, 2 years ago, etc. What if I had actually followed through starting 7 years ago? And will I actually follow through now?

On the one hand I shouldn’t be too hard on myself since my study in the Bible and related disciplines required for detailed study of the Bible (linguistics, biblical languages, hermeneutics, exegesis, theology, etc.) that has gone on since then has prepared me to be a better interpreter of the Bible today. But, what if the whole NT was already sitting there in my head, ready to be chewed on at any moment?

Charles Swindoll has said it well: “I know of no other single practice in the Christian life more rewarding, practically speaking, than memorizing Scripture…” (Growing Strong in the Seasons of Life [Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1994], p. 61).

But even if the whole NT seems daunting at the moment, memorizing portions cannot be a waste of time.

A few years ago I wrote up these ten benefits I was finding to memorizing scripture:

1) I’m forced to dig deeper into the wording. Memorizing a sentence requires reading it over many times and saying it over many times.

2) I’m understanding the flow of the author’s arguments much more clearly.

3) Memorizing whole chapters or books is helping me gain context for that whole chapter or book, necessary for understanding the small bits too.

4) I am getting better at cross-referencing Scripture. When I read in 1 Peter 3:1-7 about proper understanding of husbands and wives, immediately my memorization in Ephesians 5:22-33, where it discusses the same subject matter, comes to mind with which to help me interpret.

5) My language learning skills have grown immensely. I’m finding it near impossible to go into a Greek quiz or test and expect to get anything less than 100% because of straight-up memorization.

6) I’m growing more in love with God’s Word as I store it up in my heart.

7) I’m becoming better at combating heresy and I’m becoming more effective as an evangelist.

8) It is growing my thought life and ability to handle more and more difficult texts.

9) It is multiplying my devotional time by allowing me to go through Scripture in my head at any time and meditate on it.

10) And to borrow a reason from John Piper: Conformity to Christ.

There are other benefits but this will suffice for now. These goals are attainable. It just takes time to develop the good habit of sitting down and going for it every day.

John 1:9-13 – Rejecting and Receiving

Verses 6-8 talked about John the Baptist’s witness to the light and now in verse 9 the light is made the subject again. Here the text also qualifies the light as the true light. Jesus is said to be true in the sense of ‘ultimate.’ Whatever one thought of ‘light’ in the first place, this here is the true light (cf. Carson, Gospel of John, 122; Ladd, A Theology of the New Testament, 166). And this true light, which gives light to all people, was coming into the world.

In fact, verse 10 tell us that the light was in the world (this earthly realm) now bringing focus to the Word and the Light as actually in space/time history. When verses 1-5 talk about the Word it is in his relationship to God and his relationship to creation. But only here does it begin to outline that the true light actually was in the world, a historical fact that could be looked back on from the time of John’s writing. The first 5 verses could be uttered at any time post-creation.

The second clause of verse 10 reiterates what we already know: the world was made through him, but the next clause tells us that the world did not know him, that is, it did not recognize him. Verse 11 goes on to specify this world even further as his own. He came to his own and his own did not receive him. Shockingly, even though the world was made through the Word, the world collectively has not acknowledged the Word’s entrance into space/time history.

But, this isn’t the whole story. The Word would not be rejected in total. There is a group that the author can refer to as receiving the Word. And to those who did receive him, to those believing in his name, he gave the right to become children of God! Though we start out separated from God, receiving God’s divine self-disclosure (Jesus) results in being adopted into God’s own family as children. This adoption is not the result of bloodlines, it is not the result of the will of the flesh, nor the result of the will of a husband, but rather it is being born of God. And this born of God language will return in chapter 3 in an exciting exchange between Jesus and Nicodemus.

But there it is, the result of receiving Jesus is to be born of God, adopted into his very family, something greater than we can ever achieve or have simply through natural relationships. Being born into a certain family, whether Jewish or Christian or any other will not ensure you are born of God, only receiving Jesus will ensure it, something that transcends natural bonds.

Verbal Aspect Resources

I’m glad to see people were interested in the keeping up your Greek post that included discussion of Greek verbal aspect. The question of resources arose, for which I’m thankful.

For a long time it has seemed that most of the work produced has been very technical and introductory grammars have been slow to incorporate current models of verbal aspect. This may be starting to change.

So, what resources are most helpful to introduce someone with a Greek background to the subject? I hadn’t looked at Andy Naselli’s article for a while, but upon review I would consider it the best brief introduction to the subject. He also gives his recommendation for resources in this article and orders them according to how he sees it would most benefit an uninitiated reader in the subject.

Naselli, Andrew David. “A Brief Introduction to Verbal Aspect in New Testament Greek.” DBSJ 12 (2007): 17-28.

Next, you can check out Constantine Campbell’s blog series related to his introductory book on verbal aspect. I’m linking to Andy Naselli’s post since the five blog posts are neatly indexed there.

Con Campbell blogs on Verbal Aspect

Last for online resources for now is Rodney J. Decker’s condensation and summary of Stanley Porter’s monograph.

Rod Decker, “The Poor Man’s Porter”

You can also see how Stanley Porter (et.al.) incorporate verbal aspect in their recent introductory Greek grammar textbook, Fundamentals of New Testament Greek. Even if you have already studied Greek at the introductory level this is an excellent resource to have.

If you look through these and trace out the bibliographic material you should be well equipped to enter the discussion.