Preaching and the Languages
I’m always interested in how the handling of the original languages of the Bible intersect with preaching the Word. What is their value? Are they a necessary part of pastor’s toolbox? Rod Decker has an excellent paper here on that very topic.
Here’s an excerpt:
Some of you may protest, but we have good translations in English, why bother with the hard work of Hebrew and Greek when we can read what it says in English? The simplest answer was well put by a Jewish poet: “reading the Bible in translation is like kissing your bride through a veil”! I doubt any of you would be satisfied with that sort of kiss! We want the real thing. So it is with the Bible. If we want the real thing, we don’t want an English veil between us and our text. Not that the Bible in translation is bad, but not everything comes through when the original texts are transformed into another language. The limitations include the simple fact that no two languages say the same thing in exactly the same way. Every time we translate we must, of necessity, both omit and add information. That might be a foreign concept to some of you— but that makes the point: if we know only our own mother tongue, we have no way to know what has necessarily been added or deleted to put the Bible’s message into English dress (5-6).
And then he addresses (starting on p. 10) whether the use of the languages is the garnish or entrée and then mellon (think Lord of the Rings) or mantra. A good discussion ensues that I think helpfully locates the use of the languages for the pastor and will challenge some pastors’s approaches to them. Here’s a gem:
And if you are preaching to average people, what does the citation of Greek words and grammatical technicalities accomplish? The people do not understand them. The only purpose they serve is to impress people with your ability, but is that a proper goal for a minister of Jesus Christ? There may be one other purpose served by “preaching Greek.” You have perhaps heard the old preacher’s adage that is too often written in the margins of sermon manuscripts, “Point weak. Shout loud!” The way some preachers use Greek might suggest that they would write in their margins (if they were honest), “Point weak. Quote Greek!” (14).
And finally:
We must spend all the time it takes in the study grappling with the text in Hebrew or Greek, wrestling with it until the walls between us and the first century become as transparent as we can make them. But then we must leave the tools in the study and expound the text in the heart language of God’s people (15).