The ESV Bible Blog links to a post that proposes we should teach Greek to everyone.
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6 Comments
I am completely in favor of that!
I regret dropping out of your class in 10th grade. It may not have been practical, but it surely would’ve been beneficial.
Now, just to get Joint Heirs to consider presenting this course…
Uh, I didn’t mean that Joint Heirs doesn’t teach great things already — always good stuff! Sorry if that sounded unclear.
Hmm, that could do one of two things…
1) Create an army of well-educated gung-ho Christians who have a full understanding of the importance, accuracy, and historical legacy of God’s Word. All sorts of heresy are defeated as these new students look to the scriptural and cultural contexts for meaning rather than the modern English vocab. or 2) Create an army of well-educated gung-ho Christians who are now certain that they can translate God’s Word way better than their ESV/NASB/NKJV/etc. could ever do. New heresies abound as these new students look to the meaning of a single word in 1st Corinthians as the basis of their new and “enlightened” faith.
Wait a second… we already have both of those. I suppose what it really comes down to is that to those walking in the Spirit, all education about the Scriptures is beneficial. To those without His Spirit, all education about the Scriptures allows you to dig yourself deeper. In any case, I’m very much in favor of me being taught more Greek. ;) hint hint, nudge nudge, nod’s as good as a wink to a blind bat, say no more
The great thing about doing this is that it only takes a little bit of understanding of the language to open up so much in terms of resources and deeper study.
Katie, your enthusiasm was clear. No sound of criticism came through.
Trinian, of course it was the Catholic church who determined that people were not capable of understanding God’s Word on their own, so better to keep it from their ignorant hands. But I agree that some will use their Sword for good fights and others to cause bad ones.
Mijah, there does seem to be a fine line between “a little bit of understanding of the language to open up so much” and “knowing just enough to be dangerous.” But I am excited for you and your Greekage!
An accurate rebuke to such a leaning. The concept correct in the sense that we are not capable of understanding God’s Word on our own - but fails miserably when we start down the road to imagining that we can pronounce the distinction between the two groups and that our own instruction is the means by which “ordinary” people can properly consume the text of Scripture, rather than the Spirit of God. Being a teacher, does this line of thinking become more tempting or less?
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[…] The ESV Bible blog found my post and put it on their own site. I like the ESV but this was not something I expected, to be read and quoted by ESV.org. But the site did put me on their. Well because of that, two more sites have picked up the post: Two Tack Thoughts and tohu va bohu. Not to mention two more authors have commented on my post as well. In all reality, I was never really prepared for this to happen to me particularly. I knew it happened all of the time and in part I was hoping to have some readership. I am just amazed how quickly this happened. I am excited by it and hope that I can keep generating ideas that will catch people’s attention and cause them to think here at “Think Wink.” […]