http://feeds.thecripplegate.com/~r/TheCripplegate/~3/LcL7GQF4fkw/
When a healthy 70-year-old man is bedridden for ten days, he can lose up to 10% of lean muscle mass in his legs, according to Dr D. P. Jones of the University of Texas. Likewise, if you don’t use a learned language at all, or if you rely too heavily on tools like software, your fluency will atrophy like unused muscle. That is what we looked into last week. Next week I will supply some strategies for regaining reading fluency of Greek.
Today I want to clarify what we are trying to do. We need to understand the difference between reading Greek, and translating Greek.
These are two distinct skills, and each has its place. You will need to adjust your approach at retention, based on which of these skills you are aiming to improve.
Translating Greek refers to the ability to render a Greek word, phrase, or sentence into a suitable English equivalent. Now, of course, you can just skip this step by reading your English Bible, which people a lot better at translation than you will ever be, already did.
But for preachers digging for exegetical insights or nuances in the Greek, translating the passage yourself is the way to go. Or at the very least looking at the Greek words one at a time with your helps, to get a feel for what is lying beneath the veil of translation.
Greek words are made of parts, for example, the lexical stem (which is the definition of the word given in a lexicon), the augment (an added vowel on/near the front of some verb forms that indicates something about which English tense to use in the rendering), and the ending, which are letters on the end of the stem that signal the case (nominative/accusative, etc.) gender (masculine/feminine/neuter), the number (singular/plural), etc.
So, to translate a sentence from Greek to English you need to be able to figure out (“parse”) what’s going on in the words, OR… you can consult a tool to parse it for you. The most helpful “helps” are interlinear Bibles (that put an English gloss above the Greek word), analytical Greek texts (that list the parsing), and Bible software, like Logos, BibleWorks, or Accordance, which allow the user to float a mouse pointer over the Greek word and have the parts and gloss supplied.
I put “helps” in quotes because they certainly do “help” with translation… but they do not help you to improve your reading skills. That is why you need to know the difference between translating and reading—so you know which skill you want to improve.
Reading is the ability to look at the letters, words, phrases, and sentences of the New Testament, and recognize enough of what is going on with the forms so that you know what is being communicated without help. Reading is not analyzing, it is grasping the sense of the letter, the story, the poem, or prophecy without the help of English. A good reader of Greek is literally thinking in Greek as they read, even if they don’t know every word’s meaning or its exact form.
Think of it this way. If you know no Afrikaans (a dialect of Dutch spoken only in South Africa), and I type a paragraph of this blog post in Afrikaans, and you wanted to know what it said, you could use Google translate to tell you, and you would have a pretty good idea of what I said. You would be trusting entirely on the software. Or you could look up every word, one at a time, in an Afrikaans-English dictionary. And yes, you could figure out what I was saying, especially if you had had a semester or two of Afrikaans studies, so you would understand the changes you see that are different from the dictionary entry.
But that’s not reading Afrikaans. That’s translating.
If you want to try that, here is a sample:
Want so lief het God die wêreld gehad, dat Hy sy eniggebore Seun gegee het, sodat elkeen wat in Hom glo, nie verlore mag gaan nie, maar die ewige lewe kan hê.
Translating would feel like this…
Want (Because) so (thus) lief (love) het (have) God (God) die (the) wêreld (world) gehad (had), dat (that) Hy (He) sy (his) eniggebore (only-born) Seun (Son) gegee (gave) het (did), sodat (so that) elkeen (each one) wat (that) in (in) Hom (Him) glo (believe), nie (not) verlore (lost) mag (may) gaan (go) nie (not), maar (but) die (the) ewige (eternal) lewe (life) kan (can) hê (have).
Pretty cool, huh?
You can understand that a word at a time. But a fluent reader of Afrikaans would have a different experience taking it all in as it flows into their understanding, and they would have a different appreciation for how powerfully and beautifully it is being said.
Translating is not immoral.
If you took Greek in seminary, and then, after five years of using software and an interlinear, you can translate the passage you are preaching on into English a word at a time (or just compare it carefully to the ESV, NASB, LSB or another more literal translation), then that’s great—if that’s your goal.
However, if your goal is to read Greek, to think in Greek as it streams into your consciousness, then you will need some strategies to help you acquire that reading fluency.
And for some suggested strategies, sien julle hier weer volgende week! (see y’all back here next week!)
-
Strategies for Reading Greek, Retention Pt 3
By Clint Archer
Translating Greek to English is not the same as reading Greek. We covered that last week.
Today I want to suggest some practical strategies for improving fluency of reading Greek. I gleaned most of this from an inspiring and helpful break-out session offered at the Greek for Life Conference in Louisville, Kentucky last month. These insights were offered by the energetic, knowledgeable, and delightfully candid Southern Baptist Theological Seminary professor, Dr Brian Vickers. At times it wasn’t clear if he was tailoring his advice for language students or cyclists training for the Tour de France. But these strategies obviously work for any grueling endurance endeavor.
Fernando’s Secret.
Dr Vickers told us about a former student of his, who we’ll call Fernando. This young man came to seminary with absolutely no knowledge of Greek, but as soon as he learned the alphabet he began to read, and read, and read. At first he recognized nothing but common conjunctions and words that sounded like their English cognates (kardia sounds like “cardiac” and means “heart”). As his Greek classes started filling in the blanks with vocabulary lists, lessons on grammar and syntax, and explanations of morphology, Fernando’s base was solid and his fluency accelerated. Before the end of formal Greek training at the MDiv level, he could read Greek significantly more fluently with higher comprehension, than any Greek PhD candidate. His secret? He just read Greek. All. The. Time.
Vickers was clear that the strategies that follow don’t work if this is all you do. But he avers that to become proficient in reading and thinking in Greek, you need to be doing at least this. It is the base, the foundation on which all your vocabulary and grammar studies will stand. I realized as he was talking that this is what I had neglected in my studies. I had memorized for the quiz and exam, the paradigms, vocabulary, and rules of translation. But I wasn’t reading Greek; I was analyzing it. And that was enough for years. But now I want to read, think, and enjoy New Testament Greek. If that describes you, read on…
Assess the Damage.
Start with an honest assessment of where you need to begin. Do you need to relearn the alphabet (quick test, what letter comes before and after Xi?).
How many minutes of Greek did you read this past day, week, and month? If you did that for the next twelve months, how would your skill improve? My honest answer was that the amount I was reading daily and weekly was not enough to produce improvement, no matter how long I did it. I needed more volume.
When he qualified that “reading” doesn’t count if you’re using helps or doing it for sermon preparation, my number fell to zero. For someone who wants to read the Bible for enjoyment and devotion, I realized I had been doing nothing to attain that goal.
Resist Buying an App.
Vickers showed us a picture of an Olympic cyclist with medal, and another picture of him as a teenager, with his first bike. It had no tires. But he rode it everywhere. He did what he could with what he had at the time. Most Greek students will spend time on Amazon and the app store looking for the perfect new grammar book, laminated paradigm charts, flashcards, learning apps. It is a black hole of futility this early in the process. Use what you have. All you need for the first month is a Greek New Testament. If you have Machen on your shelf, that’ll do. If you have a coffee-stained, Dana & Mantey… that’ll do! Just start reading.
Build a base.
The point of this is to build a habit on which to add other studies. Vickers swears that if you start with seven minutes a day, five days a week, for a month, you will experience success. Why seven? Because it’s not ten, but it’s also not only five. In other words, it’s enough to get a chunk done, but not that much that you will be tempted to skip a day.
7 minutes x 5 days = 35 minutes a week. That’s nearly two and a half hours a month, which is a zillion times more than I was doing before.
What counts as reading? Just mouthing the sounds (preferably aloud, unless you have to do it on the subway or in your cubicle at work), and not stopping to look up anything. Just read. You are hardwiring a sense of the syntax, the sounds, the cadence, the structure of the language. You might not understand 80% of what you are reading, but your brain is learning something. The scaffolding is going up. Just trust the process.
Be Consistent.
Show up. Just do your seven minutes every day for a month and see what happens. Don’t break the habit before it begins. Pick a regular time and place, set a timer on your phone, put it on airplane mode, and start reading until it tells you you’re done.
Add work.
After your seven minutes is done, and those unfamiliar vocab words or verb forms are driving you nuts, now is the time to add study. It’s optional. The base is non-negotiable. It’s a duty. But the extra work will be a delight now, not a chore. It will feel so satisfying to look up a word and when you read the same verses tomorrow you will know more and more and you will want to read more and more. That is why I read the same passage each day. As I read faster I get more verses in. Every few days I change to a new passage by a different writer, so I get a feel for the different styles.
When your base is solid, you can start to increase the time incrementally. So instead of seven minutes, spend nine, and then fifteen, and shoot eventually for a half-hour a day or more. Just take it slow. Or spend more time looking up words after your seven minutes. Just don’t stop the bare minimum of seven.
Add to your plan the memorization of a verb paradigm, maybe one a month to start. You will start to see the endings and augments all over the place. When it’s stuck in your mind, add another.
Be patient.
You are not translating yet, you are first learning to read. Comprehension will come. Remember “Fun with Dick and Jane”? Slow, faltering, leads to fluency over time. Measure your progress over long periods of time; months not days. Six months from now you will compare your first week of stuttering incoherence with less than 10% comprehension, to an unprecedented rapidity of recognition, improved pronunciation, dexterity with accented emphasis, and noticeable growth in reading comprehension.
Be merciful.
It’s okay to skip a day or two. No need for self-flagellation. If you get down about missing a day, you may resign your efforts. You will not lose what you’ve gained in 48 hours. But get back on the horse as quickly as you can, lest it leave you in the dust. Again.
-
It’s All Greek to Me: Language Retention, Pt 1
http://feeds.thecripplegate.com/~r/TheCripplegate/~3/nTybZemVAAE/
-
No, Jesus would not require vaccine passports
Samuel Sey tweeted something recently that came as a shock for many christians. A church in Canada is going to reopen next month (after being closed since covid began) but with a twist, they will be requiring a vaccine passport for people to come in the doors.
The writer of the article, who is the pastor of the church, said that if Jesus been alive today, he would have done the same.
After appealing to science for his decision, the pastor made a shift into theology. He said Jesus would agree with him.
Theologically, the argument is stronger. To be a Christian is to model one’s life after Christ. Jesus always put others first. He gave up his individual rights for the common good and sacrificed for the sake of the weak. He loved others as he loved himself and would have surely done anything to best protect the unvaccinated children in his neighbourhood. A Christian ethic always puts the vulnerable first.
Not only is this argument not strong it is actually quite foolish.
Jesus consistently exposed himself to sick people. People with Leprosy (Matt. 8:2), fevers (Luke 8:38-40), blood discharges (Luke 8:43), demons (Matt. 5:1), and even dead people (Mark 5:21, Luke 8:40) were constantly approached by Jesus without regard for his own safety.
He could have healed everyone he came in contact with yet he didn’t. There were times where he chose not to heal people who needed it. (Mark 6:5) In fact, Jesus could remove not only Covid from this world in a split second, but all pain and suffering whenever he wants. But doesn’t.
Jesus’s mission was not to eradicate suffering in this world, but it was to suffer himself for the sake of the elect. (Heb. 2:9-10) He was willing to die for the sake of the lost! And He expected his disciples to follow suit! (John 15:20)
The only reason you might require proof of vaccines for entrance to a church service is because you have lost sight of the cost of discipleship and are controlled by the fear of death.
You should be willing to die for people to hear the gospel.
Jesus said very clearly that we should be willing to suffer and even die for His sake. (Matt. 10:38, Matt. 24:9)
Paul said that for the sake of his people, Israel, he would be willing to be accursed in their place, if it meant that they would get to go to Heaven. (Rom. 9:3) And Paul believed in a literal eternal hell.
Every follower of Christ should be willing to suffer and die for the sake of expending our energy and our whole entire lives for the lost.
It is for this reason that it is shocking that there are churches that are forbidding people from coming to church. I know that this is a hot topic and that many people are sensitive about this. I am not against being careful and using wisdom, after all unlike Jesus, we don’t have the ability to heal people. But under no circumstance are we allowed to turn away people from hearing the Gospel and gathering with the saints.
We should be begging people to come, not banning them!
We truly need to pray for pastors around the world. These situations are not easy to navigate. We need to pray for churches to not be afraid.
We need to pray that elders who are afraid of dying, would remember their high calling and either repent or resign.
Sadly too many shepherds right now, instead of fighting away the enemy of their sheep, are dropping their staffs and running away, afraid to die.
If you should be willing to be speared in the chest to bring the Gospel to a tribe in Equador, you should be willing to be exposed to a respiratory disease that you have more than a 99% chance to survive.
This is not to minimize the fact that this virus does harm some people in a significant way, but it is to say that if the fear of death is driving you to make your decisions then you are not being a faithful shepherd.
We need to pray for much wisdom from the Lord. Obviously we don’t want to have a martyr complex where we expose ourselves and those around us to unecessary risks, but we must, if we desire to follow our Lord’s example, be willing to expend ourselves for the Lord.
I can’t help but think of Peter who was told by Christ that he would die on a cross, (John 21:19) yet boldly declared Gospel, each and every time he had the opportunity, without compromise or concern for his own body.
By all means get vaccinated if you want, protect yourself as best you can, but never forbid people from hearing the good news. Elders, (and really every member of the church) go and preach boldly the word of God, leaving your life in God’s hands.
