Why Your Pastor Should be a Greek Geek!
A few years ago I was speaking with a fellow pastor who, like me, is also a licensed lawyer (hey, some of us want to make sure we have a special place in eternity no matter where we end up!). He told me that he had all but given up on adding seminary graduates to his staff. He complained that they did not know Scripture, had poor theology and little or no knowledge of Greek and Hebrew. He looked at me and said, “Matt, could you imagine an attorney who didn’t know basic civil procedure? Didn't know the rules of evidence? That’s malpractice!” What he was saying was that ministers who don’t know the basics like Greek and Hebrew are committing theological malpractice!
Call me a snob, but I think he is absolutely correct. In fact, the primary reason I am earning a PhD in New Testament is to become a better preacher and teacher of God’s Word.
How valuable are Greek and Hebrew to the ministry? In the 4th edition of Basics of Biblical Greek, New Testament scholar William D. Mounce quotes professor Craig Blomberg addressing 1 Corinthians 5:5 (I apologize that I haven’t figured out how to add a decent Greek and Hebrew font to the blog yet):
“Hand this man over to Satan, so that the sinful nature may be destroyed and his spirit saved on the day of the Lord” (1 Cor 5:5, NIV). So reads Paul’s command to the Christians about the man who was having an affair with his stepmother. The NIV margin notes that “sinful nature” (literally, “flesh”) could also be translated “body.” Commentators are divided as to whether Paul envisions simple excommunication or actual death here, though the former seems more probable. But either way, this command seems harsh by modern standards, particularly in the majority of our congregations that exercise little or no formal church discipline of any kind.
An understanding of the preposition eijV can shed some light on this verse. The NIV reads as if there were two equally balanced purposes behind Paul’s command: one punitive and one remedial. But the Greek prefaces the first with an eijV and the second with the conjunction i{na. eijV can denote either result or purpose; i{na far more commonly denotes purpose. Paul’s change of language is likely deliberate to point out that his purpose in discipline is entirely rehabilitative, even if one of the results of his action is temporary exclusion and ostracism of the persistently rebellious sinner. Or in Gordon Fee’s words, “What the grammar suggests, then, is that the ‘destruction of the flesh’ is the anticipated result of the man’s being put back out into Satan’s domain, while the express purpose of the action is his redemption.”
Not every scholar agrees with this interpretation. But being able to read only a translation like the NIV would never alert us to this as an option. Growing exposure to the Greek of the New Testament brings us into frequent contact with numerous prepositions and other connective words that are often left untranslated in English versions, for the sake of literary style and fluency. But in reading only the English, we may miss altogether the originally intended relationship between sentences and clauses, and we may import motives to writers they never held. Whatever the final solution to 1 Cor 5:5 turns out to be, it is certainly true that in every other New Testament instance of church discipline, the purpose was exclusively remedial or rehabilitative and never punitive or vengeful. “The Lord disciplines those he loves” (Heb 12:6), and so should we.”
I could list dozens of examples where knowing Greek and Hebrew makes a world of difference in carefully translating the Word of God. The Common English Bible and the NET Bible translate Galatians 3:22 as “faith of Jesus Christ” while the NIV, CSB and ESV render it “faith in Jesus Christ.” Which will you choose? Only a solid grasp of Greek can guide the minister.
Moreover, the RSV translates 2 Samuel 5:2 “In times past, when Saul was king over us, it was you that led out and brought in Israel; and the Lord said to you, ‘You shall be shepherd of my people Israel, and you shall be prince over Israel.” But the NIV presents the verse as, “In the past, while Saul was king over us, you were the one who led Israel on their military campaigns. And the Lord said to you, ‘You will shepherd my people Israel, and you will become their ruler.’” The difference between the two is whether God viewed David as His prince implying that God refused to give up His throne regardless of the opinions of the Israelites or did He cede the earthly throne to the shepherd warrior. How one translates the verse makes a big theological difference and only a solid understanding of Biblical Hebrew will properly inform the choice.
The only other option, and I see this WAY too much is for ministers to simply choose pastors and scholars that they like and just blindly follow them. It would be foolish to trust a surgeon or accountant who served you by watching Youtube videos on the subject and just followed the person on the screen as if they were painting by numbers.
Your church teaching team needs to be held to the same standards that we hold professionals who we trust with worldly matters. A pastor should be expected to be the church’s resident theologian with a firm grasp on apologetics, church history and Biblical scholarship including a mastery of Greek and Hebrew.
If your pastor is not a “Greek Geek,” then encourage him to become one. The church should supplement his salary with the continuing education he needs to do his job. Fortunately, companies like Logos and Zondervan offer classes that the pastor can take online. The elders of the church should insist that he take a few hours a day to learn, re-learn or continue to learn the languages in which God inspired His Holy Word. These disciplines are, after all, the very base tools for doing the job!
Tune in tomorrow for Defending the Faith at the Dinner Table.