You Too Can Study the Bible!

I have great news. You too can study the Bible. ;) Seriously, you should not feel like you are far removed from the original text. Southern has the strongest emphasis on the original languages of any of the Southern Baptist seminaries, but the professors here warn us over and over against letting our Greek and Hebrew show in our sermons. The analogy is that it is like underwear: it offers support but you do not need to show it. The reason for that is that when someone says, "This word really means," it tends to make the congregation feel that their English translations are not enough to really understand what the text is saying.

Think about it this way. These translations are written by large teams of people who have multiple PHDs in their respective languages. Unless those people have an ulterior motive (most do not) you can trust their translations to be extremely accurate.

We are warned in class that "A little Greek is more dangerous than no Greek at all." This is what we were told over and over in second semester Greek. At that point we still knew "a little Greek" even though our program is very strenuous. A large part of our instruction was what not to do with the Greek. (Here's where your pastor may apply.) Many people graduate from seminary with a couple semesters of Greek, but they are never taught to beware of bad Greek usage. A good book to read on this is D.A. Carson's Exegetical Fallacies.

You can get insights into the text from studying the original languages, that is true. I have had 6 really strenuous semesters of language so far and have four more to go, I know first hand that it is a blessing. The problem is that many preachers preach as if Greek is a magical language in which one word carries with it so much more meaning than English words. This is simply not true. Greek is a language like English, Spanish, Ugandan or any other, and you will always lose something between languages.

Here are some examples of what preachers do:

1) They will come to the word "church" in the text. They will say the word for church is "ekklesia". The word means, "Called (lesia) out ones (ekk)". Then they will preach the rest of the sermon harping on the fact that we are "called out ones."

Well, that may be true, but the word means "church" (or "congregation" or "assembly"), and that is why it is translated that way. Imagine if a person was teaching from our writings two thousand years from now. They find the word "butterfly", they would not say, "these people clearly thought that these insects were actually made of flying butter."

2) They will come to the word "power" in the text. They will say the word for power is "dynamos". "This is the word from which we get the word, 'dynomite'." Then they will preach the rest of the sermon that the gospel is the "dynamite of God."

Well, that may be true, but the word means "power" and that is why it is translated that way. It may make the sermon more exciting, but we all know that Paul was not thinking about dynamite.

3) They will come to the word "love" and say this agape means this, erros means this, and fileo means this. That might be generally true, but just like in English, the words overlap. When Amnon rapes Tamar in 2 Samuel 13, in the Greek translation of the OT that they used in Jesus time it says that Amnon loved (agape) Tamar even though he hated her as soon as he raped her.

4) They might come to "anger" in the text and look at the Strong's definition and it says, "anger, indignation, vengeance, wrath". Then they preach the rest of the sermon as if all those meanings are in the text.

This would be like looking up all the meanings of the word "run" (my nose is running, run away, run a business, run for President) and you thought that someone meant all of those things every time they said the word.

The major issues that I can think of in translation are the following: First, a word has a certain range in one language and it only overlaps to a certain extent with a similar word in another language. (So we may not realize that "justify", "righteous", and "justice" are closely related conceptually in the Greek language.) Second, it might be hard to find a word that has the same connotation as the Greek word. Third, certain things might be more easily communicated in one language than another because the languages operate differently. (For instance Jesus might say, "you" and it is plural in Greek, but we cannot tell if in English if it is supposed to mean "you" or "you all". I think he addresses Nicodemus in the plural: "you Pharisees".)

With those three issues, I think one of the big things you loose between languages is logical connections.

Sorry for that long tretise on translation; below is my advice on how to study your Bible.

How can you best interact with a specific Greek text?

1. I would get four good translations: KJV, NASB, ESV, NIV, would be four really good ones. (Literal is not always better, and the NIV is not too paraphrased. Sometimes the logical connections are more transparent in literal translations like the KJV and NASB for example, so those are helpful.)

2. Write out the verse you are looking at, or with a parrallel Bible, in the four translations.

3. Write down any places where there is a disagreement that might affect how you would understand the text (there should not be very many of these).

4. Ask your seminary friends to help you find a good commentary for use with the Greek (The NIV Application series is good, just off the top of my head, and I can get back to you about some other ones. I have a book at home that lists commentaries and their pros and cons at home. You could buy that book. It is just a small paper back.)

5. Read the commentary and find why there might be a disagreement between the translations.

How can you best read the Bible?

1. Think deep and wide. The Bible does not say that you have to read through the Bible once a year (I do not think that is the best thing to do anyway, and it causes a lot of people to give up once they get behind and then wait until next January to try again.) Read through the Bible in one or two years or whatever. Then spend a year or two focusing on individual books. Read Esther 20 times through carefully. Ready Matthew for 6 months. Maybe read a sixth of the book over and over for a month and then move on to the next section, occasionally stopping to read through all of Matthew.

2. Respond to the text. In all Paul's letters he says, here is what God has done, therefore your life should live like this. You read the Bible to understand your story, to learn what God has done, to learn who your family is, and then to respond appropriately. Read the intro to the 10 commandments, "I am the LORD thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage." The whole law is written in terms of, you have been brought into God's people therefore imitate God's character. This is all through the New Testament as well.

3. Cross reference. Many translations come with cross references placed their by the translators. It is amazing sometimes what you will discover if you follow the cross references. You might be surprised to learn how many of Jesus' parables, symbols, and grievances are borrowed from the OT prophets. And you will say, "Why has no one preached on this?"

4. Wrestle with arguments. If it seems like Paul is jumping around from topic to topic you probably need to slow down and wrestle with the text until you can understand what he is trying to say. Pay attention to the context in which Jesus told his parables so that you can understand his main point. (You might be surprised, for instance, that the main point of the parable of the prodigal son is that the older brother does not rejoice the way the Father does.) Maybe between books you can come back to a particularly confusing passage and ponder over it for a while.

5. Learn to read the Bible the way the apostles did. One time when you are reading through the New Testament find every quote from the Old, turn to it, and write the NT reference in bright colors next to the OT passage. Then when you read through the OT you will have an inspired commentary that will help you read the scriptures according to the model set forward by the apostles.

6. Meditate on the Scriptures. Pick a verse or two to memorize and think about it for a month or so. I have been told that when the scriptures talk about meditating it is basically repeating the verse over and over throughout the day and thinking about it.

That is a lot to deal with, so do not worry about implementing it all at once. You do not want to get burned out. Remember that your salvation is not based on reading the Bible, and it is okay if every once in a while you have to miss a day or cut your study short. Remember that you are reading to Bible to become more godly, but reading the Bible does not equal godliness.

In conclusion, the best use of your time is not to study Greek for a year or two, but to try to get to know the Bible frontwards and back. That is a slow process.