My Greek Is Rubbish But I Preach OK

You must have a detailed working knowledge of New Testament Greek if you want to be a preacher.

That was the hard word from a fellow Aussie, Con Campbell, speaking at the Evangelical Theological Society’s annual meeting in the USA this past week.

Con teaches at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Illinois. He also trained to be a professional jazz saxophonist, a happy sideline to this day, from what his website states.  I guess if hard times fall on the theological world he can always hold up a street corner alongside Bleeding Gums Murphy.

His latest book is entitled  Advances In the Study of Greek. Another quality biblical scholar from the Sydney stable for sure, and for that we are grateful.

Unfortunately my next book may indeed be entitled Retreats In the Study of Greek.

For that pretty much sums up my own rather ropey efforts at Koine Greek in college; efforts that petered out fairly quickly through frustration, a less than ideal class setting, and a lack of time.

I tried, oh I tried, but when I was eventually told that actually, “aspect” is the primary shaping force in Koine Greek, I threw up my hands in despair. And I nearly threw my Greek New Testament out the window.

And now?  Now I cling limpet-like to commentaries using the original text by scholars to figure out the stuff I don’t know, which seems to be a lot.

By the way I took that Con quote from the equally formidable John Dickson from Sydney’s Centre for Public Christianity.  John then recorded the follow up comment on Facebook:

Preachers must know and use the language of their primary source.

And just as I was doubling over from that twin blow, John follows up with the rabbit chop to the neck in an ensuing FB post, after meeting a great pastor/preacher in Grand Rapids, who he says:

has an astonishing twofold ability to exegete the original text in context AND show how it challenges and inspires our daily lives. And he uses NO NOTES!

With that I sat crying on the couch for the weekend in my jimmy-jams with a box of tissues, a packet of TimTams and watching  My Big Fat Greek Lexicon on DVD.

Honestly, I don’t know whether to be challenged, disheartened, angry, guilty, or all four at this.  I also don’t know whether or not that means I should have a detailed working knowledge of the Septuagint for the not unconsiderable number of sermons I preach from the Old Testament. Advances In the Study of Hebrew would probably put me over the edge.

I am not being facetious, I am really not.  But my observation is that the primary problem with many evangelical preachers committed to expository Bible teaching here in Australia and the UK is NOT that their Greek is bad, but rather  that their expositions are.

Anecdotally from both here in Western Australia, in the Sydney scene that emanates from Moore College, and in the UK conservative evangelical scene, too much preaching is boring, fails to connect with the congregation and cannot for the life of it, apply the text in any meaningful way outside of “do more evangelism” and “If you’re not a Christian become one, and if you are, are you really?” (Those aren’t my words by the way, they are the words of someone who knows Greek pretty darn well!).

Can a better grasp of the original text make you a better preacher?  Undoubtedly?  Can a better grasp of the original text make up for the fact that you may not be that gifted at preaching in the first place?  Not at all.  Too many evangelical sermons are like the moon; clear, bright and cold.  They’re as boring as bat guano, as one might say. Perhaps the primary problem is a crisis of imagination not a crisis of original language ability.

In an attempt to shy away from flaky unbiblical preaching there is a tendency to stick to the tram-lines. And that’s good and proper as a place to start.  But it’s just a place to start. All the original language ability in the world will not make up for the lack of imagination that many preacher seems to possess.

The goal of the original language is to understand the text in order to communicate it more richly.  Understanding a text; how it works; why it’s there; where it’s headed, does not need less than knowledge of the original language, but it certainly needs  more.    If you don’t have that “much more” then preaching is probably not what you should do.

You must know how words work, how arguments ensue, how narratives unfold. If you have no sense of the literary, no eye for word pictures, no feel for the rough and smooth of a story, no ear to hear the music of the story, then the tram lines approach won’t make up for it.

I will go out on a limb and say that my preaching has gotten by with a commitment to checking out what Greek scholars say about difficult texts, but primarily sticking to my English text.

Now perhaps you’re good at both; you’re an excellent biblical language scholar AND you have a deep grasp of how to build that excellence into a sermon that is memorable, points to Christ, and springboards into contemporary applications for where we are at as God’s people, individually, collectively and culturally.

For the rest of us?  Keep muddling along I say. And praise you Jesus for good Greek scholars like Con Campbell.