People wrote immediately after the first New Testament Greek class. I am taking this slowly because I know everyone needs to absorb a lot. I remember those days, even though it was 50 years ago. I was a slow starter.
Note this - Little Ichabod was a whiz at St. John in Latin. When we were done, he could read and translate a chapter at a time, no notes - fast - and he got even faster. When we repeated in Greek, it was slogging away, just like the first days in Latin.
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| Tough slogging in the Slough of Despond |
Pliable: Then said Pliable, Ah! neighbor Christian, where are you now?
Christian: Truly, said Christian, I do not know.
Pliable: At that Pliable began to be offended, and angrily said to his fellow, Is this the happiness you have told me all this while of? If we have such ill speed at our first setting out, what may we expect between this and our Journey's end?
Do not be like the character who fell into the Slough of Despond in Pilgrim's Progress. "If this is how the journey begins, how will it end?" He went back to the City of Destruction.
'This miry Slough is such a place as cannot be mended; it is the descent whither the scum and filth that attends conviction for sin doth continually run, and therefore is it called the Slough of Despond: for still as the sinner is awakened about his lost condition, there ariseth in his soul many fears, and doubts, and discouraging apprehensions, which all of them get together, and settle in this place; and this is the reason of the badness of this ground.'[1]
Not everyone wants to do this, and that is perfectly understandable. Do I want oboe, skiing, or voice lessons? No.
Two approaches really help in immersion training:
- Speak the words out loud until reading them smoothly is natural, no longer like the piano student chopping at the keys instead of playing them.
- Spend a lot of time matching Greek words to their English derivatives or equivalents.
Some Greek Words You Already Know - More or Less - From English
Catherine - pure
Margaret - pearl
Peter - rock
Stephen - crown
Greg - watchman
Aspirin - yes that is found in 1 Thessalonians
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| Westcott and Hort worked hard to destroy Christian trust in the text and the truth of God's Word. Knowing some Greek is the key to understanding these frauds and the damage their deceptions continue via the New NIV. |
