It’s Greek To Me! (Part One)

Grace Thoughts

It’s Greek To Me! (Part One)

The New Testament was written in Greek. Why is that important to know? Because the New Testament was not written in English. If you read or study the New Testament in English only, you are missing some of the important truths and insights God revealed to His people. That includes even the best English translations.

[You can read about English translations here.]

We are pleased to begin another new series for the new year. We pray it will be helpful to you in your study of God’s Word.

Problem With The Greek NT

The problem with the Greek New Testament today is that few Christians use it or even know about it. Why is that? Because most pastors and Bible teachers don’t mention it and probably don’t even use it for sermon/lesson preparation. How do I know that? Simple. I watch and listen. They rarely mention the Greek NT in their sermons and lessons, if at all. Their sermons and lessons are often filled with personal stories and opinions, a couple of recommendations to live a better life, plus a few Bible verses thrown in for good measure (often out of context). I rarely see or hear the Gospel of Christ preached or taught. What I do hear goes like this .. “Live a good life and God will be happy with you.” That’s not the Gospel.

I was fortunate as a new Christian 50+ years ago to be surrounded by pastors and teachers who studied the Greek New Testament and shared what they learned with their congregation or class. One of my first pastors was a professor of Greek at a local Bible college and taught directly from the Greek on Sunday nights. What an experience that was for a young Christian and former atheist! One of my mentors taught Hebrew and Greek and recommended I learn Greek so I could study it for myself. His encouragement set me on a path that I will forever be thankful.

Bad Direction

Why do I bring this up? Because Christianity is going in a very bad direction and has been for many years. It started back in the 1st century AD and here we are two-thousand years later still struggling to stand for the truth and make Christ known among the nations. Why the struggle? One of the reasons is that the people who should be shepherding God’s people have left their posts. Pastors and teachers have wandered away from their primary obligation to do the following:

And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, ‘All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.’ Amen. Matthew 28:18-20

… holding fast the faithful word as he has been taught, that he may be able, by sound doctrine, both to exhort and convict those who contradict. Titus 1:9

I charge you therefore before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, who will judge the living and the dead at His appearing and His kingdom: Preach the word! Be ready in season and out of season. Convince, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching. 2 Timothy 4:1-2

Remind them of these things, charging them before the Lord not to strive about words to no profit, to the ruin of the hearers. Be diligent to present yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. But shun profane and idle babblings, for they will increase to more ungodliness. 2 Timothy 2:14-16

And a servant of the Lord must not quarrel but be gentle to all, able to teach, patient, in humility correcting those who are in opposition, if God perhaps will grant them repentance, so that they may know the truth, and that they may come to their senses and escape the snare of the devil, having been taken captive by him to do his will. 2 Timothy 2:24-26

Therefore take heed to yourselves and to all the flock, among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God which He purchased with His own blood. For I know this, that after my departure savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock. Also from among yourselves men will rise up, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after themselves. Acts 20:28-30

But there were also false prophets among the people, even as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Lord who bought them, and bring on themselves swift destruction. And many will follow their destructive ways, because of whom the way of truth will be blasphemed. By covetousness they will exploit you with deceptive words; for a long time their judgment has not been idle, and their destruction does not slumber. 2 Peter 2:1-3

Unfortunately, we are there. False teaching abounds in churches. Why? Because pastors and teachers are not doing what Jesus and His apostles told them to do. They are not watching over the flock of God and feeding them the Word of God. Too many church leaders are chasing money, fame, and other shiny objects and leaving Christians to fend for themselves. What do sheep do when shepherds don’t protect and feed them? The sheep wander. That’s the sad picture of the church today. Christians wander from one bad author to another. They wander from one bad TV preacher to another. They wander from one bad church to another.

The Only Hope

The only hope Christians have is to know the “real” Gospel of Christ. That means knowing the “real” Jesus, not the “false” or “weak” Jesus taught by so many pastors and teachers today. It’s gotten so bad that the “sheep” are going to have to learn how to protect and feed themselves — at least until they know how to tell a good teacher from a bad one. That’s why I recommend learning enough Greek to know what teaching is true and what teaching is not.

First, I want to assure you this is not a course in learning the Greek language. My purpose is to share several basic ways any Christian can use to learn more about New Testament writings for their own protection. Even if you don’t want to learn enough to study the New Testament from the Greek, knowing some of the basics will enhance your study from the better English translations.

Let’s begin by learning a little about the Greek of the New Testament.

1st Century Greek

It’s important to remember that the Greek New Testament was written in the 1st century AD. That means we need to know something about the Greek language used in the 1st century.

That’s no different than our knowing about the English language used to translate the Bible in the 7th century (Old English), 11th century (Middle English), late 15th century (Early Modern English), or 18th century (Late Modern English). Most English-speaking people today would struggle understanding something written in Old English or even Middle English. Many Christians still use the King James Version (Early Modern English), but have difficulty with some of the words because of changes in the English language since the early 16th century. If you use the KJV, it would be helpful to know how people living 400 years ago understood the meaning of some of the words people don’t use when speaking or writing today.

The same is true of the Greek used to write the New Testament. Koine Greek (Κοινή – common) came out of Classical Greek, which came out of Ancient Greek. Whereas Classical Greek was more academic in usage, Koine Greek was more practical. It was the language of the common people of the Hellenistic world. The New Testament was written to reach “common” people (the masses), so it makes sense that the Holy Spirit would inspire New Testament writers to use use Koine Greek.

Koine Greek was spoken and written from the 4th century BC until the 6th century AD. That means it was used to translate the Hebrew Old Testament into Greek (Septuagint) in the 3rd and 2nd centuries BC. Koine Greek was also used as the basis for developing Modern Greek.

Next Time

That’s enough language history for now. Let’s start learning how to use Koine Greek to better understand the New Testament. Even if you aren’t interested in learning how to read the Greek New Testament, I still believe you’ll find this helpful. Remember, every Christian’s desire should be to know what God said and why He said it. We’ll look at the first step in the next part of our new series.

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It’s Greek To Me! (Part One)