Keep Your Greek – Review

Keep Your Greek: Strategies for Busy People by Constantine R. Campbell

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This short book is a must-read for anyone who is studying, has studied, or wants to study Biblical Greek. Actually, it has useful tips for studying any language, especially “academic” languages and the Biblical languages. Con Campbell, a professor at Moore Theological College, has distilled a wealth of learning and practical insight for those of us who struggle with Greek. I’ve taught Koine (Biblical) Greek for about 7 years now, to juniors and seniors at a Christian school. I wish I had this book when I started teaching!!! I’ve had to learn things the hard way (I’m still learning them), and Campbell’s book would have helped me to teach much more effectively.

Campbell’s book began as a series of blog posts, and he includes some of the comments to his original blog posts in this book. It preserves the interactive feel of a blog, and the blog-readers have their own important contributions and tips which are quite helpful.

Each chapter begins with a short observation on the practical and theological value of learning Biblical Greek from a recognized scholar. I especially liked Dr. Daniel Wallace’s admission that he nearly failed his first year of Greek! I guess there’s hope for the rest of us.

View all my reviews

(Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher through the Zondervan book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.)

 

Sometimes I’m not proud to be Swedish …

Normally, I revel in the fact that my ancestors worn horned hats, swung battle-axes, drank lots of mead, and carried their boats overland to the Black Sea to raid Russia.  But, given how socialist and totalitarian Sweden is becoming, I’m rather ashamed of my heritage right now.

It seems that the Swedish government is out to abolish religious instruction and homeschooling. 

From the article: “Regimes that have banned home schooling in the past include the National Socialists (Nazis) in Germany, since Hitler feared it could lead to “parallel societies,” and the Soviet communist dictatorship, where government was the sole arbiter of what children would learn. “

 

Interesting Articles

Scot McKnight –  “The Gospel for iGens” – “Sometimes I think we forget that no where in the pages of the New Testament do we find what many of us heard when we were gospeled: God loves us, we are sinners, God still loves us and sent his Son to die for our sins, and if we receive God’s plan we will spend eternity with him and be empowered by grace for a new life now. I believe every line in that gospel to be true, but no one said it quite that way in the New Testament.”  (This article is very helpful for Christian teachers, as we struggle to communicate the gospel to the next generation.)

“Muslims Next Door” – An interview with Naeem Fazal

 

Why We Need Christian Colleges

Dr. Steve Henderson – “Investing in Their Faith: How your teen’s college choice can impact their future” - some depressing studies show that tons of Christian kids fall away at college.

 

Covenantal Education

Paul House provides a succint summary of Deuteronomy’s priniciples for covenantal education.  It is both inspiring, as well as humbling, as I consider my role as a teacher and a parent:

“Third, Yahweh commands the people to internalize the covenant and teach their children to do the same (6:6-9).  Each new member of the holy community must be taught God’s ways.  Faith does not occur automatically.  It must be understood and owned (6:6), so each parent must teach his or her children, just as Moses has been teaching them.  Instruction must be purposefule, even to the point of becoming public (6:9).  The idea is to ‘impress, or inscribe’ truth on the heart, not simply to suggest it.  Such careful teaching will help avoid forgetting Yahweh in prosperity (6:10-12), in new settings (6:13-19) or when new generations emerge, uncertain of what the old revelation means (6:20-25).  Only scrupulous intergenerational teaching can keep exclusive love of Yahweh alive in a polytheistic culture” (Paul R. House, Old Testament Theology, 178).

 

Lutheran Sanctification

Two bits from my reading diet caught my eye:

“Nevertheless we still experience sin and death within us, wrestle with them and fight against them.  You may tie a hog ever so well, but you cannot prevent it from grunting.  Thus is is with the sins in our flesh,” (Complete Sermons of Martin Luther, vol. 1, 247).

“Precisely because the totality of the gift, the new being [the one justified by faith] knows that there is nothing to do to gain heaven.  Thus the Christian is called to the tasks of daily life in this world, for the time being.  Students, for instance, are sometimes very pious and idealistic about ‘doing something,’ and so get caught up in this or that movement ‘for good.’  It never seems to dawn on them that perhaps for the time being, at least, their calling is simply to be a good student!  It is not particularly in acts of piety that we are sanctified, but in our call to live and act as Christians” (Gerald O. Forde, ”The Lutheran View” in Christian Spirituality:  Five Views of Sanctification, ed. Donald L. Alexander, 31).

 

Adoption Theology

The Orthodox Study Bible repeatedly emphasizes the theology of adoption in its explanatory notes.  This is laudable, since Protestants generally neglect this important way to understand our own salvation. 

 

We know several adoptees personally, and it is good to meditate on the fact that we are all adopted sons and daughters of the King.  In this regard, the Study Bible’s notes to Luke 3:23-38 (the geneology of Joseph and of Jesus) are particuarly moving: “Jesus was born to bring all mankind into adoption by the Father, and thus He affirms that a lineage of adoption is as binding and receives the same inheritance as a lineage of blood (Gal 4:4-7).”

 

(A good essay on this is C.N. Wilborn, “Adoption:  A Historical Perspective with Evangelical Implications” in Sanctification: Growing in Grace, eds. Joseph A. Pipa, Jr. & J. Andrew Wortman, 2001.  Wilborn quotes Robert Smith Candlish:  “The more I think of it, the more I am disposed to regret that the subject of adoption, or sonship of believers, has been so little made account of in our Reformation theology.  It seems to me to be the appropriate crown of Calvinism…”) 

 

The Liberating Effect of Classical Education

“Even if all one has gained from a classical education were to be forgotten in later life, anyone trained, at least for a time, to view the world as the Greeks and Romans saw it may learn to ask pregnant questions.  And even if the ancient answers be rejected, the student—of whatever—will know what they are, and approach his own world with freshened vision, one no longer blinkered by ideology and the reigning fashion.  He would have a liberal, because liberating, education indeed.  No longer would he be be imprisoned exclusively within the velvet walls of his own world’s preoccupations and fetishes.  No longer would he be just and only a child of his own time,” (Tracy Lee Simmons, Climbing Parnasssus:  A New Apologia for Greek & Latin, 22).

 

Truth in Action

“Truth in action–that is wisdom, that is the Right and the Good” (John Milton Gregory, The Seven Laws of Teaching, ch. 5).

Too often, we educators simply focus on downloading information from our brains to our students’ brains.  The students then download said information onto a test, after which the information is sent to the students’ recycle bin, and the miracle of education is complete!  But, from a Christian perspective, the ultimate goal of education is to learn wisdom (Proverbs, ch. 1).  And, as John Milton Gregory writes above, wisdom is not just intellectual head-knowledge.  Wisdom is applied truth.  If Christian education doesn’t impact a student’s life, then we may question whether it is really Christian education.  Truth in action …

 

Is Christianity Good for the World?

You don’t want to miss this debate between Christopher Hitchens and Douglas Wilson.  Both men are articulate and witty.  The gloves come off!