How to stop feeling intimidated by Biblical Greek
Hey Reader, Does learning Biblical Greek intimidate you? That's a common and reasonable feeling. Here are 5 tips that will give you confidence to master Greek. 1. "Starting is so hard!" TIP: Expect to grind for a few weeks. You're learning something totally different to anything you've learned before... It takes some getting used to. It gets easier once you understand what the learning process is — But to start, you need to just keep studying! 2. "How much should I do today?" TIP: Be...
about 1 year ago • 1 min readWhy God chose Greek (and what it cost to make that happen)
Most Christians know the New Testament was written in Greek. But have you ever wondered why? It wasn’t merely because the disciples happened to speak it (though they did). But that was because the Greek language became the universal medium of the ancient world through one of the most decisive military campaigns in human history. By the time Christ began his ministry, it had been reshaping Israel’s language, culture, and scripture for nearly four centuries. I’ve just published a new article on...
9 days ago • 1 min readHow to live out Psalm 1
My Father once asked me why I was learning ancient Hebrew at seminary. What was the point? This raises the question: What kind of people learn to read Biblical Greek and Hebrew? The answer that I gave my father (who is not a believer) is to understand the scripture better. For the Christian with an aim of deeper perspective and understanding of the Old Testament, the benefit of learning Biblical Hebrew is immense. But to everyone else — it's not practical to learn ancient Hebrew... ...It...
about 2 months ago • 1 min readDon't make Hebrew harder than it needs to be...
If learning Hebrew looks and feels like a full time job — you've probably been given some bad advice. Here's the response one poor newbie got when he asked what the best way to learn Biblical Hebrew was. You don't need to read it, just look at the length! All those blue links are different resources our poor newbie needs to synthesize in order to make something of a plan to follow. After years of building a comprehensive, streamlined success path to teach the original languages with — the...
about 2 months ago • 1 min readA great example of what it means to be an exegete
Reader, yesterday I shared how the fast and easy way to learn Hebrew misses out on the benefits of deeper, richer reading. Today I want to show you what that richer reading actually looks like — through the eyes of one of our students. Carol is a relatively new Hebrew student. Not a scholar or seminary graduate. But that didn't stop her from reaching a depth of study that most people don't ever think to achieve. What did Carol first see that years of English reading had hidden? "Even as a...
about 2 months ago • 2 min read'Easy Hebrew,' I don't buy it...
Hey Reader, Sometimes, the word 'easy' should be a warning sign to us. I just read a comment in an online forum where someone recommended a way to learn Biblical Hebrew that was easy. But not just easy. Super easy. You want to learn Biblical Hebrew in a super easy way right? I sure do! But, for most people. Hebrew is hard. So I was a little suspicious — What's the catch with this comment? Let's read it... This book makes learning Hebrew super easy as they do not bog the learner down with all...
about 2 months ago • 1 min readThe Death of the Scholar-Pastor: How Churches Are Losing Exegesis
Hey Reader, What's the basis for how you choose to live day by day as a Christian? Presumably the Bible. But we can only know how the Bible teaches us to live by carefully studying it. There are lays of understanding and context we need to work through before we can get to practical theology, the day to day application of scripture in our lives. I call these layers the theological pyramid — and one thing sits at it's base to hold all layers up... ... That is exegesis. Exegesis is the drawing...
about 2 months ago • 1 min read2 opportunities for you to go deeper in your Bible study
Join 2 different opportunities that will level up your Bible study, for the next 2 weeks only. Opportunity 1). Training to get you started learning Biblical Greek If you told a friend at church that you were learning Biblical Greek, what do you think would come to their mind? Dusty scrolls? Indecipherable code? Awe? What comes to your mind when you think about learning Greek? Do you have a concrete idea of what it actually looks like, day to day? When I think about learning Greek, I can...
3 months ago • 4 min readThey stopped arguing when my wife exclaimed, "it's Greek!"
A few years ago I was on a train in London when a very weird Greek-thing happened. On the seats across from my wife and I was a family trying to answer a crossword puzzle. It wasn't going well... They were getting rowdy about a word. It had something to do with ancient language, but the origin of the word was in question. The word "grapho," was thrown around with varying degrees of distress. It finally caught my wife Ruby's attention. She looked at them for a second, then exclaimed "it's...
3 months ago • 3 min readA message to owners of Mounce
Do you own one of the 400,000 printed copies of Mounce's Basics of Biblical Greek? Or any Greek grammars at all? I wonder if you also share in one of the unfortunate realities that a lot of people with Greek grammars have... 1). You've not actually learned Greek from the grammar to the level you want. or 2). You've completed Greek from a grammar, but never reached the skill level where you're able to actually read New Testament Greek from a GNT. We've served hundreds of Christians with these...
3 months ago • 3 min readHow I do exegesis in 4 stages
Hey Reader, Everyone does exegesis to some extent. For some, it might just be a skim reading of a verse, and a guess at what the author means. For others, it's looking up words in a dictionary. But if you're going to be teaching the Word, or if you want to know what it says with confidence... ... then you need to go deeper. Watch Now You need to spend some time doing exegesis right. But, what does that actually look like? What even is exegesis? Are you already doing it to a high standard of...
4 months ago • 1 min read