Learning Greek is a Spiritual Discipline

My passion for Greek was ignited in 1998 when I started graduate school at Wheaton College and took classes from Dr. Scott Hafemann. His teaching was a model for academic rigor that is not divorced from a life of faith lived in service for others. His challenge was that the study of Greek not simply be an academic exercise, but a spiritual discipline in which we love God with our minds (cf. Mark 12.30). This was a challenge I needed to hear.

So, this is how I seek to teach my intensive introductory New Testament Greek course to Papua New Guineans this month. One of the things we are doing as we learn Greek is to learn Greek scripture songs.

We started with the alphabet. In Revelation 1.8 we read that "Jesus is the Alpha and the Omega, the one who was, and is, and is to come, the ruler over all things." So Jesus used the Greek alphabet to explain his sovereignty. He is ruler of all. And that means he is ruler over this Greek course. An intensive NT Greek course that meets for 6 hours a day for 6 weeks is difficult! But Jesus is ruler of this course as well.

So the first song we learned goes like this:

Alpha, beta, gamma, delta, epsilon,
Zeta, eta, theta, iota,
Kappa, lambda, mu, nu, xi, omicron,
Pi, rho, sigma, tau, upsilon,
Phi, chi, psi, omega,
Ἰησοῦς ἐστίν τὸ Ἄλφα καὶ τὸ Ὦ
(Jesus is the Alpha and the Omega)

It sure is pretty powerful to hear a room full of Papua New Guineans belting this out full voice on the first day of class. Although it seems a little bit like 1st grade with the alphabet in big letters up on the wall across the length of the room, it's not just an academic exercise. Even the foundational lesson on the alphabet is a spiritual discipline of singing praise to Jesus as Lord.

Love God and Others: ΑΓΑΠΗΣΕΙΣ

The blog title ΑΓΑΠΗΣΕΙΣ is the Greek word for "you will love." It's the word used in the Greek New Testament (e.g. Mark 12.30) when referencing the Hebrew confession of faith—the Shema’—in Deuteronomy 6.4-5. I have chosen ΑΓΑΠΗΣΕΙΣ as the title of this blog because its double use in Mark 12.30-31 summarizes what this blog is about:

• knowing God's word
• in order to love God
• and love others

In Mark 12.29-31, Jesus anwers the question, "What is the greatest commandment?" He responds by quoting the Shema’ from Deuteronomy 6.4 that pious Jews would have confessed every morning and evening:

Hear, oh Israel! The Lord our God, the Lord is one.

Jesus continues from Deuteronomy 6.5:

And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.

While the Hebrew only has a tripartite division of the person, Jesus adds the 'mind' as a fourth aspect with which to love God. The meaning is the same: love God with all of who you are.

In Mark 12.31 Jesus continues with the second greatest commandment:

The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.

This blog is devoted to the interpretation of scripture in order to love God and love others. Some of my primary interests to be included in this blog are...

• biblical exegesis
• biblical theology
• use of OT in the NT
• Greek language
• Hebrew language
• Bible translation
• linguistics
• discourse analysis
• cognitive semantics
• the Letter of James
• textual criticism
• teaching
• preaching

Many of my interests are quite academic in nature, yet I do not wish to live in my own little world of books and research. I want to pursue these interests in such a way that I love God with all of who I am and also love others more than myself. Thus, in this blog I wish to love God and others by sharing my everyday thoughts concerning the above disciplines.