Should pastors and other Bible teachers bother to learn Greek and Hebrew? You can use Greek and Hebrew without having to memorize a single paradigm, let alone 3,000 vocab words, so why torture yourself?
I’ll give you ten reasons studying the original languages is worth the pain, five this week and five next.
1. Because they increase interpretive accuracy.
Martyn Lloyd-Jones was a medical doctor by training. He had no formal theological education. Yet he went on to become one of the twentieth century’s most influential preachers—and a proponent of studying the Greek and Hebrew. He said that the languages
. . . are of great value for the sake of accuracy; no more, that is all. They cannot guarantee accuracy but they promote it. (Preaching and Preachers, 127–128)
Lloyd-Jones knew that some preachers would be tempted to treat a sanctuary like a linguistics classroom, and he discouraged that. But he also understood the interpretive power of Greek and Hebrew study. This pulpit master, in his classic work on preaching, goes on to rigorously subsume the value of the original languages to the end goal of conveying the biblical message to people. And it’s key that, in his view, they only “promote”—not “guarantee”—hermeneutical and homiletical accuracy.
I have heard comparatively untutored preachers teach Scripture accurately to groups that included numerous biblical studies PhDs. I have also heard the opposite; I have sometimes thought to myself, “Does this guy have any idea who he’s talking to?” (Indeed, the phrase “the gall!” has only ever come to my mind while listening to preachers.) If you are a Greek/Hebrew novice, by dabbling into something you don’t know, you may very well limit the effectiveness of your ministry to the educated by unwitting inaccuracies.
2. Because they make contextual connections which are necessarily obscured by translation.
There’s an apparently awkward break in the chain of Jesus’ reasoning in English translations of John 15:1–4. See if you can catch it:
I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit. Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you. Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me.
One of these sentences doesn’t at first seem to flow very well with what comes before and after it. Why does he break out of his vine and fruit talk to mention, “Already you are clean”? That “already” implies some contrast with uncleanness—but he was just talking about pruning, not cleaning. And after his reference to cleaning, he goes back to talking about the main topic of the paragraph, namely branches and vines.
This is a perfect example of the kind of thing that knowing Greek can do for you. The word translated “clean” and the word translated “prunes” in the previous sentence are from the same Greek root (καθαρος). Jesus isn’t awkwardly lurching; he’s making a bit of a pun that’s hard to put into English. You can’t make these sorts of connections (the sorts that are necessarily obscured by translation) without knowing the original languages.
3. Because they rule out some interpretations.
Knowing original languages is more often helpful for ruling out bad interpretations than anointing true ones. Consider Psalm 14:1.
The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.” They are corrupt, they do abominable deeds, there is none who does good. (ESV)
In the English Bible translation I grew up with, the KJV, the words “There is” are italicized, meaning that they were supplied by the translators and not present in the original Hebrew. That’s true.
So I have heard numerous people say over the years that, supposedly, the italics indicate that the original Hebrew reads, “The fool hath said in his heart, ‘No, God!’” (I particularly remember hearing this from a clever roommate in college, who won the smarter-than-thou award for that day.)
But once I learned Hebrew I discovered that there’s a significant problem with this argument: the Hebrew word translated “no” doesn’t mean “no,” as in the opposite of “yes.” It means “non-existence of.” The fool described in Psalm 14:1 is denying God’s existence, not saying “No” to God.
Knowing Hebrew didn’t give me the right interpretation of this verse; that was something I already knew from my English translation(s). It just enabled me to decisively rule out the urban legend interpretation.
… For reasons 4 through 9 please follow the direct links, below.