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February 22, 2007 Gadfly ArchiveHere are a few ways to search for past articles: 1) Down below to the right under the categories of links there is a “Search Site” box. 2) Typing “Calvinist Gadfly” followed by your search term, you can use Blogger’s Search. 3) And at the bottom of the page you can search by month and year. Posted by Alan Kurschner on 02/22/2007 @ 9:13 am | Comments are off for this postFebruary 4, 2007 A Method of New Testament Greek Vocabulary AcquisitionLast week, I provided a proven method of reviewing and improving New Testament Greek reading and comprehension. This article will give some guidelines on retaining and improving Greek Vocabulary Acquisition, which will include both deductive and inductive principles. Deductive: Two Types By Frequency: There are about 5,500 different words in the Greek New Testament. When a student takes first year Greek, they usually learn word frequency of fifty times or more. When they take intermediate Greek they usually learn word frequency of twenty to ten times. After a student of Greek has reached the intermediate level and has mastered the stock of the most common words in the Greek N.T., then that provides a platform for the next classification of learning words to which we turn to now. In English, when you see a word that begins with the prefix, “non-” then you already have an idea that the word is negating or lacking something. In Greek, the root, char, carries the basic meaning of “rejoice.” So when you come across a Greek word that contains that root, you can infer that it will carry the idea of “rejoice” and thus aid in your acquisition of the new word. But a lexicon will give you a more precise definition, along with a semantic range of meanings. And when you learn ten Greek words together that contain the root char, you will learn them much more quickly than if you learned them in isolation. There are excellent vocabulary resources out there, but I will recommend the two most popular (both of which I use). First, there is the classic vocabulary guide, Lexical Aids for Students of New Testament Greek, by Bruce Metzger. Part 2 of his book is the section, “Words Classified According to Their Root,” listing frequency of ten times or more. Be sure to read and master his introductory section to Part 2 titled, “The Formation of Words” (pp.41-49). It is invaluable. This section gives the general meaning to very common prefixes and especially suffixes in Greek. For example, the suffix-forming noun “-ma” means, “the result of an action.” So, the Greek word Baptis-ma “Baptism” has the idea of “the abiding fact resulting from the act of baptism.” Another example is what is called the “alpha privative,” which gives the word a negative sense (e.g. a-dikos, unjust). So Metzger’s guide is a must have for any Greek student’s library. My only criticism of the book is that it is dated in some of its vocabulary. For instance, the definition gloss for the word mepote is “lest perchance”; and the gloss for pothen is “whence?” Who speaks like that today?! A second vocabulary guide that has recently supplanted Metzger’s is, Complete Vocabulary Guide to the Greek New Testament, Revised Edition by Warren C. Trenchard. Section one of his book lists cognate word groups “consisting of almost 4,900 entries, [and] lists all the common words of the NT (i.e., all words other than proper words) that have a cognate relationship with at least one other word.” (Incidentally, section four lists proper words, names of persons, names of places, and other proper words. Section five has helpful groups of words as well, such as all the Aramaic, Hebrew, Latin, Persian, and Semitic words in the New Testament.) And I suggest you write out vocabulary often when you are first learning it. It adds another dimension to the learning process. Also, I am not a big fan on audio Greek vocabulary acquisition for learning because you really need to see the text. However, as far as reviewing basic meanings of words, audio cannot hurt you. So there are your sources for studying Greek words in its cognate classifications. As far as how much time to devote to studying deductively, I would carve out at least once a week for a couple of hours (or more). But consistent weekly studying is the key. It is said that the Biblical scholar John Sailhamer is a walking lexicon. In translating the original languages he would look up every word in a lexicon and read the entire entry—even words he already knew. And this is before the “one-click-I’m-there” age of lexicons being integrated into computer software. Though I am not going to suggest that after you translate a verse you look up every word in a lexicon and read the entire entry, I do believe though it is a very good habit to pick at least one word in a verse to look up in the Greek lexicon, BDAG, and read the entire entry (this is what I do). Overtime, this will prove beneficial to your inductive vocabulary acquisition. A second type of inductive learning is as follows. Say for example you choose to translate the book of Mark and you don’t want to look up many words in a lexicon that you do not know. Rather, in advance, you would like to learn all the words in just Mark that occur 50 times or less. There are two resources that allow you to do this. The Reader’s Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament, by Sakae Kubo. “Here is a verse-by-verse arrangement, with definitions, of all words appearing fewer than 50 times…” The second resource is recent, A Reader’s Greek New Testament, by Richard J. Goodrich, Albert L. Lukaszewski. “The Greek text that underlies the New International Version as reconstructed by Edward Goodrick and John Kohlenberger III, along with word definitions in footnotes for all words that occur thirty times or less in the New Testament.” So there you have it. After you have learned word frequency of fifty times or more (first year Greek), then learning by cognate and both of the inductive approaches should be your consistent method to enrich your Greek vocabulary with the aim to interpret God’s Word more faithfully. Posted by Alan Kurschner on 02/04/2007 @ 11:47 pm | Comments are off for this postFebruary 2, 2007 Passage #5Phil. 1:29 (This is an installment of a New Year’s resolution to memorize 52 NT Biblical texts this year.) Here is a tip. If you have an iPod, you can transfer your memorization document to your “Notes” on your iPod. This way you can review your verses wherever your iPod is! Given the previous youtube post, the verse of the week should be Matt 7:22, “Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?’” But I think we all have that verse in our paraphrase memory. This week’s passage is only one verse but pregnant with truth. Because Man’s will is hostile toward God and continually spits in his face (Romans 8:7), faith my necessity must come from another source—Phil. 1:29 reveals to us that source is God. Notice that the text does not say that man contributes faith in that it originates in him. Faith is God’s gift to the sinner, not the sinner’s gift to God. “For it has been granted to you on behalf of Christ not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for him,” January 31, 2007 3 Steps to Reviewing and Improving New Testament GreekPreliminaries: Learning New Testament Greek comes by hard work and consistency. For those who know Greek, the following is a guide, not just to stay on top of your Greek, but to improve it as well. The steps below may seem at first like a mechanical process, but that is because they should be. But don’t fret because after some time these steps will become second nature, and you will not even be conscious of doing them. The translating that I advocate is quality over quantity. Gone should be the days when Greek students rip through a Greek epistle (speed reading) by simply rendering verses without giving any thought to grammatical reflection. All that does, in my opinion, is increase your vocabulary a little more—something that would happen in due time. It is better in one sitting to translate 10 verses with grammatical reflection, than it is to translate multiple chapters without it in the same amount of time. At each sitting, you need 7 of the following standard Greek resources in front of you, which, by the way, all of them can be used in BibleWorks or Accordance Software. (1) The Greek New Testament. (2) A literal translation such as the New American Standard Bible 1995 Update. (3) The standard Greek lexicon, “BDAG”, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature. (4) A parsing aid in some format, which could be found in a Bible software program such as BibleWorks (PC) or Accordance (Mac). (5) Morphology of Biblical Greek. (6) The New English Translation Bible (NET). This will be used for a minimal grammatical analysis. You can access it via internet, leather bound, or integrated in your Bible software program. By the way, this is an invaluable resource because the grammatical notes are not too dense nor light. It is the perfect level for what we are doing. (7) Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics. What to translate? Begin with the Johannine corpus. John’s Greek is child-like Greek. Then progress to Col., Phil., Mark., etc. How often should I translate? Frequent. If you are a pastor, then you are already in the Greek text on a weekly basis. But for those who exegete the text (the purpose of learning Greek) less frequent, I suggest you get into the habit of translating at least two times a week, 3-4 hours each time. Take one verse at a time for all three steps. You should spend 3-10 minutes on each verse depending on the length of the verse, any grammatical or morphological problems, or reflection on its meaning. Then move on to the next verse. Step One (Lexical level): i) Translate the verse without any aids. ii) If you have questions about any of the words’ definitions, parsing, or morphology, check them with your lexical aids. Further, you may also want to check your translation against a more literal Bible such as the New American Standard 1995 Update to see how they have rendered it. iii) Choose one word in your verse to look up in the BDAG lexicon and read the entire entry. This is an excellent habit to get into because over time it will deepen your active Greek vocabulary. Don’t be in a hurry to move to the next verse without this step. Step Two (Grammatical level): i) Without any aids, ask yourself if there are any syntactical (grammatical) significance or problems in the verse (e.g., “What kind of dative is this?” “Is this a objective genitive or subjective?” “What kind of hoti or hina clause is this?”; etc.) ii) After you have given yourself minimal grammatical reflection on your own, reference the “tn” notes (i.e. Translator’s Notes) in the New English Translation. They will give you an excellent minimum grammatical analysis of the significant grammatical issues in that verse (Not that you have to agree with all their conclusions). iii) If a particular grammatical category (verbal, nominal, etc.) is fuzzy and you need to review it, reach for Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics and spend some time reviewing a category that is relevant for your grammatical construction. As you may observed, both the lexical and grammatical levels have the same three basic steps: i) Do it on your own
This is the ultimate goal of learning Greek: to apply the knowledge of God revealed in his Word to your life. After you finish with the first two steps, pause and give yourself over to contemplating what the text means for your life. I realize that doing this verse-by-verse is a bit arbitrary because they are part of a larger unit of meaning. But there is still something to say about taking the time to reflect after each verse-unit of meaning. Further, I would suggest after you finish translating a larger unit of meaning reflect on the logical flow of the text to discover that meaning and its spiritual significance. Two other important exegetical tools that I use frequently are Diagraming (visual representation on the sentence level), and Discourse Analysis (visual representation on the larger level of logical relationships between propositions). Learning Biblical languages and doing exegesis is hard work. But I cannot overestimate how fruitful it is to be able to read God’s Word in the original tongue. I trust this method of Greek review will be beneficial for your Biblical studies. On motivation to study the Biblical languages, click here. Posted by Alan Kurschner on 01/31/2007 @ 10:46 am | Comments are off for this postJanuary 29, 2007 Tominthebox News Network
“The Onion” of Reformed blogs if you will. Be sure to check out the ePhod. Also notice who is featured on the ePhod in the sidebar! Posted by Alan Kurschner on 01/29/2007 @ 9:16 pm | Comments are off for this postJanuary 28, 2007 Three Reformed Sites of Note...H. Lloyd Johnson and James Zaspel at Twin Cities Bible Church have their sermons of 2006-07 on mp3. Paul Buckley’s Gospel Centered Everything. He is the lead pastor of a Sovereign Grace Ministries church in New England. Reformation Truth (He is recently responding to Jon Modene). Posted by Alan Kurschner on 01/28/2007 @ 9:49 pm | Comments are off for this postJanuary 26, 2007 Passage #4Romans 3:21-25 (This is an installment of a New Year’s resolution to memorize 52 NT Biblical texts this year.) We are on our fourth passage of the year. Last week was an easy one, and you should have the previous verses memorized down cold. If not, go back and review them before moving on to this next text. The following text is considered by many as the most important passage in the Bible, so there is no reason for me to explain why I chose the text for its significance. Memorize it, and meditate on it. “But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. ” (Rom 3:21-25 NIV) Posted by Alan Kurschner on 01/26/2007 @ 10:34 am | Comments are off for this postJanuary 23, 2007 D.A. Carson Quote on a Fundamental Creator-creature distinction.This past weekend, I was listening to some mp3s of D.A Carson’s lectures on the use of the Old in the New. Since Carson is a rapid speaker, it took me a few minutes but finally made a transcript of the following quote. It is in the context about the assumption that David had about building a great temple for God and therefore making God great, or “enhancing” his greatness. The problem, says Carson, is that the creature does not make God great with a need that God is lacking and needs to fulfill, but it is God who chooses to make certain men great and powerful. I.e. Man is in need of God, not God in need of Man. Carson warns that we [Evangelicals] today are in danger of this grave error, Posted by Alan Kurschner on 01/23/2007 @ 11:03 pm | Comments are off for this post January 23, 2007 Debate Help for Blogosphere ArminiansGordon provides a public service… ht:NW Posted by Alan Kurschner on 01/23/2007 @ 4:58 pm | Comments are off for this postJanuary 20, 2007 Why Salvation Must Be Supernatural
(An excerpt from The Chief of Sinners Saved) The insufficiency of nature to such a work as conversion is, shows that men may not fall down and idolize their own wit and power. A change from acts of sin to moral duties may be done by a natural strength and the power of natural conscience: for the very same motives which led to sin, as education, interest, profit, may, upon a change of circumstances, guide men to an outward morality; but a change to the contrary grace is supernatural. Two things are certain in nature. (1.) Natural inclinations never change, but by some superior virtue. A loadstone will not cease to draw iron, while that attractive quality remains in it. The wolf can never love the lamb, nor the lamb the wolf; nothing but must act suitably to its nature. Water cannot but moisten, fire cannot but burn. So likewise the corrupt nature of man being possessed with an invincible contrariety and enmity to God, will never suffer him to comply with God. And the inclinations of a sinner to sin being more strengthened by the frequency of sinful acts, have as great a power over him, and as natural to him, as any qualities are to natural agents: and being stronger than any sympathies in the world, cannot by a man’s own power, or the power of any other nature equal to it, be turned into a contrary channel. (2.) Nothing can act beyond its own principle and nature. Nothing in the world can raise itself to a higher rank of being than that which nature has placed it in; a spark cannot make itself a star, though it mount a little up to heaven; nor a plant endue itself with sense, nor a beast adorn itself with reason; nor a man make himself an angel. Thorns cannot bring forth grapes, nor thistles produce figs because such fruits are above the nature of those plants. So neither can our corrupt nature bring forth grace, which is a fruit above it. Effectus non excedit virtutem suae causae [the effect cannot exceed the power of its cause]: grace is more excellent than nature, therefore cannot be the fruit of nature. It is Christ’s conclusion, “How can you, being evil, speak good things?” Matt. 12:33, 34. Not so much as the buds and blossoms of words, much less the fruit of actions. They can no more change their natures, than a viper can do away with his poison. Now though this I have said be true, yet there is nothing man does more affect in the world than a self-sufficiency, and an independence from any other power but his own. This attitude is as much riveted in his nature, as any other false principle whatsoever. For man does derive it from his first parents, as the prime legacy bequeathed to his nature: for it was the first thing uncovered in man at his fall; he would be as God, independent from him. Now God, to cross this principle, allows his elect, like Lazarus, to lie in the grave till they stink, that there may be no excuse to ascribe their resurrection to their own power. If a putrefied rotten carcass should be brought to life, it could never be thought that it inspired itself with that active principle. God lets men run on so far in sin, that they do unman themselves, that he may proclaim to all the world, that we are unable to do anything of ourselves towards our recovery, without a superior principle. The evidence of which will appear if we consider, 1. Man’s subjection under sin. He is “sold under sin,” Rom. 7:14, and brought “into captivity to the law of sin,” ver. 23. “Law of sin:” that sin seems to have a legal authority over him; and man is not only a slave to one sin, but many, Tit. 3:3, “serving divers lusts.” Now when a man is sold under the power of a thousand lusts, every one of which has an absolute tyranny over him, and rules him as a sovereign by a law; when a man is thus bound by a thousand laws, a thousand cords and fetters, and carried whither his lords please, against the dictates of his own conscience and force of natural light; can any man imagine that his own power can rescue him from the strength of these masters that claim such a right to him, and keep such a force upon him, and have so often baffled his own strength, when he attempted to turn against them? 2. Man’s affection to them. He does not only serve them, but he serves them, and every one of them, with delight and pleasure; Tit. 3:3. They were all pleasures, as well as lusts; friends as well as lords. Will any man leave his sensual delights and such sins that please and flatter his flesh? Will a man ever endeavour to run away from those lords which he serves with affection? having as much delight in being bound a slave to these lusts, as the devil has in binding him. Therefore when you see a man cast away his pleasures, deprive himself of those comfortable things to which his soul was once knit, and walk in paths contrary to corrupt nature, you may search for the cause anywhere, rather than in nature itself. No piece of dirty, muddy clay can form itself into a neat and handsome vessel; no plain piece of timber can fit itself for the building, much less a crooked one. Nor a man that is born blind, give himself sight. God deals with men in this case as he did with Abraham. He would not give Isaac while Sarah’s womb, in a natural probability, might have borne him; but when her womb was dead, and age had taken away all natural strength of conception, then God gives him; that it might appear that he was not a child of nature, but a child of promise. (HT: Fire and Ice) Posted by Alan Kurschner on 01/20/2007 @ 8:38 pm | Comments are off for this postArchives |
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