I finally feel like I am getting settled back into life after leaving for an extended trip Nov. 15. The first leg was spent at Calvin Seminary in Grand Rapids for a consultation considering how best to incorporate Bible software into the teaching of biblical languages. There has been an elephant in the room for some time at many seminaries: the waning ability to justify the usefulness of traditional Greek and Hebrew study in preparation for pastoral ministry. This issue has been around since my days in seminary in the early ‘90s, yet has only really gained traction in recent days with schools needing to trim budgets. As pastors are required to have more and more training in more diverse areas than ever before, something has to give. Adding another year to the program is not an option, so most schools are cutting out what deans consider to be fluff.

In my own experience, I do not think my profs were in a very good position to make a compelling case for the traditional approach of memorization and parsing. I saw folks around me that memorized it all, did well in the class, but did not really understand the language. Then there were the rabid psycho people like me that got up early to study and read for fun, but I still did not have the foundation I needed for moving from decoding Greek to understanding it. When a prof was asked “Why take Greek?” the general answer was to be able to access information about the text that could not be conveyed in English. This could be anything from a text-critical matter to a translational or exegetical matter. I learned at Calvin that one of the benchmarks for Reformed pastors is the ability to work in original languages for resolution of doctrinal disputes.

The problem with this justification is that what used to be inaccessible is now quite so, thanks to databases, a variety of English translations, textual notes like those in the NET. The information-access justification even then was pretty lame. Knowledge of the languages does indeed help in such matters, but for the number of times that a pastor might address such an issue in any given week, does it justify the years of study? Some would say “no.”

Another justification was that knowledge of the languages would help you to preach a better sermon. Again, it is generally informationally-driven, the idea being that if you know that this was a genitive of source instead of means, then one could provide a better exegesis. I am not sure if this lead to or coincided with the move toward a 1-2 verse per week pace of preaching, but what I saw was people atomizing the text into such small bits that the pieces no longer looked like the who. It would be like dissecting a chicken down to its component parts, and then trying to put it back together. One might recognize it as a fowl, but certainly without its original glory. Unfortunately many have associated the atomization of the text with language study, and thus eschewed it as unproductive. Many language teacher have only confirmed such a view with their methodology.

My goal in preparation for preaching is to crawl into the text, so to speak. One of my profs talked of living in the text, of preparing to preach by immersing oneself in the larger corpus for weeks in preparation and then in the given pericope the week of the sermon. Doing so would allow you to meet with God, to allow Him to impact your life with His word in preparation for leading the congregation into the same experience. I loved the idea, but there was little in the way of methodology, and I had been taught to atomize. Putting the chicken back together was still a challenge. I had to figure out a different approach where the chicken was still alive on Sunday morning, so to speak. I think my metaphor may be breaking down, but hopefully you get my drift.

In all of this discussion about languages, little of it focused on intended outcome. Yes, there was the general goal of reading a clean text, knowing all words occurring more than X number of times, and being able to parse or recognizes morphological forms, but this had more to do with dividing the chicken into its component parts than the ability to distinguish a chicken from a duck. What has been missing is an intelligent discussion about what does it practically mean to understand a text. Does it mean the ability to translate it? If so, formal or dynamic? Does it mean an understanding of the grammatical parts, the vocab, morph, and syntax? What is it about these elements that contribute to understanding? Surely not just assigning a label.

The consultation at Calvin was a first step down the road of better understanding our intended objective in language study. We heard from folks in the trenches preaching, both a new grad and an older one. This reality check about life in actual ministry must inform any discussion. If we place an unworkable load of what good exegesis looks like that cannot reasonably be achieved on a regular basis, then we are no better that the Pharisees who did the same with their tradition. The solution must be workable in real life.

The harder question is what is “it”? What is it about the language that positively contributes to preaching and teaching? The pat answer is “Understanding the text!” Right, what does that practically mean, practically look like? Back in the day, seminarians arrived with at least one modern language under their belt, as well as at least one classical language like Latin or Greek. The seminary then merely needed to reformulate what the student already knew about language and apply it to Koine or BH. This was not necessarily easy, but it was attainable due to the student’s background. Not so today.

Most of us have heard the complaint that students today do not even really know English let alone any other language. Instead of building on an existing foundation in the introductory year, profs are needing to lay the foundation before any progress can be made. When I used to build, we poured the whole foundation before doing any building on it, allowing us to make sure it was square with the world and of the proper dimensions. Metaphorically speaking, some teaching language today are pouring the foundation as they build, without a very clear blueprint of what the structure is supposed to look like. An architect’s rendering of the finished product is pretty, but it is the engineered-version of the blueprint that contains the details needed to make that pretty picture a reality. Each phase of the project has its own detailed page: foundation, framing/rough plumbing, electrical, exterior elevations, landscaping, etc. We should not be surprised if we get a Rube Goldberg house at the end of the day.

It was encouraging to hear what some practitioners are doing to address these issues. I listened and took notes, walking away with a renewed calling to dream up things that could help turn the tide against the degradation of biblical language study. I know the impact that the languages have had on my life and ministry, but many chickens died along the way. A key revelation for me came from reconciling orthodoxy with orthopraxy. I said and affirmed that I believed Scripture is living and active, the living word of God that is able to touch hearts and change lives by the power of the Holy Spirit. This is an important part of my orthodoxy. In terms of orthopraxy, I tended to atomize what had always been living in order to demonstrate it was living, and then tried to put it back together again. I ended up closing the sermon/teaching with a dead chicken taped back together. If Scripture really is living and active, then all that needs to happen is clearing the way for people to see that. I shifted from atomizing to something more like a guided tour, striving to stay out of people’s view so they could see what was really important. I stopped including things that were not necessary to accomplish this, and surprisingly nobody seemed to miss these things I had been taught were near non-negotiables.

If God’s word really is living and active, really is His means of speaking into our lives, then how does this affect our preaching, our preparation? What is the relation of the language study to the delivery, what exactly is it that I am deriving from my study that prepares me to teach? I am beginning to formulate some ideas here, and my research focus this coming year will be to practically tackle some of these issues, especially the lack of language foundation in today’s language students. What is it about the study of the language that practically translates into helping a congregation or class meet with God in the text?