I did a blog post for Logos Bible Software, my employer, illustrating how to use one of the widgets in Logos 4 to sort through morphological data. This lead to a B-Greek  exchange beginning here. This reminded me of some “posts” that Stephen Levinsohn did for his church’s newsletter. Although he is a really smart guy, he has a winsome way of simplifying things to make them understandable.

Levinsohn’s basic premise is that the conjunction γάρ always serves a single function in discourse: to signal that what follows strengthens or supports what precedes. It does not advance the story or argument, but instead introduces offline, supporting information. See p. 37 of the Discourse Grammar for more detail and citations for further reading.

The noteworthy tidbit that Levinsohn uses to unify his series is the observation that the most popular memory verses from the NT begin with γάρ, usually translated “for.” These verses do not advance the argument, but support it. Since the γάρ statements are not the main point but support, Levinsohn asks the reader whether they can identify what is the main point. In most cases, it is pretty difficult without really reading. I had not realized how focused we tend to be on the support material, without paying as close attention to the writer’s main argument. Here is the first article.