It is hard to say what is the best thing I have done to enrich my ministry. I have attended various lectureships, received a graduate degree, and read many books. I am blessed by reading ministry related blogs and listening to podcasts. While all of these continue to enrich my work, maybe the best thing I have done over the last four years is meeting weekly with another minister to translate the original languages.
It started through me randomly mentioning to Jim Savage, a local counselor, that I was taking a graduate Greek readings class. I told him how I needed to take the Hebrew language classes to finish my M. Div. It was this conversation that led to the suggestion of us getting together and reading some texts together.
From this inauspicious beginning came a great blessing to my life and ministry. Jim and I have been getting together most weeks and reading the original text since the Fall of 2010. We simply work through a passage by reading it in the original language; each taking a verse and then translating it. For those that don’t know Jim, he is about 30 years older than myself and much more educated and wiser. He attended Harding Graduate school, got a doctorate from Hebrew Union in Cincinnati, and completed a second doctorate in counseling.
The time has served several functions for me over the years. It has been an enriching devotional experience for me, when I am able to connect with the text without the aim of lesson preparation. But it has also been a mustard seed producer for many sermons, Bible classes, articles, and posts. We don’t translate the text with the goal of getting a lesson, but discover lessons while translating the text. Finally, Jim has been source of encouragement and wisdom for me through the years. Sometimes, we wouldn’t get much text translated, but have some tremendous dialogue. I have also used the time to sharpen some written articles like the article I had published in Restoration Quarterly on the Goel Custom in Ruth or a chapter I wrote once on forgiveness.
Though we do very little work outside of the hour-and-half we spend translating we have covered a lot of material over the years. We read through Mounce’s Graded Greek reader and the Pratico and Van Pelt’s Hebrew Graded reader which contain numerous key passages of the Old and New Testament. We have translated Jonah, Ruth, 1 John, Philippians, and many other sections. For almost one year we did nothing but work with my introduction to Hebrew class.
I am sharing this post to encourage other ministers to develop some habit like this one. It has been one of the most enriching things for my ministry. Now you may be thinking, I don’t know greek and certainly not hebrew. Well, I don’t know them very well either! I have had some training, but I have also invested in Accordance Bible Software. The software will parse and define the words for me when I don’t know them, which is often!
You may say, well what difference does it make to do it in the original language. First, let me say that if you can’t do this in the original language get together with another brother and read the English text together. But if you work a little, using the original language will open up a whole new world of discovery. By using the original you are able to see patterns in the text, notice word plays, and get a better feeling for the meaning and intent of the words. Plus, when you are forced to look at a passage in the original, you are forced to slow down, examine, and not skip over because of familiarity.
So if you had greek in college, but haven’t used it in years, let me encourage you to pick it back up. Invest in a Bible software program, find a friend who reads some greek, and start working through the text together. It may be the best thing you do for your ministry!
