There are a variety of tools that you can use to help you in reading over the summer, one is Zondervan summer Greek reader . This is a work that has a small section of Greek to read for each day of the summer with some helps for the difficult vocabulary.

A second work, also by Zondervan is Mounce Graded Reader . Mounce gives you a number of sections from the NT, starting out with the very easy and moving on to the fairly difficult, ending with passages from the LXX and the Didache. Mounce also has a very helpful appendix with a list of the grammatical categories from Wallace’s grammar.

A third such work, from Kregel, is R. Decker’s Koine Greek Reader . Decker’s work is very helpful in terms of giving the student things to review as well as teaching him or her how to use BDAG and giving careful notes to each of the passages.

All in all the student can simply read a Greek NT over the summer. The pressure of having a workbook staring at them, which remains undone if the laziness overtakes them can be quite motivating, however so the purchase of one of these readers can be a small price to pay for a good summer’s work in the language.

Years ago, when I was doing magic for a living, I took a trip out to the Magic Castle in Hollywood. While there I met the legend that had caused many, many people to move to the area to study close-up magic. His name was Dai Vernon and he had a couch in the corner of the room with a sign above it which said “Reserved for the Professor When He Is In the Castle.” Vernon was a man who lived, ate, and drank close up magic. Nothing was so important to him as a pack of cards or a set of cups and balls. I arrived at the Castle when it opened at eight p.m. (as I remember) and not too long after I saw Professor Vernon (he had no academic degree but was called the professor because of his deep knowledge of magic) sitting in his corner with a pack of cards in his hands, staring at them. I walked up to him to express my admiration and it was as if I had interrupted him. He thanked me in a rather gruff manner and went back to looking at the deck he had in his hand. I left the Castle that night at two a.m. when it closed (again as I remember) and as I was leaving I still recall seeing Vernon, sitting there, hours and hours later still looking at that deck of cards. Undoubtedly considering a move he had thought about for years and yet was still not satisfied with. If he could spend that kind of time working with a deck of cards, how much more should I be willing to spend working on what I believe to be the word of God?

Don’t let your Greek get away from you. No toil is too great if by it we are able to know the Lord better.

DSL

Steve is teaching us this week about what is called “Discourse Analysis.” It is a name that scholars use for trying to see why languages do what they do and in our case, more specifically, why NT Greek does many of the things that it does. It is one of the most helpful methods of looking at the Greek New Testament that I have come across in a long time. Part of this may be because Steve is such a great teacher (and he is a great teacher, what other Greek class do you get to watch clips from Star Wars, Indiana Jones, and Oceans Eleven, and more than that they all added greatly to the teaching and learning experience), and part of this may be because of the wonderful helpfulness of the tool which Steve has designed for the Logos platform.

Those of you who know me, know that I am not one to give away complements unless I really mean them. The class this week has been beyond wonderful. If you would like to learn more about Steve’s methods for NT study or his tools, you can do two things: First, use the above link to go to Logos and check out his “Discourse Analysis New Testament.” There is even one made in the ESV for those of you who haven’t had the privilege of studying Greek. Just put “Steve Runge” in the search box on the Logos home page; Second, check out Steve’s blog at http://www.NTdiscourse.org and you will see some great, practical application of the work that Steve is doing.

For those of you who think that Greek grammar is all “ivory tower” I really encourage you to check out Steve’s blog. You will see some great stuff there that will help you understand the text in new and exciting ways. I plan to share some of my own discoveries with you over the next few months.

Keep Reading,

SamLam