Greek, Greek,
Who Got The Greek ?
Proverbs 30:6
Add thou not unto his words,
lest he reprove thee,
and thou be found a liar.
I know six Greek words - Alpha and Omega, Phi Beta Kappa, and Snufalufagus, the first two of which are in the Bible. I know one Hebrew word, alleluia, also in the Bible. I know no Aramaic words and have never met an Aramaican.
There are plenty of preachers, teachers, and authors who know lots of Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic. They just don’t always know much about the Bible because the Greek does not teach them how to rightly divide the word of truth.
Bema ?
I recently listened to sermons titled “The Judgment Seat of Christ” on sermonaudio.com. (Thank God there are some preachers that will preach about it, and most of them got the literal message correct. Only a couple realized that eternal rewards relate to ruling and reigning with Jesus Christ in the kingdom of heaven, which isn’t here yet.)
Most of these preachers spent about five minutes explaining the Greek word “bema”. It means some kind of judgment seat sat in by the guy who handed out rewards at the Olympic-style games of their day (that took five seconds).
Without fail, when
every one of them was done with their torturing Greek explanation of “bema”, I
concluded that “bema” means “judgment seat”.
And my English Bible calls the “judgment seat of Christ”, guess what,
the “judgment seat of Christ”. There was
zero light shed on the English by the Greek.
I don’t know about you, but I can easily visualize what a judgment seat is. It is where the judge always sits, and he is always in control, and he always pronounces the verdict. And you know what? There were even two different pronunciations of this word by Greek theologians (there is only one way to pronounce “judgment seat” in English). Bema with a long e, and bema with the e pronounced as a long a. Down here we would pronounce the e as a short a, and then follow with Roll Tide Roll (that's funny).
Proof In The Pudding
Anyway,
I only know English and yet know more about the kingdom than the vast majority
of the "preachers" who know Greek; just sayin’!
Knowin' Greek don't measure up to knowin' Bible truth. I cringe when I hear a preacher start expositing his Greek education because I know he is likely getting ready to run off the track. How can that be? It can be because we have the pure words of God in English and they are not to be changed.
Many Greek Geeks use Greek to explain some words that they think need to be changed. And they will change them because the Greek they are actually going to probably has its origin in Origen of Egypt (a type of the world), not Antioch, where the disciples were first called Christians.
When he goes to the Bible, English or Greek, he does not read it, it reads him (Hebrews 4:12) and sheds no light on his Greek. And off the track he goes, sometimes in flames, with no wall to bump him back on the track!
Look at it this way. Greece made contributions to society long ago, but not so much any more. England and America, with an English Bible, spread the gospel around the world and became the world’s most powerful and creative nations ever.
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The last 400 years on earth represent by far the quickest and most numerous advancements of science, math, astronomy, and the arts - things which ancient Greece was known for. In other words, the English has taken over the Greek.
If you want to use your Greek Textus Receptus to edify or magnify the King James English, or explain the meaning of proper names, OK. If you want to use your Egyptian Greek whatever to change the King James English, go away. I am sure there is a need for missionaries in Greece if you understand today’s gospel.
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On a professional note, Dr. Gail Riplinger (by far the world’s leading authority on Bible translations) states in The Riplinger Report, February 2012, “The Bible teaches that “man’s wisdom” is “not” to be our tool for Bible study; spiritual things must be compared within one’s own Holy Bible.
I Corinthians 2:13
Which things also we speak,
not in the words which man’s wisdom teacheth,
but which the Holy Ghost teacheth;
comparing spiritual things with spiritual.
There are no safe and reliable sources available today, outside of the Holy Bible, that can be used for Bible study or translation work. (Even the Oxford English Dictionary defines words using old Bibles.) I say this after spending hours upon hours each day, for the last 20 years, researching the authors and texts of these ‘so-called’ study tools. God warns:
Exodus 20:25
And if thou wilt make me an altar of stone,
thou shalt not build it of hewn stone:
for if thou lift up thy tool upon it, thou hast polluted it.
Lexicons are dictionaries which purport to ‘define’, in English, the ‘original’ Greek and Hebrew words of the Bible. They are all marred by corrupt Greek and Hebrew texts.” – end quote.
In other words, your English Holy Bible is at the top of the authority chain. When Dr. Riplinger refers to the Holy Bible, she is always referring to the 1611 Authorized Version, King James Bible.
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