Conversations about the "Greek Book" (Part One)

Part one: The other missionary was glad to meet us, until...

We went to visit at a church. We took the team that was with us, working on what we call The Greek Book Project (we’re creative that way).

This church is what we call a hip church… praise and lights, coffee shop, you get the picture.

It’s doing a great job at reaching the upper middle class, getting them involved and reaching out.

But it is not a scholarly sort of place. More action oriented.

The pastor, also a missionary, came over to meet us. He was curious to meet another bald fiftysomething American accompanied by a gang of Gringo college students.

He was chatting nicely for a few minutes until he asked us what we were working on. Mike started to explain the Greek Book Project.

His eyes glazed over. His attention was gone, really.

The team was amazed. “Hey, he really frosted you!”

We weren’t surprised. We are used to that reaction, especially if you mention Greek. Sometimes if you just mention theological education.

Sometimes Peruvians think and ask “Why do you teach GREEK?” They kind of think that it is a sideline for prepping Peruvian Cruise ship employees.

We have to explain that the New Testament was written in Greek, not Spanish. And so if you want to see what it said to begin with, you need to learn Greek.

Some people get it then. Others, like this missionary, still don’t.

"Please come teach us Greek!"

That very week, Mike received a call from a young man who lives in the "deep country" outside of Andahuaylas.

He took a break and went outside to take the call, leaving the team laboring away over morphological codes without him being there to help them by sorting out differences between the text with the codes and the Spanish-Greek interlinear.

A Peruvian team member accompanied him in case the abrupt switch to Spanish confused Mike. (He has a tendency to concentrate very hard.)

When they came back in, they were both in tears.

“What did he say?”

"Please come back and teach us Greek! We need it so much."

Okay, so why does this country pastor with a small education say they need Greek, while a Gringo missionary with a large church couldn’t care less?

Because this country pastor has been actually thrown out of his church for preaching salvation by grace through faith. He daily faces people with crazy ideas of what the Bible teaches--cults that twist the scriptures, con men calling themselves apostles that twist the scriptures, misguided folks that barely understand Spanish who twist the scriptures out of ignorance. And he wants to be sure he knows what it says. Because he might be taking a stand that is unpopular in his culture, and he wants to be sure that he is taking that stand on what the word of God says.

Because it is easy to twist the scriptures into saying what you want them to say when you are using a translation.

(Note: this is not saying translations are bad! We never, never would say that! We are dedicated to getting people Bibles that they can understand)

This is because words do not mean exactly the same thing in different languages. Take “church” for example.

In English you think of a building with a steeple on top--the place where they worship God.

But in Greek it is an assembly, called to meet for a particular purpose.

We English-speakers understand secondarily that it is also the people meeting in the building, but the Greek word had nothing to do with the building.

But without knowing that, we could twist Acts 20:28’s admonition to overseers to “care for the church of God” (ESV) to mean that they should take care of the building. We might even emphasize that God purchased this building with His own blood, so we should die defending that building from any harm.

This sounds a bit extreme, even crazy. But we’ve heard things just as crazy, and so has the country pastor.

Life in the country is very hard.

The people are desperate for something hopeful. Something that they can trust in that will make it alright, that will get them to heaven.

Many of the people are illiterate or functionally illiterate.

They are wanting answers. They can't check out what the Bible says for themselves. Many times even if they could read it they just don't have a BIble. And many times if they do have one they don't understand what it says.

So if an apostle came along and told them how they should die to protect that church building, and that’s what matters to God, they’d believe him.

And they’d be satisfied. Here’s a magical cure for all their ills. Just take care of that church building, and God will be happy.. The crops won't fail. A landslide won't crush the town.

Then when someone else comes along and says no, that’s not what the Bible says, they’d be shaken up. Maybe they’d think that person is a heretic and run him out of town on a rail for endangering their very lives.

While the Gringo missionary is in another world. He’s not getting thrown out of church for preaching the Bible. He is dealing with 1st world problems, like “we can’t make the tuition payment,” or “my husband asked for a divorce.” He’s trying to get college-educated people up out of their seats and moving. We know that Greek would protect him from drifting off course, but he’s not the only Gringo pastor not using it!