It's all Greek

I am now only three days into my first seminary class and I am fully consumed with the Greek language of the New Testament. Of the 14 hours I have been awake today, roughly 12 of them have been focused on Greek. I cannot stop thinking about it – I even dream about it at night. I spent this morning running through the order of the Greek alphabet again, making sure I had it down. I ate breakfast with my homework in front of me, making sure I had given my absolute best effort. I wondered to myself when the next opportunity would be to test myself on vocab would come. I can't shake this Greek stuff!

Yes, it’s hard. For those of you out there who’ve said to me at one point or another “It’s all Greek to me” – I feel this same sentiment at least 5 times during every class period. So much goes over my head – I stare blankly with a “huh?” look on my face and remind myself that all I need to do is pass the class. I know I am going to pass this class. God has not left me nor has my sense of peace – not once have I had second thoughts about taking this course during the summer. I may feel differently once I resume my camp duties in a couple of weeks – but, even then, I know where my help comes from… the Lord Jesus. Also, I’m not completely clueless – my pre-study of Greek has given me a great jump on vocabulary memorization. When doing reviews in class, I kind of get excited to “bring it on” and see how many words I know. I am excited – seriously – to take the 324 word test at the end of the course. Yes, I definitely feel confident of my vocabulary retention – but that is about as far as my confidence gets me right now. The rest is grammar – verb indicative participle third person singular – blah blah blah – what the???? (Insert “it’s all Greek to me" quote here)

As difficult as it all is, I’m enjoying my time so far. There are so many nutrients that the word of God has to offer – I just cannot believe how complex and all-consuming Greek really is. Every now and then I stop and think to myself, “I’m learning Greek!” and feel quietly proud of this fact. Then I realize how far behind I feel with actually grasping a clue in the course and delve back into my work. Each day that passes I know I am that much closer to acquiring enough knowledge or at least the tools to assist with sermon and bible study preparation, and this is a great feeling. I found myself actually looking forward to finishing class today so that I could get home to study on my own – a sign that truly indicates that I am now a “school lover” and in the zone unlike any other time in my life… eivj do,xan qeou/ patro,j (to the glory of God the Father - the closest I can get to the actual Greek without downloading the program!)