I’ve got to start posting more again. I know all of you have been crying yourselves to sleep every day that there isn’t a post here.

I’m going to follow Jason’s post on Fall Reading. At the same time, I’m considering combining my Scripture Zealot 2 and Suffering Christians blogs. Both of those have more personal things in them so I’m not sure. In Scripture Zealot 2 I often write about what I’m reading and studying in case I want to look back and see when I read what. So it may be better to keep it separate. I don’t know.

I’m getting near the end of finishing reading the Old Testament using NLT’s 24/7 chronological Bible, reading ahead a little. From then on HCSB will be my main Bible while using NLT quite a bit still. I’m going to be sad when I’m done. Obviously I can read it again, but I like what I learned and the process I went through and that will never be the same again. Of course, the next time may be even better.

I’m concentrating on the OT this year and because of having surgery and spending a lot of time sleeping because of medication I’ll be going at least through the first three months of next year too.

We’re going to be studying Proverbs in our small group starting next month. We will be using a NavPress study guide which is pretty good as those awful things go. I used that as an excuse to buy a two volume commentary by Waltke. I wanted to read through it while doing the study, but the study guide is more topical than going through it in the order it’s in. So I don’t know how that will work and if I’ll read the whole two volumes or just refer to parts. The introduction itself, which takes up about a fifth of the first long(er) volume, should be very good.

Then I have Haggai Zechariah Macachi by Evangelical Press which they sent me just to be nice because I reviewed How To Enjoy Your Bible. I will review that one too.

After that I’ll go through Creation and Blessing which is a commentary/exposition of Genesis and Handbook of the Pentateuch.

Then finally Finding Jesus in the Old Testament which I’m really looking forward to because I love reading anything about Jesus.

I also have Isaiah by Moyter but I’m afraid I’ll only use that for reference.

Depending on how much I can read each day, I’m guessing it will take well into next year. Then I’ll go back to reading commentaries on Luke and Acts and I have read one commentary for each book of the NT.

I just got done reading How Long O Lord by D.A. Carson which is a good theological way of looking at suffering, compatibilism and God’s providence. I will be posting a lot of quotes from that.

I’d like to read Randy Alcorn’s book on suffering, If God Is Good. I wrote to the publisher requesting a review copy and haven’t heard anything so I’m not sure if I should buy it yet. For you reviewers, maybe you know that limbo.

I’m behind on Greek vocabulary because of surgery and am trying to get that back before I get back into going through Black’s beginning book. I feel like I forgot everything. I may just read through the book from the beginning yet again to where I am which is a little more than half-way through.

I’ll stop there. More to come on these things I hope.

I want to write a post about what I’m reading this summer even if just for me to look back on. Since it’s so short and boring I’ll combine it with what’s going on with surgery.

I’ve mentioned that I’m concentrating on the Old Testament this year. It’s been great. God is showing me a lot of things about how much He hates sin, what He’s willing to do for His people, how much He’s on our side and how He takes it upon Himself to bring us [back] to Him.

My extra reading and working on Greek has been pathetic. I’m sleeping worse and worse and sleeping a lot during the day. I’ve also had a renewed interest in photography and have been spending too much time on that, possibly to get my mind off of things. But I should be reading to do that.

Right now I’m reading Ryken’s Bible Handbook which is excellent. The chapter on Job is worth the whole book. I will be reviewing that and Unburdened, a book about worry, both from Tyndale, sometime this summer, God willing. (Is that a record for number of commas in a sentence?)

However, I will be having surgery on my back this Wednesday the 30th. It’s a double fusion L4 to S1 with laminectomy and removing scar tissue from my last surgery. This is much more major than my previous surgery which was a microdiscectomy. If you’d like to pray for me even just once I’d appreciate it. Please pray for the spiritual stuff as much or more than the physical as I mentioned in the previous post.

I know from last time it’s difficult to read anything that required much concentration when taking pain killers and being in pain, partly because I’m in a state of half sleep most of the time anyway. Being as tired as I normally am, adding medication will make it that much worse.

I’d also like to read and review a small commentary on Haggai Zechariah Malachi from EP Press and read Handbook on the Pentateuch, Creation and Blessing, a commentary on Genesis, Finding Jesus in the Old Testament and a few articles. I probably won’t get all that done this year.

As far as learning Greek, I’d like to get back up to speed on that too. I’ve been keeping up with the vocabulary and I went through the workbook up to this point, but lately I haven’t been moving ahead very much in the Black book.

That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

I love the book of Colossians and there are and will be quite a few more commentaries coming out on this. Someday after I’ve done some other things like looking further into the OT and reading more of Calvin I’d like to study Colossians as in-depth as I can.

If you’re interested and haven’t seen it, here is a review by Review by David Schrock at The Gospel Coalition Reviews of a commentary/exposition of Colossians and Philemon by Michael F. Bird

I’m still a little dizzy about the back surgery thing and haven’t been posting as much lately.

I find it rather disastrous to fall behind in vocabulary.

–David Black

I know this from experience! Print out flashcards right away. If you have a paper cutter that works great. If not, use a scissors and do them one chapter at a time. Over time divide them into piles. One for those you know well, one for new ones that you’re still learning and one for those that are in between. I just used the book but you can’t separate those that you know well from those you need to go over more often. And memorizing them in the same order all the time doesn’t help either.

There are many software options out there too. I’m one who would rather use technology and the computer than old fashioned stuff but for vocabulary, plain old paper flashcards seem to work the best for me.

Just do it.

What I need encouragement for is how useful learning beginning Greek will be.

I’ve gotten to like learning it somehow and I’ve even gotten interested in how the language works, which is highly unusual for me. I hated learning Spanish. I’m not a nerd like many of you. I do have a feeling that God is leading me along this path and that it will be ‘profitable’ but I still have doubts.

But when I read posts like this I think about how paltry my learning will be and how much I’ll be able to read, understand and benefit from after going through Black’s beginning book (which I’m a little more than half-way through) plus a very basic linguistics book (probably also by Black) and maybe just a little of something else. I really don’t want to spend much more time than that on the language. There is so much other stuff I want to read and learn.

I’m normally somebody who goes all out with whatever I do. I can’t just do something as a light ‘hobby’ or it isn’t as much fun. I know I’m free to learn as much as I want. But like I said, I just don’t want to spend that much time on it.

Any words of encouragement for me and anyone else in the same situation?

Book lovers and collectors don’t have to stop learning after they graduate college. There are loads of free courses to take online that will supply you with reading lists, information about the history of books and manuscripts, linguistics, foreign literature, ancient texts and more. Here are 100 awesome open courses for bibliophiles.

100 Awesome Open Courses for Bibliophiles
Scroll down to Ancient Texts for the most relevant ones.

Bible Study Tools 3.0 is now in beta. The URL is:
http://beta.biblestudytools.com/

Esteban encouraged me to read and study Greek for the Rest of Us because I like to read commentaries and it would help me learn some thing about Greek that might help me to better understand what they’re talking about in NT commentaries. I learned more about why translations are different and a bit about exegesis than about Greek partly because the book wasn’t organized in a way that was easy for me to learn from.

So I decided to actually learn some Greek and started with Croy’s grammar. After getting almost a third of the way through I got a review copy of Black’s grammar and decided to switch to that. I’m a third of the way through that now.

At this point now I can finally better understand what they’re talking about in commentaries when they comment on the Greek. I even know quite a bit of the vocabulary. Even though I only plan on going through beginning level I won’t stop here because I’d like to be able to read some Greek at a beginning level.

So, I’m encouraged that it has helped me a bit with my original intention. I hope to be able to use a Reader’s Greek NT by later next year. I don’t know if a beginning level will help with exegesis or not. What do you think?

I’ve been using Croy’s A Primer of Biblical Greek. Partly because it was suggested along with Black’s by Mike Aubrey and partly because it includes passages from the LXX in the exercises and maybe a couple of other reasons I can’t remember.

I’m a NetGalley reviewer and I requested Black’s new 3rd edition of Learn to Read New Testament Greek. After I requested it they said they’d be asking for my class size and where I teach. Ha. So I wouldn’t be getting that one. But then a week later I found it in the mail along with the workbook too! I feel guilty but I’m going to do a good review for them especially since I bought Mounce’s also.

In looking through Black’s book I like it better. It’s more efficient but at the same time explains terms that Croy’s doesn’t. As an example, in an exercise in Croy’s book, I didn’t understand how someone could be taught by the word if ‘word’ is a dative. But in Black’s book it explains that it’s an instrumental dative. However Black’s will leave out things that aren’t as important like rules of accenting which are put in an appendix.

I find myself learning more in less space in this book. It’s probably a little less comprehensive so when I’m done I’ll go to Croy and Mounce.

I got Mounce just to get a really rounded education and to do a good comparative review of Black’s and it’s very good of course but there’s just a little too much stuff going on compared to Black. I like how Mounce as the Exegetical Insight at the beginning of each chapter which I’ll be reading. Black also helps more with exegetical skills.

Look for a review in the future.

I’m going through France’s commentary on Matthew. There is a very truncated introduction because the commentary is already 1200 pages long and he wrote a previous book called Matthew: Evangelist and Teacher which he expects you to read. So I checked out An Introduction to the New Testament: Contexts, Methods and Ministry Formation by David A. deSilva from the library for the second or third time. Since I had book money I decided to finally just buy it. My little library is sorely lacking in reference materials. This came highly recommended by Mike Aubrey and others and since I was able to take a look at it I knew I would like it. It was “A 2005 Gold Medallion finalist!” One of the things I really like about it is it “integrate[s] instruction in exegetical and interpretive strategies with their customary considerations of authorship, dating, audience and message”. (added emphasis)

Our group Bible study is going to be studying Ecclesiastes, which was my suggestion so I’m very glad about that. I already had Eaton’s Ecclesiastes and decided to spend another whole $6 and by Kidner’s (used) just to get another look. I may do a brief comparison at some point. I found that I like the NLT Study Bible’s treatment of Ecclesiastes better than the ESVSB mainly because the NLTSB is more thorough with more quantity of helpful information. I love Ecclesiastes and love it even more now.

I’ve been “learning” Greek using Croy’s beginning grammar book. I had been thinking it might be nice to get Black’s and/or Mounce’s just to get a well rounded treatment and possibly help me learn some things better by having them explained differently. I’m a NetGalley reviewer and requested Black’s Learn to Read New Testament Greek. After I requested it I saw that it’s only for teachers. But they sent it to me anyway. And not a galley but the book with the workbook! So I thought in order to do a good review of it, I might as well get Mounce’s Basics of Biblical Greek Grammar to do a good comparison of all three. In reading some of the Amazon reviews of the Mounce I see that it’s good for people who are self teaching. I did not know that as Johnny Carson would say. So I’m looking forward to all of this. I’ll say that the Black book is beautiful. You’ll see a review of that in the future.

After Matthew I’ll be going through John with the help of Carson’s The Gospel According to John: An Introduction and Commentary (Pillar New Testament Commentary).

I think that brings my slowly growing library to well over a hunderd (sic) books. I bet you’re jealous. My library is smaller than yours and I’m content (Phil 4:11-13).

Here is a video posted on the Koinonia blog in a post titled (entitled?) Con Campbell discusses how his book fits with Wallace’s, Mounce’s, and other texts.

As someone who is a beginner in learning some Greek, I think it’s very important for me to remember that the vocabulary I’m learning are just glosses–simple definitions that don’t cover the whole range of meaning. The same would go for grammar terms.

I think this is important for those of us who look up a word in a lexicon like Strong’s and expect to find the meaning of a word or unlock any information we don’t get from an English translation. The people who translate the Bible in general are extremely knowledgeable about the original languages aside from the disagreements some people have on certain passages in certain translations (I need to cover myself for those who will protest that thought).

I think what’s most helpful for a word or phrase study is to compare it in at least six different translations of different styles ranging from the more literal (formal equivalence or whatever more current term you’d like to use) all the way to paraphrase. This will show you how different translators handled the text, especially if different Greek manuscripts were used for different translations.

Keep in mind these are comments from the peanut gallery so I hope I’m not embarrassing myself too much.

When I mentioned I was going to start learning Greek some people wanted to know how things are coming along.

I don’t know what happened, but Greek became interesting to me starting a couple of weeks ago. It’s not just something I’m trying to learn so that I can use a reader’s NT and understand a good bit of what I’m reading, but it’s actually interesting to learn how things work, understand things that perplexed me for a while and a light bulb goes off, word order (not that I understand it), how economical it is etc. This makes the exercises much less frustrating. I won’t say it’s fun, but it’s interesting.

That’s a great thing God has done because I’m not naturally interested in languages.

It’s going slow because of my age, time I’m willing to spend (although I’m working on it every day), mental energy or lack of, especially with all the medical stuff, and wanting to learn it well. I decided not to think negatively of this in any way. In fact I’m glad I’m not learning Greek in school or I would forget the majority of it by the time I’m finished racing through it at college speed.

I’m on Chapter 11 out of 32 in the Croy book.

I still don’t think I’ll go beyond Croy’s beginning book, Black’s linguistics book and Campbell’s Verbal Aspect (just because I have it) but hopefully that will be enough to really benefit from it.

Here are some things I’ve collected on prayer and I thought I would list them here. Prayer is one of my top four subjects of interest so I’m always looking for good reading.

• Seven Principles of Prayer D. Broughton Knox at the BRIEFING
  HT: Between Two Worlds
• Prayer List by John Hendryx
• Prayers at Suffering Christians
• Results matching “Lord’s prayer” from Ligonier Ministries Blog (scroll down a ways for the posts on The Pattern of Prayer and then back up for The Practice of Prayer)
• Effective Prayer by Charles Spurgeon
• I’ve listed some books at the bottom of this review.
• Don’t forget the Puritan Prayers that are here.

I’m now going through Revelation (and enjoying it a lot). I love reading commentaries and have gone from Romans through Revelation having done a lot of reading about Jesus from the historical perspective and also books pertaining to the Gospels.

After Revelation I would like to alternately read a commentary on an OT book with a Gospel and then Acts.

Regarding the OT I’d like to mention what I have and plan on reading. It’s the order of things that I’d like to ask you fine folks about.

I have von Rad’s Old Testament Theology, Creation and Blessing–a commentary/exposition of Genesis, Eaton’s commentary on Ecclesiastes, How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth by Stuart and Fee (which I’ve read once) and The Symphony of Scripture by Mark Strom. Starting next year or earlier I plan on reading through the whole OT. I would also like to buy a commentary on Isaiah and possibly Daniel, the latter just because I like him. I also have the ESV and NLT study Bibles.

Since suffering is a subject of interest, I’ve done a lot of reading on Job and feel I have a relatively good handle on that one.

Given all that, what order would you read these materials? Should I read von Rad’s work first? If so, the whole thing or piece-meal? Something more basic on themes like The Symphony of Scripture? Should I read through the OT first? How would you go about it?

Cheerleading by Miles Van Pelt at Koinonia Blog

Saturday a’Machen: The Minister and His Greek Testament posted by Esteban Vázquez at The Voice of Stefan

The first post above has the quote shown below. I don’t understand the part that I have made bold. Could anyone explain that?

Feel ‘poured out’ over a great many interests with intense desire to do but so little power and time to accomplish . . . Hebrew: I can think of nothing I’d like better than to be able to pick up a page of the Hebrew Old Testament and read it at sight. Greek loses a lot of its challenge when one gets to know a little.

–Jim Elliot, College Journals

P.S. I’m still not posting much because of recovering from back surgery. It’s going well but slower than expected.

Some people wanted to know which beginning Greek book I was going to go with after reading Greek For The Rest Of Us. Although I briefly mentioned what I would be getting in a previous post, on Monday I ordered Croy’s A Primer of Biblical Greek because it’s deductive in style and deals a little bit with the Septuagint. And Mike and Esteban recommend it.

I used a CBD.com gift card and had just a bit left over and came across this–
The Expositor’s Bible Commentary: Introductory Articles, Volume 1 for only $5. I’m sure I saw this mentioned on another blog but can’t remember where. Even though it’s a little old, with names like Bruce and Metzger among many others, I felt I couldn’t go wrong at that price. My library is sorely lacking in reference works other than NT commentaries.

I thought I would mention it in case anyone else might be interested.

Some other people have done the work for me and written about a couple of things I’ve wanted to articulate. So I will just link to them. I think these posts for the most part are great.

Ask Jesus into my heart?
HT: Cal.vini.st

Even as a Christian “ask Jesus into my heart” still makes no sense to me. This by itself is a great way to start someone out on rocky soil.

On the other end we have Integrity of belief at Castle of Nutshells. I can only imagine what the church would be like if this early church (and currently Orthodox) practice were commonplace.

I think I’ve been putting myself through this process of being a catechumen without really realizing it with my “three year plan” of reading commentaries, other books, learning how to study the Bible, being more rigorous about spiritual disciplines etc. This is without an official mentor but hopefully I’m not going off course. After I’m done with this basic training I’ll only have scratched the surface but hope to have a better grasp of the NT and a little more of the OT and most importantly get to know more of who God is and continue to grow closer to Him. Going through a lot of suffering also does wonders for spiritual growth if receptive to learning.

2 Timothy 3:14-15
But you must remain faithful to the things you have been taught. You know they are true, for you know you can trust those who taught you. You have been taught the holy Scriptures from childhood, and they have given you the wisdom to receive the salvation that comes by trusting in Christ Jesus.

What’s your favorite New Testament Introduction for reference purposes?

I’m looking for one that will be a good all around resource for the NT, especially when doing exegesis of a passage. By the end of this year I should have a commentary for each book of the NT though so the introductions in those are good for background, culture, author, audience etc. I also have two study Bibles but those are pretty abbreviated. I don’t want too much duplication. I’m wondering if I would rather have a dictionary of some sort.

This one seems to be highly rated and would be at the top of my list for now:
New Testament Introduction (Master Reference Collection) by Donald Guthrie

Then there is:
An Introduction to the New Testament by D.A. Carson, Douglas J. Moo (sounds like a good combo)

What do you think of one of these? Are there any you like better?

1 Corinthians

1 Corinthians 3:18
Stop deceiving yourselves. If you think you are wise by this world’s standards, you need to become a fool to be truly wise. (NLT)

I memorized this to give myself a reminder not to think I’m all that and a cup of tea. However, God convicted me on a deeper level.

According to what’s written in 1 Corinthians 1:17-31 and all of the first four chapters, I can become like the Corinthians in that I can read my commentaries, use my interlinear etc. and think I’m wise because of my studiousness. I’m now on a higher plain because of this. However:

1 Corinthians 4:7
For what gives you the right to make such a judgment? What do you have that God hasn’t given you? And if everything you have is from God, why boast as though it were not a gift?

This all came about last night. I was feeling burnt out on the studying I was doing and was afraid that my spiritual zeal was waning. I was thinking, “What now God? Take a break? Direct my focus elsewhere for a while?” This break in the action allowed God to speak to me. He let me know that all this is to get to know Him better and focus on Christ and Him crucified, which I knew, but had to slow down to really ponder it.

And also the conviction of pride as described above. Although it can be painful, I love being convicted by the Holy Spirit because it is God speaking to me.

I hope to write more about general observations and questions on 1 Corinthians 1 and 2.

• Liddell and Scott’s Greek-English Lexicon (1940)¹ – no accents or breathing marks allowed
• Unicode Classical Greek Inputter¹ – click on Greek Letters, click on each letter and then you can paste this into Liddell and Scott, a word processor or whatever you need
• StudyLight Interlinear Study Bible
• The Resurgence Greek Project
• Online-Bibeln – Novum Testamentum Graece (NA 27)² – Buch-Book, Kapitel-Chapter, Vers
• Institute of Biblical Greek
• Guide to Greek Pronunciation Conventions – see links at bottom
• Recordings
• Interlinear Scripture Analyzer (ISA) – standalone software
• Basic Greek And Exegesis – Sample Chapter (PDF)³

HT:
1. Suzanne
2. Esteban
3. Bible Geek Gone Wild

Any others?

See the comments for more.