Miscellanies

When Jesus sent out the Twelve, he told them what to charge for what they carried: "You received without paying; give without pay" (Matthew 10:8, ESV). Both halves of that sentence turn on one Greek word, δωρεάν, said doh-reh-AHN. It means freely, without payment, as a gift. Paul uses the same word for how a sinner is made right with God: "justified by his grace as a gift" (Romans 3:24, ESV). I have named a project after it, because the word says both what the project is and why it exists.

The letter to the Hebrews says of Christ, "For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified" (Hebrews 10:14, ESV). The last words of that verse translate one Greek participle, and its first-person form is ἁγιάζομαι: I am being made holy. It is present, so the work is still going on. It is passive, so the work is done to me. The same sentence says that those people have already been perfected for all time by one offering. The believer stands between those two verbs, finished in Christ and not yet finished in himself.

Luke tells Theophilus why he wrote his Gospel: "that you may have certainty concerning the things you have been taught" (Luke 1:4, ESV). The verb behind "taught" is κατηχέω, to instruct by word of mouth. It is where the church gets "catechize." It names an old method: one person asks, the other answers, and the asking is repeated until the answer is known by heart.

Paul gave Timothy a plain instruction about the things he had been charged with: "Practice these things, immerse yourself in them, so that all may see your progress" (1 Timothy 4:15, ESV). The verb behind "practice" is μελετάω, and it is where this tool gets its name. Seminary asks a student to know a great deal by heart, and most of it has to be learned by being asked. A Greek paradigm is not known until it can be produced on demand. A catechism answer is not known until it can be said without the page.

Paul could say that the Son was sent at a particular moment in the history of the world: "But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law" (Galatians 4:4, ESV). The faith is bound to dates. It has kings who can be numbered, an exile that can be placed on a calendar, and a governor whose name is in the creed.

Anyone who has studied Greek with an English Bible open nearby knows the temptation. The eye drifts to the translation, the mind recognizes the answer, and it feels exactly like having worked it out. It is the feeling of translating without the labor of it, and the labor is where the language is learned.