Thanks for the Greek but Where is God's Presence?

Not every Theological or Biblical Studies student will admit that! But the truth remains that Christians have much for which to be thankful in the Greek people and their language. The NT was written in Greek, and the OT was translated into Greek by the 72 scholars who did this work. It became known as the Septuagint, or LXX for short.

The NT Greek language is well worth labouring at in order to get at the original meaning of the NT text. Linguistics is an important discipline, because we can only get at the text of the Bible when this work has been done. Thankfully, the hard graft has been removed for us, and the plethora of English Bibles is testimony to this.

Let us study the Greek language and glean from it what God is saying to us. If we believe the Bible to be the Word of God, then we must labour at understanding it in its original languages, so that the Gospel we preach is rooted and grounded in accurate scholarship.

But with all that said, even this labour will profit nothing if we do not know the power of God's Spirit on our preaching. If in our preaching we cannot bring God into the meeting, then it is all a waste of time and energy. Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones once famously said that he can forgive a preacher, and even a poor preacher, anything, so long as he can give him "a sense of God." Even all our linguistic competencies cannot compensate for the lack of God being present with His people. How many times do we go to church and we might as well be in the local opera house - there is no difference, so divine presence, so sense of God. But the church service should be categorical different. Sadly, how often it isn't!

Let us labour at the Greek, but do not depend on even that. Let our dependence be in the living God Who "has visited and redeemed His people," as Luke puts it in Lk.1. Let us seek Him as never before. We can do no less; we are under divine obligation to seek Him "while He may be found." Will you join me in doing that?