Should pastors be required to know original Biblical languages?

Its infallible....

 

Why use inerrant/infallible ?
Those are real 'red flag' terms!

Why can't we just take the Bible as being both a divine and human book ?
As being truthful ? authoritative ?
Is inerrancy really the most important word about Scripture?

 

The job of the local pastor is NOT worrying about Greek nuance. He should have much better things to do.

 

Call it what you will, I'm a native Middle Eastern Arabic speaker, and my Bibles, Arabic, French, English, and even Italian, all teach me a TRANSLATED COPY can be given by inspiration.

You believe the following, do you not?! 2Ti_3:16 ALL SCRIPTURE is given by INSPIRATION of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:

And you believe Paul who taught us that we define things by comparing scripture with scripture (1Co.1,2), do you not?!

Then tell me that the following references refer to the original autographs, and not to copies, and in some cases to translated copies: Luke 4:21, John 5:39, Acts 8:32, Acts 8:35, Acts 17:2, Acts 17:11, Acts 18:24, Acts 18:28, Romans 15:4, Romans 16:26, 2Timothy 3:15, 1Peter 2:6, 2Peter 1:20.

That's not "KJVO", that's Bible. You guys need to get out of America a little and see what your brethren in the world believe...

 

If you are going to reduce my posts and insult my arguments to this simplistic and pathetic one-liner quip...
You are either deceitful or profoundly ignorant of what I'm saying. Perhaps I do not express myself sufficiently.

I have, to this point profoundly respected most of your posts on B.B.....
You are so wrong on this...or at least incredibly reductionist.
Let me say this unequivocally: No one who knows anything about anything of original language studies says anything so stupid as "worrying about Greek nuance"....it's either there and you already know it, or you don't.....it's not something you spend time laboring over.

Pators absolutely DO NOT have "better things to do"...
Becoming masters of the text and teaching the text to their congregations is PRECISELY their job.
You seem to think your pastor should spend his time doing everything other than what God's holy word says he should do.

Every good pastor has spent decades longer than you've been alive visiting the sick, knocking on doors, evangelizing the lost and spreading the gospel.
Their role, however, in the local church, isn't to do YOUR JOB....it's to spend countless hours mastering the most complicated texts ever written...
And, they are indeed incredibly complicated texts sometimes.
Original language study is incredibly helpful in good exegesis.

Sorry Reynolds, you don't get to stop visiting annoying and needy old widows, and evangelizing the lost and pretend you can pay a man you falsely call a "pastor" to do your Christian duty for you.
You can't outsource your job to India....which seems to be what you want from him..
You should find a local church pastor who can teach you a Biblical role of pastors to give you a better understanding of their role and purpose, because, frankly, you have no idea what a pastor's job is.
Ideally...….he'd have some knowledge of original languages to help him, especially when it comes to properly exegeting

I Peter 5: 1-4.

B.T.W: knowledge of Greek is PROFOUNDLY important for properly grasping everything this text has to say....
and no English translation is truly capable of replicating everything this text can offer.
No language has a 1:1 correspondence of terms that can simply be immediately translated "literally" and without losing something in translation.

Languages don't simply appear out of the ether with a perfectly literal and fully equivalent word in every language on the planet. They have a worldview and context which supplies the depth of any words meaning.
The passage I cited says a LOT about what a pastor's role is....and frankly, it takes some cursory (but not a lot) knowledge of Greek to properly mine that text for everything it says a pastor should do.....
English proficiency alone without any knowledge of Greek is simply NOT good enough to understand it fully (assuming anyone does).

 

Pastors have much better to do with their time than looking at Greek nuance. I have intentionally forgotten most of what I learned about Greek. Software handles that for me.
As the old saying goes. I dont care how much you know until I know how much you care. Pouring over Greek will not make one a successful pastor in rural America.

 

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Yes, I know....
I don't think pastors should "look at Greek nuance".
So, who are you talking to?

I have zero doubt you know nothing about Greek.
You can't just intentionally "forget" a language if you know anything about it.

How do you know????
You've already forgotten everything you claim to know, so how can you be confident it's correct?

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It's a stupid saying.
I've never thought that that was a profound statement.
I do know something about Greek....not a lot....I know a LOT more Hebrew:
But if I want to master mathematics or guitar I don't want my teacher to "care".

I'm not a girl I guess.

I want my instructor to be a master of his craft.
I don't care if he loves me or not. I want him to know what he's talking about and have the skill-set of someone who is "apt to teach"...
I don't care if he loves me, my wife does.

I know.
A successful pastor in "rural America" is one who simply passionately repeats all the quotable quips and quotes that they already know.
"Rural America" is full of people who already know everything.
Churches in "Rural America" are full of people who have spent 80 years "studying" the Bible, with pastors who've never had an original thought, studying under teachers who don't know one word of either Greek or Hebrew....and who have simply repeated stupid lines like: "I dont care how much you know until I know how much you care".

That line is as profound as this one:
"Those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it.".

They are equally reductionist and stupid.
I've pastored a rural church in America....
And...I was incredibly "unsuccessful" too!

The rural church in America already knows everything, is intellectually lazy, doesn't really care about the lost quite often, simpy uses church as an escape from a culture which frightens them, and uses quips like the ones you gave to be intellectually lazy.
The Rural Church in America practices a folk religion only barely equivalent to Christianity.

Learning Greek is hard.
It's much easier to learn the profound truth that: "I don't care how much you know until I know how much you care."

BAM BAM BAM!!!! Channel your inner Emeril Legase, and by the age of 20 in the rural American church, you already know everything and don't need no stinkin' fancy Greek to understand the Bible.
I get it.
I know.
I pastored some rural American churches.

They knew nothing....but they already knew EVERYTHING.

And, I was indeed "unsuccessful".
I pray I shall always be so.

 

No wonder you were unsuccessful. Your pastors heart shows right through. Rural churches are wonderful places filled with wonderful people. You must have had very little luck convincing them that everything was their job and nothing was your job.

I tell you what. Cite me a passage I cant understand without Greek, and tomorrow I shall go to my storage building and dig out a couple of my old Greek text books.(I am sure no digging will be necessary.) I never said I mastered Greek. Far from it. I knew about as much about is as most pastors who think they are masters of it know.(Enough to be dangerous.) I am sorry, no one learns a language in 2 or 4 classes. They learn how to use Language resources, but they dont learn the language. If you have a Masters in Greek, I will concede that you know it.

You most certainly can forget languages. At 16 I could speak Spanish quite well. Now, I remember how to say a few phrases and cant understand crap.

 

I care nothing for what YOU think a "pastor's heart" is.....
You don't even understand what a pastor's job is, let alone whether you should psycho-analyze his heart.
A pastor's heart isn't one that makes people feel good.
A pastor's heart is one that tortures himself in studying the text so that he can feed it to a flock he knows almost never tries to absorb it
A pastor spends countless hours laboring over a text they think they already know and doesn't listen to him exegete.
A pastor is equally as concerned about simply fighting off wolves as it is convincing his congregation that his "heart shows through".

A good pastor doesn't have time to master showing you his "heart".

I can't...
It's an impossible challenge because to succeed in it, I'd have to be able to convince you that you were wrong about something......
I am not stupid enough to think that I could possibly do that.

Remember, I've pastored "rural American" churches....
So, I know that is a task that can't be done.

I have a Pastor's heart....so I labor anyway and leave the results up to God...
Sometimes, there's a victory.
It isn't all losses, I have, in my possession a dollar bill I framed....
A young 10-year-old boy (from a very poor and rural area) who got exactly $2.00 for his birthday on a Saturday heard me preach on Sunday...
He was moved I assume and gave me $1.00 (half of his birthday money)…..
When I was younger, I would have refused it......now, I think I know better now, I instead thanked him for his gracious gift and I still keep that $1.00 from that precious young boy who was grateful that a man labored to faithfully preach the word to him.

A pastor's heart isn't one which is simply beloved by the congregation.....that's EASY.
I know how to preach that sermon.
I can preach EXACTLY the sermon the "rural Church in America" wants to hear, and I know how to get them to rant and rave about how much they loved it.
It's also a garbage sermon.
Preaching to the choir isn't what a real preacher does Reynolds.

I'm not saying I was unpopular or unbeloved at those churches Reynolds....
But I was still unsuccessful.

You REALLY don't know what you're talking about.
You think you do, and you think you know what being a pastor in rural America is I suppose, but, you really don't.
I done it.
I was popular enough....they liked "my heart" enough, and all that.
Heck...you'd like "my heart" well enough too...you wouldn't think I was unloving, and neither did they.

Frankly, though, having you personally psycho-analyze me in the positive isn't my goal.
I don't care how your personal feelers feel about my heart or my feelings or my feelers or.....
Whatever you kids are in to these days.
I wasn't fired or anything.....but, I was still not as successful as I wanted to be.
My success wasn't measured by my popularity.

uh huh....
Both Biblical Hebrew and Koine Greek are dead languages.
And they are studied in a literary context, not a conversational context.
Those are completely different skill sets.
So, no, you don't just "forget" the valuable skills you learn by studying them.
Also, you were referencing your supposed knowledge of Greek, not conversational Spanish, so, I can't imagine why you would conflate those two skill sets.

 

Reynolds, I think Heir is wrong in his attitude, but define me righteous, just, holy, sin, and so many words we take for granted without referencing any Hebrew knowledge. That should get you rummaging through your Hebrew dictionary, friend. If you have software for word meanings and can interpret it, great. That means you're better armed to do the job of teaching at all. That is where all teachers must be I argue. The bible is God's message to us, and deserves no less attention in our own time.

As for exegesis, all I am saying is that the teacher of exemplary character studies his sermon passages from every good angle, just like in any important profession like a doctor. I am not fighting anti-intellectualism or something so haughty, just laziness, something I struggle with.

I again disagree with heir on scriptural grounds. Pastors are evangelists and shepherds of the flock as much as teachers.

 

If you can forget a conversational language, you can most definitely forget much about one you dont speak. What I do remember is how to use the language reference sources if I need them. I dont need them because I have in depth commentary written by true experts readily available to me.

What sermon does the rural church want to hear? The one down the road wants entertained. The one up the road likes fire and brimstone. The big church in town wants to hear whatever gets them out by 11:45.

 

Yes...sometimes they are also full of child-rapists.

Didn't say that, and don't suggest it.
Are you simply lying about what I said or are you illiterate?

 

I agree with the use of language tools.
I guess where I differ with some on here is that I do not deceive myself into thinking being able to use language tools equates to knowing the language.

 

The same one they've heard for the last 50 years from the same text preached almost exactly the same way.....
Just like the same hymns played and sung exactly the same way they've heard.

Also, they like quotable quips like:
"I don't care how much you know until I know how much you care".

You can always get an "amen" with that one, they never tire of such gems....
That's what they want, it's easy to feed it to them, and they never tire of it. It gives them a sense of solidarity in a fast-changing world which discomfits them.....
Kinda' like how "I'll fly away" and "Mansions over the Hilltop" and other stupid hymns comfort them.

 

I am illiterate. I sit in my chair under my tree and spit Red Man and drink shine all day while I watch my chickens peck and listen to my dogs holler.

 

You had me until you suggested "Red Man"....you may chew then...but you don't chew Red Man.

 

You dont stereotype much, do you?
When I left my shade tree and went to the University, they taught me stereotyping is ignorant.

 

I get you now. I agree. I will say that most so called pastors beyond our conservative churches fill people with false meanings for words because they go to the modern English dictionary instead of a Hebrew one.

I come from pop psych, Charismatics, and liberal Christianity. The original languages and proper context are showing me the kind of liars those people are.

 

I quit chewing when I turned 21, but it was Red Man and Copenhagen.

 

Yes, I do.
I think that generalizations exist because they are generally true.
I believe that because I am not stupid.

You should get your money back because they were wrong.
Stereotyping is nothing more than application of inductive logic....
Essentially, it takes a form like:
Of 5,000,000 crows observed, all of them are black:
Therefore, it stands with probability that all crows are black.

Your University clearly sucked.
Stereotyping is inductive logic if well applied.