It's All Greek to Me

It is funny how some people envision my life as a seminary student. I get comments like this frequently…

“How nice it must be to get to sit around and study the Bible all day long!”

OR

“How lovely it is to get to be around so many smart people and get to know God as well as you do!”

While having a time set a part to study theology does have its benefits (I mean, what kind of Bible geek doesn’t like to spend a leisurely afternoon reading about church growth in a coffee shop?), it is not as rosy as some may think it sound. Even though I especially love all the other religion nerds that I’ve met here, there is one thing that I despise about my life as a seminary student it is: Greek.

But, I have to confess it is self-inflicted torture.

While Duke is a great seminary that doesn’t REQUIRE Biblical language study (they leave this mandate up to your denomination’s ordination boards... And most Baptist churches could care less), I thought I just couldn’t be a REAL seminary student without it. And at Duke if you take semester one of a language, you don’t get credit for it unless you take the second, so Greek becomes a part of a year of your life (SO not fair!).

Enter my decision making process. Reasons for enrolling in Greek:
1. Every person I’ve know that has gone to seminary has had to struggle through it, so why shouldn’t I? (I’m an over achiever at heart).
2. It makes you a better preacher.
3. All my best friends here have taken it. (Except for my friend, Mark… He swears by the reliability of the NRSV translation. In fact, he has made up a song to enrage those of us who have Greek frustration called “The NRSV is good enough for me”).

And while I know these reasons don’t sound particularly enticing, I still took the plunge. Even though the class meets at some of the most inopportune times (such as Fridays from 1:30-2:30. This makes out of town weekend plans quite difficult to schedule in).

Yet, on my more positive, yet irrational days, I am proud of my studies in Greek, telling myself it will make me a more informed preacher and scholarly teacher. I am a WOMAN after all, entering a traditionally male-dominated vocation, so I better know my stuff, damm it! I don’t want anyone to say I’m not qualified.

But, then when I have studied my vocab cards on for the fourteenth hour and still don’t know the difference between a perfect indicative and subjunctive verb ending, I realize I’ve made a stupid mistake enrolling myself in a course I will probably care less about after graduation. People like my friend, Amy were right about its unimportance. There are tons of great commentaries that don’t use the original Greek. And, I’ll always have friends who are Greek scholars that I can call if I need something smart to say in sermon [One of these is my roommate who is pictured with me in the photo above.] And, I do know great preachers who didn’t study Greek. So, why do I have too?

But, it is too late to get out now. I will have earned the fullness of my diploma when the dean calls my name. I will have taken two semesters of Biblical Greek. That is if I can get my act together this semester and keep studying vocab…

There is one bright spot in this one tragic tale… that is my Greek teacher, Kavin. He really puts the time and effort my classmates and I put into our studies in the larger perspective of our lives and ministry. While I regularly walk into class each Monday, Wednesday and Friday afternoon disgruntled by the fact that my brain get to go into foreign language overload once again, the prayers Kavin prays to open class always find a way to re-focus my mind in a positive direction. As Kavin prays, he daily reminds us that learning Greek is a discipline. And, even though it is not fun, it teaches us self-control, patience, and faithfulness to even the minute parts of our lives and call to ministry. This is a good, hard word to receive each day. So after prayer, I am reminded to slow down, take a deep breath and be thankful that I have this opportunity to study that since many people around the world do not. Hey, learning Greek this year might even prepare me to do something that I really want to do next year: studying conversational Spanish !?!

But, beyond just his praying, I am SO thankful that Kavin doesn’t take Greek or himself too seriously. This fact makes me stick with the process because I know he has realistic expectations of our success. Greek always seems better when you can laugh about it! And we often do as well as rejoice over moments like the beginning of fall break or the end of finals week. Greek doesn’t have to ruin ALL of our lives.

So, for these two reasons, I’ll stick with the game plan, counting on Kavin to keep praying his humbling prayers and our class to keep laughing. I TOO can pass Greek this semester!