Biblical Language Pedagogy in Crisis (Part 1 of 3)

March 25, 2020 // David R. Miller, Ed.D.

I surrendered my life to follow Christ in April of 2000, and I immediately fell in love with the Bible. I read it constantly and knew that it was the primary means for getting to know my Lord and Savior more personally. Shortly thereafter, several older Christians and local pastors noticed my fervor for the Word, and they strongly encouraged me to pursue full-time ministry. I applied to several and settled on Moody Bible Institute because of the school’s rich history and commitment to preparing men and women for many forms of local and foreign ministry.

At that time my particular degree program did not require biblical languages, but every professor strongly encouraged it. I decided to use two of my electives to learn New Testament Greek. I saw Greek as a tool that would help my understanding of God through His Word. In the Fall of 2005, I took my first, four credit-hour course with Dr. Micheal Vanlaningham.

I loved it!

The professor was engaging and funny, he made the material exciting, and he encouraged us each day with reminders that while what we were studying was difficult, it was immensely beneficial. While I struggled in the course due to my dyslexia and memory issues, I still really enjoyed it and looked forward to learning more each week.

My retention struggles started very soon after I finished my eight credit-hours of Greek in 2006. Sure, I had other classes and a job, but I genuinely tried to retain what I had learned. We were told that Greek and Hebrew really needed three courses (Grammar 1 & 2 + Syntax) to get the basics in place, but I only had room for two. Dr. Vanlaningham also suggested spending an hour each day studying Greek to keep up our proficiency. However, as much as I tried, I rarely had an hour a day. The truth was, I did have other courses, as well as a new marriage, work, and personal time with God.

Not long after finishing my Greek studies I found that I had already lost much of my memorized vocabulary, paradigm charts, and grammar rules. When I lamented this disappointment to my fellow students, many admitted that they too had “lost” their Greek and Hebrew abilities shortly after finishing their respective classes. On top of that, when I brought this up to multiple language professors, I got several soon-to-be predictable answers:

 “You really need all three semesters…”

 “What book did you use…”

“It takes a lot of commitment to keep…”

“Not everyone is wired to learn these languages…”

I considered all of these possibilities and tried to figure out why I struggled in particular. There was no question that my professor knew his content and did a great job teaching us. I couldn’t see how our textbook was the issue (Croy), so I assumed the issue was me (I was never good at school). Still, I could never shake the fact that I had only found one or two friends who had successfully retained their language skills to a reasonable measure. None of us seemed to lack motivation or desire, which made this issue quite confusing and frustrating to me (and them too).

I did keep up a few aspects of my Greek, but they were minimal. When my wife and I felt God calling us to continue our education in seminary, I knew it would require another round with biblical languages. My wife took Hebrew with me and she took the first two Greek grammars when I retook mine. I went on to have more great professors like Bryan Beyer, Maurice Robinson, Ben Merkle, Chuck Quarles, David Black and also benefitted from several good textbooks. I still struggled a bit, but I had gotten a better grip on how the learning process for biblical languages worked with my dyslexia.

During this time I continued to see younger students struggle with losing their language skills quickly. I worked with dozens of college and seminary students on my own to help them where they felt deficient. I also began to teach NT Greek in a local high school where I repeated a few of Dr. Vanlaningham’s teaching tricks and tried to use more unique differentiation techniques. It was an uphill battle.

In the end, what I found was that the teachers were knowledgable, the books were sufficient for the course objectives, and honestly, the process of learning a dead language is foreign to almost everyone who assumes the task. With those things in mind, I decided to dig into why these languages continuously cause such consternation and disappointment. I wanted to see people who are seeking to serve God in any ministry capacity understand the Word of God to their best ability, and original languages are a huge asset toward that goal.

In Part Two, I will describe the motivation and methodology behind my research on biblical language pedagogy (teaching style). One final note: it is my firm conviction that we are called to serve God through knowing His will and following His guidance. Although learning a biblical language is not a requirement for achieving that goal, it can certainly help us to understand God’s Word better, which is where we find His will and guidance.

(Read Part Two here.)

David R. Miller, Ed.D. has committed most of his education and career to spiritual growth and personal development in the church and in higher education. He has earned a B.A. from Moody Bible Institute, an M.A./M.Div. from Columbia International University, and a Th.M. and Ed.D. from Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. His goal is to encourage Christians to live passionately for Christ and strive to know Him better each day. David lives with his wife, Alayna, and their two children in North Carolina.

His doctoral work focused on the educational process of language-learning. Learn more in his book "Greek Pedagogy in Crisis" (available on Amazon).