Used by permission. Copyright 2000 Answers in Genesis Ministries International. The best rule of sobriety is, not only in learning to follow wherever God leads, but also when he makes an end of teaching, to cease also from wishing to be wise. That is like physicians declaring disinterest in medicine or lawyers priding themselves in ignorance of the law. Thomas W. Gillespie, Princeton Sem.
Evangelicalism can be no less dedicated to the same principle of studying the original languages.
The reason for this undertaking has little, if anything, to do with tradition or an outmoded scholasticism. Greek and Hebrew study involves more than a mere ability to parse verbs and look up words in a lexicon or concordance or in one of several analytical tools in ways that can be taught in a matter of two to four hours of instruction. It is the tracing of these connecting points in the syntax of a passage that is so vital in constructing sermons that reflect the original authority of the word of God. My friend, I do not doubt it. D. A. Carson, The Johannine Letters, in New Dictionary of Biblical Theology, ed.