Ordinary Means: Front Page

Luke tells Theophilus why he wrote his Gospel: "that you may have certainty concerning the things you have been taught" (Luke 1:4, ESV). The verb behind "taught" is κατηχέω, to instruct by word of mouth. It is where the church gets "catechize." It names an old method: one person asks, the other answers, and the asking is repeated until the answer is known by heart.

Paul's charge to Timothy is one every student of Scripture inherits: "Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth" (2 Timothy 2:15, ESV). Seminary asks a student to know a great deal by heart, and most of it has to be learned by being asked. A Greek paradigm is not known until it can be produced on demand. A catechism answer is not known until it can be said without the page. I built the Reformed Bible Quiz for my own preparation, so that I would always have someone to ask me, and I have left it open for any student facing the same material.

Paul could say that the Son was sent at a particular moment in the history of the world: "But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law" (Galatians 4:4, ESV). The faith is bound to dates. It has kings who can be numbered, an exile that can be placed on a calendar, and a governor whose name is in the creed.

Anyone who has studied Greek with an English Bible open nearby knows the temptation. The eye drifts to the translation, the mind recognizes the answer, and it feels exactly like having worked it out. It is the feeling of translating without the labor of it, and the labor is where the language is learned.