Obviously, the size of one's vocabulary is an important component of
one's reading skill. Is it not reasonable, then, to set as a life's
goal to master ALL the vocabulary? My Ph.D. work included a course
entitled New Testament Vocabulary, in which we learned glosses for
all the words. I cannot say that I still remember them all, but none
of them looks unfamiliar, at least. I suggest this as a LIFE'S goal
for the non-professional. It's kind of like holiness. When a
Christian's heart is really right, he doesn't like the idea of ANY
remaining sin in his life, and, while he must in a sense be content
with imperfection, in another sense he's never content with it. So
why not take the same view about Greek vocab? We can feel as though
we've done as well as we could so far, but we can keep striving for
more complete mastery.
I would also like to suggest that both sanctification and vocabulary
mastery are equally unattainable in this life (with apologies to the
Wesleyans out there). The point I'm trying to make is that memorizing
a few glosses for a word is a STARTING POINT, greatly valuable, but
not at all the same as mastering the word. As best I've figured it
out so far, to really master a word is to know its full range of
meanings, the related meanings it CANNOT have, and the kinds of
contexts in which it fits and doesn't fit. So, it seems to me that
we've all got our work cut out for us and that we can enjoy pursuing
it as long as we live.
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In Love to God and Neighbor,
Randy Leedy
Bob Jones University
Greenville, SC
RLeedy@wpo.bju.edu
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