Published by B&H Academic on March 15, 2020
Genres: Academic
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The Exegetical Guide to the Greek New Testament (EGGNT) closes the gap between the Greek text and the available lexical and grammatical tools, providing all the necessary information for greater understanding of the text. The series makes interpreting any given New Testament book easier, especially for those who are hard pressed for time but want to preach or teach with accuracy and authority.
Each volume begins with a brief introduction to the particular New Testament book, a basic outline, and a list of recommended commentaries. The body is devoted to paragraph-by-paragraph exegesis of the Greek text and includes homiletical helps and suggestions for further study. A comprehensive exegetical outline of the New Testament book completes each EGGNT volume.
I’m not exactly a Greek scholar. Languages were never my forte and I’ve been quite content in my ministry to leave the job of parsing the Greek to people more qualified. Besides, every time I opened up a commentary based on the Greek NT, I just found myself overwhelmed. Seminary degree or no, it was all Greek to me…even the parts that weren’t.
That’s a bit of an exaggeration, but still—I needed something that would be challenging but not overwhelming. And with the Exegetical Guide to the Greek New Testament: 2 Corinthians, I think I’ve found that. I’m not really at the level needed to critique Colin Kruse’s parsing of the Greek text, but I can tell you that I understood it.
The design and breakdown of the text is absolutely top-notch. Kruse will go through the overall structure of a piece, then break it down verse by verse. This was particularly helpful and enabled me to better keep my focus as I read through the text. I did keep an English language Bible beside me at all times to help me better reference the text, but that’s more due to my lack of confidence in my Greek. Just doing that, though, gave me some insight into certain translational differences in various English translations.
The further reading section is also an absolute goldmine. Rather than litter the text with various references and footnotes, this series has chosen to tuck them neatly into a fairly comprehensive list of further resources. It’s a good way of showing the background for certain decisions without getting bogged down in explaining them.
The pastoral side of me also loves the homiletical suggestions. Those sections really help bridge the gap in making the Greek accessible to the average layperson. I think too often, when I really study a passage in Greek, I end up liking to preach about the Greek instead of the Scripture. This section takes me from being a linguist and reminds me why I was reading Greek in the first place.
In the end, I don’t have the time or the skill to do all the work myself. This volume puts enough of the pieces together and does enough of the work that it makes it worthwhile for me to dive into it. It’s like a box cake mix. Is from scratch better? Well…it’s a lot harder, takes a lot longer, and is only better if you’re a good baker. With a box mix, pretty much anyone can bake a cake. That’s what I needed here.
