Reading the GNT

For many years now I have been reading a passage from the Greek New Testament during my devotion time, and I've urged my students to do the same. A few months ago I determined I would read the NT in canonical order [Matthew-Revelation] in Greek. This morning I finished the last four chapters of Revelation. This has been a wonderful spiritual experience, and I plan to begin again tomorrow morning in Matthew 1.

I decided I wanted to be able to pick up my Greek New Testament and read from it very early in my academic career. In my first New Testament survey class at Florida Baptist Theological College [now the Baptist College of Florida], Dr. Jerry Corley would read from the GNT at the beginning of each class period. That amazed me! He encouraged us to get into Greek, and if we did we could do the same thing. I started during my Elementary Greek days to take a couple of sentences from the GNT each day and work through it during my devotion time. I used the UBS text along with Kubo's Reader's Lexicon. It was slow and sometimes frustrating, but it was a blessing and worth all the effort. I will always be grateful to Dr. Corley for his example. I have followed his example and begin each of my classes the same way.

I can't wait for tomorrow morning, about 5:30am as I start in Matthew 1!