Journal: Southern Baptist Journal of Theology
Volume: SBJT 25:3 (Fall 2021)
Article: The Necessity Of Biblical Languages In Ministerial Training
Author: Robert L. Plummer

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The Necessity Of Biblical Languages In Ministerial Training1

Robert L. Plummer

Robert L. Plummer is the Collin and Evelyn Aikman Professor of Biblical Studies at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Louisville, Kentucky, where he has taught for more than twenty years, and which he earned his PhD in New Testament. Dr. Plummer is host of the popular Daily Dose of Greek screencast and author of several books, including 40 Questions About Interpreting the Bible (Kregel, 2010, rev. 2020). Dr. Plummer is an elder at Sojourn Community Church (East), Louisville, Kentucky. He has served on mission assignments in China, India, Malaysia, Ghana, Israel, Turkey, and Trinidad. He and his wife Chandi have three daughters.

Introduction

I want to thank President R. Albert Mohler, Jr., Provost Matthew Hall and Dean Hershael York for the honor of giving this faculty address. What a privilege it is to serve on this faculty among such gifted colleagues. I’d also like to thank my wife for being here. She is a lovely, wise, and holy woman. My parents, Paul and Sonja Plummer, are eighty years old and live outside Nashville, TN. They are not able to be here, but I want to recognize them as wonderful parents. I owe them a debt I can never repay. Also, it is a special privilege to have my Doctorvater Mark Seifrid here.

My lecture is entitled, “The Necessity of Biblical Languages in Ministerial Training.” As the Fall 2021 semester was about to begin, a blog post appeared in my social media feed. The president of a major evangelical seminary had written a piece entitled, “Is It a Waste of Time for Seminary Students (and Pastors) to Learn the Biblical Languages?”2 It is not his response but the fact that he had to ask this question in the first place that irks me.

Do we ever see seminary presidents writing blogs entitled “Is it a waste

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of time for seminary students to learn systematic theology” or “Is it a waste of time for seminary students to learn preaching” or even “Is it a waste of time for seminary students to learn church history?” What is it about the biblical languages that requires a public apology for their inclusion in a seminary’s curriculum?

Regardless of what got us here, the truth is that many people do question the value of the biblical languages for ministerial training, and I am here to contend, in continuity with the curricular tradition of this great seminary, that the biblical languages are absolutely necessary. Because I specialize in New Testament (NT) studies, in this lec...