Thank you again for joining the Master New Testament Greek mailing list! I don't take it for granted, and I'm continually seeking to improve how I serve you.

To that end, over the next few days, I want to share wit you the core principles of mastering the Greek New Testament.

If you don't really care to master the Greek New Testament, then you're welcome to unsubscribe. However, if you want to know the word of God in the language in which the Lord inspired it, then these emails are designed to help you achieve your goal of reading the New Testament in Greek - regardless of whether you've learned Greek in the past or not.

In this first email, I want to share with you 3 foundation stones of mastery. If you don't have these three things, you're unlikely ever to master the Greek New Testament.

1. A clear goal

First, they need a clear endpoint. This means they need to know what they are aiming to achieve. Master New Testament Greek is designed to help you learn to read the Greek New Testament fluently.

I believe this is not only the most effective way of engaging with the text, but it is also far more achievable than many think. Many don't think it is feasible to learn every word in the Greek New Testament. But it is. Here is just one of many testimonies I've collected from customers…

Before [MNTG] I simply never thought to try and memorize every word of the Greek New Testament. It was too daunting of a task. But memorizing every word of 1 John was a very manageable goal, which then also made memorizing 2 John also manageable, and then 3 John, so on and so forth. - Daniel Chin, MNTG Customer

What's your goal? Hit reply and let me know! I'd love to hear from you!

2. A system to achieve the goal

Second, every greek student needs a system or a method that will allow you to achieve this goal. Traditionally, students learn vocabulary based on the number of times a word occurs in the New Testament, starting with the most common words and working down to the least common words.

Unfortunately, very few ever learn to read the Greek New Testament this way. The reason is simple, as the frequency of occurrences decreases, the number of words increases, meaning the increasing number of words at each tier makes the task harder and at the same time becomes less rewarding.

Master New Testament Greek is different. It makes learning every word - even the hapax-legomena both achievable and rewarding. Fundamentally, Master New Testament Greek orders vocabulary by book, starting with the easiest books and working up to the more difficult books, not only based on the syntactical difficulty, but also the lexical difficulty.

Second, you only learn the word once - the first time it appears. Since you then know the word, you never have to learn it again. You'll see the word and just know what it is - because you learned it already!

3. Regular ongoing motivation

You can think of motivation as the sum of two parts. First, you need to know why you're doing this and keep this front of mind continually. The most motivating reason to do this is to be able to read the Greek New Testament to be transformed into the image of Christ by reading it the way the original authors intended it to be read - using their own words and grammar.

But second, the task is ultimately motivational when you can see progress toward your goal (see #1) above. Unless you're seeing the connection between your effort and your progress, you're going to be less motivated to continue. This is one reason why learning vocabulary by occurrence doesn't work. The rewards diminish as you make progress, just when you need assurance that your hard work is paying off!

Learning to read Greek book by book means that week by week you're able to read a little more of the Greek New Testament. In fact, if you're using the Master New Testament Greek system and you're learning 25 new words a week, on average, you'll learn to read one whole book of the New Testament every two months! That is motivating!

Wait, this doesn't apply to me

"OK," you're saying, "that sounds great, but I still need to learn (or relearn) the basics." If that is you, don't despair! Yes, it might seem daunting right now, but by making weekly progress it is only a matter of time to get a significant distance along the journey.

Let me introduce Bruce, to give you an example. Bruce sells and maintains vending machines, serves as an elder in his local church and loves the word of God. He joined Master New Testament Greek and went through the Beginning Greek course over a 30 week period. Yesterday, he finished reading his 12th book in the New Testament in Greek! In addition, he's also finished the MNTG intermediate Greek course and reads his Greek New Testament daily. Do you think Bruce is motivated to keep going? You bet he is!

Bruce joined Master New Testament Greek just two years ago, and he wouldn't call himself an exceptional student. He's just focused on making consistent progress, and he's doing great!

But Bruce is one of two kinds of Greek student. In the next email, we'll look at the two types of students I've discovered so you can work out which sort of student you are and the best way for you to progress toward mastery of the Greek New Testament.

Where are you starting from?

But right now, I'd love to know , where are you starting from?

I'm guessing you fit into one of the following three groups. Can you let me know which and I'll send you a short video of how I might be able to help you.

Thanks for sharing! I look forward to serving you!

In Christ,
Darryl