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Question 4

David stresses that the New Testament was written in street-level koine Greek—so unimpressive that educated people mocked it; what does that tell you about God’s willingness to be “unimpressive” in order to be understood, and how does that confront modern Christian instincts about sophistication, reverence, and “majestic” religious language?

Another way to ask: The New Testament was written in common, everyday Greek that educated people looked down on. What does that say about God choosing plain language, and how does that challenge our love for fancy or “majestic” church talk?

Direct Answer David’s teaching suggests God is perfectly willing to be linguistically “unimpressive” so ordinary people can understand Him, and He does not equate reverence with elevated, polished language. That challenges the instinct to treat majestic or archaic wording as more spiritual.

Support from Transcript:

David emphasizes the New Testament is not in “polished literary Greek” but “koine Greek, the kind of Greek…spoken in the streets.”
He notes educated people “laughed at” it and that “no other books were even written in” that kind of Greek.
He argues this shows God’s mind: “There wasn’t going to be a special holy language.”
When addressing the “majestic, beautiful, poetic” argument for 1769 KJV, he says God “didn’t give us the New Testament in beautiful, poetic language.”
He uses a practical analogy: you wouldn’t give life-saving instructions to a babysitter in archaic language that could be misunderstood.

Discussion Follow-ups How do we distinguish true reverence (honoring God) from mere preference for a style that feels religious to us?

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