Breakfast With Wes

(Wrote this in my diary while my computer was down earlier this month)

As soon as I got into my friend Wes’ truck to go to breakfast Monday (1/7/08), I spotted a new (to me) edition of the Greek New Testament on his dashboard.

Before we drove a block, we immediately sprang into a discussion of the differences between the Textus Receptus and the Westcott & Hort editions of the Greek text. Westcott & Hort followed the variant readings of Codex Vaticanus, thought to be the work of the Church Father Origin about the year 300 —

And we all know what that means.

(Actually, I have no idea either, but scholars like Wes see it as very important).

And Wes told me about John William Burgon, a conservative English translator whose office was bombed, apparently by liberal scholars, because of his work on the 1881 English Revised Version.

I’d never heard of Burgon before.

Once we got into the restaurant, we gave our order to Nicole, the young lady who served our table. And having ordered breakfast, our conversation focused on the Greek word Monogennes as an example of variant renderings.

Because Wes cares so passionately about the minutia of accurate Bible translation, he’s easy to bait. Being a fuzzy-thinker, I play devil’s advocate in our discussions.

Wes feels adamantly that the proper rendering for the Greek word Monogennes is “Only Begotten” as in the phrase, For God so loved the world that He sent His only begotten Son…” The Westcott and Hort crew render Monogennes by the English word “unique”.

Thus, we have “Only Begotten Son of God” on the one hand, and “The Unique Son of God” on the other.

I took the stance that unique means unique, i.e. one of a kind without peer or duplication anywhere in the universe. Wes advocated that there is a significant difference between “Only Begotten” and “unique”.

I fail to distinguish much difference because, for one thing, I know no Greek, and for another, I pay little attention to detail.

Wes began an impassioned Socratic questioning to bring me into the realization of the importance of Monogennes.

I insisted that unique means unique, stands alone, like none other.

We were having a great time.

And Nicole listened to snippets of our conversation each time she passed our table. As a waitress at this corner diner, she must handle a lot of walk-in crazies.

When she brought our food, I warned her, “When you read your Greek New Testament, be sure to read the Textus Receptus instead of Westcott & Hort”.

“Sure, Mr. Cowart,” she said. “I’ll do that”.

That was so funny… Well, maybe you’d have to have been there.

We had such great fun!

I’m the grasshopper to Wes’ rock.

Yet, when we talk it’s like whetting two knife blades against one another to sharpen both.

While Wes’ scholarship is great — he carries a Greek Lexicon around in his truck, he’s an accomplished organist, he teaches a class for physicians at a local hospital and a class for alcoholics at a street-mission sort of place — while his scholarship is great, yet his charities are greater.

He has a great knowledge of the Scriptures, but it is not academic in that he attempts to live it out as best he can. In the years I’ve known him, I’ve seen him, with great compassion of heart, comfort, council and aid illiterate street bums.

Me, I amble through life in happy ignorance of Greek, Hebrew, English and common sense.

While I appreciate scholarship on one level, I feel leery of it too.

Scholars are just too detailed.

I mean, when some guy goes to autopsy my body, he can make that Y incision and pull out my liver, heart and lungs. He can analyze my blood and learn all about my DNA and chromosomes and triglysorides. He can finger my pancreas and saw open my cranium and weigh my brain in a pan. He will know every physical detail — but he will know nothing about me.

His intense scrutiny may reveal my innards, but can not discover who I am.

The autopsy will not show whether I preferred John Milton or Ogdon Nash in poetry. It can’t tell whether I was loving or cruel. The sound of my laugh remains unknown, as does what things made me laugh. Who I loved, what I dreamed. The tunes I whistle. The authors I read. The thoughts I think. The beauty I saw. The sins I sin. The people I care about. The prayers I pray — none of that will be revealed.

The guy or gal who performs my autopsy will not know me.

I think that same idea carries over into Bible knowledge, that knowing Jesus is much more important than knowing about Jesus.

And that’s a more important difference than the one between “Only Begotten” and “Unique”.

The problem with trying to autopsy Jesus is that He ain’t dead.

Doubting Thomas wanted to know how many centimeters deep the spear thrust went into Jesus’ side. But when confronted with the living Lord, Thomas fell on his knees saying, “My Lord and my God”.

Thomas’ questions on knowing about Jesus became irrelevant when it came to knowing Jesus.

It’s like when I Google some subject and get 1,330,612 responses. I may look at six or eight sites, then the sheer volume of information overwhelms me and I throw my hands up. All my questions may be answered somewhere on the net, but the glut of answers makes me forget what I was searching for in the first place.

Now, while I admire biblical scholarship and I’m glad that scientists exist who study such matters and minutia, I’m convinced that the dumbest, most ignorant, illiterate uneducated man living can walk with God in joy.

There are not many beautiful people or rich people or smart people in this world, yet the love of God extends to every living soul. And we can all understand love even when we can’t read Greek or even follow the instructions on microwave popcorn.

I’m convinced that right this minute, every person knows everything they need to know about salvation, life and godliness. But we reject the knowledge that lies within our own heart and fob off the Almighty God with weak evasions.

Light came into the world, but men loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil.

We don’t know Christ because we don’t want to know Christ.

No other reason prevents our worship and our salvation.

At Judgment Day we will stand without excuse, naked and shamed.

But, I’m getting off my subject — back to my friend Wes…

Wes manages to well carry that balance between knowing about and knowing.

I’m so thankful that scholars like him exist.

Other than that, some morning I might find myself reading Wescott & Hort without realizing my mistake.

Besides, knowing the Scripture enables Wes to tell great jokes.

For instance, when I asked him what he thought of the debates between the eight or ten presidential candidates on television Saturday night, he referred me to the passage about government in Daniel 4:17 (in the King James Version only)!

I looked it up.

In that passage, the pagan King Nebuchadnezzar observed:

The matter is by decree of the watchers,
And the demand by the word of the holy ones:
To the intent that the living may know that
Most High ruleth in the kingdom of men,
And giveth it to whomsoever He will,
And setteth up over it the basest of men.