Furnishing the believer with the necessary tools

At BTE Ministries our goal is to be a vital part of the building up of the saints by furnishing the believer with the necessary tools to study the Bible. We operate with one central question in mind. That question being, if there was a tool available to any believer, anywhere, at any time, to help them know what the Bible was saying in a more accurate way, wouldn’t they want it? We believe that the answer should always be an emphatic yes.

All to often, the question arises of how to sort out the many different teachings and diverse opinions taught, both from within, and from outside the church. We here at BTE Ministries believe that our primary function in the body of Christ is to make available the tools necessary to sort through opinion, conjecture, and supposition, in order to determine what the Bible text is presenting. In fact, our desire is to equip every believer with the tools necessary to be a better Berean.

Our Mastering Biblical Greek course puts a very powerful tool into the hands of the Believer. And we don’t stop there. We offer continued growth capabilities through the exegeses classes where the students of the Greek Course will encounter what they have learned being applied. Here, the students are immersed into an atmosphere that is continuously reinforcing the lessons of the Greek course in application form. Verse-by-Verse and word-by-word, the participants see what they have learned and discover the joy of inductive learning. Right from the start, this approach to Bible study puts the learner into the text itself.

The Koine Greek of the Bible is an intensely accurate language, much more so than English. For the believer, this means that if you know what the text says in the original Greek, then you can better determine if what others are trying to represent about that text in English (or any other language) is an accurate representation. At other times, knowing the original language simply adds a greater depth of meaning to what is being said. Either way, this ability is a valuable tool and an incredible blessing. By learning the language, hearing it applied, and seeing the text itself, the student begins to realize that they can take a text and determine what is in the text and what is not in the text. The ability to go straight to the text for themselves means that the believer now has a valuable tool with which to compare all other teachings.

Do you have to know Greek to know the truth?

We have at times received the question “Are you saying that you have to know Greek to know the truth?” Our answer is that Biblical truth can only come from God. He gave us the Scriptures and those very Scriptures are His divinely chosen method by which we compare all things regarding scriptural truth. Since the New Testament was recorded in the Koine Greek language and all translations start with that Koine Greek, learning the language is simply a more accurate method of study. We think that when faced with the choice to either figure out what all the various translations are trying to say or to learn Greek and thereby know what they are trying to say, that the choice is self evident. In the long run, this approach is shorter and consistently produces more accurate fruit and that blesses the entire body of Christ.

While equipping the believer with a knowledge of Koine Greek is our primary goal, we have a strong desire to offer as much as we can to the believer who does not know Greek as well. Our weekly services are offered free of charge and are presented to the body in a way that is fruitful for both those who know Greek and those who do not know Greek. For those that do not know Greek, they will be pleasently surprised to find themselves listening to concise, accurate, texually supported Bible study and will hear only minimal references to the Greek language. For those who are blessed to have gained a working knowlege of Greek, the study aids and references to grammar will provide a rich source of material.

May the Lord of us all richly bless you in all wisdom, knowledge and His saving grace.