When you have a particular skill and passion for something, it makes sense to put it to use in some way to serve the Lord. For me it’s teaching. I love imparting knowledge to others and I feel blessed at the same time. As I share what I know, it helps to reinforce my own understanding.
My name is Lewis Larking and I have been teaching for over 40 years. Originally from New Zealand, I moved to Papua New Guinea in 1961 and spent eleven years teaching in two mission schools. As the number of PNG teachers increased I moved on to a Government Teachers’ College at Madang to train PNG teachers and was appointed Deputy Principal of that college in 1973.
With the coming of self-Government in PNG, positions in administration were to be localised and so I took a position in sunny Queensland, as a Senior Lecturer at what became the Central Queensland University in Rockhampton. My wife and I raised our two children there and I lectured at the University for 21 years, also serving as Deputy Dean and Acting Dean.
Following early retirement, I took a position as Associate Prof. and Head of Department in Language Education at the Universiti Brunei Darussalam for three years. While I very much enjoyed teaching there, it was somewhat challenging to live in a predominately Muslim country and be able to openly practice your Christian faith. My wife and I made friends with many Christians and I became Chairman of the Elders at a local Church in my final year in Brunei.
After returning to Rockhampton, we decided to move to the Redcliffe Peninsula in 2003. I connected with Mueller Community Church and got to know Dr Ivan Bowden (former deputy principal of BST). Ivan taught New Testament Greek and for the first two years had me teaching a TESOL course. With his own workload increasing, he eventually asked me to take over his Greek classes which I have done for the past six years.
It has been a blessing to work with students at a tertiary level, even more so working with students who love the Lord and who work hard at learning their Greek.
There is something very special about learning the language of the New Testament. Without this knowledge you can miss out on the particular shade of meaning which is not quite captured in the English versions of the Bible.
Let me give you an example.
In Matthew 1:16 (NKJV) it states “And Jacob begat Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus who is called Christ.” The word “whom” is a relative pronoun and there have been teachings that try to say that the word “whom” refers back to Mary and Joseph, thus denying the virgin birth. However, in Greek there are 24 relative pronouns: eight masculine, eight feminine and eight neuter. Of these, twelve are singular and twelve are plural. Matthew takes particular care to choose a relative pronoun that is feminine and singular which could only refer back to Mary, thus supporting the Biblical teaching of the virgin birth.
Lewis Larking will be teaching New Testament Greek online in 2014. The unit is only available to students enrolled in an ACT accredited course.
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