Sparkling Gems from the Greek Electronic Edition: A Must-Have Tool for Your Computer Reference Library by Rick Renner

Sparkling Gems from the Greek Electronic Edition: A Must-Have Tool for Your Computer Reference Library Reviews

• 
  Anastasia Kallah

  Rick Renner’s daily devotional, Sparkling Gems From the Greek, is a thick, heavy tome that is somewhat intimidating at first glance, but don’t be misled. In each daily reading, Renner offers up a daily scripture and breaks it down, piece by piece, into its original Greek translation, allowing the reader to gain a fullness of understanding that includes the nuances and inferences that don’t translate well into modern American-English. Consider the word “love.” In English, its meaning is limited to “an intense feeling of deep affection” Our understanding of the word “love” is limited to that of a feeling, even though the word itself appears 179 times alone in the New Testament. Japan, until the late nineteenth century, didn’t have a word for love at all. The Greek language can boast five; philia, storge, eros, agape, and xenia.
  
  “Philia” is commonly translated from ancient Greek to modern English as being a “brotherly love.” Philia is the dispassionate virtuous love and loyalty to friends and family, a concept that was, interestingly, developed by Aristotle. It can also mean "love of the mind."
  
  “Storge,” like “Philia,” occurs within families, but differentiates in that it specifies natural affection; that which is naturally reciprocated between parents and their children. Storge has been commonly defined as “motherly love.”
  
  “Eros” is described passionate love, with sensual desire and longing.
  
  The Greek word, “agape”, refers to a Godly, divine spiritual relationship. If in the Greek “eros” describes a physical attraction, then the Greek “agape” describes a spiritual one.
  
  The fifth and last Greek word for love is “xenia.” Its meaning translates with the most difficulty into modern English, and even when translated, doesn’t easily interpret into understanding in western-thinking minds. Xenia is loosely translated as “hospitality,” but more specifically is an almost ritualized reciprocal need-based friendship between a host and his guest. It is somewhat like the dependence-based “storge” in familial relationships, differing in that the xenia relationship can potentially take place between individuals who had previously been strangers. Both material as well as non-material benefits expressed include mutual gift giving and protection or shelter. The word in the Greek originates from traditions honoring the Greek god, Zeus, also know as Zeus Xenios, from which the word originates. In mythology, he had the role of protector of travelers, creating a religious obligation to be hospitable to travelers.
  
  
  While all this may seem tedious, the impact of breaking open the limits of the English language in understanding scripture is no less than astonishing.
  
  Imagine reading this scripture assuming that the word, love, has been translated from the Greek word, eros:
  
  “Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.” 1 Corinthians 13:4-8
  
  
  What?! I can connect with the act of physical intimacy being one in which couples are unrushed in their lovemaking and in intimate encounters we are to avoid at all costs being arrogant and/or rude to one another, but REJOICE IN WRONGDOING? What does that even mean? I shudder to think! Is God telling us through His Word to patiently endure an unskilled intimate partner? And I should hope that spouses would not boast to others about what goes on behind closed doors!
  
  This scripture, correctly translated using the word, agape, changes form entirely and takes on a completely different meaning. It translates more accurately as
  
  “God’s perfect divine love is patient and kind; His holy love does not envy or boast; Perfect Godly love is not arrogant or rude. God’s sacred love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. God’s pure, undefiled love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Godly love never ends.”
  
  Replacing the faulty word, eros, with the correct word, agape, as correctly identified using a Strong’s concordance brings much more clarity, and ultimately, understanding, to the scripture. It takes the Word from (still true) difficult to apply to giving a clear understanding of God’s loving relationship to us that we are to try to emulate.
  
  In each daily devotional, Rick Renner does precisely this; offering up scripture verses and unlocking the keys to understanding by breaking down and translating each scripture to illuminate the lost nuances. He does this in a palatable manner using stories to illustrate meanings and follows with questions for the reader to ask one’s self, making the devotion both personal and applicable.
• 
  James Everingham

  As a disclaimer this is the first book that I am reviewing that I have not completely read, however got the first 15% of it and I believe that is enough to get the idea as it is only a devotional resource. Additionally the focus of my review will be on the Greek aspect of this book.
  
  I'll be honest, I have a huge bone to pick with this book and this is partly because I read Biblical Greek as a hobby (but I digress that I consider myself quite capable at it, my vocabulary is in the 1000's and so is the time of hours I have put into the language). Therefore it might be right to consider myself biased against this book, because in my mind it did an absolutely appalling job of handling the Greek. However, because one of the primary selling points of this book, as it is in the title, is that you are getting 'gems from the Greek'.
  
  Let's begin.
  
  This book presents a devotion for every day of the year (as far as I can tell). Generally the outline of this devotion is a brief translation of Scripture, an anecdote, an often poor explanation of the Greek, application, prayer and confession and there is also often a suggested way to translate the verse.
  
  I am going to focus my review on how Renner has handled the Greek, although I perused some of his theology in places and it struck me as leaning towards a prosperity Gospel and one or two statements that I read seemed to be extremely poor theology, however onto the Greek. I have several problems with how the Greek was handled here. Very often Renner will take a word with a very mundane meaning and try and jam pack it with as much meaning as possible. As an example the word γινομαι (ginomai) which generally just means 'to happen' or 'to be', its a very common word in Greek and it is not particularly emphatic. Yet Renner suggests that it describes 'something that happens unexpectedly or something that catches one off-guard' and the word 'emphatically' is even used to describe the event. Another example as the verb ποιεω (poieo) which just means 'make/do' in its most simple meaning. However, Renner takes the word back to its original meaning in classical Greek where the word relates to poetry to suggest some creative action is in mind in translation, which is to be completely honest, is utter nonsense. Several hundred years exist between the early developments of classical Greek and the more Hellenized Koine Greek of the New Testament and it is alarming that not just once but multiple times (and remember I only read the first 15% of the book) a word is taken with its classical nuance and applied at that level when clearly the New Testament Greek does not carry that nuance.
  
  If this were not bad enough I encountered two examples where Renner actually took words with a modern meaning and applied it back to the meaning of the Biblical Greek. Just because the Greek word δυναμος (dynamos) which means 'power/ability' is where we get the modern word 'dynamite' does not mean that teaching that δυναμος means 'explosive power' is at any level acceptable, it is absurd and physically painful to read as a Greek student.
  
  Here then is a more succinct account of my problem with how the Greek is taught. It often takes the meaning of words out of their historical context, it often takes a word that has a broad semantic domain and it takes that word at only one of its many possible meanings and teaches it as though it only has that one meaning (however, in some cases he does handle the semantic domain of a word to an acceptable level), it also often jam packs as much meaning into a word as possible the word for 'many' a common and unemphatic word becomes 'a huge number or to an enormous degree' a reading that simply isn't implicit to the word. Because of this sometimes Renner sometimes teaches a word with a too narrow semantic domain and at other times teaches another word with too broad a semantic domain, neither of which is good practice. Renner also has a strange system of transliteration that I have never seen before, and I'm not sure if he is just misspelling certain words or is just has his own special way of transliterating that no one else uses; quite frankly I'm not particularly fond of translation in the first place, it would be better to teach people the original Greek words rather than an English copy.
  
  Perhaps I'm being harsh, but to me it is a serious offense to be misrepresenting Biblical truths in the way that Renner has done. It is even worse that very often these Greek words are taken out of context or applied at an incorrect level, and then at this level the meaning is used to spring into an application section that is tangential to the meaning of the Greek word.
  
  Based on what I have read of this book (and I can presume it remains the same throughout as it is a devotional resource) about half of the words that Renner handles he does so at a passable level (I did not see a single example where he did so at a commendable level), about a quarter of the words he uses at a level that sets of alarm bells and the remaining quarter of the words are vary from genuinely alarming to unforgivable.
  
  Here then is the problem. This book genuinely has a lot of useful information that you probably don't know. However it also has a lot of information that is utter BS and will only lead you astray and confuse you. Therefore, in order to be at a level of knowledge where you can safely read this book and know where it is right and where it is wrong you will already have surpassed the position of lay person with a casual interest in Greek to which this book is marketed at. Which in my mind it makes this book an utter failure and I'm a little concerned with how many people have rated it highly on this platform.
  
  I give it two stars because there is some genuinely useful information in this book, and whatever else might be said about it Renner has clearly put a lot of hours into this book and that should not be dismissed outright. However, I do believe that Renner should be legally mandated to read another book that I recently rated: D. A. Carson's 'Exegetical Fallacies' a useful little book with many useful rules about exegesis and Renner seems to break quite a few of them. (This is a jest, no one should be legally mandated to read anything; but Renner's work shows that he is desperately lacking in exegetical sense).
  
  I would only recommend this book to the most cautious of readers who are knowledgeable in Biblical truths and preferably with a basic understanding of the Greek with a lexicon of their own for when Renner invents his own meaning for words. I suspect there is a fair bit to be gained from reading this book, but there are also far too many opportunities for the unsuspecting reader to be lead astray.
  
  Proceed with caution.
  
• 
  Kelsey Bryant

  This was probably the most impacting book I've read this year. Although it's a daily devotional, and probably best read that way, I doubled up on many of the days. The insights are so rich you could easily turn it into a study guide instead and do word studies for each entry, learning about New Testament Greek as you go. The Greek never negates the impact the book has on your spiritual life, however; it adds to it as you understand what more is behind the concepts we've become so familiar with in the NT.
  It covers a wide range of topics. The amazing thing for me is, a huge portion of the devotions addressed and helped me with something I was dealing with that day or in that season. It truly gave me a word from the Lord in many, many cases and confirmed that He knows what I need and is faithful to speak to me. I am so thankful for this book.
  Although there may have been a smattering of subjects I didn't agree one hundred percent with (I can't even remember what they are right now), they gave me something to think about and didn't dent my enjoyment.
  Rick Renner isn't just a scholar, he's a faithful pastor and missionary in Russia. He practices what he preaches and can therefore write with true godly wisdom.
• 
  Sean Nemecek

  It didn't take long to realize that this author is using the Greek words of scripture to manipulate the text for his own purposes. He defines faith as your heart and mind being in agreement instead of biblical faith which is believing God. This book is filled with the heresies of the Word of Faith movement. Stay away from this book!
• 
  Faye

  Learned SO much from this book. He focuses a lot on the power of the Holy Spirit which is sometimes not talked a lot about in my church. Really good insight into the original meaning and historical context of the Greek in which the NT was written. Thoroughly recommend do this one as a year long Bible Study. Well worth the time investment.
• 
  Donna Partow

  Get this book! If I were one a deserted island and could only have one book, other than my bible, it would be this one
  
  The depth of his knowledge is astounding. His spiritual insights are both profound and profoundly practical
  
  Who would have guessed learning Greek could be so captivating?
• 
  Debbie

  While the author did spend about a third of each devotional explaining the meaning of one or two Greek words in the selected verse, none of it really seemed to "stick" in my mind. I think this was partly because the verses were usually isolated from the surrounding verses. The author's conclusions or suggested re-translations didn't always "fit" the greater context in a way that made sense to me, so my brain promptly forgot the expanded meaning. I felt like some of the author's suggestions or conclusions were rather narrow (too specific in application) or speculative (not clearly what the biblical author was trying to convey). I also differ from the author in some points of theology, which may be part of the problem. I usually love word studies, but I felt like I got very little lasting benefit from this large book.
• 
  Tyler

  Awesome book! Tons of wisdom and a must have for every library!
• 
  Ariel

  A friend recommended this as a devotional several year ago, and 2018 was the year I finally read it. It's been a great devotional, especially for someone like me who didn't study Greek in Bible College.
  
  Things I liked: Each lesson is several pages long. It usually includes a little story or example to introduce the lesson that matches the day's verse. Then it delves deeply into the verse, for several pages. Following that, there is a written prayer about the verse and a confession of faith regarding the lesson learned (Ex: "I confess that it is time for me to rise up and take control of the bitterness in my soul. It is my soul, so I am responsible for what happens there. Even if others did wrong to me, I choose to forgive, forget, and permanently walk free....I declare this in Jesus' name!" --except it's usually quite a large paragraph). I like that confession in addition to the prayer. It's much more intentional, like putting feet and action to your prayer. And then the part that benefitted me most: three questions that force you to consider your heart and where you are with the lesson of the day.
  
  Things I didn't: There aren't many things. There was a stretch of several days in November, I believe, where the lesson was on marriage. Being single and therefore ineligible for THAT lesson, it felt like it went on forever. Rarely other that that did I feel like it wasn't something I could relate to. Another thing (and this slightly nit-picky) but occasionally, the verse and the lesson was REALLLLLLY long. Most of the time, he would break down a verse over several days if there were a lot of interesting Greek words. But sometimes, it would all be one day's lesson with ten different words to comprehend. I found I didn't enjoy that as much because it was overkill. I couldn't learn or apply that much at once. But again, it wasn't overly often.
  
  I've recommended this quite a lot and will continue to do so.
• 
  J. Tayler Smith

  It’s a daily devotional book that examines a spiritual lesson taken from a Greek word from a passage of Biblical scripture.
  
  I felt it was important for me to read through this book from cover-to-cover. I read it straight through, rather than one chapter daily as is recommended, and it is full of good things. I really appreciate Renner’s style, study, and generally good teaching. It is evident that he is well studied and uses good research practices in preparation of his writing.
  
  I think my rating mostly comes from finding there was little that really stood out to me. But that may be a product of the way I read the book, rather than the book itself. I consider myself well studied in this topic, and fairly well-educated in general; and found most topics stimulating and interesting - just, I can’t put my finger on any particular thing that I really learned or embraced from it. I mostly got a reminder of generally good morals and spiritual principles by which I could live my life….. I guess that is the purpose of a devotional.
  
  It is good, and most people (Christian or not) will probably appreciate this book. It’s probably better to read it as intended - a daily devotional.
  
  
• 
  Katie Bowman

  Sparkling Gems is a labor of love and I’m so happy I read it. In this year long devotional, Renner gives us one verse a day and expounds upon its Greek and contextual meaning. He also gives a prayer and declaration every day which I enjoyed. My only complaint is his use of solely the KJV translation. However, this is by far the best devotional I’ve read and I will definitely be returning to a few gems I’ve dog-eared.
• 
  Alison Langridge

  I read this daily devotional over 18 months. It is excellent and very well researched. I didn't know that ancient Greek could be so fascinating and illuminating until I discovered this fabulous book. Highly recommended
  The insights have stayed with me ever since particularly over the Easter weeks.
• 
  Rena

  I purchased this book in 2015 and try to read through it every year. It is one of the greatest daily devotionals I have.
• 
  Natasha

  Great devotional! I enjoyed it more than Sparkling Gems II
• 
  Cassie Kelley

  English as a language is nowhere as varied as the Greek in which the New Testament was written. The words used in the New Testament are fantastically detailed, with multiple meanings for one word. Another common feature is using the culture in which they lived in to paint vivid images with the Greek words. But where should a person start if they want to study the Greek without delving into years of scholarly study?
  
  Sparkling Gems from the Greek Volume I is a great look at tons of Greek words. The author has used years of study into the Ancient Greek language and the culture of the times to “translate” these terms and verses into a modern English version. While not an official translation like the NLT, this brings the verses to life in a fascinating, real way while exposing the reader to how the Bible would have been understood by the early believers.
  
  Divided into daily devotions, this book will feed you bite-sized pieces every day for a whole year (including leap year). The wonderful detail and well-researched information will help you to dive into the Bible with a new fervor and interest. I would recommend this to any Christian, but especially those who want to study the Greek language and the culture of the time to understand what exactly Paul, Peter, James, John, and all of the other New Testament writers meant when they wrote to the churches and people and recorded the life of Jesus and prophetic visions.
• 
  Cheree

  This is a great book for daily devotionals or just to read a Sparkling Gem here and there. I enjoy word studies and often have commentaries, concordances and dictionaries on hand as I read the Bible. We are meant to not just READ God's Word, but to "study to show thyself approved." Rick Renner's book is a great tool for study. Especially for those who aren't familiar with word studies, this is an easy way to begin. Once you see the "hidden" meanings in familiar biblical passages, you will probably be inspired to do word studies on your own. Highly recommend.
• 
  Timothy Burns

  Rick Renner pens a great book, an helpful aid to your personal devotional time. However, the book is often slanted and influenced by American culture, rather than a biblical, discipleship world view. At times, Renner's spin on Greek definitions lacks personal, "How should this affect and change my life (what I do)?" application in favor of "What should I think so that God answers my prayers better (what I think?)."
  
  Discipleship is about how we live, including what we do and believe. Many of Renner's devotionals miss the Doing application.
• 
  Bob Flores

  This is my new favorite book!! It's actually a devotional with new "gems" for every day of the year, but it is so much more than that. Most days have 2 or more greek words brought to life with much deeper meaning than our own english language. I love every page! Just the declarations (or what the author calls confessions) themselves are worth their weight in gold. Gold or gems, either way this book is a treasure!
• 
  Thea Smith

  This is a book that you dip into every now and again - although you could read one gem for every day of the year. The pages I've read have helped me gain a deeper understanding of the bible verses by explaining the greek and therefore giving a deep yet easy to understand application - dont be put of by the title - it's a great read for any chirstian
• 
  Bhall

  Father Roseberry, Christ Church Plano gave me this book and it is one of the most special gifts i have received this year.
  Rick Renner's depth of experience and Greek combines to encourage and enlighten the spirit...drawing me constantly and clearly toward Christ's love and grace. Equipping me for battle!
• 
  Rebekah Rooker

  This is a great devotional...I started to read this when in MN. I didn't stay on track reading this over the summer/early fall but when James and I were married I took it on our honeymoon and we had great times of prayer after reading this book
• 
  Cynthia

  My all time favorite devotional. Great if you love breaking down the language barriers in scripture. He takes the words, breaks them down, and puts them together in a way that's amazingly fresh and clear.
• 
  Denise

  Good some days, a bit dry on others. Glad the year is over. I'll probably keep it to refer back to once in a while. I did quit reading the daily confessions. Just because one says something, confesses it, does not mean God will give it to you.
• 
  Pete

  There are many "gems" in Renner's book. From what I know, experts in Greek may take issue with some of his interpretations... so I urge the reader to remember that this book is one man's interpretation... it is not itself "the Gospel" :)
• 
  Linda

  I like word studies, but for some reason I couldn't get into this book...I put it back on the shelf for now.
• 
  Terry Olthouse

  I have recommend this book to more people than any other. Great response. I try to read it daily and when I miss reading it, i really miss it.
• 
  Michael Gibney

  This is a great devotional and reference. He use Greek in a very understandable and pragmatical way.