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Candid conversations for the church. Host is Ardin Beech of Windsor District Baptist Church, Sydney, Australia. Co-hosted by Jonathan Hoffman.
Hard to believe I know, but we're actually back once again.
Jonathan Hoffman:We are. And you say that every time.
Ardin Beech:I know. Because because, like, first, we're we're just dead for 3 months, and then all of a sudden, we've got a whole bunch of them.
Jonathan Hoffman:Well, we do have lives, and someone over here has a busy schedule. I'm talking about me. I'm talking about you. But it's great. It's great to be back.
Jonathan Hoffman:Great to be recording again. Great to be talking with these guests, and we got a great 1 tonight as well.
Ardin Beech:We do. Yeah. We got Jeff coming up very shortly. What's been happening around the traps local?
Jonathan Hoffman:Well, I actually haven't been here the last couple days, so I've been out doing association things with the Baptists. We got a big assembly coming up. We'll have had it by the time you hear this, so it'll be interesting to see what comes out of that.
Ardin Beech:Alright. Time for our special guest. Now I'll let you do the introductions, Jonathan. 1, because he's an old friend of yours. 2, because I feel I would completely butcher his name.
Ardin Beech:I have no idea how it's pronounced. It's got more vowels than I've ever seen in my life, but you go for it.
Jonathan Hoffman:Very very happy to welcome to the show our friend or my friend, soon to be your friend, doctor Jeff Arnie. Jeff, welcome.
Dr. Jeff Aernie:Thanks so much for having me, guys. And that was the exact right way to pronounce my name. So well done.
Ardin Beech:Yeah. I wouldn't have gone not a chance.
Jonathan Hoffman:Your names are very similar actually, but we digress. With
Dr. Jeff Aernie:Arden and Arnie, the thing I usually get in Australia is that it's related to Arnie Schwarzenegger. That's what they say, but Americans never call Arnold Schwarzenegger Arnie, so that made no sense to me. So I usually just say it's the letter r plus the joint in your leg. Oh. Arnie works well.
Jonathan Hoffman:I think all Australians struggle with r, don't they? You you take it out, Annie, you know.
Ardin Beech:Yeah. I suppose. Yeah.
Jonathan Hoffman:I'm asking the 1 Australian.
Ardin Beech:I'll give you that.
Dr. Jeff Aernie:Dual nationals don't count. Australians struggle with lots of things, vowels, r's. Yeah. Yeah.
Ardin Beech:At least not guns. Americans. Oh. Yeah. We don't have a gun problem.
Ardin Beech:That's true.
Jonathan Hoffman:There we are already. Anyway, Jeff, welcome.
Dr. Jeff Aernie:I feel like that was not what I came to talk about American politics. Let's let's talk about the bible instead.
Jonathan Hoffman:That sounds good. So, yeah, just to give you a bit of context, yeah. So, Jeff, you and I met each other. We actually were we're at the same university, but I can't remember if we met. We met later in seminary.
Jonathan Hoffman:Yeah. Can you give a bit of context as to as to where that was?
Dr. Jeff Aernie:Yep. That's exactly right. So Jonathan and I went to the same college in the US, place called Wheaton College, but we were I think my first year was your last year. So we did not meet there, but I met some of your wife's family while I was there. So, Jeff Buster, who I will be familiar to, to people here, was a college classmate of mine.
Dr. Jeff Aernie:And then, yeah, we met in seminary in 2, 005, I think, Jonathan. So almost 20 years ago now in Greek exegesis 1, I think
Ardin Beech:everyone's favorite class
Dr. Jeff Aernie:everyone's favorite class with a really I thought he was a wonderful person, German new testament scholar named Eckhard Schnabel,
Jonathan Hoffman:who You thought Arnie was interested.
Dr. Jeff Aernie:You thought that's right. He wore the same navy blue suit to class every day.
Ardin Beech:Loved
Dr. Jeff Aernie:it. And to prevent himself from doing too much research, he ran marathons, and I think still does to this day. Wow. Incredible guy.
Ardin Beech:So how did you pull yourself away from Greek exegesis and end up here in Australia?
Dr. Jeff Aernie:Yeah. No Greek exegesis led me, to Australia as well. Greek has been a consistent part of my life career vocation for more than 20 years now. So, I should give some context and clarity for what that is. So my day job is I work at a Christian institution here in Sydney Alpha Cruces University College, and my role at the moment is a primarily administrative role, so helping organize the school of Ministry and Theology there and I also get to dabble in my real love, which is new testament studies.
Dr. Jeff Aernie:And of course, the new testament was originally written in Greek and that was really my entry point into Christian ministry was the study of Greek. I went to college. I went I went to Wheaton to do something similar to what Jonathan did there. You were a political science major. Is that right?
Jonathan Hoffman:That's right.
Dr. Jeff Aernie:So my life goal as an 18 year old was to be the US ambassador to France. Wow. Wow. Very, very austere, I I think.
Ardin Beech:So after doing that job, you then came.
Dr. Jeff Aernie:That's that's correct. Yeah. I no. My very first class at Wheaton, was a class I loved, but it was called international politics, and it took me only about 60 seconds of that class to realize I was not going to be the ambassador to France or that international politics was not actually where my heart was. And by the grace of God, the very next class I had at Wheaton was New Testament Greek, and it took me about 60 seconds of that class to realize that I wanted to spend the rest of my life studying the Bible deeply and thinking about it.
Dr. Jeff Aernie:I didn't quite know what that meant or what that looked like, but in that very first class, the professor helped us to translate a bit of the gospel of Mark, and I just thought that was the most amazing thing I had ever done was to actually read the Bible in its original language to think the same, thoughts as the authors of the text had to read the words that they had written. It was just an incredible experience. That was as an 18 year old, and the rest of my academic journey and my career have really blossomed out of that experience. I hopefully have grown a little bit in that time and and learned a little bit more, but even now looking back at it, that was a inflection point for me in life and ministry.
Jonathan Hoffman:I'm just glad it took you only 2 classes. It took me 4 years to get out of poli sci. Not to mention I moved across to Washington DC a couple about probably 6 years by the time you. Yeah. Well, it's slow to the game.
Dr. Jeff Aernie:I mean, I think I just misunderstood God's, leading in my life. I mean, II knew going in. I love languages. That was always true. I knew I always wanted to have a life a career a vocation that would allow me to serve and engage with, the church and Christians and the world internationally.
Dr. Jeff Aernie:I grew up in a very small place in the middle of the US called Nebraska, which I don't think many Australians haven't even heard of.
Ardin Beech:I've got mates in Nebraska.
Dr. Jeff Aernie:In Nebraska. Yeah. Most Australians have only ever been to California, where Jonathan is from, or New York, and I like to say that means they've only ever seen Nebraska from 30, 000 feet in the air. It looks exactly the same on the ground. You're not missing anything, by being there.
Dr. Jeff Aernie:No. It's a wonderful place to grow up and and live, and we still have just really wonderful memories there. But being now, I lived for several years in Scotland and now have lived in Australia for nearly 13 years. So I can see resonances, of what I could see as an 18 year old, right, with the with the language and wanting to have an international focus. I didn't know it was gonna be in this particular way, but I'm so thankful that God has engaged, with me and led me in that space.
Dr. Jeff Aernie:Shout out to all the people in in politics and international relations. You're doing great work.
Ardin Beech:Without without without me. Yeah. They're managing to get by.
Dr. Jeff Aernie:Managing to get by just fine, thriving, in fact.
Jonathan Hoffman:As as we're reminiscing about sort of our experience in a crystal Christian liberal arts institution, As you work in, academic institutions, I wonder if you could maybe take us behind the curtain a little bit. How would you describe the institution where you are now in terms of what space do they sit in? And maybe how is that unique in Australia versus maybe what we might find in other places you've been?
Dr. Jeff Aernie:Yeah. That's a really good question, Jonathan, and I'll approach it from a couple of different ways. I'll start specifically and then maybe broaden out if that's okay. So, I work for Alpha Cruces University College and that even those 3 words, might seem odd. Alpha Cruces, is actually 1 of the stars in the Southern Cross.
Dr. Jeff Aernie:It's the brightest star in the Southern Cross. I thought before I knew that, that it was just someone who had taken, 2 Christian words, alpha, right, the first letter of the Greek alphabet, and krussis, which is the word for cross, and mushed them together to try to be hip. But now it just turns out they were being, contextual, which is very good. And then it's it's unique in Australia to have the university and college together, and this is a little bit maybe too behind the scenes, but there's 3 levels of higher education in Australia. There's college or a higher education provider, and then there's a university college, and then the final step is university.
Dr. Jeff Aernie:So Alpha Cruces University College is on its way to being a university. That's our goal, and that means that we teach, in a number of areas. So we have a really wonderful faculty working in education, helping, people to develop vocations as teachers, from primary all the way through to tertiary education. We have health and human sciences program, which is developing just brilliant work in the areas of counseling, professional supervision, really vital roles. We have a a business department which is really growing, trying to find ways to help people, understand how their Christian faith and vocation should shape their lives in the business world.
Dr. Jeff Aernie:And then the school I work with is particularly focused on theological education, helping people understand what it means to live out their faith in a number of different contexts, all the way from, vocational ministries. So for example, being a pastor or a missionary working in that space, serving the church in in any kind of function, but also just being a Christian in everyday life as well. Almost every theological or bible college, we might say in Australia, has a close link with a church movement or a denomination. So Alpha Cruces has a really close link with the Australian Christian churches. Windsor, which is a Baptist church, has a really close link with Morling College, and that link is really essential to what we're doing.
Dr. Jeff Aernie:In in my mind, the kind of institution I work for doesn't exist without the church. We're here to, serve the church, help the church to think well about who God is. And yeah, that that stretches all the way from thinking about understanding how God speaks so studying the scripture studying ancient languages, ancient history, thinking about the way in which people have spoken about God in the past and have helped shaped our tradition, so church history, thinking about, how we can speak well about God, thinking about developing our own voice as Christians or what we might call systematic theology, and then thinking about how we actually live out our faith, use that theological material to shape our relationships, our families, who we are, what we might call practical theology. So that's that's probably really broad answer to that question. But that's the aim that we have is to help serve the church, and foster, deep thinking about God, the Bible, and the world.
Jonathan Hoffman:And that's fairly unique, I think, in Australia that I've come across because most people when I like, I try to explain my history of saying, yes, I went to a Christian university. That's what I have to say. I went to a Christian University and they said, oh, you went to Bible College. I said, no. It's I was just training for political science, and you could you could train to be a historian.
Jonathan Hoffman:You could train to be a scientist, musician, but from a Christian perspective. And I think what I'm hearing from Alfacruzus and especially in your description there is we're starting to see that sort of that that flower open a little bit and sort of educating Christian Lee in a number of different areas.
Dr. Jeff Aernie:Yeah. Australia is an interesting place in lots of different ways. In theological education, It has just developed in a way that is distinct from other parts of the world. So if you think about the United Kingdom or the United States, some of the most famous universities or well known institutions, the Oxfords and Princetons of the world, started as Bible training colleges where where theology and Christian education was the foundation of that. That's not how universities developed in Australia.
Dr. Jeff Aernie:It wasn't till the seventies, the 19 seventies that any university in Australia had any kind of a theology or religion program.
Jonathan Hoffman:Wow.
Dr. Jeff Aernie:So we have a much shorter history here of what that looks like. Instead, the way that theological education developed in Australia was through the impetus and engagement of churches. So this is why, and this is a real strength, I think, in Australia. There's a very close connection between our our Bible colleges, our theological colleges, and, denominations or particular church movements that that has a lot of strengths to it. But that does mean that there's a a bigger gap or a bigger separation for most Australians between thinking about what does it mean to go to university, and what might it mean to train for ministry or to have subjects classes in my university degree that focus in on the Bible.
Jonathan Hoffman:You talked about, being caught up in this fascinating, endeavor of reading the original translation of the new testament, entering into holy scripture from that lens. I wonder if we can talk a little bit about that. A question I often get, as a pastor is why are there so many different translations of the Bible? And as someone who's, you know, worked in New Testament for your career, how would you answer that question of someone who says, why do we have so many different English translations? And and maybe as a sort of a follow on, how are they reliable?
Jonathan Hoffman:Can I trust them? Are are we constantly fixing, or what what's going on there?
Dr. Jeff Aernie:Yeah. These these are all really great and important questions. In in some ways, it depends on where you're from whether you even have this question. For those of us who speak English as a first language or who know it well, we're blessed with an immense amount of translations and with easy access to them now as the digital versions have expanded and developed. And I always wanna stress a few things right at the beginning in talking about translations.
Dr. Jeff Aernie:1 is, and this is this is the most important thing always to remember when we think about translations is that they are the product of hours and hours of dedicated work by Christian women and men who have given their lives to thinking about the Bible. So our our NIV or our ESV didn't just magically appear from, Zondervan or Crossway 1 day. The we are indebted to so many women and men who have gone before us to help us think about the scripture. Translations are almost always group and community exercises that have been going on for decades, if not longer than that. So we should be thankful and feel deeply blessed, I think, that we have the capacity to readily and rapidly engage with the biblical text, because there is just an immense amount of work that's gone in behind the scenes of, reading ancient manuscripts, thinking about language, working through theological questions that have helped us to get there.
Dr. Jeff Aernie:So anything else I say about translation, I always want that to be first and foremost to honor, and recognize and respect all of those people who have engaged in that work for us. The second thing to say is that translation is really hard work. Re reading the Bible is really hard work in in working through those languages, and our Bible is primarily written in 2 languages, Hebrew and Greek, with a few other languages mixed in there, and the ability to work through those languages that are now quite far removed from us and are changing. Yeah. It's it's difficult work that you want to engage with I use a silly example about the complexities of translation with my students.
Dr. Jeff Aernie:It's III start by asking if anyone speaks French and usually the answer is no, which is a real win because then if I say that if I pronounce the words wrong, no 1 really knows, but there is a term of endearment in French, mon petit choux, that a husband might say to his wife on Valentine's Day. Now if we just take those 3 words in French and translate them woodenly, it's my little cabbage, mon petit choux. Now let me just be very clear. No husband who is listening to this should call his spouse my little cabbage, after this. It will not go well for him.
Jonathan Hoffman:Arden, put the pen down. I saw you write
Dr. Jeff Aernie:that down. In order to understand what that is, you you have to understand the context of how the phrase is developed, why it's being used, what might be a way to communicate the same idea. Right? Sweetheart or my love might be ways we would say that, in our context. The idea is you you can't just always go from 1 language to another straight away without developing and and working through that, and it's the same with the Bible.
Dr. Jeff Aernie:There are many steps you have to take to go from a particular Hebrew phrase or particular Greek phrase to think about it in English, and some of those words we're still working through and thinking about today. That hard work continues. It's not over, and each new year, each new decade, each new generation, we have to do that work again because our context shifts and changes. Some words don't make sense to us anymore. We have to think about, how language is developing.
Dr. Jeff Aernie:We might be confused when we see words like, vow and the, in old English text now because that language has changed. So not only are we getting further away from the original languages in terms of time, our language and context is shifting and changing, and all of that is necessary to work through when we think about translation work and engaging with the text.
Ardin Beech:I I like the NIV. It's the 1 that I grew up with, and that's the the version that the disciples used. So, obviously, I'm
Dr. Jeff Aernie:gonna keep using it.
Ardin Beech:But I I the thing I like about it is in the the forward at the beginning when they talk about the translation process, not all the folks translating the languages were people of faith. There were secular people on that team as well, which for me kinda removes some of that bias that might come along the way. And and I I see that I'm I'm glad they they're upfront about that and and they're honest about it, and for me, that's a positive.
Dr. Jeff Aernie:The International Bible Committee translation, which works on the NIV and works on a number of other translations, wants to work under the premise that all truth is God's truth and that we need to engage with all of the gifts, tools, and capacities that God has given us in in the world in order to understand his text better. The Bible is a real thing. Right? It's a real artifact. It has historical and contextual realities.
Dr. Jeff Aernie:Right? Things like Corinth and Ephesus were real places. Jesus and Peter and Joseph were real people, and so they're engaging in that, sphere as well. And so we seek knowledge and engagement from lots of different places, in order to do that. And Jonathan, you asked about reliability.
Dr. Jeff Aernie:That that's what gives me confidence and confidence in our bible translations that we have, an immense amount of people and time dedicating their efforts and passions into cultivating those, texts well. And the beauty of having multiple translations is we can put them side by side and and compare them, and we can see some of the places where translators are making decisions about, how they want to engage in the text or describe something or communicating it. Every translation is just that. It's an act of communication, and Art and I really love the NIV as well. And the thing I love about it is it is always attempting to communicate in contemporary English that people can understand.
Dr. Jeff Aernie:They're doing a great job of understanding the beauty of Hebrew and Greek and also the beauty of English and trying to demonstrate that in in both.
Jonathan Hoffman:When you're not translating the Bible, what does a New Testament scholar do? If we have all these translations, we have these committees, like, what is the actual work that you're doing?
Dr. Jeff Aernie:The thing that is my guiding principle as a New Testament scholar is I want to be a faithful interpreter of scripture, and I want to help other people to develop in their ability to interpret or exe, scripture that is to understand and explain what it is the way that actually works itself out in life and work is that in addition to working with colleagues and teaching and helping students move through their university degree. I'm also spending lots of time researching the text, and writing articles, books in the same way that we would do in many fields, and that is part of us ongoing scholarly conversation about the text that then works its way down into different versions of material into commentaries and hopefully into a sermon once in a while, some of your listeners might be familiar with, the Bible project, and what, Tim and John and their team do. They're actually a really good representation of what many Bible scholars are doing all over the world. Right? Thinking deeply about the text, having conversations with colleagues to try to understand it better, understand, how scripture is operating, a verse to a chapter to the whole of the text and what god's trying to communicate to us there, and then helping to distill that as best as we can and repeating the process over and over again.
Ardin Beech:Have you got a favorite part or verse or tiny portion that jumps out at you in the original Greek that perhaps we haven't reached? Not a not a fully correct translation, but perhaps 1 that can't be fully explained in a verse or so in English.
Dr. Jeff Aernie:Yeah. It's a really good question, Arden. In some ways, it's hard to answer because I wanna say the whole New Testament. That seems that seems, unhelpful, so we won't do that. But a lot of the work that I have done in particular as a New Testament scholar has been rooted in parts of the text where I I couldn't quite understand what was going on, or I had a question, about something.
Dr. Jeff Aernie:As an example, 2 Corinthians 57. Most of our English translations helpfully say something like we walk by faith not by sight. Right? This idea that there's something that we're, waiting for that we haven't seen yet. So there's a divide there between the present.
Dr. Jeff Aernie:We're walking by faith now and kind of an unseen reality, and eventually, we'll walk by sight. Interestingly, I think there's Paul is maybe doing something a little bit different in in that passage. He's not thinking about a divide between present and future, but about 2 ways in which to think about the present. So we can either think about that through the lens of faith, or we can think about it, and I would translate not sight, but appearance through the lens of human perspective. I think that's the that's the distinction, he's making.
Dr. Jeff Aernie:Another example is metaphor having changed over time. I'm gonna get in trouble for this 1. This has to do with Hebrew, not Greek, But I think every men's conference I've ever been to has mentioned Proverbs 2717, as iron sharpens iron, so 1 man sharpens another. And it's always a really, like encouraging and positive thing right iron sharpening iron. That is a iron sharpening iron being positive.
Dr. Jeff Aernie:That's a modern metaphor. The the Hebrew author wouldn't have thought that was a good thing. So in the old testament, when someone sharpens someone else, it's causing strife with them. And so I think I think the author of that particular proverb is warning against iron sharpening iron. So I may have just ruined, a lot of
Ardin Beech:This post is being torn up. That's right.
Dr. Jeff Aernie:I'm very, very sorry.
Jonathan Hoffman:Too late to change my sermon. Yeah. I wanna pivot just a little bit, and it's fascinating to hear a bit about your world. But I think it's fair to say that for a lot of people who are in church, a lot of people who consider themselves followers of Jesus today, you know, they're not as immersed as you are in in the text. What would you say to people who are maybe living a life of faith, but but for them, the bible feels like this thing they're dragging behind them, and and they maybe haven't, really fallen in love with the word or or, you know, insert whatever, descriptor you you want there.
Dr. Jeff Aernie:Yeah. That's that's a foreign experience for me because I haven't had that thought. So I'm stepping into, different shoes in that space, But what I can say is that even for someone like me who loves the Bible, I still, leave my desk many days of each week thinking, what on earth is going on, in that text? So I think it's perfectly normal to come to scripture and not always understand what it's communicating or not understand the language. That that's a reminder that, that the text is is living and present with us, but it's also from a time that's very far removed from us.
Dr. Jeff Aernie:I use a an illustration with my students to try to help them to understand both the similarities and differences between our time and, the time in which the biblical authors are writing, and it's to talk about the difference between a 1, 000, 000 and a 1, 000, 000, 000. I suspect well, I'll just use an example. My my children can't actually understand the difference between a 1000000a1000000000. Right? To them, it's 10.
Dr. Jeff Aernie:You just add 1 thing on. It's a very small difference. So I was trying to help them understand this. And if you think about, a 1000000 minutes ago, right, if you if you have a 1000000 minutes ago, you're at something like 12 days. A 1000000000 minutes is 35 years.
Dr. Jeff Aernie:K? So there's this massive gap between, the the world of the bible and our world, and it's perfectly okay to come to this text and think, woah, what is this? My encouragement is to say, don't don't give up on that. Right? Give the time to think about and understand the text and the text will repay you, in that way and helping you to, love God more helping you to develop in your own faith and growth and it's perfectly okay to have ongoing questions about the text.
Dr. Jeff Aernie:I think it's I think that's a normal reaction to come to the text and to feel like it's foreign because it is. Right? It was originally written in languages that are foreign to us, a time that's foreign to us, and it simply takes time to engage with that, and know it. My wife, Allison, works in a local hospital, as an assistant in nursing on her way to becoming a nurse, and I think 90% of her colleagues all come from different backgrounds, China, the Philippines, Southeast Asia. It takes time for them to get to know each other.
Dr. Jeff Aernie:They don't have shared experience or engagement. They haven't known each other for 20 years like you and I have, Jonathan, and they don't always understand each other. They're not always wanting to engage with 1 another, but they're a team. They have to work together in order to engage with that, and so they put in the time to get to know 1 another. It's the same thing for Christians in scripture.
Dr. Jeff Aernie:There is a requirement for us to put in the time to understand god's word so that we can know god better.
Ardin Beech:Oh, well, that was really awesome. Thanks for coming, Jeff.
Jonathan Hoffman:Thanks for being with us. Thanks for sharing your insight, and that trust will be a great encouragement to me.
Dr. Jeff Aernie:Yeah. Thanks, guys. Appreciate it.
Ardin Beech:Well, that was a really cool chat, and, like, there's you would not know it to listen to him, but he was, like, the smartest bloke in the world. He was terrified to come on our little WDBC podcast.
Jonathan Hoffman:Yeah. I I think he, you know, I just really appreciate what he had to say about, the scripture and and and how we approach it and giving the text, you know, its proper care and and, you know, applying yourself wholly to the text and and and then, the text applied being applied to ourselves. So III hope people were encouraged by that. You don't often get a chance to talk with people who are involved in those sorts of things. We didn't really get into his background, but, you know, his PhD was in second Corinthians.
Jonathan Hoffman:There's a book of my shelf he wrote, on, you know, the women in the gospel of Mark. And there's just really great things that you can learn when you actually immerse yourself in God's word and and hear how that that shapes your life and shapes your work. So yeah. I was really real it's been a great privilege. He's a great friend.
Jonathan Hoffman:We've known each other 20 years. You you say, you know, he was terrified. Can I tell you I was terrified? He sat behind me in Greek exegesis and he knew every answer. I was.
Jonathan Hoffman:So it was intimidating. So I like to consider it a, a small victory on my part that, he took me under his wing as well. He didn't
Ardin Beech:sound like the smartest man on the earth. Earth.
Jonathan Hoffman:Brilliant. Brilliant. Really, really, really
Ardin Beech:And we'll have him back.
Jonathan Hoffman:Yes. We will.
Ardin Beech:We'll have to have him back. Awesome. Well, another amazing episode, I reckon.
Jonathan Hoffman:I think so too. Hope you enjoyed it.
Ardin Beech:We are smashing this season. This week at Windsor, we will be back soon. Thanks for joining us.