Eden: Thank you so much for taking the time to interview with us. I’m excited to talk to you today and hear what God is doing in your life, and some of the things that he has taught you. I’d love to start by getting to know you a little bit. What are a couple of things that bring you joy?
Rob Plummer: Yes. Well I’ll start with the more trivial matters. What do I enjoy? In the morning, I enjoy hot tea—very good hot tea with milk and sugar in it, British style. I enjoy drinking that before anyone else gets up in my home in the sunroom, which is also where I like to do my devotionals in the morning. So it’s a time of physical nourishment with tea, but also spiritual nourishment. So I enjoy that.
I very much enjoy my family. I’m married to my wife, Chandi. And my three daughters—they’re really a lot of fun. They’re all very different.
I usually like running. I’ve gotten a little bit out of the habit. I think I need to start jogging again, so I like running and staying active, things like that.
Eden: Wonderful. Well, I enjoy a lot of those things as well. Running especially. You said that one of your joys is waking up early and spending time in the Word. Is there a part of God’s Word that’s especially precious to you? And if you could share with us why it has become especially precious to you?
Rob Plummer: One time I was on this trip, and everyone was sharing their life verse, but I don’t think I have a life verse. I do enjoy whatever section of Scripture I’m reading at the moment and thinking about that, depending on the different challenges going on in my life, whether it’s a warning that I need to hear or whether it’s an encouragement or a promise. So I don’t know that I could choose a section of Scripture.
I do love Romans 3:20 where Paul says, “No one will be declared righteous in God’s sight by observing the law, but it’s through the law we become conscious of sin” (paraphrased). It’s a good reminder to me when I begin to think about my performance or my obedience—that I unconsciously begin to rely upon that or be despairing to see my lack of obedience or my halfhearted obedience—to remember that I’m not accepted before God on the basis of my deeds, but on the basis of Christ. So that’s always a good reminder to me.
Eden: Yes. Amen. It’s a helpful reminder for me today! So thank you for that.
Well, you’ve got a lot of books behind you. And you said that you’re in Louisville (Kentucky), so for someone that maybe isn’t familiar with your work, could you tell us a little bit about what God has you doing right now? What does your ministry look like?
Rob Plummer: I’ve been a full-time professor at Southern Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, I guess, for about 22 years. I teach in the area of Biblical Studies. I teach mainly New Testament and Greek. Over the years, I’ve taught Hermeneutics—which is basically biblical interpretation class—and I wrote a little book on that called 40 Questions About Interpreting the Bible. Then in more recent years, I’ve focused more and more on Greek. I’ve written or co-written a number of books related to learning to read the Greek New Testament. And I have this ministry, which you’re aware of, Daily Dose of Greek. It’s all free. We also have the Daily Dose of Hebrew, Daily Dose of Latin, Daily Dose of Aramaic, and we have in Spanish. The Daily Dose of Greek in Spanish, the Daily Dose of Hebrew in Spanish, the Daily Dose of Greek in Korean, and the Daily Dose of Greek in Mandarin Chinese. That’s with native speakers, scholars doing their own work. They’re not translating my work. They’re doing their own work. For example, if you go to ddgchinese.com, you can see the work rolling out in Mandarin Chinese. So pretty cool, huh?
Eden: Yeah. Last time I looked at it, I was excited about the next books that were available on the website or app. Is it a website or is it an app?
Rob Plummer: Yeah, there’s a website, dailydoseofgreek.com. There’s also an Instagram feed, Facebook feed, Twitter or X, and there’s an app, there’s a Daily Dose of Greek app. The iOS app is updated, but the Android app is right now being worked on. I think it’s defunct, but we have some people who are reviving that. There’s a bunch of different ways. Most people who view it get the daily email. They sign up for the free daily email, which then jumps to the videos; they’re on YouTube or Vimeo. The main goal of it, I’ll just go ahead and say, for people who have already studied Greek, mainly pastors, but sometimes other Christians who study Greek, it’s a way to help keep them daily in the text, one verse a day. It’s a screencast—so you see on the screen one text of Scripture and you see me marking over it, kind of like Khan Academy or John Piper’s Look at the Book or something like that. It lasts 2 to 3 minutes. We also have basic instructional videos on there if someone has never studied Greek before.
Eden: Wow. Exciting. I discovered Daily Dose of Greek after college after studying it, and it was so fun to get to watch those videos.
I’ve heard from several people who are reading their English Bibles, they have a little seed of doubt in their mind as to whether this is really God’s Word, because God’s Word was written originally in Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic. So sometimes people wonder, “How can I really trust that this Bible in my lap that’s in English is really God’s Word? If I don’t know Greek, am I really still reading the Bible?” And I wonder how you would answer someone with that concern.
Rob Plummer: Yes, it is God’s Word. That’s the short answer. I have no hesitation to pick up an English Bible and say, “This is God’s Word. Let’s read from it,” because we have trustworthy translations. Now, any modern Bible translation done by a committee that you can get in English—the ESV, the NIV, the NASB, the CSB—these are great translations. The only translation I don’t recommend are ones done by cults like the Jehovah’s Witnesses or Mormons, because obviously there’s an agenda that those people have in the way that some things are rendered. Never in the history of the world has there been such an embarrassing wealth of reliable translations, along with extensive notes that note any textual issues or interpretative issues. I mean, it’s astounding the wealth of resources and information that we have.
Now, having said that, serious Christians do desire many times to say, “Well, you know, I would like to read the Greek or the Hebrew because I have here 2 or 3 English translations that in this place they’re a little different, and I don’t understand why. I can read a sort of summary, but I’d really like to be able to read the original text for myself.” And for those who have the opportunity to do that, it’s never been easier. Similar to the English Bible translations through the online resources, it’s never been easier to learn to read the Bible in the original, in Hebrew and Greek, and to begin to enjoy that. But yes, English Bible translations are reliable. Just to mention again that book I wrote, 40 Questions About Interpreting the Bible, it has a chapter about English Bible translations and understanding why they differ and why some people think one is better than the other. I try to be very charitable and nuanced in the way I understand that.
Eden: That’s really helpful. You said something about how in our Bibles, it will note where there are textual variants or discrepancies in the Greek. I think that’s really helpful to note too, that where we do see a discrepancy between a couple of manuscripts, we’re very open about that.
Rob Plummer: Yeah. This is not The Da Vinci Code. No one’s trying to hide. The information is right there. And they’ll say, “Well, in the Greek translation of the Old Testament—the Septuagint—it reads this way. And in the Masoretic Text—the Hebrew text preserved by the Masoretes—it reads this way. The Dead Sea Scrolls reads this way.” Any modern English Bible, you open it up, flip through a few pages, you’ll find those footnotes, as you noted, Eden, at the bottom, and I’ll recommend also the online NET Bible if you’re not familiar with it. The New English Translation of the Bible, just Google “NET Bible,” and it has extensive, extensive footnotes—it’s all free—that explain when there is a textual issue, it might be a little bit more technical than most of your viewers are looking for, but it’s a resource that will let you delve deeper into those questions.
Eden: Awesome. A lot of our audience members, we assume, are people that didn’t grow up in church and that are not in an academic world or sphere. So I would love to hear from you as a professor, how your rigorous study of God’s Word and of academic materials, how that impacts your walk with Jesus?
Rob Plummer: Yeah. There’s no high priestly class when it comes to Christians. All Christians are priests according to Scripture (1 Peter 2:9). We all have access to God through Christ. I feel that I—because I teach the Bible, professor of biblical studies—I am really blessed in that I get paid to study the Bible. That’s my job. My job is to study the Bible and think about it and write about it and talk about it. I’m very grateful for that privilege, and because of that, I do obviously have more time than the average person to be in the Scriptures because they have their full-time job. And my job, I come to the office and I’m working on the Bible, so I’m very grateful for that.
I guess I could say that after—and I became a Christian when I was 13, so I’ve been a Christian for 40 years—that I will never run out of seeing wonderful and new things in the Scriptures. There’s always new delights and joys and things. The Scripture is God’s Word. It speaks to me in my life. It’s true historically. It’s true experientially. I continue to look forward, as long as the Lord gives me life and strength, to enjoy the wonders of his Word.
Eden: Wonderful. If there’s someone that were to say, “I’m really enjoying getting to know Jesus, but I don’t know if I need to do much serious study.” How would you encourage them toward a deeper study of the things that they’re encountering in the Bible?
Rob Plummer: I might encourage them to read Psalm 119. It’s the longest psalm in the Bible—it’s 176 verses—but it’s a psalm that tells us how to approach God’s Word. God has given us, “Here’s a psalm that gives you a model for how to approach my Word.” And if you read through the psalm, the psalmist he prays, “Lord, open my eyes that I might see wonderful things in your Word” (Psalm 119:18). So part of studying the Bible is prayer, but then a big part of it is delight. “I sing your song, I meditate, I sing your Word, I meditate on it, I delight in it, I think on it day and night.” God is the master spiritual physician and Psalm 119 is the prescription saying, “Here’s how you take the medicine for your soul that I’ve given you. You approach it in humility and prayer. You approach it with delight by memorizing.” If you read the psalm, it tells you. Memorizing it, meditating on it, thinking about it, singing it, delighting in it.
Then the other theme in the psalm that Martin Luther and others have pointed out is difficulties. If you look through the psalm, it’s filled with trials. The psalmist is dealing with emotional distress, with slander from other people with difficulties in life—physical, emotional challenges—and it reminds us that in the difficulties that we do face in this life, which are inevitable in a broken world, it’s only the Word of God that gives us the map, the comfort that we need, that will really satisfy us by God’s Spirit taking that Word that we’re meditating on and pressing it into our hearts and minds and teaching us and encouraging us and nourishing us.
I commend Psalm 119 as a model. Maybe take a highlighter and highlight—I would encourage you to take three different colors of highlighter and highlight all the verses that deal with prayer, and then all the verses that deal with meditation—thinking about, delighting in—and then all the verses that deal with trial or difficulty. Martin Luther wrote in the preface to the Wittenberg edition of his writings—I’ll make a note here to send you a copy when I get off, Eden, I have a copy scanned in—it’s a short little reading, but it’s his hermeneutical treatise. This is how you approach God’s Word. And he’s very, very provocative, as Luther is. He says, “I’m so grateful for the Pope and for all his people who work with him because they’ve harassed and troubled and bothered me to the point that I’ve become a real theologian.” His point was that all the difficulties that he had faced in his day from persecution—from the formal Catholic Church—was actually under God’s sovereignty for his spiritual benefit. And it was, as he held to the Word of God in the midst of that suffering and trial, that he knew how true and reliable and faithful it was.
Eden: Thank you. That’s super helpful.
I would love to hear a little bit of what the Lord is teaching you right now in your own walk with him. If there’s something that you could share with us about that.
Rob Plummer: Yeah, well, it kind of depends day to day on what I’m reading or what’s going on in my life. So recently, the big thing that’s gone on in my life the last year—two big things—is my wife had sudden hearing loss, Sudden Deafness Syndrome of her right ear. She’s a musician, so it’s a bit challenging with all the things that accompany that, equilibrium messed up and other problems. But through that, the Lord hasn’t taken it away, things have gotten some better. But really, she’s been delighting and been finding satisfaction in him and taking me along in that journey, too. We’re sharing Scriptures, even today I was praying with her. She’s giving a lecture somewhere, and she’s worried that she won’t be able to hear well. “What if a student asks a question and I can’t hear it? What if I get up and my equilibrium is off?” We were praying and thinking about the story of Gideon and how the Lord reduced Gideon’s forces to almost nothing (Judges 7), and in that nothingness, God was magnified. God received the glory for the victory. So we prayed that God would use her in her weakness and would receive the glory for the work that she’s doing.
The other big thing is my father has passed away recently. My mother is still living. He was a believer, but I’m learning a little bit about what it means to grieve. I mean, I’ve lost other grandparents, but not a parent before. It’s a little different. And I’m learning how to be a Christian—my Christian faith is intact, I believe my father’s with the Lord—but there’s a grief and sadness that comes from that. Even this morning I was reading in Ecclesiastes chapter two, which tries to capture some of that sense of the frustration of the created order, and that it’s not the way it was meant to be. So I’m trying to figure that out. I read a book this last weekend. It’s a short little book. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of it. It’s called Lament For a Son by Nicholas Wolterstorff.
Eden: I have not read it, but I have had it recommended to me by a friend.
Rob Plummer: Yeah, it’s a book by a famous Christian philosopher (he’s retired now) who lost a son in a climbing accident. The son was 25. It’s a series of short reflections on loss and death and it’s been very honest. He’s very honest at points, but then he swings—like the lament psalms—how he’s feeling and then swings back to the truth to remind himself of the truth. I actually purchased the book for—about the same time my dad died—a family friend, their son died in a hunting accident. His 14-year-old son died in the hunting accident. So I purchased it for the dad. And before I gave it to him, I thought I would read through it and just make sure I remember what was in it. If anyone’s dealing with the issue of grief, I’ve given it to several people who’ve lost a child before, I think it’s really a sweet book.
Eden: Thank you for sharing that. And I’m sorry to hear about that. I think of Jesus at Lazarus’s tomb and how Jesus wept even when he knew that he that he would raise him from the dead (John 11:35-36). And how we have so much hope as believers, and we don’t grieve as those without hope (1 Thessalonians 4:13), as Thessalonians says, but there is still a place in our lives for grief.
The Lord identifies himself in Second Corinthians as the Comforter (2 Corinthians 1:3). And it’s really precious to know that even though we have a hope to look forward to, that the Lord is near to the brokenhearted—he loves to comfort his children in our sorrow—and that he knows what it’s like to grieve, and to grieve even when he knows the positive outcome on the other side. He still took a moment—and the curse and all that we suffer because of that still affected him and affected him emotionally. That always comforts me in my grief, knowing that our Lord is compassionate, even in this waiting, when we’re waiting on all the wonderful promises to be fulfilled that we do, we walk through a veil of tears before we get to the other side. So we will pray for the Lord’s comfort for you in that.
I love the book recommendation, and I actually typically end interviews with a book recommendation. Are there one or two books that have really been transformational in your own walk with Christ that you would recommend to someone else?
Rob Plummer: When people ask me about books, I usually think about authors. Probably the two most influential authors that I’ve read are D.A. Carson and C.S. Lewis. They’re kind of different, right? But C.S. Lewis, I like. He makes me think and makes me think about how to communicate. Even recently, I read a quote of his on grief yesterday that was very poignant and expressed something that I hadn’t read somewhere else.
D.A. Carson is fabulous for his approach to Biblical Studies. A good place for your people to start with D.A. Carson would be with his devotionals. He has two devotionals entitled For the Love of God, Volume One, and For the Love of God, Volume Two. They are now available free in PDF versions. So if you Google “D.A. Carson free books Andy Naselli blog.” Andy Naselli used to be his graduate student, and so there’s an entry there on Andy’s blog that lists about ten D.A. Carson books that are now legally free available, and two of them are those devotionals. And I read one of those—they follow the M’Cheyne Reading Plan, so four chapters a day and you get through the Old Testament once and the New Testament twice in a year—but almost every day I’m reading that in the morning, along with the Scriptures that go with it. It’s a great way to get a get a bite-size biblical theology, good reflection. I recommend that.
Eden: Wonderful. Do you have a favorite Lewis book that you’ve read?
Rob Plummer: Oh, well, I love The Great Divorce, I think is a great book. It’s not about divorce. It’s about hell just so people know. It’s a parable. It’s not to be understood literally. I do love The Space Trilogy. Have you read The Space Trilogy?
Eden: I’ve read one book. Strangely enough, my class in high school had me read only the last book (That Hideous Strength).
Rob Plummer: Oh, that’s the worst one, I think.
Eden: Yes, I’ve heard that.
Rob Plummer: I had trouble getting through that, but the first—I recommend if you haven’t read Out of the Silent Planet—it’s such a great book. It really is. Out of the Silent Planet. And Perelandra is good too. The last one? You know, you got to finish the series but the first two are the ones I really like.
Eden: Wonderful. Well, thank you so much for your time. Thank you for being willing to do this. It’s a real blessing to us. We’re excited to introduce you to our audience and also the many resources that you’ve put out. We want people to be able to find those. We’re grateful for your ministry.
Rob Plummer: Thank you, Eden. It was a privilege to meet you by video and to be interviewed by you. Thank you so much.
Eden: Thank you so much for listening to our podcast today. If you enjoyed our conversation, I would encourage you to like or subscribe to our podcast so that you can hear the next conversation. And if something that you heard today spoke to your heart or got you thinking, I would encourage you to not let the day go by without talking to God about what’s on your mind. We believe that he loves you and that he’s pursuing you today out of that love.