About FluentGreek

James Abney, Founder

Hi. I’m James.

I love God and the Church and want to do my part, in whatever small way I can, to help others grow in Biblical literacy. I’ve studied and read Greek for nearly twenty years now and hope to help you learn to read and enjoy the Greek New Testament for yourself.

In my undergraduate years as an engineering student, I got into a rowdy Bible study with some friends where we debated theology for hours every week. None of us knew what we were talking about, but it forced me to dive into Scripture more deeply, and it’s where I developed my love for the Word, which planted a seed that eventually led me to attend seminary in my early thirties. While I loved all the courses I took, the language classes were my favorite. In 2013, I graduated summa cum laude with a master’s degree in exegetical theology from Covenant Theological Seminary. One of the first things I promised myself was that I would keep up with my language skills.

As time passed and life got busier, I found myself losing the small amount of Greek and Hebrew I had worked so hard to gain, and even reading easier passages was slow and difficult work. As you may have read on the Learning Approach page, one frustration I had with seminary language courses is that we didn’t learn enough to read the Scriptures in the original without significant help. This isn’t the fault of seminaries; this model dates to a time when students were expected to enter already fluent in Greek. And frankly, there isn’t enough time to thoroughly learn the languages with all the other demands on students’ time. But I dreamed of being able to open the Greek New Testament and see the words, as they were originally written, come to life, and to share that with others.

That’s why I’ve spent the last couple of years creating FluentGreek. Technology allows us to improve our language learning approach and will hopefully free up seminary students to spend more time on their core mission instead of on preparatory coursework. And for the rest of us, this approach provides the tools to build fluency that will make reading much of the Greek New Testament a realistic goal, and a worthwhile pursuit.