The slow down factor:
Something I find really helpful about using the GNT for my devotions is that it forces me to slow down my reading.
I am naturally task orientated, and can often rush through my Bible reading, with the aim of reading through the Bible in a year, or whatever my plan is.
This problem is increased when I read a familiar passage.
When I'm reading in Greek however, I have to read much slower, and this gives me much more time to think about the text.
For example, today I was reading John 4:31-38. This is a very familiar passage, and I could have been tempted to quickly read it, except that I was reading it in the Greek, and so I was slowed down (especially by the farming vocab!). This meant that I thought more about the text than I would have had I read it in my ESV translation.
As a result I started thinking about God's sovereignty in evangelism. How God had sent the prophets, and then Jesus Christ, and then Jesus' disciples, and today he has sent us - and all the time God has planned out his harvest. I found this very encouraging because the work in our area is very hard, and we evangelise but see little fruit. Its so much easier to take this, when I realise that God is sovereign over the harvest.
