I posted this question before but got no responses to it, so I'd like to try again and hopefully get some valuable input.

The original question read:

I have a friend who is becoming a "pastor" through some "apprenticeship" not-quite-seminary path, I can't remember the program's name, but anyway...
I was asking him about learning Greek and how it was going, and he said, and I paraphrase, "Well, we're not really learning any Greek. You really don't need it. There are so many books out there that have already done the Greek learning, and all you need to do is consult those when you are studying a passage to exegete. Besides, with all the commentaries and other study helps, who am I to come up with some different interpretation of the text than is already done for us by the greats like Calvin, etc.?"

I can see how this might be flawed in thinking, although I can kind of see a point, that all that time used to learn those languages could be spent reading good commentaries, etc.
How should I be thinking about this subject, as I hope to possibly go to seminary one day?
Also, what is the best "starter" book for learning Greek as a "pre-seminary" reader?
Thanks for your thoughts.

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Christopher Hinton
Northland, A Church Distributed;
Altamonte Springs, FL