I'm told that 90 million people tuned in to Oprah Winfrey's interview with Michael Jackson not too long ago. That piece of depressing news made me think of what would happen if one of the apostles appeared on a major daytime TV talk show. As a matter of fact, the Apostle Paul did get a spot on the ancient world's equivalent: the Areopagus, where, as Acts records (Ch. 17), the Athenians did nothing but debate the latest idea. As one stupid thought leads to another, my imagination moved to an ad for the program: "Next, on The Oprah Winfrey Show: The Apostle Paul On Resurrection & Repentance. And tomorrow: Cats That Love Mice Too Much."
In this brief compass, I want to take a look at Paul's apologetic approach in terms of his audience, the speech itself, and his mission, at each point drawing out lessons for our own context. Finally, I want to offer five theses for getting beyond the culture wars. What would Paul say today if he were to appear on The Oprah Winfrey Show? Would he want to talk about the conservative political agenda? Gays in the military, women in combat, pornography legislation, the banning of offensive movies, school prayer? Or would he come to do battle for the gospel of the Left? And it doesn't help to say that the ancient world is too removed from our situation to offer any reasonable parallel. Homosexuality, abortion, adultery, divorce, crime, and a wide range of violent and sexually explicit entertainment was on offer. But Paul does not lead the charge for a cultural war in the Athenian courts for control. Let's follow the course he took in an effort to gain wisdom in our current struggle.
The Audience
Paul's audience was primarily made up of two philosophical sects. The first were the Epicureans. These followers of Epicurus (341-270 B.C.) were basically deists, who narrowed religion to that which is rationally conceivable and morally justifiable. These were the ancient rationalists. They believed there were gods, but these gods played no active part in everyday life. They were the ancient secularists, indifferent to religion and to the gods. "Eat, drink, and be merry; but we ourselves are at the center of the universe, and we are autonomous creatures. We must chart our own course." As Walt Whitman said, "I am the master of my fate, the captain of my soul." They were very much singing the song of their own souls.
The Stoics were at the other end of the spectrum from the Epicureans. Zeno was their founder (340-265 B.C.). His followers were pantheists. While God was far removed from the Epicurean world, here he was part of it. God was part of trees, rocks, animals, etc. Darrell Bock says that for the Stoics, "Reason and the world-state were their central themes." This is the New Age movement of the Ancient World, focusing on the unity of human beings and ferns! The Stoics were also fatalists, because they did not believe in a personal God, but in Fate. What the two groups shared in common was a love for the latest ideas. Paul had already been talking to members of this debating society about Jesus and the resurrection. I can't imagine that it would have been a hot topic if he had simply asserted it. He was probably passionately arguing it and that meant that he probably had reasons in favor of the resurrection. The arguments were compelling enough for them to invite Paul to the theater-in-the-round for further discussion. So, suddenly Paul's ideas weren't put off in a corner where religion is so often sent, but he was brought to the secular center of town where philosophy and the latest ideas were debated.
The Speech
Paul's speech was very interesting. Basically, he explains the Apostle's Creed. He starts, "I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth." It was a good place to start, because the Stoics and Epicureans were in need of understanding God himself before they could understand Jesus and the resurrection. So Paul represents God as the Father, creator and sovereign ruler. Interestingly, this is the main point of confrontation because it's not a "felt need." Paul did not walk into town and take a survey of topics that they would like to talk about at the Areopagus. Instead, Paul let a good case stand on its own. You can create in a person a need he never knew he had. Even apart from the Holy Spirit, you can create (purely intellectually) in a person's mind a rational need that makes sense. (Of course, only the Holy Spirit can take that out of an intellectual state and give you a real felt need for it.) The point of confrontation is idolatry.
Paul reaches out and the bridge he builds is not necessarily a positive bridge. He is talking about idolatry as a bad idea, though he does call the people "extremely religious." He is using "religious" in two senses here: one is positive, as it is normally used and the other meaning is "superstitious." This is not really what most philosophers want to hear! Yet, Paul attacked them for being too religious. Nietzsche said "When Christian dogma falls apart there will be a rain of gods." G. K. Chesterton said "When men stop believing in the one, true God, it's not that they don't believe in anything, but that they believe in everything and anything."
How do we stand on this point? Robert Bellah and his associates in Habits of the Heart mention "Sheila-ism." Sheila says, "I don't really go to church, I kind of have church in my home. I believe in God; it's kind of that little voice inside me." And so, Bellah aptly concludes, that means that there are approximately 256 million religions in America, one for each of us. We have had a proliferation of deities every bit as much a forest of idols as Athens was when Paul found it. But isn't that OK as long as we are religious? President Bush, speaking at the National Religious Broadcasters' convention last year, announced, "America is the most religious nation on earth," and received a standing ovation. Think of prayer in public schools. It doesn't matter what god we worship. As Eisenhower said, "You have to have religion at the bottom of civil society; without it there's no morality, law, etc. You have to have religion–I don't care which one you pick. As long as we have school prayer, does it matter if a Mormon does it, or a Buddhist? We would like a Christian prayer in there, if possible, but we don't need to pray in the name of Christ."
The word "God" has no content in America anymore! No more content than it had for the Athenians. That is why Paul wanted to fill the category of the "unknown god" with his content. We must recover the doctrine of God in our society. People have no idea who God is. J. I. Packer's book Knowing God was such a rare exception to what is most often found in evangelical literature. "By 'God' most Americans refer to a general sense of good and happiness in the world," according to The Day America Told the Truth. Ask the average Christian to define the biblical portrait of God and it is difficult for them to do. They can tell you about their experiences with God, but the objective content of the doctrine of God has been lost. We must refocus our own preaching, teaching, and reading on recovering and understanding who God is all over again.
What does Paul do to present his biblical doctrine of God? First he told the Athenians that the biblical God is creator of all things, visible and invisible. Now this was not something that either the Epicureans or the Stoics wanted to hear. They were united in believing that the realm of matter was evil and the realm of spirit was good. The best thing one could possibly do was meditate and break through to a spiritual state where one could focus on heaven and God and experience the sublime. Involvement in this world was strictly the business of demons. And so Paul is being very radical here! He says God created everything, including the matter they considered evil. The ancient gnostics, who tried to blend this Greek philosophy with Christian revelation, said that Jesus only appeared to have a human body, He didn't really have a human body. Similarly, the resurrection of the body is not accepted by Gnostics because the whole idea of salvation is to get away from matter–escaping this world. We have a lot of Gnostics in the evangelical church today. Paul wants the Greek philosophers to realize that God is not a removed deity who set everything into motion and has no contact with everyday experience. No, God is the creator of those things they thought were intrinsically evil.
Not only does biblical doctrine declare that God is the Creator, but it also declares that He is Lord. Again, pagan dualism insisted that there is a part of creation that is good, created by the good God; and another part that is evil, ruled by a bad god. Here Paul asserts that God is sovereign over everything, even that considered evil. God is not only sovereign over the realm of spirit, but matter as well. We often take the pagan view, in that we agree God is sovereign over the realm of heavenly things, so that when we talk about religion and spiritual things we are "talking about God now." But when we talk about art, politics, culture, or science, then we are not talking about God! How different that is from the founders of modern science, who came out of the Reformation and said that science was the "second book of God." The Bible tells us why we are here, and science tells us how and when we got here and that these things are complimentary because there is one creator and one Lord over both. Instead, we think that God is Lord over religion, so in order for us to go into music, it must be "Christian" music. We distinguish between "Christian service" and secular work, because we don't really believe that God is the Lord over all areas of life. His sovereignty extends beyond religion! He doesn't sit around in temples, Paul says, waiting for someone to offer incense to him, or light a candle for him. He is active, engaged and interested in every aspect of the world he created. Paul stated he gives all men life and breath and everything else.
There is the unity of the race. From one man, one historical Adam, God made an entire race. He has predetermined their times, their existence, their residences, and everything else about their lives. The Epicureans here are confronted with the personal God who is not removed from human life. It is interesting that many people see predestination as a doctrine that attempts to show the distance between us and God. But here Paul uses the doctrine to show how close God is to us.
Arminianism is half-way to Epicureanism, or secularism, because it's half-way to the point of saying that God is removed from the process of salvation. If God is my co-pilot, or partner, with whom I cooperate in the process of salvation, we are half-way to removing God from the picture. I maintain that if it was good enough for the Apostle Paul to preach God's sovereignty over all of life, it is good enough for us to bring back to a culture that is basically deistic on one side and New Age-ish on the other.
God is also the Father. From man he made every nation of men that they should inhabit the whole earth, and he has determined the time set for them and the exact places where they should live. God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. For in him we live, and move, and have our being, as some of your own poets have said. Karl Barth called man "the pilgrim." God addresses us from the scriptures as pilgrims. Even if we grew up in a wonderful, warm family environment, we are still alone, alienated and disturbed because we are pilgrims. Away from God we are always alone, even in a crowd. Paul is telling the Greeks, you are not alone, for God is so close to you right now that you could reach out and touch him by faith.
Paul does not buy into Stoicism either. He wasn't saying that God was part of nature, because he had just established the sovereignty of the God who determines history, nor was he saying God was a part of history. He is the Father of the race, not in the usual sense where you have the universal fatherhood of God and the universal brotherhood of man. He is the universal Father of the race in that we are created in his image, and no other creature bears his image. There is a limited sense in which God is the universal Father of all. We must be careful here, because it is not, of course, in the sense of adoption for all people. Calvin asked if we should begin with the knowledge of God, or the knowledge of ourselves. It doesn't matter which we start with because you can't talk about man without eventually talking about God. Man depends on God to have any meaning of his existence and to have any definition to who he is. Again, Paul is emphasizing against the Epicureans God's involvement and his nearness. Paul is telling them it is foolish to worship even the very delicate, brilliant imaginations of our own hands and minds. How many times have we heard , "My idea of God is…"? So what?!
The world does not need your idea of God. The world needs God's idea of God, and we believe that God has revealed himself in Scripture so that any other God is an idol. This means that the God of modern Jews is not the same God we worship; the God modern Jews worship is an idol. Yahweh who does not exist in trinity and has not revealed Himself in the Person and work of the incarnate second Person of the Holy Trinity, is not the biblical God. And Paul is saying that as revelation unfolds, we are responsible for our decision in that moment. No, Abraham did not believe in the Trinity, but he would have if it had been revealed to him. There is an unfolding progression to redemption. When we stand in a particular place in time, we are responsible for the degree to which God has revealed himself up to that time. That's why Paul says, "In the past, God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all men everywhere to repent." It's not enough to have their idea of God, they must have God's idea of God. I don't want any more people in America worshipping God if it's this little god that we've been throwing around. Until we give some definition (theology), I don't want anyone embracing the god of American sentiment.
Paul continues, almost in the exact words of the Apostle's Creed: "In Jesus Christ, His Son, our only Lord, it is time to repent". That is what Paul told them on the Areopagus. In spite of God's nearness and involvement with every detail of your lives, you still don't acknowledge him. A lot of people like to hold a positive view of general revelation, as though, somehow, people can become Christians as Buddhists. There are many evangelical leaders and spokesmen who are moving in that direction. The "anonymous Christian," Carl Runner calls them. The Christian who doesn't know he's a Christian. In fact, he can even be an atheist, says one evangelical leader. "But he really is a Christian, really, even though he doesn't believe in him." "He's moving in that direction." That's a positive view of general revelation. But Paul shows in Romans chapters one and two that general revelation only has enough power to convict us of our crimes. It does not have the power to lead us to salvation. That's why Paul says, "You've got to believe my revelation. This is revelation I'm bringing you. You have to accept it. You will not get this from a beautiful night at the Pops concert. You will not get this from reflecting on the beauty of nature. You won't get this from viewing the Mona Lisa. You are only going to get this from revelation, which is outside of you. Whatever lenience God has shown in the past, as far as the content necessary for saving for saving faith, now he requires all men and women to reject their idols and worship the only Way, Truth, and Life. There is no other name under heaven, by which men may be saved."
We often think of our own situation as unique. Today, we think that pluralism is a new problem, asking, "What do we do about all these people who aren't Christians? This is a new problem in Christian history." A new problem?! It's encountered every time a missionary goes to a foreign land, where Christianity has never been, or hasn't been present for centuries. Every time missionaries go there they've had to deal with the fact that these people didn't get up that morning believing that they'd got to hell unless they accepted Christ. It's no different for us, and that is hard for us to say. We turn the situation from a mission field into a battle field when we say, "But it shouldn't be like that in America, where we've had the gospel, where we've sent so many missionaries." To think that America would be the object of Korean missions, which it is now, is a source of incredible humiliation for us. It is ultimately an issue of pride. We are going to have to realize that America is a mission field, not a battle field. We are not going to take America back–America's lost! America at it's very foundation is exactly where the Athenians where in the Areopagus, worshipping the unknown god along side all the idols they did have time to worship.
It's time to trust Christ. The resurrection is the event which completes the work of redemption. He has proven this by raising him from the dead. He was crucified for our sins, and raised for our justification. He is the life everlasting. As I said, Paul is going through the whole Apostle's Creed. The Creed is a great outline of the content of the evangelical message of the gospel. Paul said, there is judgment at the end of time that is secured by judgment within time. At the cross, God issued his verdict: He who believes in My Son has eternal life, and he who does not believe in Him is condemned already. God judged every believer's sin at the cross, buried it in Christ's tomb, and conquered it in Christ's resurrection. To reject God's judgment of Christ in my place, within history, is to confirm God's judgment of me in my own place at the end of history. That's why Paul is using the resurrection here as the confirmation of that fact. The resurrection is the confirmation of the believer's justification, and the unbeliever's judgment. If this man rose from the dead, he can put any kind of spin he wants on the event. If somebody is raised from the dead and says he's coming back the next time, not to save, but to judge, that's a pretty reliable word.
Our whole faith depends on historical facts. Historical facts that are just as real as the events of the Civil War. Paul told the Corinthians that if Christ was not physically raised from the dead, then Christians are really stupid and pitiable. Christianity isn't valuable because it helps people. It isn't really valuable because it motivates them to do nice things, nor because it gives them exciting experiences, but because it makes sense of the whole meaning of history. The resurrection gives weight to this moment we are living in time. It defines the whole purpose of our lives, the whole meaning of human history and human existence. The coming judgment, says Paul, is going to be according to strict justice; either through the imputation of Christ's righteousness which renders us before him as absolutely perfect, or through the perfect standards we think we can live up to. He says, those who live by the law will be judged by the law, those who do not have the law will be judged by the law written on their hearts.
How about Paul's reception? It was mixed. Some jeered. This is the sort of testimony you'd see on TBN, where the guy gets on and says, "Oh, it was a wonderful event! It was very exciting! We had about three people respond. It was just tremendous! The rest jeered. Others said, 'We'll hear you on this later.' It was so exciting." It's not spectacular, it's not exciting, it's not fireworks, but it is evangelism. It is apologetics, and the kingdom of God is advancing in this moment in time. Ironically, we are willing to get jeered for our stand on moral and political issues but we are so ashamed of being jeered for the gospel that we will take out the offensive parts. What an irony! Some were intrigued: "We would like to hear you speak on this subject later." See, direct confrontation, and I don't mean mean-spirited debates where there is no love, but stimulating engagement is what our secular contemporaries are looking for from us. Not pronouncements, not dicta, from our Papal throne, but engagement, dialogue, discussion and persuasive arguments. This must be our effective evangelistic strategy. Our arguments have to be good.
Paul's Mission
Is it power, or persuasion? Is our mission as Christians, and was Paul's mission as an Apostle, one of persuasion or one of power? Notice that here, Paul doesn't appeal to power. He hasn't tried to close the Areopagus down for a city-wide boycott because of their unclad statues that need to have drapes put over them. He doesn't put posters up around town inviting people to attend a public burning of idols. He doesn't even engage in Power Evangelism, chasing demons or binding forces. Although he was an Apostle, and confirmed the gospel through signs and wonders, Paul refuses to distract them from the real issue, which is ultimately a war of persuasion–a war of ideas and convictions. We have to recover the fine art of persuasion. Paul had been proclaiming Jesus and the resurrection, arguing daily in the open marketplace. Don't you love these phrases? Not in the religious places only, but in the open marketplace. The marketplace then, unlike our Safeway or Luckys, the marketplace then was a place not only for the marketing of fruit and vegetables, but of ideas. It was the natural place where people debated philosophy and politics and religion. There is no Christian ghetto approach. Paul doesn't pin up posters and say, "Please come to our church for an evangelistic meeting." In Acts 18, where Paul goes to Corinth, we read, "Every Sabbath, Paul used to speak in the synagogue, trying to persuade both Jews and Greeks." Look at those words, "proclaiming," "arguing," "persuading." These words have dropped out of the evangelical vocabulary when it comes to missions. Missions elsewhere, yes; but not missions here at home. We have lost the fine art of persuasion, argument, and proclamation.
Notice Paul's use of secular literature. He quotes Eratus, Cleanthes' "Hymn to Zeus." Why isn't he just reading the Bible? Because it is good literature. He enjoyed reading it. It also built a bridge to those he was to minister. Paul was genuinely impressed with this capital of ancient culture, idolatry and all. We can't persuade people to embrace Christianity until we appreciate the strength of that which keeps them from embracing it. Until we understand the attraction of the idols, we will never know what arguments will persuade them away from their idols. Furthermore, there is much for a Christian to appreciate in pagan culture–its art, architecture, and medicine (anesthesia is nice). There is much in pagan culture that is not directly influenced by Christianity that has value to it, and God is even Lord over that. Those advances continue because of the goodness of God's hand. Paul gains their hands by appealing to that which is familiar to them, not by that which is familiar to Paul himself. Paul reaches beyond the core of literature which interests him most, the Torah; and reaches out to them by taking the trouble and the time to get to know and understand their culture.
This is all so simple if you are a missionary, or if you have a missionary background. These things are simply what every missionary does. But we don't think of ourselves as missionaries anymore. We think of ourselves as military soldiers on the American battlefield, and that is our problem. We speak "Christian-ese" because that's comfortable to us. We have a whole empire of Christian books, tapes, TV, and radio with a tiny fraction of non-Christians ever listening to it happily. We are not doing it for the world, we are doing it for ourselves. If we really did put the gospel first, and if saving souls was as important as we pretend it is, we would push aside all obstacles and dig in to try to understand our culture as best we can. Instead of putting our culture off and fighting our culture, we would be trying to persuade them of the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Five Theses
First, we must recover the proclamation of God's character. Second, we must recover the proclamation of Christ's person and work. Third, we must recover the art of persuasion. Fourth, we must recover an interest in our culture and our Creed. T. S. Elliot wrote,
Just as the supposed intellectuals who regard theology as a special study with which they need not concern themselves, while at the same time the theologians observe the same indifference to literature and art as special studies which do not concern them, so the masses regard both fields as territories of which they have no reason to be ashamed of remaining in complete ignorance. Accordingly, the more serious authors have a limited and even provincial audience, and the more popular authors write for an uncritical and illiterate mob today.
That is what we are seeing, not only in the secular world, but in the evangelical culture as well.
Lastly, we must be the ones to accommodate our language. Not our message, but our language. We are doing the opposite: We accommodate our message but not the language. We still speak Christian-ese, we still talk about "being washed in the blood," and use other Christian language that nobody understands outside of the evangelical world. And yet, we are accommodating the message to the world. We market the gospel to the world and its felt-needs while failing to interact with the culture on its own terms. I'm suggesting that we need to do the reverse. We need to keep the gospel intact, but bend over backwards to accommodate our language and our lifestyles to that kind of reflection.
I recently entered my bank, and one of the tellers said to me, "You know, I notice you keep depositing these checks that say 'Christians United for Reformation.' What exactly do you mean by 'Reformation'?" I answered quickly, so as not to be anger the mob behind me in line, "Well, we are trying to get the church back to the business of dealing with the big spiritual issues." He said, "When I saw 'Reformation' I assumed you were against movies and TV and everything. Aren't you talking about moral reformation?" "No," I said, "It's not a moral reformation that we are talking about." "You're kidding! Well, are you a part of the religious right?" "No. Our issues are not moral or political." "Well, what is your position regarding gays in the military?" "We don't have a position on gays in the military." "You mean, you're a Christian organization, you want a reformation, and you don't have a position on gays in the military?" "No, we don't. It's not about Christ or restoring the gospel." "Well, what's your personal view?" Now the line seemed very long and fidgety. I said, "Well, it is a military issue, it's not in the field of morality, it is in the field of military issues and ought to be handled in a way that is fair to all, but it is not a moral issue. We have adulterers in the Army, and there are people who are living together in the Army." He said, "You know what, you can call my [homosexual] life-style an abomination if you give me the right to co-exist with you." I responded, "Why shouldn't I give you the right to co-exist? I expect the right to co-exist, and I am a sinner too. Then he asked for more information about CURE. "I will hear you later on this," was the clear message. Since then, I have taken him information and tapes, and he has even expressed an interest in the possibility of attending church. We can handle evangelism two ways. We can view the world as a mission field, or as a battlefield. I don't think there is any question as to which strategy was selected by the Apostle to the Gentiles.
