Now this is an interesting text for me. Paul is distressed by all the 'idols' in the city of Athens. The Athenians want to cover all the options and so they even dedicate a temple to an 'unknown god.' Now I can understand that God is beyond our comprehension and that any claim of full disclosure is pure folly. The Athenians, however, weren't simply saying that God is bigger than anything we can imagine, but that there just might be a god out there that we don't yet know. So in an a attempt to appease him/her they develop a shrine just in case.
Rather than show his disgust with these idols, Paul goes the opposite direction. He tells the Athenians that they must be highly religious. Then he goes on to give them a picture of this foreign God he knows but is unknown to them.
Interestingly, he doesn't dive into a discourse on the nature of the incarnation, nor does he talk about Christ crucified. Instead he speaks to what we know as natural revelation. Natural revelation is the stuff people talk of when they look at a beautiful sunset and say 'there must be a God.' Natural revelation is when you begin to reflect upon the complexity of life and the intricacy of our biological systems, and you admit that there is some sort of 'intelligent design' going on here. Natural revelation is one way in which the love of God is revealed to the world and can encompass more than the Christian faith.
On the other hand, we Christians speak of specific revelation. Specific revelation is what we experience through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. In other words, Jesus is the short cut through which we see the nature of God.
To put it another way, Jesus is the 'App' for God. We can get on the web (Natural) and find the love of God, or we can get to the love of God immediately by using the Jesus App (Specific). While we must admit that God's fingerprints are over all of creation, nonetheless, we don't have to look too far to see just how messed up the world has become. Jesus on the other hand does not even voice a complaint against his persecutors, but instead we hear in his dying words the promise of forgiveness. This captures divine love in a nutshell.
In this passage from Acts, Paul is wanting the philosophers to agree that all creation reflects the touch of divine love. Jesus is the perfect example of that divine love. The key for Paul, however, is not whether we agree about God at this point, but whether we agree about the nature of God's love. If we agree that the one who created all that exists and all the peoples of the world did so as a reflection of divine love, and that we are the offspring of that love, then there is only one thing left for us to do...
Love one another!
Or as a friend of mine once put it; all of scripture points to three purposes for humanity...
- Friendship with God
- Friendship with God's Creation
- Friendship among God's offspring
So, Paul makes an argument in Athens for a world view that is contrary to that of Rome. In Rome, right and might are the principle coins of the realm. Paul argues for a parallel empire that is built upon genuine love of one another as a reflection of the love that God has shown through creation and ultimately through Jesus. Which empire sounds best to you?
Peace,
Pal
No comments:
Post a Comment