With the rise of militant Islam we may be tempted to wonder if there is a one true God and, if there is, we wonder whether he is still in control. Why does he allow the atrocities against his people that are occurring in Iraq at the hands of ISIS?
It is not my purpose today to address the question of suffering (I touched on that theme on Wednesdays, July 16, 23 and 30). Rather I want to continue to explore the gospel presentation of Paul the Apostle to the Athenian intelligentsia at the Areopagus (Acts 17:22ff).
From the starting point that behind the universe God exists (see last week’s ‘Word’), Paul develops the idea that God is also the ruler and sustainer of the nations.
“From one ancestor he (God) made all nations to inhabit the whole earth, and he allotted the times of their existence and the boundaries of the places where they would live, so that they would search for God and perhaps grope for him and find him—though indeed he is not far from each one of us. For ‘In him we live and move and have our being’…” (Acts 17:26ff).
Paul is saying that history and the rise and fall of nations are ultimately in God’s hands. His words echo those of Isaiah who, having prophesied God’s judgment of Israel, also spoke of the deliverance of his people from captivity (Isaiah 40 – 45). Isaiah said that God would raise up Cyrus, an insignificant prince to crush the great Babylonian empire. In turn Cyrus would free God’s people from captivity and allow them to return to Jerusalem.
Isaiah was saying (as indeed we find throughout the Scriptures) that God continues his work in the world, constantly using human decisions to work out his own greater purposes for men and women. It is because of this that Paul could write in Romans 8:28: And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good,…
There is always a purpose to God’s plan. He wants us to come to our senses and turn back to him – as did the prodigal son in Jesus’ parable. Tough times can be God’s wake-up call for us. It’s easy to blame him when things go wrong, but that is absurd for we are the problem. It’s easy to say that God is distant or uncaring. ‘Not so,’ says Paul to the Athenians: ‘God is near you – nearer than you think. And, quoting from a 6th century BC Greek poet, he points out, In him we live and move and have our being. He continues by quoting either Aratus or another poet, Cleanthus: For we too are his offspring.
In quoting from non-biblical writers Paul lays out an important principle for us: to reach a cynical audience with the things of God, look for ideas or words in the culture that illustrate a gospel truth – not all human utterance is wrong (after all, we are still image-bearers of God, albeit distorted ones).
To return to Paul’s point: he is saying that all men and women are God’s creatures. All of us not only receive our life from him, but our very existence is dependent on him. ‘Your poets agree that we are God’s offspring,’ he continued. ‘How ridiculous it is, therefore, to reduce God to something less than we are – gold or silver or stone.’
‘What’s more, when you create an idol, you are in fact trying to reverse the roles of yourself and God. You want to make yourself God’s creator, not God your creator.’
We have this assurance: despite the suffering and evil in the world around us, God is still in control, working out his greater purpose. We have every reason, therefore, to ask him to restrain wickedness and vice and direct our leaders to exercise their responsibilities wisely and justly for the benefit of all.
And, like Paul, let’s constantly look for points of connection with the culture so that we can more effectively reach the minds and hearts of people around us with God’s good news.
The Castle is a classic Australian film, much lauded because of its understated handling of a blue-collar suburban household. One of the lines that catches our attention is, “Tell ‘im e’s dreamin’” – in response to a quoted price for a supposed bargain.
I was thinking about this recently in the course of a conversation about the existence of the universe and whether it has all originated simply by chance. My mind also turned to the words of Paul the Apostle to the intelligentsia in Athens (that we read about in Acts 17:22ff).
“The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands. And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else,” Paul said (Acts 17:24-25).
The view that we live in a world that has been created by one God who is Lord of all was a very different world-view from the Epicureans with their belief in chance and the pursuit of pleasure. It was very different from the pantheism of the Stoics and their stiff upper-lip approach to life. It is a very different world-view from the Hindus, the Buddhists and scientific atheists of today who all reject the notion of a creator God.
Yet it is a world-view that many highly intelligent and capable scientists today would support. For example, Charles Townes who won the Nobel prize for his discovery of the laser has stated: “In my view the question of origin seems always left unanswered if we explore from a scientific view alone. Thus, I believe there is a need for some religious or metaphysical explanation. I believe in the concept of God and in His existence” (quoted by H. F. Schaefer III, ‘The Big Bang, Stephen Hawking and God’).
The universe in which we live did not come into existence by random chance. There is a creator God and logically he can never go away. All this is a rather frightening thought, for it reverses what we want to think about God. We would rather have a God who did our will and who turned up only when we wanted him.
The Athenians thought that they were independent, free spirits, able to make their own decisions without reference to any God. Nothing much has changed has it! Paul won’t have any of it: God is the one who continues to sustain the life that he has created. It’s absurd to think that he needs to be sustained by us. And yet we want to domesticate God, reduce him to the level of a household pet. We build grand church buildings and put him in there. We don’t let him loose on the street let alone in our lives. ‘No,’ says Paul, ‘we depend on God, not he on us.’
Our capacity to deceive ourselves is endless. We tell ourselves that what we think must be true, but, think about it, wanting a win in the lottery never created a win. To say that there is no creator God is a sign that we have lost touch with reality and inhabit a dream world of our own. Perhaps it’s time we started to spread the line in a different context: Tell ‘im e’s dreamin’.
Anti-intellectual? Christianity is often dismissed as being anti-intellectual: ‘No-one with half a brain could be a Christian’. Many in the West reject Christianity, not because they think it is false, but because they think it is trivial. If they think at all about the meaning of life, they want something that hangs together and makes sense of the complex cluster of their ideas, their longings and their experiences. Many simply want a world-view that makes them feel good.
And if we raise the subject of God, people tell us they don’t like the idea of ‘God’ because he would want to interfere with their life and be a kill-joy. ‘God is all right,’ they say, ‘as long as he doesn’t intrude into my space. I’ll call you, God. Don’t you call me!’
We live in a society where there is a complex set of ideas – longing for freedom, belief that this world is all there is, and a relativism of ‘your truth and my truth’. Yet in the cities of the West there is a lingering memory of the God of the Bible. Most people still agree that, if there is a God, there is only one God and that he exists as a spirit – without a body. People also agree that, if God exists, he is love – not someone filled with hate.
Response? How then do we respond to such a cluster of ideas? In Acts 17:22-31, Luke records Paul’s address to the Areopagus in ancient Athens. In Acts 17:16 we read that when Paul first came to the city he was deeply distressed to see that it was full of idols. John Stott commented, ‘Paul saw that the city was smothered with idols. He felt deeply distressed and provoked by the idolatry because it dishonored the name of God.’
Luke records what Paul did: he argued in the synagogue with the Jews and devout persons, and also in the marketplace every day with those who happened to be there. We can’t help but admire Paul – not content just to be an intelligent tourist, taking in the sights and the culture of one of the most remarkable cities of the ancient world.
Paul’s response was to argue for and defend the gospel of God. It is evidence of his impact that the Athenian philosophers wanted to ask him questions: ‘What is this babbler trying to say?’
Two groups took him to task. The Epicureans, ‘philosophers of the garden’, reckoned the gods were so remote that they had no interest or influence on human affairs. Life was a matter of chance. Men and women should pursue pleasure for there would be no judgment, and no life after death. The Stoics, ‘philosophers of the porch’, said there was a supreme god that they confused with a pantheistic ‘world soul’. They emphasized fatalism, submission and coping with pain.
Into this shopping mall of ideas and beliefs Paul came. When asked what he taught, he stood up at the Areopagus and said: “Athenians, I see how extremely religious you are in every way. For as I went through the city and looked carefully at the objects of your worship, I found among them an altar with the inscription, ‘To an unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you” (Acts 17:22ff).
It was a brilliant opening to what became both a defense and apresentation of God’s gospel before the Athenian intelligentsia. Without quoting from the Bible yet drawing from what it reveals about God, he engaged with contemporary ideas within Greek thought. He pointed to five features about this ‘unknown God’ – features that I will identify next Wednesday.
In the meantime, you might like to consider the world-views held by people you know. You might also consider questions you could ask them, to get them thinking about the larger issues of life and their place within it all.
‘Peace’ is a word that goes to the heart of the Christian message. It was the theme of the angels’ song on the night of Jesus’ birth. It is something we all long for. Yet ‘peace’ is one thing the world does not have.
In fact, with the constant news of war and brutal terrorism, in the Middle East, Syria and Iraq, and so many other places, we can be tempted to ask what the angels meant when they sang of peace and goodwill at the birth of Jesus of Nazareth. It is one of the criticisms about the Christian faith from cynics and genuine enquirers. It’s one of the questions that can tempt professing Christians to doubt the reliability of God’s Word.
The keyis in the second part of the angels’ song: “Glory to God in the highest heaven and on earth peace among those whom he favors”. They were speaking about the peace God’s people would know – personal peace with God (John 14:27) and peace with one another as God’s people (Ephesians 2:13-18). In Colossians 3:15, St Paul says, Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in the one body. And be thankful. When we, or others ask, ‘Where is the evidence of the fulfillment of this ‘peace’, the answer is, ‘The people of God’.
But Paul knew very well that this peace doesn’t happen automatically. In Colossians 3:12-17 he identifies attitudes and actions we need to develop. He begins by putting his finger on attitudes that can constantly cause tension and conflict. So, instead of indifference towards the pain, suffering and exploitation of others, he says, put on compassion and kindness; instead of arrogance or pride that thinks only of self, be humble and gentle; instead of impatience or resentment, practice patience.
Indifference, pride and impatience.How often are we impatient because we are not prepared to put up with the faults or perceived failures of others? And, how many of us are indifferent to injustice and exploitation – unless it touches us, or our loved ones? We are rightly upset with the atrocities perpetrated by ISIS, especially against people who refuse to convert to Islam, but what of our concern for the teenage girls still hostage to Boko Haram in Nigeria? Or Christians in Palestine, South Sudan, or Afghanistan? And, turning to another example, what concern do we have for the extensive sex-trade networks that are proliferating around the world?
‘Freedom’a new film (being released in Australia tomorrow) tells a story of the 19th century ‘Underground Railroad’ in North America that brought freedom for tens of thousands of slaves. But it is not just an historical narrative for it opens up a story of Christian faith and courageous compassion for the sake of others. It alerts us to the reality of sex-trafficking today and the need for gospel-motivated action for those being exploited.
At the heart of our attitudes towards one another should be a willingness to work for peace. “Blessed are the peacemakers,” Jesus said. This does not mean that truth is subsumed in the cause of peace. Rather, as Paul goes on to say in Colossians 3:16, we should allow the truth of God, revealed in his Word, to fall upon and direct our relationships, with one another and with the wider community.
The angels song. Returning to the night Jesus was born, the contrast of the shepherds carrying out their work in the dark and the angels doing their work in the brilliant light of God’s glory could not be more vivid. Glory to God in the highest, they sang, and on earth peace among men with whom he is pleased (2:14).
Three themes are set in parallel: Glory and peace, highest and earth, and Godandmen and women with whom he is pleased. The supernatural realm echoes with joy and honour at the outward manifestation of God’s love (glory). Now men and women to whom God has come can experience the reality of the peace we all long for.
We have all been appalled by the events in Iraq over this last week with accounts of the shooting and beheading of men, women and children who have refused to convert to Islam because of their commitment to Jesus Christ. They are truly Christian martyrs.
Our hearts cry out for Christians in Iraq, Syria, Nigeria (there are still more than one hundred kidnapped teenage girls hostage to Boko-Haram), South Sudan, and many other places. And we find ourselves asking with the Psalm writer (Psalm 13),
‘How long, O Lord?’
Where do we look for answers? In the power of western forces? While there is now some action, it is too little, too late. Perhaps one of the reasons for the lack of western involvement lies in the silence of Christians in the West. Over the last forty years our voice has become muted in the public square. We have not been willing to look for ways to ask questions or speak out against the self-interest of our times with wise, clear, bold and reasoned thought.
Consider the opening lines of Isaiah 40: “Comfort, comfort my people, says your God”. Handel’s Messiah opens with these very words. Isaiah was speaking to people who had been brought low by conquering armies. For hundreds of years they had been told they were God’s special people. He had given them their land and success, but now they were under siege by the armies of pagan Babylon. Picture that scene: mothers weeping for their children; people being forcibly taken to another land, their homes and city a smoking ruin.
We can only imagine the shattering effect those events would have had on the faith of those people. The temptation to reject their God would have been enormous. Even the strongest of believers would have been tempted to think, ‘God doesn’t care. How could he do this to us?’
How did the faith of ancient Israel survive? Through the voice of the prophets like Isaiah. His opening words in chapter 40 have a timelessness to them as they speak to people who are suffering in every age: Comfort, comfort my people, says your God. And the tenderness of Isaiah’s words continues in 40:11:
He will feed his flock like a shepherd; he will gather the lambs in his arms, and carry them in his bosom…’
How could Isaiah speak like this? When things are going well people tend to forget God. And those who go to church tend to put aside the tough questions. But when tragedy strikes or when your nation, your family, or you, are threatened, the bottom can drop out of your faith.
Let me say, that kind of religion is gutless. In tough times a pocket-sized God is no good to anybody. Only a big God can sustain us. Only a God who can overrule our world when it is falling into chaos around our ears, can say to us, with any degree of credibility, ‘Comfort’.
How can we be sure this is not fiction? Isaiah goes on: The glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all people shall see it together, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken (Isaiah 40:5).
These words were fulfilled in part with the coming of Jesus Christ. Three of the Gospel writers quote this very text. But Isaiah was also speaking of the far, far greater day, when we shall all see Jesus Christ in all his glory. This news about this God cannot and will not be contained: it must be shouted from the rooftops – not just in the cities of Judah, but to the nations of the world, even if in the face of suffering. For here is the God worth knowing – the awesome, true and caring God, who is Lord of all.
Isaiah concludes his great chapter saying that ‘Young men will grow weary; their energy will pass, and their empires will one day be nothing but dust. But the people of the living God will never become extinct.
One of the things we need to do is pray daily for God’s people who are suffering. We also need to ask whether we are being silenced by fear or lack of confidence in God. Jesus warns us that we will encounter challenges and various kinds of suffering. So, let’s pray that the Lord will give us the wisdom to know the questions we should ask and the words to say, and the grace and boldness to speak.
Because the subject of suffering is so important and so complex I am taking a third week to draw together some key points. I welcome any comments you have. To sum up:
1. Flawed. It may sound harsh, but we need to recognize that none of us deserves any good thing from God. We deserve judgment rather than mercy. Nevertheless it is God’s desire that we come to him. Sometimes he will use the tragedies of life, not so much because he is especially angry with one person or group, but rather as a wake-up call. We need to sort out our relationship with him while there is time (Luke 13:1-5; 2 Peter 3:8-10).
2. Justice. We often overlook the fact that it is God’s ultimate plan to uphold all truth and justice. A good and perfectly just God is behind the universe. One day he will bring us all into his courtroom. Perfect justice will be done (Luke 12:1-7).
3. Failures. Suffering sometimes occurs because of the disobedience of the church. It is one thing to blame society for making a mess of its relationship with God, but we also need to ask: To what extent are professing Christians or the church to blame? How often have we been so caught up with our life that we are silent about God? We may respond to the world’s injustices or poverty by mailing a check to a Christian care program, but we give little heed to the thought that we may have contributed to the ills of others through the inconsistencies of our life or the public disagreements we have with one another. And all too often there has been a failure to make church truly welcoming, forgiving, and joyful in times of change.
4. Transformation. In the meantime it is God’s desire that we come to know him and grow in our relationship with him. It follows that some of our experiences of pain will occur because of God’s wakeup call or his hand of discipline (Hebrews 12:3-13). Sometimes God allows suffering, to test us and to stretch our confidence in him. There may also be occasions when, for reasons hidden to us, God has given us a special place in participating in Christ’s share of suffering for the sake of others (Romans 5:1-5; 8:17ff; Colossians 1:24-27).
5. Answers? We also need to be honest and admit there will be times when there do not seem to have any intellectual answers to our suffering. Job’s questions, for example were not answered in the strict sense that we might have expected. Instead, God himself asked Job a series of questions concerning his own majesty and nature (Job 38-41). Job’s response was to return to God in humble repentance and wholehearted trust even though he didn’t get all the answers (Job 42). Jacob’s son, Joseph (Genesis 50:19, 20), and Jesus himself, exemplified a confidence that God would ultimately vindicate them (Romans 8:28ff).
6. Jesus. We need to remember that God, in Jesus Christ has experienced every agony that we experience. We may not always understand our plight or the plight of others, but we can be comforted and comfort others in the sure knowledge that God in Christ has tasted the agony of injustice, the pain of suffering, ignominy and death (Hebrews 2:18). On the cross, when evil humankind crucified the sinless Son of God, when Jesus took evil on himself without retaliation, God bore the sin of those who turn to him. It is the cross of Christ that gives us confidence that God has our best interests at heart. Jesus’ resurrection assures us of this.
In Romans 8:38 we read,
“I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
