Heavenly Father, we thank You for this beautiful weather. We are all enjoying every day the glory of spring, the reality of new life all around us, the hope, for that gives to our hearts as we see Your glory. So wonderfully displayed, we look forward to the regeneration of all things when Christ comes back, and the whole of this world blossoming like the rose, like the glory of spring. And Father, it gives us the hope too as we celebrate at Easter this past weekend of the newness of life that You promise to us, both when we stand before You, when we will be made completely new and now day by day, as by the power of Your Spirit You bring to our lives, the first fruits of the resurrection. Father, we thank You for the glory of the gospel and the wonder of its truth that You have committed Yourself to making us new in every way. We pray, Father, that in our studies together, that You will renew our understanding, shape our thinking according to Your Word and that You renew our hearts so that we might have the attitude of Christ and be prepared to really live as those who are servants of people around us. Do this work in us. We pray, renew us by Your Spirit and by Your Word and by the example of Your Son. We pray in Jesus' name, Amen. Just wanted to say a little bit about the paper, several of you have come to me with individual questions. So let me just ask, first of all, do any of you have further questions you want to ask as you, near the deadline of getting your papers completed, anybody with any particular questions? Now remember, yes sir, that's a great question. Obviously, for myself or my greater reading this paper, and we'll probably divide them between us and where he's got questions he'll pass them back to me anyway. So I'll end up reading a good few of them as many as I possibly can, all if I'm able to. But obviously, you know far more about the person than the person reading does. That's the purpose of the paragraph or page at the beginning of the letter which will really be addressed to me, where you're telling me enough about your relationship with this person so that we can have those same assumptions in reading it. So it's very important, you, on the top of your paper, you need a sort of introductory page if you like, address to me, telling me about the person, about your contact with them, some of the conversations you've had, some of the things that I need to be able to take the granted in reading the paper. I don't need parentheses through the paper, brackets through the paper, but just simply an introductory statement at the beginning which will help me have enough background to be able to understand what you've done. So that's one very important question. Now in our last class, we've been talking about understanding what others believe. Now, going back to the beginning of the semester, I said to you that at the beginning of the paper what I'm going to be really eager to see and all the way through it in fact is your respect for this person, that here is a person whom you care for, that you respect, that you are able to be affirmative about who they are as an individual. That's where your paper should begin. In that first section of the paper, you should be recounting back to the person what you understand about what they believe, about what shapes their life, about who they are, what is precious and important to them. That should be the first section of the paper, let's say for example, suppose you're writing to a member of your family or a friend who has got involved in new age spirituality. That first section of the paper should be recounting back to that person what you have come to understand are their beliefs, what they think is important about life, about who they think they are, who they think God is, about what spirituality means to them. But I want you to recount back to the person their beliefs who they are in a way that they will recognize themselves, gladly, so this is not to be a caricature of what somebody else thinks. Remember how I said how much we dislike that when people misrepresent in caricature what we believe is Christians. We long for our faith in Christ to be treated with some respect and some justice and it's important that you learn to understand people's views well enough so that you can say them back to them in a way that they recognize themselves gladly and say yes, this is me. In fact, hopefully if you do it well enough they may even understand better after you've recanted to them what is important to them than they understood before because people actually often don't understand themselves very well. So it should be a portrait of this person and of what is important to them that they can gladly recognize and say yes, that's me, rather than thinking, no that's a gross misrepresentation of what I think, which obviously is a terrible turn off. So that should be your first section of the paper, your second section is establishing bridges, areas where you can gladly affirm and say yes, here's something which is good, here's something which is right, here's something which is honorable, here's something which is true, which you can build on as a Christian. Those areas, what I've called, remember when we were talking about my friend who I was playing tennis with who was a cynic, I spoke about his sacred corner, everyone has a sacred corner, things in their lives where they're actually holding onto elements of God's truth, they're holding onto them in unrighteousness, they may have no place in their world view, they may not fit at all with their understanding of reality like my father's passionate moral convictions which had no place in his Marxism. But everyone has that sacred corner where they're still in touch with the reality of the way God has made the world, the reality of the way he's made them, things that are true and good and noble. And that second part of the paper needs to be identifying that. In the third part of the paper, you need to take those bridging points and clarify what is the truth, just like Paul begins from their worship of the unknown God and their kind of vague pantheistic notions of God for the Stoics and he builds on that a declaration of who God truly is, that's the heart of his message in Athens. He starts with the bridge and then he tells them who God truly is, what you worship as unknown, I am going to tell you about him and that's his whole message really. This is who God truly is, the creator, the God who has made us in his likeness, the judge, the one who rules history and so on. Paul declares the truth about God in that third section of the paper, you should be building on your bridge to declare, to clarify what biblical truth is and then at the end to challenge them in some way, just as Paul challenges the Athenians on their idolatry and we'll come to that later. But there should be some challenge. Now as I said to you at the beginning of the semester, your temptation and some of you are probably wrestling with this right now, when you get that third section of the paper will be to recount the whole good news of the gospel and revert to biblical language at that point, don't you want to clarify those elements of the truth which are appropriate, which the person needs to be addressed with right now, where they need to be challenged. Remember, we talked about Jesus with the expert in the law. The man asked how to inherit eternal life, Jesus doesn't tell him what he tells him is what he needs to know right now. That is what it truly means to love my neighbor as myself and how he is miserably failing to do that. That's the area where he's challenged so that he'll return another day to hear the good news about Christ. But he needs to hear the good news about what God's law truly means and then the impact that has on his life. So you ought to declare in that third section the aspect of God's truth which is appropriate but where this person is in your conversations with them now and challenge them there. There are many, many different aspects to the good news of the gospel in addition to Christ's death and our call to repent and have faith in him. Yes, sir. Oh, it's a good question. From multifaceted person, everybody you're ever going to meet is a multifaceted person. That's a great question though. People can't be reduced to a couple of things. Of course, they can't. Any more than you would want somebody to reduce you to just a couple of beliefs or something like that. It really is a matter of your discernment under the direction of the Holy Spirit as you pray about your relationship with the individual to know which of the most appropriate things on which to build where your bridges are and which of the appropriate things to clarify and to challenge. As you think about your own life in relationship to the Lord, Christ is clarifying your thinking every day of your life. He is challenging you in another area of your life as each day goes by. But he's very patient and forbearing. He didn't come to you when you were first converted and unload everything on you at once. All the areas where your thinking needed to change and grow and where your life needed to change. He's extraordinarily patient because he sees each one of us exactly as we are and all our desperate sin and unbelief and confused and ignorant thinking. But he is gracious and patient and long-suffering and forbearing and every one of us enjoys that reality every day of our lives. Now we have to learn to be that way with unbelievers rather than just unloading on them and to learn to be discerning. You see, that's the beauty of looking at the examples of Jesus in the gospels. We've finished talking about questions, the importance of asking questions of people so that when we say something, we may say something which is appropriate. Whenever I meet with somebody, whether the person is a believer or an unbeliever, I always pray for discernment that the Holy Spirit who sees this person's heart and minds so much more clearly than I do will help me to understand what issues need to be addressed. It's true if one of you comes to talk to me about something in your own life, I'm going to pray for discernment because God knows you in a way that I never can. At the same time, God calls me to seek to get to know you so I'm going to ask you questions about yourself so that I can understand where you're coming from and then try to say something which will be appropriate. Any of you who are meeting with Dr. Winter, he's constantly asking you questions so that he may learn so that then he can say something which is like an apple of gold in a setting of silver which is really fitting and that's simply the art of, that's what you're going to spend your life doing, those of you who are going to be pastors or involved in any kind of ministry where you're seeking to help people one on one. If you enter a pastoral visit or a counseling situation having decided ahead of time exactly what you're going to say, regardless of the person you're going to talk to, you're not going to be much help as a pastor to anyone and nobody will come to you with their problems because they don't expect to be heard and taken seriously. Now it's the same in talking with unbelievers, exactly the same. We must be prepared to commit ourselves to genuinely understanding the thinking of people and what's going on in their hearts and that's what you see in Jesus encounters with people as he asks his questions. He's really seeking to understand and to help the person understand what the devotions of their heart are so that when he speaks to them, when he challenges them, when he pushes them a step further because that's really what you're doing, you're building your bridge and then you're pushing somebody a step further. You see this constantly in Jesus' conversations, he's pushing somebody one step further down the road towards faith in himself and that's our calling to be seeking with God's help to move people along that road. So you pray for discernment and you learn to exercise patience. If you unload on somebody in one conversation, everything you think they need to hear is probably the last time that I've ever come and talked to you. Those of you who are married understand this very well. If your wife or husband comes to you and says, I'm struggling with this and then you give them a lecture on the twenty answers to their problem, you may very well, you'll live to regret it, let's put it that way. What they want is understanding, understanding and sympathy, not a twenty point lecture on the answers to the problem. Yes. Would it be helpful? That's would be extremely helpful. That paragraph for page at the beginning needs to recount your relationship with the person so I know where you are now and why you're writing what you are now. It just is going to make it so much easier to read it with sympathy for you as I want to understand you so that I don't immediately jump to false conclusions or why is this person saying this or this? Have they earned the right to do this? I need to be able to know that, yes. That's a great question. If the person already has some biblical knowledge, is it okay to use biblical language? Please don't. For your own sake, as well as for theirs, many of you will be writing to people who have some kind of church background and who even think of themselves as Christians, but as you know them well, you know that I probably simply know that there's no genuine faith there as simply a kind of cultural Christianity. Now especially with a person like that who thinks they understand what Christianity is, it will be extremely helpful to them to use different words so they're not going to respond, well, I already know all this stuff because they don't. You remember what Jesus says about why he teaches in parables rather than just speaking the truth straight in the ways they were accustomed to hearing it? He says they're always hearing and never hearing and that's why he spoke in parables. To break through that, I use this example earlier. Yes, Lewis, in his introduction to his non-earth stories, and the first one he wrote, the lion, the witch in the wardrobe, says that he wrote these stories first because he loved stories and works of the imagination, but secondly, because he knew that people were so accustomed to hearing the Christian story, that they no longer hear it at all. And so he tells the story of Christ under the guise of a lion. The creator of this new universe, and in order to break through that familiarity which leads to real ignorance. So I would urge you, whoever you're writing to, use language which will break through either the barrier of ignorance, for those who know nothing about it, or the barrier of familiarity which is an equal barrier for many people. We all know the challenge about ourselves. If we, for example, if we pray a prayer with thoroughly familiar with, like the Lord's prayer, or say the creed, we can suddenly think, what did I say? Because we're so accustomed to saying it, we can say it without thinking about its meaning. And so we ourselves have to wrestle with that problem. So please use language which isn't immediately identifiably Christian, which isn't our specific terminology. Don't use language like redemption, etc., we're going to talk about language today. Other questions here. Yeah. Yeah. I would say, think about Paul's address in Athens. It's what we're going to speak about today, and maybe I should just get into that right away. Because his message, as I've said to you several times, is completely biblical. That's not the issue. Everything you say to this person's got to be biblical. But Paul does not use Old Testament language at all. So everything he says, you could preach from the early chapters of Genesis, sections of Job, some of the Psalms, etc., and many parts of Scripture from which you could preach the message Paul gives in Acts 17. You could preach it from the section on idolatry in Isaiah, Isaiah 40 through 49. But you don't have to use biblical language to preach a biblical message. We need to carry on with our class here, and that will help us, I think. And if you've got questions as we go along, raise further ones about this issue of language. In our last class, we were talking about understanding what others believe. And if we look at the gospels, Jesus is a wonderful example of this, because you see him with this deep understanding of each individual to whom he goes. Jesus has done his homework. He's not simply that he is God, who knows everything, but he is truly a man who has really worked at understanding the people around him so that he can communicate with them effectively. Now, this brings us to principle number four, and that is the principle of using the right language. What language am I to use when I talk about God and about the truth that he has made known in Jesus Christ? What language am I going to use? Again, we'll begin with the example of the Apostle Paul. In the synagogue, of course, we find Paul using language with which his hearers are thoroughly familiar. His message in the synagogue uses the same languages any message sabbath by sabbath would have used. Not only the details of the content, but almost every word that Paul uses in his message in the synagogue in Pesidian Antioch, recorded in Acts 13, is taken straight from the Greek translation of the Old Testament. His language is thoroughly biblical in that account. His listeners would have been familiar with every expression he uses. His language is typical of what they are accustomed to hearing. Now, when you turn to Acts 17 and the account of his message in Athens, it's completely different. And as you look at the handout you've got, you'll see that I've put at the end that much of the information is taken from FF Bruce's commentary on the Acts of the Apostles. If you go to the library to look up Bruce's commentary and I would encourage you to do that, those of you who are particularly interested in the language that Paul uses in Acts 17, those of you who are Greek scholars, and hopefully that's most of you, if not all of you, no matter how much you struggle with it, that's what you're seeking to do is to become a Greek scholar. You'll see that there are two commentaries by Bruce on Acts. There's one in the New International Commentaries on the New Testament series. And then there is another, which is a commentary on the Greek text. And that's the one I'm referring to, published by Eardman's, simply the Acts of the Apostles. It's not part of the other series by FF Bruce. And it's a commentary on the Greek text and it's got a very detailed account of the language that Paul uses as he speaks to the Athenians. And I would encourage you to look at that. And there's a couple of notes taken from that in the outline that you have there, in those notes you have there. Paul is using the language of the Greeks. Not simply in the sense that he is speaking Greek to them. He had spoken Greek in the synagogue in Pasidian, Antioch. But the Greek that he's using in Athens is not the Greek of the Old Testament translation. It's not the Greek of biblical Judaism. And we'll look at several examples of this. When Paul speaks about God in this passage, in this message, he begins by using his hearers' expressions for God, rather than those of the synagogue. He starts using a neuter expression to speak about God that divine. And the same is true in verse 29, not a word which expresses God who is the personal God who has made himself known in his word, but he is prepared to use the term the divine. Now obviously beginning with that language, he then proclaims who God truly is as a personal being as the creator and sustainer and judge. But he is prepared to use expressions with which they, in particular, Stoics, would have been familiar. They spoke about God as the divine, meaning the divine essence and a pantheistic sense because their views were basically pantheistic. And Paul starts by using that language. You'll notice as you read this message that he does not use the name Jesus, nor does he use the term Christ, the Greek translation of the Old Testament, Messiah, the anointed one. It wouldn't have meant much to them so he doesn't use that expression. When he refers to Jesus, he speaks about a man God appointed down in verse 31. And it's interesting to note that he uses a different expression for man. He uses the word an air, the ordinary term for man, rather than the way you see Jesus constantly referring to himself in the gospels. What is the Son of Man? We ask to Anthropoop, instead, Paul, again, that term would have meant nothing to pagan heroes. It required a knowledge of the Old Testament. Jesus uses the term Son of Man as his favorite self-designation in the gospels, some 80 times, far more than he calls himself anything else. But he uses it, it's used in Daniel 7, that's where he's taking it from. One like a Son of Man will come on the clouds of heaven, and he will be given authority over all the peoples and nations on the earth, Daniel 7, 13, and 14. And that's Jesus' favorite term to describe himself. Paul doesn't use that here, speaking to these Greeks. He uses the ordinary term man an air. We should also notice that, again, if you were to read this in Greek, you would see that the text is full of eliteration. The style of it in terms of the language Paul uses is elevated. It's more rhetorical. He uses a lot of eliteration in this, that is repetition of consonants, especially the consonant p, pi, many times. There's lots of repetition in this. There's the use of consonants, that is vowel sands, which are echoing each other. It's a quite a different kind of speech that Paul is giving here in terms of the kind of language he's using. And in some room they simply say he's using a style of elevated language, which is exactly appropriate for the context in which he's speaking. The Ariopagus is the supreme court in Athens. It's the final court of appeal for all sorts of criminal cases and civil cases. It's also the body that appoints lecturers for the Ariopagus. They meet there as a group of thinkers who are sort of appointed to, in one sense, rule all sorts of issues for the city. They judge on religious and philosophical questions. That's the context in which Paul is speaking. So he speaks, his speech is very carefully prepared in terms of every word that he uses. Very carefully put together. Just like if you, again, hopefully those of you who preach, prepare your sermons carefully, you think about what you're going to say. You don't, of course, read a manuscript, except when you start, but you think very carefully about every word you're going to use. And Paul has done that here. And not just in the sense that he's thought carefully, but he's adapted his language to this particular setting. So this elevated, almost poetic kind of speech which you find throughout this. There are even local idioms used here which are appropriate in this context. And constantly, as I said at the beginning with this expression, the divine, he's using language which is ringing bells in the minds of his listeners who are stoics and epicureans and others. Just like hopefully you, if you're talking to a friend, let's say who's a Muslim, you're going to be prepared to use language which is going to ring bells in their mind. If you're talking to somebody who is into new age spirituality, you are going to be sufficiently familiar with their language, that you're going to use language that they will relate to. This is, of course, the task that every Christian has to do if you go to another culture. You have to learn the language. You have to translate the biblical message into that language. And this raises a very interesting point for us and I'll come back to that in a moment. But there are many examples of this adaptation of language in the New Testament. The next point I've put up here is the trial scenes. If you go home this evening or go out of class afterwards and if you read the three trial scenes in Acts 22, 24 and 26, you will see Paul constantly using the language of the courtroom. So for example, if you turn to Acts 26 where Paul starts, King Agripper, I consider myself fortunate to stand before you today as I make my defense against all the accusations of the Jews. You've got trial language, defense, accusations. And you'll find this all the way through these three court scenes. Paul's adapting his language to what is appropriate in a courtroom. Just as if you get taken to court, you will have a lawyer who will do exactly that. And you yourself will have to do it. If you speak in your own defense, you've got to use language which is appropriate in the context, and that's what Paul's doing here. And then on your sheet there, I've given you some, my apologies to the camera there, I've given you some examples of other adaptation of language all the way through the New Testament. If you look on this second sheet, you've got just some other examples here, if you take the second line there, if you think of Matthew's gospel, Matthew's gospel in particular almost certainly written to a predominantly Jewish context, is constantly referring to the kingdom of God and the kingdom of heaven, Basilea to Theroux, the kingdom of God. It's one of the most common expressions in Matthew's gospel. Now to understand that expression, the kingdom of God or the kingdom of heaven, you have to be thoroughly familiar with the Old Testament. There are Psalms which speak at length about God's kingdom, that God's kingdom rules over all, God is king of the ages. Many many expressions like this, particularly in the language of the Psalms. Now that language simply would not have been understood by a Gentile audience unfamiliar with the Scriptures. And if you read through Paul's letters carefully, you will find that expression almost disappears not because the ideas, the content of what is being said there disappears. It doesn't disappear at all. But different languages used to communicate in a Gentile context. It's not that Paul and the other apostles think the kingdom of God is no longer an important doctrine, but they use different language to express that. You'll see that's true in John's gospel as well. If you read it carefully, it is replaced almost entirely with language of eternal life. Now there are many examples of this in the New Testament. Let me give one other very obvious kind of example which you may not have thought about. But in the Old Testament, you have three, and you've all learnt this already. You have, there are three primary word groups used to refer to God. There is ale and Elohim, God as the mighty one. There is Adonai, God as Lord, and there is Yahweh as God reveals Himself to Moses. I am who I am, the term probably means something, as you know, like the God who is. I am who I am has sent me to you. Now Yahweh is God's personal name. That's His own name. It's His name, the name He gives Himself as the God who has made His covenant with His people. The God who is the same yesterday to day and forever who will always be faithful to His promises. God's personal name, God's special name. You will know this, and you should know that as you read the NIV or any other English Bible that usually they will put four capital letters, capital L, capital O, capital R, capital D to translate Yahweh. And whenever you see those four capitals, you know that's what they're in the Hebrew. And if you see capital L and then a small O-R-D, then it's Adonai in the Hebrew. Let's just look at one example of this. And this is something I'm sure you're all familiar with already. But a famous example which is one which Jesus Himself quotes in one of His discussions with people is Psalm 110. The Lord says to my Lord. Now as you read your English Bible, and see verse 1 there of Psalm 110, you know immediately which words are used in the Hebrew. The first Lord is Yahweh, God's personal name, the second is Adonai. Now both of those terms are used frequently for God in the Old Testament. But as you think about them, the term A or Elohim, God, the mighty one, the great one, that could be used of any of the other gods, worshiped by the people around Israel, could be used of Bale or of Moloch. The term Adonai could be used of any of the other gods. People could be called Bale Adonai, Lord Bale. But Yahweh is only used of God Himself because it's His personal name. Now that's the Hebrew. When you come to the New Testament, when you come to the New Testament, the apostles have a challenge. What are they going to do as they translate the different names of God into Greek? What are they going to do? Well there are two terms available for them in Greek. The one is the term Thaos and the other is the term Kirios, God and Lord. Now there is no equivalent to Yahweh, no equivalent at all, to God's personal name. So what do they do? Do they transliterate it into Greek and come up with a new word? No they don't. Do they seek to translate it with some equivalent expression and refer to God all the time when they refer to the Lord, the covenant keeping God as the great I am or something like that? No they don't. So that expression is used, but it doesn't become a predominant name for God in the New Testament. They satisfy themselves with these two terms. Now again the word Thaos, God in Greek, could be used for any God, it could be used of Zeus, it could be used of Hermes, it could be used of any of the gods, the Greeks worshiped. And the word Kirios, Lord, could be used of Zeus or any of the other gods, but it could also be used of the emperor for someone in human authority, a king, and it could be used even to mean Sir, a term of respect and honor, and you find it used that way in the New Testament. Now you might say there's a problem there because neither of these terms communicate automatically what Christians believe about God, about his, that he is the only God, that there are no other gods, that he is the only Lord, that there are no other Lords. Both the terms are inadequate. Now how do the apostles deal with that? Let me ask you that question. How do the apostles deal with that challenge? Because instead of making up new words, they are content to use the language that is there. Instead of making hebraisms in Greek, they basically use, though there are some examples of that, they basically use the language that is there, and how do they do that? How do they deal with the inadequacies of Greek? Any suggestions? Yes. By clarifying exactly. So you can think of how in the book of Revelation speaks of Jesus as King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Paul and Corinthians says there are gods many and Lords many, but for us there is only one God, and there is one Lord, or he says Jesus has been given the name, that is above every name, in heaven and on earth or under the earth. In other words, he is the one who is the ruler of all authorities and powers and principalities in any name that can be given in this age or in the age to come. Paul and the other apostles are constantly clarifying the language. I am not saying, he's saying to you that, in calling Jesus God or in calling him Lord, that he is equivalent somehow to these other gods, that everyone is worshipping Iran, but he is the one who has the name above every name, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to him, and he rules over all. He is the Pantocrata, he is the one who rules over everything. The New Testament is filled with this careful use of language, they are happy to use the terms that are available in Greek, but they constantly clarify them and define them. Because they use the language of the people to whom they are going, they don't make them learn a new language, but they define in order to communicate. Now, there are many, many examples of this, but this is an obvious one, just thinking about the names for God himself. But if you look at some of these other examples I put here, a language which we have become very familiar with, like the term adoption, fiatesia, or apolotrosis redemption, or zoiionius eternal life, or aphasia immortality, or soteria salvation. These terms are not old testament terms, these terms have been taken from the religious climate
of the first century Greek and Roman culture, and the apostles use them to communicate the truth about Christ. You remember that Michael Green had a lot to say about this in his book. This is true of many of these, the term mystereon, mystery, which Paul uses is taken straight from the mystery religions, he uses it with a very different meaning. What the apostles have actually done, it would be like if you, for example, today were to really get to know, well, what new age spirituality teaches, and then you were to take the language of new age spirituality and use it to communicate the gospel of Christ, that's exactly what the apostles have done, that's exactly what they have done, and may sound alarming to some of you. But that's exactly what they have done. They define it very carefully. There's a fascinating example here, if you look at one word I put down there, initiate apoptase. Now the context in which that comes is from second Peter, it's the word that appears just once in the New Testament. Second Peter at chapter 1, verse 16, we did not follow cleverly invented stories,
myths when we told you about the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty, for he received honor and glory from God the Father when the voice came to him from the majestic glory saying, this is my son, whom I love with him, I'm well pleased, we ourselves heard the voice that came from heaven, for we were with him on the sacred mountain. Now, Peter, of course, there is talking about the transfiguration, but the language he uses is taken from the language of the mystery religions, which were very like New Age religions of today, very similar in all sorts of ways, but he's taken their language, the
term apoptase, which is translated there eyewitnesses, initiates is a technical term of the mystery religions, to describe the person who is initiated into the mystery religion and your remember Michael Green gives several examples of initiation ceremonies. For example, in one, the initiate into the mystery because they were sort of like secret societies, a bit like the Masons, very religious, you went through an initiation ceremony and in one of them you remember a person stands under a grill, a bull's throat is cut over them, they're drenched with blood and they come out saying, I have been born again to eternal life, I have been made immortal. That's an initiation ceremony from a new age, or from a mystery religion, very similar to the new age movement in all sorts of ways. Now, what Peter's done is to adapt that kind of language, and Paul is doing it constantly, but he's very careful as he uses the language to make a radical contrast between Christian truth and the ideas of the mystery religions. So here in this passage is a perfect example of this, the mystery religions are based on myths, cunningly devised stories, nobody even thought of them, it's true, they are stories about the gods, they are myths, and Peter, when he's recanting this appearance
of Christ which is an extraordinary thing, it's one of the most dramatic events in the Gospels where Christ is completely transfigured in front of his disciples and appears in his glory, absolutely radiant, as he will be at his second coming, and Moses and Elijah appear with him, and the apostles who are present are overwhelmed. Now, this sounds like one of the stories of the mysteries, but Peter says very carefully, we did not make known to you myths when we were initiates into his majesty, and then the end he says, we actually heard this voice ourselves, and we were present, this is a historical event, we saw this, and much of the language he uses, he or not just the term eyewitnesses, a pop taste there, but also these other language about majesty and honor and glory and the majestic glory, these terms would have been familiar with any of these pagans, but Peter is using them to communicate the truth about Christ at the same time very carefully distinguishing the Christian message from what they have to say. It's the same with terms like wisdom and knowledge, noses and Sophia, very common terms in the mystery religions, secret knowledge, secret wisdom. The apostles make clear it's not like that at all, this is something that God has made clearly known, it's not done in a corner, there are people who can testify to these things having taken place. These are things that can be clearly known, or the other examples I've got down there, if you look at these last few pidea training, Yusabia piety, Sophroceny, Dicency and so on Seminus, serious. Now that language is taken from the pastoral epistles, first and second Timothy and Titus, and some of you may have noticed this as you're reading them in English, but in English the language of the pastoral is very different from Paul's other letters. That has led almost all liberal scholars who deny the authority of the Bible to say these letters were written two generations later by somebody who wasn't an apostle at all, it's nonsense, there's no evidence for that whatsoever, Paul's simply a creative writer. He is using stoic language, that language of decency, of training, of piety, of seriousness, of temperance, et cetera, that you find in Timothy and Titus is the language the stoics use to describe the virtuous life, and Paul in writing to Timothy who is in the area of Ephesus where he's overseeing the appointment of elders, and Titus who's on the island of Crete, both of these areas that are very influenced by stoic teaching, and so Paul is using language which with these people who live in this area are thoroughly familiar. Now it does several things for them, before I say what those things are, make this point, of course Paul is not teaching stoic virtue to Christians, that's not the point of what I'm saying. It's explicitly Christian teaching, it's always related to the person of Christ, he's not teaching a kind of stoic moralism, it's explicitly Christian, he never teaches virtue or morality which isn't coming from God himself and from his law, from his word, from the teaching of Christ. Of course he is faithful to that, he is under law to Christ as he describes himself, but he is perfectly happy to use the language of the culture, and that does two things, first of all it communicates to these people in ways that they can understand what it means to be a Christian in their society. Secondly, it helps them to know that they can live as Christians in such a way which will bring credit on the gospel in their culture, and thirdly there's a third element as well, it will help them to learn to communicate their faith as Christians to the people around them in language which will be accessible to their heroes. But Paul uses this quite different language in first and second Timothy and Titus and you find elsewhere, and then the other point I've made there about Hascoats. Hascoats are, for example in Colossians and Ephesians and first Peter and also in the pastoral letters you get Paul teaching the believers about their way of life in marriage, family and work, husbands and wives, parents and children, masters and servants. Now that pattern of teaching is not original with Paul, the pattern of teaching itself is borrowed from the Stoics. That's how they taught virtue with the Hascoats. Now again, Paul's not teaching Stoic Hascoats or Stoic virtues. He relates all of these things to Christ.
Husbands love your wives as Christ, love the church. Wives submit your husbands as to the Lord. Master's, you're going to give him a cat. You have a master in heaven. Servants work as those who are serving Christ. So he relates every one of these things explicitly to the uniqueness of the Christian faith. But he's used a teaching pattern and he's happy to use language which is taken from the culture. There are endless examples of this in the New Testament. And again, if you didn't pay much attention to it when you read Michael Green through the first time, you might go back to that section of his book because he has a very helpful discussion of this issue. Another interesting one I've got there is the term apaphanea, appearance. That's a term which was used for when the emperor visited a city. He made an appearance, a public appearance, the outshining of the emperor's glory. Now the New Testament writers used that to speak about the coming of Christ when he is going to make his appearance as the great king, as the great emperor. He is going to return and his glory will be revealed, will be manifest. But again, they've used a cultural term to communicate something about the return of Christ. And this is constant through the New Testament. Again, as I started off using the example of the kingdom of God, some of you may have wondered in a speculative kind of way for a moment as you read the gospels and then read the epistles why the term kingdom of God disappears, basically. Not entirely, but it's hardly there. It's on every page of Matthew's gospel over and over and over again. It's simply because it wouldn't communicate culturally. The doctrine's still there but presented in a different form. It would have been open to enormous misunderstanding by the Gentiles. It would have been seen as a statement which was politically immediately subversive. Now the Christians were quite prepared to be politically subversive. They would only acknowledge Jesus as Lord. That's why they got put to death. They weren't prepared to say Jesus was one God among many gods, one Lord among many Lords. They would not offer incense to Caesar as Lord as a God. So they were quite prepared to be politically subversive. And that was seen not just as a religious offense but as a political offense. That's why the Christians were killed in the first centuries. They were killed because of that. They didn't want to unnecessarily antagonize people. And if they'd gone talking around talking about another kingdom, they would have had terrible even worse problems than they did have. So they changed their language to communicate carefully to the people around them. Now your challenge today is to do exactly that. You see there's nothing sacred about using biblical terms to talk to people. After all you have an English Bible. It's not Hebrew and it's not Greek. It's not original. It's already been translated so that it would make sense to people several hundred years ago. One of the great consequences of the Reformation. You say up to the Reformation the people had only basically what got they got to hear Sunday by Sunday was the Bible in Latin in Jerome's translation from the fourth century, the Volgate. The services on Sundays and the churches were in Latin rather than the language of the people and the Bible readings were in Latin and most people didn't understand them at all. Only the highly educated understood that and that the Reformation immediately even before the Reformation begins. You've got people like Wycliffe in England preaching in the language of the people. Wycliffe trained a band of preachers who went all over England preaching the gospel and he translated the Bible into English for the people. It was a program about this on public radio yesterday because there are two new books on English translations of the Bible. I heard the one guy being interviewed yesterday who looks at the history of Tyndale, of Wycliffe and Tyndale and Coverdale and the King James Version of the Bible and then there's one by Alistair McGrath on the King James Version in particular and both of them look really really worth reading and how they've shaped the development of the English language but they're in England that you've got these Christians intent on communicating the gospel in language that people could understand. Demystifying Christianity because basically the Medieval Church mystified the gospel is something that only the priests understood but their intent and Luther said this, I want every farmer and pliable and kitchen made to be able to read the Bible for themselves in language that they can understand so Luther translated the Bible into German himself and you have this everywhere where the Reformation had any impact and of course they weren't using some words which weren't familiar to people, some special sacred words, they used language that the people who read it could immediately understand and they didn't not only with the Bible but as you look at the services of worship which were created all through the countries where the Reformation had any impact they immediately wrote the services in the language of the people as well in language that they could understand and they wrote hymns in language that people could understand and they used music that the people could understand. In Geneva for example we were talking about this in worship yesterday a couple of years in there but in Geneva for example Calvin himself was involved in the translation of the Psalms into the French of the people and he wrote the introduction to that first Psalter in French which was published there in Geneva for the use of the church to be able to sing and then they bought one of the best known musicians of the day they didn't bring somebody from 500 years ago they bought one of the musicians of the day he was the court musician in Paris he was converted the reformed faith and they bought him to Geneva and he wrote melodies for the Psalms to be sung which were considered so outrageously contemporary by some people that they referred to them as Geneva jigs now you may not you may find that surprising if you listen to those melodies now but Christians are always prepared to be critical of contemporary things but wherever the gospel has been alive people have been committed to translating the message and communicating it in a form that is accessible for people around them whether it's Paul using their house codes to communicate Christian morality and this language of the Stoics or whether it's the reformers in Geneva bringing a contemporary musician to compose melodies for them to sing the Psalms in the language of their hearts you see that's the issue the gospel has got to be translated into the language of the heart it is a sin I mean this very series is it a sin of us to require people to learn a special language before they can understand the gospel it's the exact opposite of the incarnation God is constantly stooping to us that is the gospel in Christ he has come all the way down to us and he calls us to go to people to speak in words that they can understand that's why I keep insisting on this and whether the person is thinks they're a Christian or whatever they think they are you must learn to communicate biblical truth in words which are the ordinary words the words of people's real life so that they can immediately relate to them that they're not special religious words which don't have any meaning to their hearts and to their minds but which they associate just with church which they don't think is important now you must be prepared to use the language of the people to whom you go it is a biblical command it was what God himself has done again see we so easily tend to kind of put things in concrete again we were talking about this in worship yesterday let me use some examples of the Old Testament we look at the Psalms for example in Hebrew poetry and we tend to think of the language and the poetry itself as somehow something completely different sacred and special and biblical it wasn't Hebrew literary conventions are common to the culture the people new Garrett the people and the other cultures around Israel have the same kind of poetry as the Psalms it's not as good this is some of the greatest poetry ever written but it is common to the culture you can find Psalms praising bail using the same kind of poetic structures of parallelism and contrast Hebrew poetry doesn't have rhyme like English poetry Hebrew songs don't have rhyme like English poetry they have other literary conventions and you'll learn about them when you study Psalms and wisdom but some of them are immediately obvious to you when you read the Psalms how different they are but they are part of the cultural context in which the people of God lived and even some of the language used to describe God in those Psalms as part of the cultural context when for example you see these wonderful images that God makes of the clouds his chariots and rides on the wings of the wind that's not a unique image to the Old Testament you find the same images used to describe bail in the cultures around Israel they shouldn't be alarmed by this and they're simply using the language of that culture to express their faith the same point that I'm making throughout this session
it's the same with Proverbs and not unique to Israel there are collections of Proverbs some Egypt and from other cultures around the people of Israel and some of the Proverbs in the book of Proverbs are taken from Egyptian collections and other collections you know this is a cultural way of speaking that doesn't make it any the less true that's not the point so don't misunderstand what I'm saying here this is still God's in errant word everything it says is true but it's communicated in a language which is accessible to the people and in a poetic form and in a form of teaching wisdom which is accessible to the people this is part of their culture the Hebrews loved word games this is part of their culture that's why you've got Psalms which are a cross stick that is one verse starts with the letter alf and then bait and then so on down through the through the Hebrew alphabet from 8 to Z there are several Psalms like that Psalm 34 is like that Psalm 25 is like that Psalm 119 has all those verses because every verse you know is done after a letter of the alphabet and in each section every verse every line starts with that same letter of the alphabet they like word games that's part of their culture that's not somehow something uniquely Christian oh it's a cultural means of speaking and we have to learn to adapt ourselves in the same way you know this very well if God calls you to be a missionary in some other part of the world you've got to learn the language of the people to whom you go you won't go there expecting them to speak English yeah you're going to go and learn Spanish or Portuguese or Japanese or whatever it is wherever you go of course you don't expect them to but it's the same in this culture you've got to learn the language of the people to whom you go and be prepared to speak it rather than saying you've got to learn my special Christian language the language of Zion before I'm prepared to talk to you that's it that is sinful I'll say it that way again it's sinful God calls us to communicate to be all things to all people okay we will stop there