Meaning
The Gospel is the story of God told from His perspective, to His glory. Only God is bigger than the Gospel. At first it sounds like a foolish paradoxical mystery. And so we try to make it sound more rational, believable and sane. It is not. The Gospel is neither rational nor irrational, but trans-rational. The first step to understanding is to confess that we do not understand why the God who made us would rather die than live without us. The Gospel does not drop out of heaven pristine and undefiled. It does not come free of language and cultural barriers. The Gospel is spoken by fallen tongues, defended by fallen minds and held in fallen hearts. If it were not for the Spirit, the Gospel would have been so suppressed by frightened finitude that it would have never left Jerusalem. Therefore, Gospel reformation, like manna from heaven, must come fresh and new from the Father every morning.
Every age struggles to ponder existential mysteries. Artists lead the charge, feeling the sub-conscious longing for more than what is or was or could be. It is the philosopher who must then live out his call to awaken the experiences of hearts and cultures. Like a musician hears notes, the called philosopher hears the abuses of power, tears of the soul and pride of the heart with compassionate comprehension. A called philosopher articulates the questions to which the Gospel is the answer.
Philosophy never began with the Greeks. Philosophy began with God and was fully revealed to post-fall pagans in the Wisdom of God (1Cor. 1:24). The finest philosophy has always addressed love like The Song of Solomon, meaning like Ecclesiastes, suffering like Job, and wisdom like Proverbs.
What has kept their philosophy timely is that it is eternal. Solomon and Job were sincere in their fallen state as they lived by faith while passionately wrestling with their finitude and frailty. Like all great philosophers since, they began by studying the condition of their own hearts and unearthed a myriad of complexity to find that their story is indeed the story of every son of Adam in life under the sun. Since culture is nothing more than collective hearts yearning for more, the key to all cultural insight and relevancy is the terrifying commitment to allow the head to descend into the heart to see the great paradox of the dignity and depravity of man. This is why Biblical philosophy is very experiential, reflective, personal and honest.
Good philosophy will both fill and bow our heads, reminding us that in the end all that we really know comes by faith and revelation, which are both undeserved gifts of Grace. Biblical philosophy leaves the mysteries as mysteries and paradoxes as paradoxes. For example, life in Ecclesiastes is not tidy, friendly or promising. Life includes constant conflict. Life is fleeting, difficult to grasp and often puzzling. Life is complex. Most importantly, life is to be enjoyed as a hand-wrapped gift from the Consuming Fire who is our Father.
Carrying Solomon's inward journey outward, Paul fleshed out the Wisdom of God on Mars Hill by incarnating the Gospel as emotionally passionate, intellectually credible, socially respectable, culturally relevant, and spiritually transforming. Fleeing for his life, Paul made the short walk into Athens alone and despondent. He grew disturbed over the numerous altars erected to unknown gods along his journey. And here we uncover the pearl of philosophy. It is born through experience in daily life with regular people on the dust of this earth.
Standing in the home of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle and Alexander the Great, the apostle was confident. By faith he knew that the Wisdom of God, when cast into the open market of ideas, would authenticate its own merit not by wise and persuasive words, reasoned arguments or lines of conclusive evidence, but by the power of the presence of the Spirit of the resurrected Wisdom of God.
Though alone, Paul did not fear of great minds. Like Socrates had done 450 years prior, Paul went to the synagogue to discuss the meaning of life. Upon airing his strange philosophy, he was taken to the Agora marketplace, a large courtyard in the midst of all the civic buildings. Amid the booths of craftsmen, farmers, magicians, hucksters, faith healers and street performers, the great minds gathered to ponder life under the sun. Paul was dismissed as a seed picker, a philosophical scavenger who picked the leftover seeds of wisdom from the academic gutter.
As Socrates had been, Paul was then brought before the Areopagus to defend his philosophy of the meaning of life. Standing on Mars Hill before the Athenian court of philosophers who guarded the legal and philosophical affairs of the city, Paul proclaimed the Wisdom of God.
Armed with the Spirit, Paul engaged the heart and mind of the most philosophically driven society the world has ever known. Importantly, Paul was respectful, yet honest. He boldly claimed that they, the most philosophical men in the most philosophical city, were very supernatural, yet very ignorant.
Paul understood two things. First, he knew the heart of man; that the opposite of theism is not atheism, but idolatry. He was not surprised that the fall of Adam had continued its descent into Rome. Second, Paul knew the culture into which he brought the gospel. He was aware of the history of ideas. He knew the events and philosophies that had crafted the malaise.
Respectfully, Paul began by forging common ground on which to stand as he pressed the discussion into the battleground. Unlike the current church that is often of the world but not in it, Paul was aware of the importance of being relevant to his context. Paul used their language. Paul used their communication form-- debate. Paul used their philosophers and poets. He began by quoting, " . . . in him (Zeus) we live and move and have our being . . ." from Aratus, circa 300 BC. Paul recognized that all things are pointers to the truth, and that life is a puzzle of grace with pieces strewn everywhere.
Paul did not reduce the Gospel to a simplified, codified, objectified, one-size-fits-all, marketable felt need. He knew and felt his context well enough to speak to and with, rather than at, others. When philosophizing with the Jews, he reasoned from the Scriptures. When philosophizing with the Greeks, he reasoned to the Scriptures. Paul knew that all philosophy begins with either a Godly or godless set of presuppositions accepted by faith. While the former results in the worship of the Creator, the latter always ends up in the worship of the creation in such imminent philosophies as hedonism, materialism, empiricism and rationalism.
Biblical philosophy always has the Spirit thinking before it speaks. Like God, it always speaks with profanity because it speaks from silence. It speaks from eternity to eternity in the present, thereby lifting the heart and culture beyond the fall and to the Wisdom of God.
