Contending for the Faith in Public
Corinth was the economic center of Greece. Philippi was one of its most important Roman Colonies. But Athens, small as it was in the first century, was the intellectual center of Greece. It was there, on Mar’s Hill that Paul made an intellectual appeal for the sake of the Gospel.
Mar’s Hill functioned as the Supreme Court of Attica. Also where intellectuals, such as philosophers went to discuss and debate important ideas. Acts 17 says that it was here that Paul contends for the faith.
New Testament scholar, N.T. Wright, tells us that the religious choices of Paul’s day were the same as ours. The options included:
1. Epicureanism – the belief that all there is is the physical world around us. There is no transcendent reality beyond it. The natural world is all there is.
2. Paganism – the belief that the world is the chaotic battleground of many spiritual realities, each competing for resources, survival, and dominance.
3. Gnosticism – a belief that a select few are special enough to be in touch with the universe and who follow its lead by by self realization and acceptance of their true self, which is the conduit for channeling the spiritual impulse of the universe.
4. Platonism – the belief that this world is an inferior reflection of the world of thought and spirit. The goal of platonism is endure this world and someday escape it, so that we can enter in the world of spirit and thought. Sometimes Platonism makes room for a an impersonal God who mostly stays out of the affairs of this world.
5. Biblical Theism – the belief in a good, all knowing, and all powerful God who created this world as something good. This God loves this world and has plan to redeem it. He is constantly at work in the world; yet, not overwhelming the choices and direction chosen by his creation.
When Paul began to contend for the faith, he started out with premises many of his audience would have agreed upon, such as the fact that the world has creator, and we have the spark of eternity within us. However, it was when got to the idea that God is at work in the world, his audience started getting a little resistant. But, the matter got worse when Paul told them specifically what God has done and would do to redeem the world. Someday, God will renew the entire world in a final resurrection. As a sign of that hope and promise, God has raised the Messiah back to life after being crucified.
It was at that point that most of his audience concluded that Paul had lost his mind. Everyone knows that dead men don’t rise again. They also know that God will do nothing to stop the decay and deterioration of this world, which will one day be destroyed, or simply fade away.
It does not seem that Paul won the day, or that he made many converts in Athens. Nonetheless, he has been faithful in giving robust, enthusiastic account of the faith.
While most of us are not intellectuals or theologians, each of us can contend for the faith. And, for most of us, we do not even have to leave our lane, or move beyond our field of expertise.
C.S. Lewis, while not perfect, was a sincere follower of Jesus who tried to practice what he preached. In an address to church leaders and clergy entitled, “Christian Apologetics,” Lewis exhorts Christians to influence the world around them by striving for excellence, truthfulness and integrity in their work. Lewis lived this out as a scholar by writing what is still considered today to be the authoritative text on 16th century English literature with the creative title, English Literature in the16th Century Excluding Drama. Not a popular book, but the best in its field. He writes,
While we are on the subject of science, let me digress for a moment. I believe that any Christian who is qualified to write a good popular book on any science may do much more by that than by any directly apologetic work. The difficulty we are up against is this. We can make people (often) attend to the Christian point of view for half an hour or so; but the moment they have gone away from our lecture or laid down our article, they are plunged back into a world where the opposite position is taken for granted. As long as that situation exists, widespread success is simply impossible. We must attack the enemy’s line of communication. What we want is not more little books about Christianity, but more little books by Christians on other subjects—with their Christianity latent. You can see this most easily if you look at it the other way round. Our Faith is not very likely to be shaken by any book on Hinduism. But if whenever we read an elementary book on Geology, Botany, Politics, or Astronomy, we found that its implications were Hindu, that would shake us. It is not the books written in direct defence of Materialism that make the modern man a materialist; it is the materialistic assumptions in all the other books. In the same way, it is not books on Christianity that will really trouble him. But he would be troubled if, whenever he wanted a cheap popular introduction to some science, the best work on the market was always by a Christian. The first step to the re-conversion of this country is a series, produced by Christians, which can beat the Penguin and the Thinkers Library on their own ground. Its Christianity would have to be latent, not explicit: and of course its science perfectly honest. Science twisted in the interests of apologetics would be sin and folly.
What if it were known that the best work in any given field whether it be education, law, business, military, government, sanitation disposal, politics, etc… was always done by a Christian? Would that contribute to the defense of the Christian faith? Would that attract others to looking into what it means to follow Jesus?
“Do you see a man skillful in his work? He will stand before kings; he will not stand before obscure men.”
PROVERBS 22:29