MALACHI MEETS SOCRATES

REVELATION CONFRONTS CULTURE

Paul E. Grant (Brisbane, Australia)

(Paul began Pentecostal ministry in 1947 and continues in regular part-time lecturing - )

PROLOGUE

Malachi lived not long before the period of Greek (Hellenistic) culture. Within a little more than 100 years Alexander the Great would conquer the Persians and rule over the Middle East from Egypt to places close to India. Its language would become the medium for the New Testament writings. Egypt was under Greek rule. Alexandria was a university city of world renown. From there the Old Testament was translated into Greek – the Septuagint. In the third century before Christ three great philosophers emerged as men who would influence world thought for centuries from then until now : Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle.

Exiled Jews had returned to Jerusalem and Israel and rebuilt the Temple. They faced many difficulties and in many ways compromised their faith. Their failures occasioned the stern correction, and later, promise of ultimate blessing that would come through Christ.

Paul the apostle knew Greek worldview and language. He would have known the famous philosophers and their ways of thinking. He wrote : In the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him (1 Cor. 1:21). But he also said : … you are in Christ Jesus who has become for us wisdom from God (1 Cor. 1:30).

It intrigues me to think that before the time of the apex of Greek power, God raised up a prophet who would foretell the coming of John the Baptist and then Jesus. Then, later, he raised up Paul to show us that as great as Greek culture was (and other cultures too), it was deficient in that key area of bringing to people, universally, the true knowledge of God. Yet God would use the Greek language (not Hebrew) to spread the Gospel, orally, and by print (parchments).

This poem is an attempt to underscore the fact that cultural worldviews by themselves are simply unable to present to us an adequate knowledge of God. That their forms need the transformative power of the Gospel and the revelation of the Holy Spirit if they are to function for their destined effectiveness. And finally, that in the general sense, all thinking capabilities must be made obedient to Christ (2 Cor- inthians 10:5). That it is the Holy Spirit, who, if given entry, becomes the divinely designed “operating system” for our thinking mechanisms.

Finally, I am intrigued that God, who knows all things and pre-planned the world’s history and its climax, should show us that in himself, as the Triune God, there is the one and only way so perfectly expressed in Jesus’ own claim : I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me (John 14:6).

REVELATION CONFRONTS CULTURE

PART 1 (Revised 23.03.2007)

Intelligence and the power to reason

Come from our great Creator,

Whose original intent holds true

To be our navigator

As software is to the computer

So Word and Spirit to thinking,

They both enlighten and enliven

To bring a special discerning

Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle

Proposed, reasoned, and questioned,

Initiating new ways of conceiving

And knowledge that excelled

Their philosophies established

A foundation for Western thought,

And over these two milleniums

On this basis we have been taught

The question and answer method,

Analysis and definitions,

Concepts, logic, and debate,

And critical disputations

Inquiring minds probed ever further

Learning must have no end,

Why we are here and who we are

Challenged humans to comprehend

Yet this wisdom was frustrated.

In its avid search for meaning,

Intelligence alone was just unable

To discover the secret of living

Four hundred years after their time

Jesus brought a new dimension,

The apostle Paul showed that Christ had come

To set up our redemption

This unique redemption package

At its core brought wisdom,

No cultural heritage could match,

Its insights uniquely awesome

PART 2

If wisdom seeks to make a claim

To show itself superior

It must align with revelation

From the biblical criteria

Socrates’ role in teaching

Encouraged his pupils to question,

To find wisdom within themselves

By means of introspection

He challenged people to rigorous thought

An eminent facilitator,

The Bible however makes it plain

True wisdom is from the Creator

Paul refers to the wisdom of the wise

And the intelligence of the clever[1],

But for grasping the knowledge of God

Their mechanisms failed to deliver

Reason needed something else,

A mysterious Spirit power

To possess its potentiality

If God’s knowledge was to flower

Paul spoke of a wisdom that was hidden[2]

The wisdom of Holy Spirit,

When the mind consents to his Lordship

This wisdom we inherit

Paul goes further when he says

The mind of Christ directs us[3],

Human thinking is thus transformed

And wisdom comes to its fullness

God’s revelations transcend reason

Yet reason under God’s rule,

Animated and enlightened,

Becomes irresistible

In a merger that only God could create

Spirit and reason participate,

Reason submits and communicates

A knowledge that authenticates

Authenticity is in more than the words

Of cultural imagination,

The authentic mind of God is conveyed

By the Spirit’s illumination

Revelation must descend into reason

And reason becomes its carrier,

Reason delights in the Spirit’s possession

To display God’s own insignia

PART 3

So I am intrigued that the finest thinking

When surrendered to God, its admission

Becomes so wonderfully transformed,

Its cultural destiny reaches fruition

Greek thinking needed a cleansing,

Then following, a conversion as well,

Its riches free of sin’s baggage

Would be fitted for the Gospel to tell

Greek thought, Greek words, Greek notions

Became instruments of the Divine,

Becoming free of self-serving interests

They gained a celestial shine

Cultural worldviews need conversion

Thinking and language are gifts from God,

When these are saved and sanctified

They pass the test of his measuring rod

First Corinthians Chapters One and Two

Stress the importance of revelation,

Thinking and words when so possessed

Exceed all human invention

Why? They are words taught by the Spirit[4]

No eye has seen, no ear has heard

No mind has conceived these things[5],

Carried along by the Spirit-driven Word

When culture gate-keepers of our lands

Yield to the Spirit’s revelation

The mind of God will be known to all,

The focus on Christ’s exaltation

PART 4

Paul the eminent teacher and revelator

Grew up in Greek societies,

In Roman and other ethnic groups

He saw his opportunities

Cultural and religious pluralism

Describe that significant era,

Paul saw it as an opportunity,

For Gospel display, an arena

Called as an apostle to the Gentiles[6]

He was under obligation[7]

To penetrate and identify

With every race and nation

Ethnic and cultural barriers

Brought suspicions and divisions,

Jesus came to bring oneness

Dissolving these partitions[8]

Cultural and ethnic differences

In Christ are reconciled,

In God’s own astonishing way

All believers are domiciled

Made one in a new global family

While retaining their distinctives,

People of every ethnicity

Become a new collective

The identity now is “sons of God”[9]

Cultural status is superseded,

Gender and social categories

In Christ are now transmuted

Christ becomes the defining centre

Of this new community,

The diverse cultures of this world

Surrender their wisdom to Eternity

Cultural transformation will reach its goal

When people from every nation

Will stand before the Lamb and the Throne

Singing the song of salvation[10]

Published in the special issue “A Memoriam of Paul G. Hiebert”, Poetry and Missions,

www.globalmissiology.org April 1, 2007