In the course of one of his missionary journeys Paul was given the opportunity to address the governing body of Athens, the Areopagus. It was a largely receptive audience. According to Luke, Athenians were always interested to hear the ‘latest ideas.’ (Acts 17: 21). It is a fascinating address. Conscious of his audience Paul makes no appeal to the Hebrew Scriptures and Jesus fulfilment of the ancient prophecies as he would have done in a synagogue. His way into the Athenian mind is to acknowledge their religious sensibilities and then to proclaim that God has been revealed to humankind in the person of Jesus. He takes the vague Athenian belief in God and gives it focus in Jesus.
At one point, referring to God’s presence in their midst he says:
“”For in him we live and move and have our being”. As one of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’’ (Acts 17: 28).
I have always been struck by this. Paul using pagan poets to illuminate an aspect of God’s being and our relationship with Him. It’s as if he is saying: ‘You have come across truths about my God without realising it.’ It’s the same for twenty-first century people. We can rub up against Biblical truth in the most unexpected places.
Take the historian and broadcaster Neil Oliver, for instance. He has a column in the Sunday Times. Normally it is interesting, sometimes entertaining, but not exactly earth-shaking. He did cause a bit of a stushie a couple of weeks back, however, when he addressed the business of mask wearing. He highlighted the carelessness that has taken hold of the population and how ‘individuality’ is at the root of the problem. He tries very hard not to be too censorious and is at pains to emphasise that not everyone is guilty but eventually he says:
‘Human nature, of the stubborn sort that just won’t be told, pushes like grass through tarmac, like tree against barbed wire. The tighter the bindings, the more human nature will defy them.’
The subtitle of his piece (which he may or may not have composed) is:
‘Human nature is the biggest barrier to keeping Covid at bay.’
This reminded me of a story at the beginning of the Bible about a humankind that enjoyed many blessings with a harmonious environment, abundant provision, peace in relationships and with God. They were given an instruction. They were forbidden to eat the fruit of a particular tree. What happened? That human nature Neil was on about pushed and strained against a restriction which was for the good of humankind, the fruit was eaten, and shadows fell on the environment and on human experience. From then on this tendency to turn away from God and everything that is good in His eyes became part of humankind’s spiritual DNA. ‘Doing our own thing’ is a more powerful impulse than living in harmony with God and His good and loving purpose.
The rest of the Bible is honest, sometimes frighteningly so, in depicting how often this tendency in human nature dominates and opens the door to disaster. One book shows how far the fall away from God has moved in incidents of betrayal, greed and savagery in the nation of Israel. There are times of spiritual renewal but all too soon the darkness invades again. The book ends with the comment:
‘In those days Israel had no king; everyone did as he saw fit.’ (Judges 21: 25)
In subsequent books of the Bible prophets are sent to expose the brokenness in human nature but returns to God and His ways are never sustained. Those with spiritual insight looked longingly on the promises which indicated that one day this struggle against the brokenness within would be over. One prophet was given a message from God to share with a people in exile from Israel:
‘For I will take you out of the nations; I will gather you from all the countries and bring you back into your own land. I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.’ (Ezekiel 36: 24-27)
The followers of Jesus believed that this promise was fulfilled in Him, that His death paid the price for their sin, that His resurrection showed God’s plan of renewal for their lives, that His Spirit was their possession who kept them close to Him and moved them to live in the ways of God. Jesus was the decisive halt against the fall away from God and His ways. Those who were close to Jesus had a way of dealing with the impulses of their broken human nature.
Think of Paul. He looked within himself and saw a conflict going on between the Holy Spirit and his ‘sinful nature’. The Spirit was working to raise him to the pattern of Jesus’ life but the ‘sinful nature’ was working to drag him down to his own ways. Paul includes himself when he makes this call to ancient Christians:
‘Let us keep in step with the Spirit.’ (Galatians 5: 5-26)
We may have come a long way from Neil Oliver - but not that much. Without meditating on Scripture, listening to a preacher or reading a blog, he has come up against the core problem of humankind. What Paul would describe as knowing the good he should do but finding something within himself that prevents him from doing it! (Romans 7: 19-20) ‘I know I should wear a mask, practise social distancing, cancel that journey but . . .’
God has ways of making His truth known but not always through the familiar channels. Through a newspaper article we have been confronted with a truth about ourselves. It’s a pity that it didn’t go further to show the way out of our brokenness. Paul discovered that in Jesus. Eugene Petersen’s paraphrase of Romans 7: 21-27 is helpful:
‘I’ve tried everything and nothing helps. I’m at the end of my rope. Is there no one who can do anything for me? Isn’t that the real question?
‘The answer, thank God, is that Jesus Christ can and does. He acted to set things right in this life of contradictions where I want to serve God with all my heart and mind, but am pulled by the influence of sin to do something different.’
