Like stones

After Acts 17: 16-34

Each day we sit and listen

like stones, one speaker

after another, and then,

like stones, we discuss,

we dispute, we argue because

it is what is expected of learned

men, if not stones. This is what

we do, listen to the wise and

foolish, babblers and orators,

all are equal here, the equality

of ignorance, like stones.

This one before us seems

no different; he begins

auspiciously, talking about us,

but I see the glaze of boredom

covering the eyes around me;

another babbler or borderline

lunatic with some new idea,

some new religion, this one

from Palestine from which

we all know no good thing

comes. I see yawns.

But he continues; I listen.

Slowly I hear the clarity

of his words, crystal shards

piercing even while sneers

and yawns remain around me,

but I no longer care; the opinions

of my learned friends, the regard

of my fellow philosophers, have

become like stones.

His words end; he is dismissed

with derision and laughter,

laughter which stops when

I step down and follow him.

I don’t look back.

Illustration: St. Paul in the Areogapus, drawing by Mariano Fortuny (1855-56); National Museum of Art of Catalonia.

Epic

We started from a quiet place

a place of dusty streets and market stalls

noise on market days, noise of animals

and children playing

the world beckoned, its soul yearning

no armies did we lead

no armies did we need

no horses did we ride

an army of two, with sandals

an army of two, without swords

the wind went before us smoothing

our way to the towns and languages

to fields and sentinel farm houses

cities, and temples

cities, and rulers

cities, and governors

cities, and nobles and slaves  and merchants

cities, and noise

we conquered with words and spirit

even our deaths conquered provinces

and kingdoms, hearts

from two on a road we found ourselves

leading hundreds and more, thousands

and more until the empire itself

fit within our hands, the greatest empire

before or since

we destroyed it, some say

we saved it, some say

we saved its soul, we say,

its souls, we say

Tweetspeak Poetry is into epics this month, and posted both a playlist and poetry prompt this week. Check it out and join in the legends, or join in the history.

Photograph: Statue of St. Paul by Adamo Tadolini (1838) outside St. Peter’s Basilica, Vatican City.

So What Was the Thorn?

It’s one of the mysteries of the Bible, attended by considerable speculation over the centuries. What was the “thorn” that plagued the Apostle Paul?

Paul mentions the thorn in 2 Corinthians 12, saying “a thorn in the flesh was given to me, a messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I be exalted above measure.” He says he pleased with the Lord three times for the thorn to be removed, and three times his prayer was denied with these words: “My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.”

It doesn’t appear to be a literal thorn that Paul was talking about. Some believe it was a human being, a persecutor who followed Paul around various cities (there were certainly no shortage of people willing to do that, including the group in Judea who vowed not to rest until they killed him). I tend to sympathize with this theory, having had what I consider more than a fair share of people over the years who stabbed, obstructed, plotted and undercut in the various jobs I’ve held.

Others believe it was some physical ailment like cataracts. Having endured a ruptured disk, I have sympathy for this argument, too. Physical ailments can be debilitating without impairing one’s mental faculties.

Bob Sorge in The Fire of Delayed Answers leans toward the physical ailment theory, but gets to the heart of what the thorn is really about: strength perfected in weakness. “God taught Paul that when he was weak and feeling inadequate for the challenges of the ministry,” Sorge writes, “God’s strength was able to be manifest through him.”

There’s considerable sense in what Sorge says. When we feel on top of the world, our spiritual effectiveness can be diminished, because we think we can do it all. When we are weak, we recognize our dependence, and God can make use of that dependence.

It’s a lesson learned through experience. And often relearned through more experience. And I can say that from experience(s).

Led by Jason Stasyszen and Sarah Salter, we’ve been reading The Fire of Delayed Answers. To see more posts on this chapter, “Confidence in His Ways,” please visit Sarah at Living Between the Lines.

Photograph by Petr Kratichvil via Public Domain Pictures. Used with permission.

T.E. Hanna’s “Raising Ephesus”

One of the first things I learned as a new Christian was the importance of Bible study. And while knowledge of the Bible was a good thing in and of itself, I was told, the really critical thing was application – applying the Bible to my life. It was knowledge, yes; but it was also knowledge and application. It was faith, yes; but it was also faith demonstrated in works.

It sounds so simple and obvious. It is. But it’s not. The not-surprising thing is that we have to relearn this core understanding with each generation. What is surprising is how counter-cultural this idea actually is in practice.

And this is Christianity’s history as well. “In every place (where it has seen explosive growth),” writes T.E. Hanna in Raising Ephesus: Christian Hope for a Post-Christian Age, “Christianity was a powerful counter-cultural movement whose presence took root at the margins and whose impact derived not from privilege or influence, but from an embodiment of the life-transforming presence of the Holy Spirit.” Hanna points out that Christianity is not dying today, but its geographic center is shifting – from what we consider the Western nations to China and the nations of the South – South America and Africa.

It happened just this way in a city in the Roman Empire called Ephesus, near the Aegean coast of what we know today as Turkey. It is the idea of understanding, application, and growth – what empowers an individual’s faith and ultimately transform society and culture – that permeates Raising Ephesus, one of the best studies of Paul’s Epistle to the Ephesians that I’ve read.

Hanna divides his study of Paul’s letter into five parts: Remembering Hope; Recovering Identity; Redeeming Community; Reclaiming Mission; and personal application, which he calls Raising Ephesus.  Each section combines solid understanding of the text and contemporary and often personal examples with a straightforward, engaging style. The study is easy to read, but that doesn’t mean is isn’t packed with insight.

One brief example: In the section of the study on Redeeming Community, Hanna points out how entrenched the myth of individualism is in Western and especially American culture. It’s so entrenched, in fact, that we think it must be in the Bible, somewhere. The myth has permeated the church. “This results,” he says, “in Christians who replace spiritual growth with isolated, self-help projects. These are Christians who believe they can serve God without having to actually seek God.” Ouch. And then he explains how Paul explained the concept of community to the Ephesians.

Hanna, who blogs at Of Dust and Kings (one of my favorite blog titles), is a graduate of Asbury Theological Seminary who is currently the pastor of a small congregation. He says this about himself at his blog: “I’m passionate about reclaiming authentic Christianity in the midst of a culture that has lost its way.” A relatively short work, the book also has an accompanying five-booklet devotional series entitled Ancient Faith for a Modern World.

Raising Ephesus is the kind of study that encourages me to hope Hanna will undertake similar studies. Solid, insightful, and full of understanding, it is also highly readable and applicable.

Painting: Miracles of St. Paul at Ephesus by Jean Restout (1693)

Raining Grace: Stephen and Saul

The very early church had a problem. The “Grecian Jewish” believers perceived that the Hebrew Jewish believers favored their own in caring for the widows. Today, we would immediately split off and form a new church, but the elders of the early church handled it differently. They listened, agreed, and then told the church to choose seven men to serve. (It’s interesting that they didn’t appoint the seven themselves but instead told the church to choose them.)

The seven they chose, Luke tells us in the book of Acts, were Stephen, Philip, Procurus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas, and Nicholas of Antioch, a convert to Judaism. Stephen is specifically singled out as “a man full of faith and the Holy Spirit.” Of the other six, only Philip is ever mentioned again – Philip the Evangelist of Acts 8 and 21.

We don’t know any of Stephen’s background or even when he joined the church. He might have been one of those “thousands” who heard the disciples preaching in the temple courtyards and came to faith. We have the impression he was young, although that’s not explicitly stated.

A few verses later, Stephen is singled out again. Luke describes him as “ a man full of God’s grace and power, and did great wonders and miraculous signs among the people.” Luke, of course, is setting the stage for what is about to happen. Stephen makes a speech to the Sanhedrin, tells the truth, and is dragged out to be stoned. As he’s dying, he asks God to forgive his murderers.

Watching the stoning “in approval” was Saul.

Stephen’s death was one of the significant events of the early church: he was the first martyr; it was the start of the first persecution; the church was scattered into the surrounding territory; and it was a significant step into what eventual became the spread and triumph of Christianity on the Roman Empire.

And then there was Saul, who helped lead the persecution in Jerusalem, and did so well that he decided to carry the campaign to Damascus. And on the road to Damascus, Saul became Paul.

Several times in his epistles, Paul refers to his role as persecutor of the church. And I can’t help but think that the image of Stephen crying out to God to forgive his murderers must have been remembered by Paul every time he mentioned his role.

Both Stephen and Paul were forgiven. Stephen did not do the terrible things Paul did, but both were forgiven. Both experienced the ful measure of God’s grace.

As Andy Stanley points out in The Grace of God, grace is also poured out over us. It’s a kind of unruly, unpredictable thing, this grace of God, confounding our human notions of fairness. Whether we believe as a child and work our entire lives for the Lord, or sincerely accept faith on our deathbeds, the grace of God pours down.

Grace poured down on Paul; it poured down on Stephen. Believers might want to identify more with Stephen, but most of us more closely approximate Paul’s early experience.

It is something to grateful for, this grace that pours down. There’s nothing we do that can earn it. It just pours down.

Led by Jason Stasyszen and Sarah Salter, we’ve been discussing The Grace of God. To see more posts on this chapter, “Saved by Grace,” please visit Sarah at Living Betweenthe Lines.

Photograph by George Hodan via Public Domain Pictures. Used with permission.

Brennan Manning: Boldness

When you read the Book of Acts in the Bible, and especially chapters 13 on (Paul’s missionary journeys), you find a distinct narrative pattern, with a new relatively minor variations.

Paul and his companions enter a city, go to a synagogue, and are invited to speak, a common practice for visiting Jews, They preach the gospel, explaining how Jesus is the long-awaited Messiah. A number of people believe, everybody talks about their message, and the Jews in the synagogue get upset, disinviting Paul and his people. Paul preaches and teaches elsewhere; the Jews (or the silversmiths in Ephesus) raise a ruckus, and eventually Paul and his companions are driven out, and sometimes stoned and beaten.

The narrative is largely repeated everywhere Paul goes. There are at least two interesting observations from this repetition.

First, it’s clear that the gospel message drives people to extremes – they embrace it, or they want to kill the messenger (and sometimes try).

Second, Paul himself knows what will happen. He becomes as familiar with the pattern while living it as we are by reading it. Preach. Some believe. Others get upset. Bad things follow. On to the next town.

This would have to become discouraging after the first few times. And yet, something else happens each time, no matter how bad the previous experience was.

Paul speaks with boldness.

It doesn’t matter if it’s the synagogue rulers at Pisidian Antioch, or the philosophers in Athens, or Roman officials in Corinth, Ephesus and Jerusalem.

Paul speaks with boldness. Always.

We know Paul suffered. He recounts how many times he was beaten, imprisoned, stoned, lashed, assaulted and otherwise persecuted. We know he suffered with a “thorn,” even if the New Testament is not explicit as to what it actually was. And he was human – we know he must have experienced discouragement, despair, doubt, and possibly even depression.

But when it mattered, he spoke boldly. He could argue and debate with the best of them. He was educated, born a Roman citizen when it still counted for something, and had studied under Gamaliel in Jerusalem.

Boldness, Brennan Manning suggests in The Furious Longing of God, is one of the characteristics of a disciple. Be bold, he says. Boldly ask. You don’t need a cohort of sympathizers or any other kind of security blanket.

So speak with boldness. And act with boldness.

Be bold.

You’re a disciple.

Led by Jason Stayszsen and Sarah Salter, we’re discussing The Furious Longing of God. To see more posts on this chapter, “Boldness,” please visit Jason at Connecting to Impact.

The road from Damascus

The road lies behind the grayness

called trees, graveled white

as it accompanies the river,

the river clear in crystalled

greenness. I see Paul walking

among the trees, holding a thorn,

the man’s arm around

his shoulders. Paul is weeping.

This poem was written March 3, 2013, at Laity Lodge in the Hill Country of Texas. The photograph was taken from the balcony of the lodge overlooking the Frio River. 

John Pollock’s “The Apostle”

I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that I had been rediscovering an old love for early church history. A few short years after I’d become a Christian, I enrolled in extension classes at our church in Houston, and ended up taking courses in Old Testament History, New Testament History, and Bible Study Methods.

It was in the New Testament Survey course that our teacher (one of the church pastors and a full-fledged professor)  mentioned some of the 19^th century scholars who had had such an influence on our understanding of church history, including the German Adolf von Harnack on the “new” or “higher” criticism side and Sir William Ramsay on the traditional side. I found Ramsey to be of interest for two reasons – he had set out to undertake field research to prove the New Testament wrong, but became a convinced Christian as a result. And several of his books had been reprinted in the early 1970s in paperback, and were accessible through Christian Book Distributors.

Reading Ramsey’s works is to take a journey to New Testament times. History came very much alive with his words and narrative style. His style is not unlike that of John Pollock, author of The Apostle: A Life of Paul.

In addition to this biography of Paul, Pollock has written biographies of Hudson Taylor, William Wilberforce, and John Wesley. He’s also the author of The Master: A Life of Christ and is Billy Graham’s official biographer.

First published in 1969, The Apostle was revised and republished in 2012. While it has the narrative style of a novel, it is not that at all. It reads like a wonderful story, or series of stories based on the Book of Acts and Paul’s letters as well as extensive research into this period of Roman and early Christian history.

What I also like is that where Pollock speculates because the sources are silent, he tells the reader that it’s speculation, even if well founded and well reasoned.

In Pollock’s hands, Paul comes alive, a man of flesh and blood who was completely overwhelmed and changed forever on the road to Damascus, a man who knew what he had been called to do, and who experienced everything from physical and emotional torment to wonderful joy. And the reader gets to join Paul as he is secretly removed from Damascus, walk the streets of Ephesus and Corinth, experienced the storm and shipwreck on Malta, and eventually find himself in Rome.

And the biography has depth, providing details on references to Paul being bowlegged (and why) to how imperial politics and the death of the Emperor Claudius affected Paul’s activities in Ephesus. The reader is also a first-hand observer of Paul writing his letters, who was there, what the immediate context was, and so much more.

Pollock tells a wonderful story, and he tells it well.

“A Week in the Life of Corinth”

It’s an unusual idea for a Christian academic book – use the form of the novella to tell a story. That’s what Ben Witherington, American New Testament Scholar at Asbury Theological Seminary, did with A Week in the Life of Cornith. He wrote a novella, and made life in Corinth at the time of St. Paul come alive.

Corinth is one of the “cities of St. Paul,” and one where the apostle lived for an extended period. In Witherington’s story, St. Paul is a character, but not the major character. That title belongs to Nicanor, a freedman, who is establishing his various business activities, making alliances, developing contacts and networks. He’s a former tutor in the family of Erastos, a wealthy landowner who has come to follow the new religion called Christianity. (Erastus – with a u – and Nicanor are two names belonging to two of the original seven deacons appointed by the early church in Jerusalem; they served with the more well known Stephen.)

Wrapped all around the story are sidebars about aspects of life in Corinth and the Roman Empire. They include factual information of gladiators and gladiatorial schools, slavery, Corinth’s destruction and rebirth as a Roman colony, Paul’s physical appearance, how patronage functioned in Roman society, the role of money and bartering, the education of children, the Roman baths, food establishments, and many other subjects. Also included are photographs, city maps and diagrams of Roman homes, villas and other structures.

All of this factual information supplements how Witherington integrates historical understanding into a fictional narrative. And it works, and works well.

While not the main character, St. Paul is a character, living with a couple from Rome (the Prisca or Priscilla and Aquila of the Bible) and working as a tentmaker to support himself. He is facing a trial before the proconsul Gallio (a real person and a brother of Seneca the Younger, the Roman philosopher and statesman). And he will also play a critical role in the lives of both Erastos and Nicanor.

What A Week in the Life of Corinth does is to make Roman history and early Christian history approachable and understandable. It also gives history the sense of immediacy, that the reader is right there with the characters, both fictional and real, whether it’s the smell of the streets in the Corinth slums or the gluttony of a rich men’s banquet.

It’s life as St. Paul and the early Christians experienced it.

Why Study Church History?

Thirty years ago, I felt a need to study church history. What I knew was largely confined to the New Testament and basic facts from general history courses.

My primary sources of reading (remember this was pre-internet) was the monthly catalog from Christian Book Distributors (CBD), Christian bookstores (which didn’t carry much on history), and used bookstores. In the mid-1980s, as part of a masters program at Washington University in St. Louis, I took several seminars related to church history – “Athens and Jerusalem,” “The Idea of Rome,” and even “The History of the Early Christian Church.”

That masters program brought me to the university’s library. The collection on the church and Christianity was large – and largely unused. I had virtually no competition for books.

I read some wonderful books. The works of the 19^th century historian Sir William Ramsay were reprinted in the early 1970s, and CBD had them available for a steep discount. Ramsay, an atheist, traveled to New Testament lands to disprove the truth of Christianity, and became a convinced Christian. His writings include The Church in the Roman Empire, The Cities of St. Paul, and The Letters to the Seven Churches.

My course work at Washington University introduced me to the writings of the early church fathers, like Iraneus and especially Tertullian, the Roman lawyer turned Christian apologist who became a kind of heretic, although the exact nature of his heresy is not known today. Even in English translation, to read Tertullian is to read the passion of a razor-sharp mind. For one of the courses, I read Peter Brown’s Augustine of Hippo, one of my all-time favorite books.

At used bookstores, I found titles like Scenes from the Life of St. Paul by J.S. Howson (1909) and The Life and Letters of St. Paul (1928).

Other books I read along the way include The History of Christianity by Kenneth Scott Latourette, The Rise of Christianity by W.H.C. Frend, and New Testament History by F.F. Bruce (anything by F.F. Bruce is good).

Recently, I began to revisit some of the books I’ve read and find some new ones. Tomorrow I’ll be posting a review of Ben Witherington’s A Week in the Life of Corinth, and I’m currently reading a 2012 revised edition of The Apostle: A Life of St. Paul by John Pollock, first published in 1969.

Why do I read church history?

It’s interesting. I find it fascinating.

It’s important. You learn things about the church that you don’t find in general history books, like the role of the church in the anti-slavery movement (and the role of the church in trying to maintain slavery in the U.S. South), how the church likely saved Western civilization after the collapse of Rome, and (more recently) the role of the church in the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe. Not to mention that modern capitalism was one of the results of the Protestant Reformation.

Church history also provides perspective. The church didn’t leapfrog from the Book of Acts, make a brief stop at the Reformation and then appear again with the rise of mega-churches in the United States in the 1980s. For 2,000 years, Christians have struggled and fought and lost and won and prevailed and retreated. Culture wars existed before.

What studying church history also creates is a humbling and deep sense of gratitude for the Christians who walked before us and what they, with God’s grace, made possible.

Photograph by Petr Kratochvil via Public Domain Pictures. Used with permission.

Dreaming in Corinth

I dream of Corinth

last night, Corinth

of the Corinthians, its

retired soldiers telling

war stories, its temples

marbled and majestic,

streets filled with noise,

smells, voices of an empire

shouting to be heard,

rich men preparing to feast,

poor men begging in the street,

freedmen watching the backs,

slaves giving the appearance

of not caring and impassive,

a middle-aged tentmaker

writing letters.

Photograph: Ruins of the Temple of Apollo at Corinth.