A Faith Worth Believing, Living, and Commending

Dennis Ngien

• Publisher: Wipf and Stock
• Year: 2008
• Print ISBN: 9781498250795
• eBook ISBN: 9781498275729
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Ministry

The materials presented here are reflections on a variety of topics: a belief in God's suffering and the pastoral implications of this; Luther's theology of preaching; practical approaches to evangelistic preaching; pastoral advice on death and dying; apologetic preaching in a post-Christian culture on the model of Paul; effective living in the power of the Holy Spirit, striking a balance between enthusiastic service and fervent love; the image of God's love in the Old Testament; and personal exhortations. Although this book was written on the balcony of my own study where reflection and meditation are carried out, it is cognizant of ministry contexts where people's needs and struggles are most evident. With anecdotes and analyses, the readers will be enabled to discern the signs of divine transcendence in their lives, and to apprehend, or rather to be apprehended by, the beauty of God's grace--the abiding basis of our being and well-being. What has been written in this book reveals the heartbeat of a mentor who earnestly hungers for divine beauty and holiness, a mentor whose hunger God eagerly fulfills, just as he promises, and a mentor who wishes this same fulfillment to happen for readers. The basic assumption in this book is this: a faith that is worth believing is a faith that is worth living, and thus worth commending. The book is also an exercise of faith seeking understanding--understanding only God could supply. It is written with the hope that it will lead readers from knowing God to loving him, to enjoying him, and finally to proclaiming him so that others will be brought into the orbit of God's inestimable grace. Not until our hearts, which God's heart touches, touch the heart of others is our ministry complete and our life found pleasing to God.

1

Paul’s Apologetic Preaching at Mars Hill (Acts 17:16–34) *

St. Paul was on the move again—often the victim of persecution, revilement, and cruelty—despite his good experience with the nobles of Berea. He was forced to leave because those that treated him harshly, while he ministered in Thessalonica, had perused him. He fled to Athens, leaving behind Silas and Timothy to tend to the young church. The evangelistic team was broken up. Paul was forlorn in the alien culture of a colossal city engrossed with idolatry.

As he was walking around the streets of Athens, he was profoundly anxious. Torn apart within because every corner he turned he saw idols. He was greatly concerned that God should be honored, firmly convinced that Jesus Christ is Lord and Savior. But as he looked around the city, he saw no understanding of God as God, no evidence of the glory going to God, and no conviction that Jesus is the Savior. His heart was deeply stirred because wherever he went he saw more gods than anything else.

Heart Roused into Action

Henry Martin, the missionary to India, had a dream in which he saw Jesus prostrating at the foot of a Hindu deity. He said, “That excited in me more horror than I could ever express. I was cut to the soul at that blasphemy. I could not endure existence if Jesus were not glorified. It would be hell for me if Jesus would be so dishonored.”

Now we could be emotionally disturbed and not be moved to do anything. When Paul was emotionally distressed, what did he do? Acts 17:17 says, “Therefore he reasoned with the Jews and the devout Greeks in the synagogue and daily in the marketplace.” Idols aroused in Paul an inner compulsion to debate, witness, and preach. His usual practice was to go to the Jewish synagogue on Saturday; where he tried to convince the Jews that Jesus Christ was the Messiah, as promised in the Old Testament. Then between Sunday and the following Saturday, he did not stand idle. Instead he would go to the marketplace, in the open air, and reason daily with any people who might be there.

Word spread and many people gathered around Paul to hear him. Verse 21 says, “The Athenians and foreigners stayed around doing nothing, but telling and hearing something new.” Paul’s preaching drew the highly educated and articulate Athenian philosophers down to the marketplace to hear him.

Epicurean and Stoic Philosophies

Epicurean and Stoic philosophy were prevalent in Greece, at the time. The Epicureans were the materialists, according to whom pleasure was the chief goal of life. But the only pleasure worth possessing was a life of tranquility, free from pain and anxiety. The Epicureans pursued a simple life with reasoned and moderated indulgence. Their sole preoccupation is with this earthly life, for there is no after-life from which to fear or hope. God, if he exists, dwells in eternal calm, utterly transcendent and completely uninvolved in the lives of people.

On the contrary, the Stoics were the pantheists, according to whom reality is one, without distinction, that God is all, and all is God. Adherents to the new-age movement are pantheists. Shirley Maclean claimed to have discovered the truth about herself, and concluded, “I am God.” For the Stoics, the only good is to follow one’s reason and be self-sufficient, unmoved by inner feeling or outward circumstances. All other things—life, death, pleasure, and pain—were indifferent, neither good nor evil. The Stoics espoused ethics characterized by self-control, obedience, and duty. Although they affirmed with Paul the immanence of God, they repudiated his assertion that history has an end, moving from the time of ignorance to that of repentance, and finally to the day of judgment.

These two groups of philosophers were present in the marketplace. As Paul began to speak, they gave him a hard time. Some asked, “What on earth is this babbler trying to say?” Others said, “He seems to be preaching rather strange gods, because Paul was preaching about Jesus and the resurrection” (v. 18). So they gave Paul a very special invitation: “Come to the Areopagus” (v.19); “we want to hear the new teachings you are preaching for they are strange ideas to our ears” (v.20).

The Areopagus is a hill that overlooks the marketplace. The Latin translation is Mars Hill, and it was the place where people went to philosophize and was once the meeting place of the Athenian court. Paul was invited to appear there, no doubt for public session but not necessarily in the form of a legal trial. The occasion gave him the opportunity to explain the true God.

Building Bridges

Despite all the perversity Paul saw in their idols he began his address with a positive and complimentary note about Athenian spirituality. Verse 22 reads, “You men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious.” This may seem ironic but Paul sought to build bridges and did not try to take God’s role as judge. He did not say, “You men of Athens, I perceive that in every way, you are wrong, and you are going to hell” or “in every way, I know the truth, and you don’t, and if you keep quiet, I will tell you the truth.” Instead, he commended them for their religiosity. To earn the right to be heard, a double portion of tact is required. There should not be any offense in us. The offense is in the gospel. Christ himself is the stumbling block, not us.

Unbelievers cannot absorb the content of the Bible if its message is obscured by objectionable attitudes and behavior. An Indian proverb illustrates this, “When you cut off a person’s nose, there is no use to give him a rose to smell.” A skilled English hunter was having trouble killing birds and said to his attendant, “Today is just not my day . . . I did not shoot well, did I?” Smilingly, the attendant replied, “I beg to disagree. It isn’t that you are shooting poorly, but that God is merciful towards the birds.” The attendant’s reply showed the kind of tact Paul used even as he was agitated by Athens’s excessive idolatry. His positive introduction provided an appropriate entry point for his address.

Paul’s discovery of the most honest altar with the inscription “To the unknown god” (v. 23) shattered him. It is terribly sad for someone to build an altar and not even know the object of their worship. Though part of Paul may have been grieved he capitalized on the Athenian’s apparent deep desire, commitment and this particular ray of honesty he saw in their worship. The craftsman had no idea which way to begin, except to set up an altar with the inscription: “To the unknown god.” Paul perceived the positives and negatives and eagerly seized the inscription as a way to introduce the reality behind this “unknown god” of the Athenians. He provided an answer that met with their deepest desire of God, about whom they did not know anything. How utterly lost in their philosophies these people were! To a person who worships God ignorantly, Paul said in verse 23, “Whom therefore you ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you.” He declared to them the true God so that their religion would not be devoid of meaning and content, and their devotion may have direction and basis.

Paul is a great master at making use of these pagan ideas as a bridge or a starting point of contact for gospel proclamation. He understood the ways and cultural milieu of the Athenian people. He was well-versed in Greek philosophy, and perceived glimmers of truth in their pagan philosophy. Later in the text, he quoted their ideas, turning them into another point of contact for gospel preaching. Furthermore, he quoted pagan ideas to expose their errors, and destroy their own system of idolatry (vv. 28–29).

Athenian Ignorance Exposed

For Paul, God cannot be rightly worshipped except as he is known. The Athenian problem, which Paul identified, was their ignorant worship. With audacity and skill, he set them right about their conceptions of God with a view which would lead them toward efficacious worship. There are three things concerning God of which they were totally ignorant.

The first thing they were ignorant of is the fact that God cannot be domesticated and confined to a certain locality. The Athenians believed in a god with a regional domain. Their city contained beautiful architecture that made it easy to discern where deity dwelled. The second misconception is that we must appease God with gifts. This notion implies that power for salvation is in our hands. Finally, the Athenians believed that God needs us.

God neither dwells in buildings made by men, nor is he to be worshipped with things men offer him; nor does he need anything from men. God is not helpless; we are, and we need him. Their view of god is with handicaps, like a disabled mother who is put in a beautiful nursing home—because she cannot visit people, people have to come and visit her during visiting hours. Paul’s dialogue shows them their erroneous beliefs and an all powerful, self sufficient, omnipresent being that we are lost without. He said,

So Paul, standing in the midst of the Areopagus, said: ‘Men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious. For as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription, ‘To the unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, in the hope that they might feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us, for, ‘‘In him we live and move and have our being’; as even some of your own poets have said, ‘For we are indeed his offspring.’’ (Acts 17:22–28, ESV)

The only way we can worship correctly is by taking freely that which he offers us. If we think we can give God anything of value without first receiving from him all that we need, we are like the Athenians, who worshipped God ignorantly. We can give him only what he has first given. This is borne out in Psalm 116:12–13: “What shall I give to the Lord for all that he has given unto me? I’ll take the cup of salvation.” True worship consists in offering God the sacrifice of thanksgiving that is rightly due him.

True Knowledge of God Expounded

After outlining the errors of the Athenian system, Paul positively pointed out things they really needed to know about God in order that they might worship God correctly. This, said Calvin, explained why Paul in his Areopagus sermon in verse 24 “makes a beginning with a definition of God, so that he might prove from that how God ought to be worshipped, because the one thing depends upon the other.”1 The knowledge of God, which is the presupposition of true worship, is spelled out in verses 24–29.

First, God is the creator (v. 24). God created the universe and all that is in it. He did it alone, without the use of any pre-existent materials. He did it ex nihilo, i.e., without the use of any antecedent causes, without human advice or assistance. He did not have any engine but his own word; he did not have any pattern but his own mind. The world and all that is in it are the effects of divine causality. God commanded this universe into being by his own speech, which is his own action.

Secondly, God is the Lord of heaven and earth (v. 24). He is just as active in ruling and sustaining this universe as in creating it. The same power that created the vast universe holds all things together in the palm of his hand. This God does not grow weary, nor does he have the capacity to dissipate. This is set in stark contrast with the Athenian conception of God, in which God is worshipped in temples made by men. Today you can still go to the magnificent Parthenon, one of the masterpieces of human ingenuity. The Parthenon was meant to be God’s dwelling place, a place of free worship where people could come and worship whatever they wanted. In truth though it was a temple built to glorify human achievement rather than God.

Magnificent as the Parthenon is, God does not live there. Neither does he fit into any human pattern; nor can he be represented by creaturely or created things. As the uncreated God, he made and sustains heaven and earth and all things therein. He is utterly immense, and completely infinite. There is no place in his creation in which he is not, or from which he is excluded. He fills the universe with his presence, yet remains distinct from it. This runs contrary to the Stoic Pantheistic conception of God, in which Creator and creation merge into one, as a drop of water dissolves into the vast ocean.

One of the implications of asserting that God is the Creator and Lord is that a distinction must be drawn between God and his creations. To illustrate, the painter and painting are distinct, not to be confused. To worship aright is to worship the God of creation, unlike the Athenians who worship his creations, and thus worship wrongly. There is a natural tendency, because of sin, to serve “the created things rather than the Creator” (cf. Rom 1:25), thereby merging the creator and the creation.

Next, God is the giver and we are the recipients of all his gifts. We are in the presence of the God who gives us “life, breath and everything else” (v. 25). God is the source of our being and the sustainer of our well-being. Everything we have comes from him; we do not give to him as if he needs anything from us. We do not help him out. There is no lack o...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Foreword
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Chapter 1: Paul’s Apologetic Preaching at Mars Hill (Acts 17:16–34)
• Chapter 2: The God Who Suffers: An Argument for God’s Emotions
• Chapter 3: Three Undeniable Realities: Altars, Prisons,and Cemeteries
• Chapter 4: T. H. I. N. K: Grieve Not the Holy Spirit
(Ephesians 4:29–32)
• Chapter 5: Learning Preaching from a Hero of Faith
• Chapter 6: Enthusiasm Alone—Is It Enough? (Romans 12:9–11; 1 Corinthians 13:1–8)
• Chapter 7: Picturing Christ: Martin Luther’s Advice on Preparing to Die
• Chapter 8: The Image of a Heart-broken Father (Hosea 11:1–11)
• Chapter 9: A Wise Rebuke—An Instrument of Divine Power (Ecclesiastes 7:5–6)
• Appendix