The Man of Athens – The Man of Jerusalem

So Paul stood in the midst of the Areopagus and said, “Men of Athens, I observe that you are very religious in all respects. Acts 17:22 NASB

Religious – We realize, of course, that Paul didn’t use the word “religious.” Why? Because the word “religion” didn’t exist in the first century. It came into being with the Latin religare, meaning “to bind under a vow.” Paul actually used the Greek deisidaimon from the root daimon. Yes, that’s correct. It is the same root for the word “demon,” and “demonic.” But Paul isn’t accusing the Greeks of being demon-possessed. He is noting that they are keenly aware of the spiritual realm. Paul combines the Greek word deido (fear) with this root to speak about the respect and awe these men show for everything supernatural. He is definitely not talking about anything like our idea of religion. This only underlines how far our thinking is from any first century ideas.

One of the reasons that we have such a hard time putting our faith into practice in the everyday life is that we have never taken time to understand our own roots. We are part of a heritage that reaches back to ancient Greece; hundreds of years before Christ walked the Palestine pathways. We are also part of a society that was reshaped by Judeo-Christian influences from two millennia before we were born. As a result, we are the product of a cultural clash.

The world of the Greeks was not at all like the world of the Hebrews. The Greeks are the fathers of western thought. The Hebrews are from Eastern backgrounds. The Greeks were a culture of city-states, a government of the rule of Law, a population of diverse ethnic groups and an intellectual history of scientific measure and theory. The Hebrews were a pure genealogy of tribal descent, a government by God’s revealed character, a culture of nomadic wanderings and an intellectual history of wisdom and cultic ritual.

We are the product of both of these streams. Our problem is that we haven’t taken time to see what these two great streams mean for us. We haven’t listened to the difference between the Greek and Hebrew answers to the biggest questions of life. And since we have not realized that there is a very big difference, we have all sorts of problems when we try to practice a belief in God based on the Hebrew culture within a framework of the world based on the Greek culture.

These two cultural streams answer our fundamental questions of life very differently:

What is Man?

What is the nature of the universe?

Who is God?

Any significant differences in answers to just one of these fundamental questions will cause problems, but when you put all three together at once, confusion and chaos follow.

The Greeks would answer our questions like this:

  1. Man is unique in the world because he is the only creature who can exercise reason. It is reason that makes Man who is truly is.
  2. Man has a spark of the divine within him.
  3. Man can know the universe through his reason.
  4. Knowledge is power.
  5. Societal institutions are extensions of Man’s knowledge and abilities.
  6. Man is capable of solving the world’s problems.
  7. Man has no cognitive limits.
  8. Self-sufficiency is the only attitude needed to accomplish whatever can be imagined.
  9. The destiny of Man is to control his world.
  10. The world can be fully understood through scientific investigation.
  11. Belief in God is unjustified because it is not capable of scientific proof. It might be useful fiction, but ultimately this added baggage must be discarded by the truly educated man.

How would the Hebrews answer these questions? They might say something like this: (pardon me if we use a Greek technique to do this).

  1. All creation begins and ends with God.
  2. Man’s only uniqueness is a result of God’s choice to gift him with authority.
  3. Man shares fundamental aspects with all of creation.
  4. Man is completely dependent on God even if he does not acknowledge this dependence.
  5. Every aspect of Man’s life is under God’s sovereignty and control.
  6. Man is essentially and fundamentally a being who chooses to rebel against His creator.
  7. Man is not a spark of the divine. He has “fallen” from the original design and is now a wicked and disobedient violator of God’s perfect harmony.
  8. Man cannot solve his most fundamental problem on his own.
  9. God is responsible for human societal institutions.
  10. God will judge Man’s deeds on the basis of absolute holiness.
  11. God is the central focus of all creation, not Man.
  12. Knowledge, self-reliance and self-sufficiency are vanity and folly with regard to Man’s real problems.
  13. God’s Truth is power.
  14. Wisdom is the application of God’s Truth.

This helps us see how completely different these two views of Man really are. Fundamentally, the Hebrew view is that God is the principal player in this universe. Everything revolves around Him, His purposes, His will and His control. The Greek view is that Man is the central player on the world’s stage. Man’s goals, creations, abilities and decisions are the most important elements in this world. These two approaches are simply not compatible. Their differences are so far apart that no compromise can even be imagined.

We can picture some of these thematic differences with the following word pairs:

            Greek                              Hebrew

Believe correctly         vs.       Behave correctly

Education                    vs.       Submission

Knowledge                  vs.       Wisdom

Reason                        vs.        Revelation

Mind                           vs.        Heart

Material                      vs.        Spiritual

Outer recognition        vs.     Inner/Outer Harmony

Fulfilled                       vs.       Fruitful

Psyche                          vs.       Person (nephesh)

Enlightenment             vs.     Repentance

Destiny                       vs.        Purpose

Of course, there are overlaps in concepts. Whenever entire cultures are reduced to a dozen words, many of the nuances are lost. But in general, we can see the striking differences between these two views. And the differences are not just about the nature of Man. They are different in their outlook regarding history, purpose, epistemology (how you know what’s true), ethics and religion. Oops! There’s that word again, the one that didn’t exist when Paul made his speech.

How many others like “religion” do you suppose you have incorporated into your vocabulary?

Topical Index: religion, deisidaimon, demon, fear, Acts 17:22

Much of this summary can be found in the opening chapter of my book, Spiritual Restoration, Vol. 1.

 

 

 

 

 

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Rick Blankenship

Skip, How timely you sent this TW to us. It is great to have you here with us in Virginia Beach taking an in-depth look at each of these!

laurita hayes

If I may be so bold, I would like to observe that this subject could be the epicenter of what Skip offers – this attempt to start correcting the angst of the Western world. I think the Greeks, in their own special way, tried what all the rest of the world tried. They saw, like what the Buddhists and the Panthiests and the Pagans, et al, all saw: namely, that man was caught in a swirl of causes and effects that started far beyond him and extended far beyond him too. We are awash in a sea of seeming chaos, surrounded by mysterious ‘strange attractors’ (in the language of physics) that create islands of order for no apparent reason. Our only defense against this fate seems to be either to worship what we fear (in hopes that we are correct in assuming that there is actually a supernatural, numinous source we can appeal to), or to defy the fear directly.

The Greeks chose defiance. They chose to define the source of their fears as a physical phenomenon in the flesh, and then proceeded to define themselves as something other than that flesh. If you can ‘prove’ (a Greek invention: one of their best) that a: fear is a bodily phenomenon, and b: that ‘you’ are something other than your body (namely, your mind), then, voila! fear be gone! Just do a Buddhist type secession from your body; retreat to your mind, and then your fears either vanish or become inconsequential. Why, fear is just a body thing! Purity is redefined as the ability to IGNORE the body completely. The Pagans employed (employ) altered states of existence, using drugs, sex, exercise (yes, the Greeks invented this form of altered state of reality, too) and various types of praise sessions (I do mean kinds of ecstasy experiences) to leave their fears behind. The East chose various forms of retreat into the mind, too, and the Panthiests just had to appeal directly to whatever scared them, although most of them employed some form of trance state, too.

The Greeks were unique, though, in that they did seem to recognize that if chaos was apparently being ‘controlled’ by some strange attractor (I love chaos theory, can you tell?) they were going to redefine that attractor as themselves, vs. the gods. The control of your own destiny – humanism – was a uniquely Greek idea. There is just a short step from there to the idea that we can ‘control’ God or the gods (hidden forces that alert our fears). How did the Greeks ‘control’ forces? They named them, put them in boxes, and employed their force to their own ends. What did Skip say we have ‘done’ to God? And here we are again, back in the West.

Maddie Basham

Reading Spiritual Restoration – Incredible- Looking forward to November 20th to have this teaching in Sarasota

Rich Pease

How about the word: “supernatural”.
God’s being and existence is in the supernatural realm — a far sight
distant and different from our natural world. (But not that far!)

When the veil is lifted, it supersedes all cultures, times, norms,
knowledge, religions, etc. God’s way to man is through revelation, One on one.
Supernatural to natural.

He has One voice. He speaks to ears that hear and eyes that see.
He enters through an open door.
Read John 10.

MikeC

Its a man’s world but as a man I’ve often felt like not much of a man. When I found your website recently, it brought some instant relief. I’ve got to do it myself. Be self sufficient and take care of my family were my constant thoughts. Fear always nagging at me. Now I’m learning that I don’t have to walk alone. I know God is taking care of me. God is sovereign. That’s a hard one in this western culture of taking care of yourself. But I’m learning. Also you helped me see I need to share with my family in an honest way. Allow them to see my struggles. God is opening my eyes to my arrogance and pride. My need to appear independent and self sufficient. I can’t thank you enough. It is making me a better man.

Meggie

I always wondered why I felt like I was swimming upstream. 🙂 I think I’m a Hebrew in disguise. Or born into the wrong culture. Serioudly, Dr. Moen, your words are both inspirational and helpful.

Lee

I’ve read Spiritual Restoration volume 1. Very helpful as I begin my shift from Greek to Hebrew worldview. I’m planning on buying the next volume when my budget gets back on track. Summer vacation with the family was a little more expensive than planned.

Brian Roth

I think the balance lies between learning the original intent of the author and then figuring out what to DO with it here and now. There are many who think that learning Hebraic thought means you have to divorce your culture and thinking and become an ancient Jew (or at a minimum a modern Jew) and I think there is a danger in that. The purpose of seeking understanding should be to know what the author was trying to communicate. We have had a couple thousand years, however, in social evolution to deal with. The issue for me is then, “How do I apply these truths in my life in my culture today?”

Just a thought.

KimG

What I read so far in seeing the world through a Hebraic perspective is a focus on doing or action vs belief or thinking. We change our values to align ourselves to God’s values. And hopefully our interactions with those in our Western culture notice. Not anywhere close to living this out. I am slowly but willingly making these changes.

Baruch Ruby

Mike C , I heard what you said, I experienced and continue to be changed sometimes very slow drip by drip and then like a flood. It is all good being transformed step by step, May Yhwh bring you into fellowship with wise followers. Shalom and Baruch