Chapter 4

To Jews and Greeks

Paul honored both the inspired traditions of the Jews as well as the honest seekers of truth in the non-Jewish tradition of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle. [1] The circle of truth was completed by Paul. He did not view Christ as merely the fulfillment of Hebrew prophecies and Divine promises — of a cultic messiah. The whole created order has longed for answers, searched for answers, and has been given the answer in Christ. To miss Paul is tragic, to dismiss Paul is foolish, arrogant or both.

To the Jews his message of Christ crucified was scandalous, to the Greeks it was foolishness. Paul was in the Socratic tradition to a point. Socrates asked questions in a humble pursuit of the right answers, but ultimately confessed ignorance, which he concluded, was necessarily the highest form of wisdom. For Paul  questioning was the basis of propositions but instead of confessing ultimate ignorance, he delivered resounding answers; bold, definitive, authoritative, which seemed foolish and presumptive to the philosophical Greek way of thinking. Nevertheless, Paul dignified the honest questioning of Socrates, the forms of Plato and the empiricism of Aristotle. Paul’s dualism of the spirit and the material was conceptually supported by the Greek philosophical fathers whose teachings prepared the Greco-Roman world for Paul. His success among the Greek-speaking people of first century Asia Minor was largely due to the resonance of his polemic with their philosophical tradition embodied in the three Athenians. What we know and how we know it, for Paul, was the noble and necessary pursuit; wisdom and knowledge was his passion. He assented to Socrates that the wisdom of this world is more a statement of what is not known than what is known.[2] From that premise Paul spent his life and labor in the pursuit of truth as it can be known; as it is revealed. Both reason and revelation informs truth; when considered together they invariably weave a tapestry of elegance that satisfies mind as well as spirit.[3] Paul boldly declares revelation while diligently applying reason, even the test of empirical reality to his apologetics. Aristotle, the champion of logic and scientific method, would respect Paul’s approach.[4] Paul identifies a problem without arguing the point of its genesis. For his Gentile converts the history of the creation process is less important then the effects of what has developed in that process. He lets them know that in the ancient past clarity of mind became confusion, the humble acknowledgement of the sovereign God degenerated into presumption and darkened speculation; the truth of God was exchanged for a lie. They descended into such foolish and darkened thinking that they exchanged the spiritual glory of God for physical images of corruptible, decaying creatures. What the Gentiles believed to be religious truth was a patent, pervasive lie — they were deceived. The message of Paul to the Gentiles began with repentance (metanoia), a term they well understood. They were generationally imbued with idolatry so completely that they had long since lost the ability to recognize their errors. They could no longer discern the difference between creature and creator.[5] Repentance meant to completely change the mind in respect to a thing; a recognition of the false beliefs and formulation of new beliefs based on the accurate apprehension of truth.