I suspect that most of us do not often have dinner conversations about philosophy, particularly the works and thinking of ancient Greek philosophers like Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. Yet, these ancient philosophers laid the foundation for much of our modern-day thoughts, science, and culture.
We probably do not speak often of Alexander the Great and his conquests of the known world. Yet those conquests laid the foundation for the spread of Greek philosophy and a unifying language across a vast empire. The Greeks’ insatiable thirst for knowledge led them to desire what the Hebrews had in the form of the Scriptures. Knowledge that the Hebrew people said came from one source, the one true God. There was a stark difference between the Greeks and the Hebrews. The Greeks saw life and said, “Let’s consider what could be.” The Hebrews saw life and said, “Let’s remember what has been, is now, and, therefore, will be forever.”
In the third and second centuries BC, the Greeks commissioned 72 Hebrew scholars to translate the Hebrew scriptures into Greek. Their translation was later known by the Latin name The Septuagint, meaning the 72. Because Israel was under Greek domination for centuries, knowledge and use of the Hebrew language faded, and many Jewish people used the Greek Septuagint rather than the original Hebrew Scriptures.
Whether in Hebrew or Greek, the Scriptures, our Old Testament, had a power that even the ancient Greek philosophers could not match. The scriptures were not a set of philosophical debates or propositions. The Scriptures presented themselves as the truth and were taken to be actual history, not fables or mythology. If we look carefully at all of Scripture, we will find examples of the tension between Hebrew thought and Greek philosophies. We certainly see that tension even today in the modern church, where many people want to reinterpret Scripture to make it say things that it does not say to promote some innovation of contemporary culture, a new philosophy.
How then should we think about the influence of Greek philosophy and Hebrew thought and the impact of Scripture in our lives? I have always found that when we want to understand something, it is best to start at the beginning. And so I would like us to look at the opening words of the Bible with Genesis 1 and 2.
The Scriptures begin with these words: “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1:1). The idea is that the heavens and the earth had a beginning, and that beginning started with a creative act by God. But this does not mean there was nothing before the beginning. It may hurt our minds a bit, but before the beginning, there was something; God existed. Before the beginning, God’s Holy Spirit existed. Jesus told his disciples before the beginning that He lived.
- Jesus prayed, “5 And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began” (John 17:5).
- Jesus prayed, “24 “Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world” (John 17:24).
There are numerous references elsewhere in the New Testament to the pre-existence of Christ.
- “15 The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. 16 For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible” (1 Corinthians 1:15-16a).
- “1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made” (John 1:1-3).
Something existed before creation that was personal, involved communication of plans and desires, and, most importantly, love. Before the beginning, there was God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The Hebrew people did not see this pre-existence of God as a proposition to be considered, as might Greek philosophers. The Hebrews saw the pre-existence of God as a historical fact. Accepting the existence of God as a foundational fact enabled the Hebrew people to acquire knowledge of creation that could not be known any other way than through revelation from God.
We must see this thought in contrast to modern thinking influenced by the Greeks. Today, people deny the history of the opening words of Genesis and prefer the notion that an impersonal something, a force if you will, created the heavens and the earth. This notion is found in Eastern religions as well. Believing in an impersonal life force is necessary if you want to define for yourself such matters as life, morality, the existence or non-existence of eternity. Believing in the impersonal life force instead of a pre-existent personal loving God is essential if you want to define man, woman, and the likelihood that humans are nothing more than a superior primate, or, before birth, just a clump of cells.
But if one accepts the Bible as truth, that before creation, God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit existed, and that the heavens and the earth came from the creative power of a personal, loving God, then one sees life as quite different.
Let’s look at one of the most remarkable ways our lives are so different as we see the Bible through the lens of the original guardians, the Hebrew people. Let’s look a little further into Genesis, Chapter 1.
Genesis said that God spoke into existence light, sky, waters, dry land, seas, plants, sun, moon, and stars. Then God created beings that possessed life and could sense life, including birds, sea animals, and land animals. “26 Then God said, ‘Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.’ 27 So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them” (Genesis 1:26-27). Man, meaning mankind composed of men and women, was created by God with manlike features. Man was not just another animal, nor was Man made exactly like God. Man was made male and female in the image, the likeness, of God.
The Hebrew people accepted these words as a revelation of history from the pre-existent personal and loving God. The Hebrews saw this again later in Genesis, where God revealed, “1This is the written account of Adam’s family line. When God created mankind, he made them in the likeness of God. 2 He created them male and female and blessed them. And he named them “Mankind” when they were created” (Genesis 5:1-2). The power of God’s revealing word is that you and I now know we are created beings made in God's image for His purposes. He is the God that existed before creation and the God that exists after creation. These are not propositions for us to consider and debate. These are statements of historical fact. These facts were given by God, not as an exhaustive history, as some would like, but as the actual knowledge Man needed.
If we live our lives treating God as a proposition, then our prayers, if we pray at all, mean nothing because we would be praying to someone we doubt exists. This is why many people meditate to empty themselves of all thought. That comes from a place of believing there is nothing higher than oneself. If we live our lives treating our existence as a chance occurrence or the consequence of an evolution of the strongest and most adaptable among the animal kingdom, then our lives have no greater value than any other animal. We are just animals from a different herd.
But if we treat the Bible, beginning with Genesis, as the authoritative word of God given to men and women, then we have a history that provides an eyewitness, truthful account of God and human existence. If we treat the Bible as God's history, then our prayers matter greatly. We are lifting our voices, our innermost and sometimes most private of thoughts, to someone who has always existed and thus is infinitely wise. This is why many Christians pray and do not meditate, and those who do meditate, meditation on God’s word, that they would be filled with God’s wisdom, not emptied of all thought. Christian mediation comes from the place and posture that there is someone higher than self, that is, God.
And, if we dare to believe the Bible as God’s history, then we come to know that we are not an accident of nature. We are created beings, separate and distinct from all others, because we and we alone are made in the image of God. And because of this knowledge given to us by God’s Word, we do not need to be confused or overtaken by philosophies. We can know that no matter who we look at, no matter where we live, they have great value to God because of their origin as creations of God.
It was this wisdom and sense of history that impressed the Greeks so much that they translated the Hebrew scriptures, what we call the Old Testament, into Greek. The Greeks wanted to access that wisdom and history. And what can we say of that history, that segment of God’s word? We can say this. The Old Testament was a gift from God to His people to guide their living and prepare them for the coming of the Messiah, God in the flesh. And that Messiah was Jesus.
What then did Jesus have to say about these histories, the Scriptures that existed when He walked upon the earth? Jesus said this, “17 “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. 18 For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished.” (Matthew 5:17-18). When it came to the specific text we looked at today from Genesis, Jesus said, “4 “Haven’t you read,” he replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’ 5 and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’?” (Matthew 19:4-5). In his teachings, Jesus referred to the histories of Adam and Eve, Abel, Noah and the flood, Abraham, Issac, and Jacob, Lot and his wife, Moses and the burning bush, David, Solomon, Elijah, Naaman, Daniel, and Jonah. Jesus, God in the flesh, was confirming the reliability of the Old Testament and, by extension, the power of God’s Word. Jesus affirmed that Scripture was the word of God and powerfully communicated God’s love for his creation.
But what about our value before God? Jesus had much to say about that as well. Jesus said that even the number of hairs on our head is numbered and that we should not fear that we are most valuable to God. And how much louder could Jesus have spoken about the value of your life than when he said, “This is my body, given for you... This cup is the new covenant in my blood, poured out for you" (Luke 22:19-20). You are so valuable to God that God would die for you. Your value and my value to God are not determined by what we have done or accomplished in our lives. Our origin determines our value; we were created in the image of God.
The Old and New Testaments together are God’s gift to men and women, providing what is needed until Christ returns. The Apostle Paul said that if we take in all that has been noted as the authoritative word of God, “14 Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming. 15 Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ” (Ephesians 4:14-15).
God loves you. He has given you and me access to his desires, thoughts, love, and history through the Bible. From the first page, we learn that we are loved and valued by God because we “are God’s handiwork” (Ephesians 2:10). Let’s live as God's handiwork. Not proudly and arrogantly but humbly and with graciousness toward one another. This is who God the Father created us to be. This is who God the Son died to redeem us to be. This is who God the Holy Spirit seeks to develop us to be. This is who we want to be when God the Son returns or calls us home to himself. Amen and Amen.