Paul ends the Book of I Timothy with, [20] O Timothy, keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoiding profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of science falsely so called:
[21] Which some professing have erred concerning the
faith. Grace be with thee. Amen.
The reason he uses the term Greeks in I Timothy is because if you go to
Daniel 8 you discover that the kingdom that extends itself from the time of
Daniel and the image he tells you about—the kingdom that’s still in effect here
is the Greek empire. That kingdom starts back with Alexander and goes all the
way to the Antichrist and the Antichrist comes out of the Greek empire,
explains Richard Jordan.
As far as Scripture's concerned, the Greek influence was
still . . . when God looked at the Gentiles,
He looked at them under that rubric of who’s controlling the Gentile world. "Greeks" is a term used for Gentiles.
The Greeks seek after wisdom; they want to have human
viewpoint. They don’t have revelation from God. The Jews had the Word of God.
You’ve got two sources to get your information. You’ve got God’s Word (God
reveals it to you) or you’ve got human viewpoint. Those are the two currents
that dominate the thinking of people.
It strikes me as interesting that when Paul ends the book,
he focuses on those two things. Science falsely so-called is not true science.
It’s not coming to understand information based upon demonstrable evidence
that’s discovered and validated by examination.
When science becomes non-science, or falsely so-called science,
it is when you add philosophy to it. You take the results of science and you
add a philosophical thinking process to it. That’s when the science quits being
science and becomes something that is science falsely so-called.
That’s the other great thing that Paul warned about. There
are three great things Paul keeps warning about. The other one is in Colossians
2:8:
The idea there with the use of the word "philosophy" is a lover
of wisdom. The Greek word for that is “Sophia.” It’s not just wisdom, it’s to
love, exalt and to have all of your thinking based in the issue of human
viewpoint.
When you take the facts you get out of science and then you
begin to interpret them based upon a philosophy, a way of thinking, that’s when
science becomes falsely so-called. That’s when you politicize it; that’s when
instead of it just being the facts of things—you know, you’re welcome to your
own opinion but you can’t have your own facts.
When you add a philosophy into it, then you solidify it and
say it’s got to be and then you begin to take the facts and roll them around
the way you want them to be to come out with the thing you want it to come out
as.
The world Paul lived in was a world dominated by two basic philosophies. Now, there are four basic categories or types of philosophies that are possible. First is what’s generally called rationalism, materialism. That’s the oldest thinking process and it says, “If you can’t perceive it, if you can’t know it with your five senses, then it isn’t real.”
It’s got to be something that’s
material or else it doesn’t exist. So you’ve got no God, no heaven, no hell, no
forgiveness, nothing supernatural.
The extreme other way is called idealism, which is a reaction
that says only the ideals are real. Ultimate reality isn’t what’s physical; it’s
the IDEAS that are expressed in the physical.
People say, “There’s something wrong with both of those,” so
they develop a third philosophy that brings those two extremes together. You’ve
got Hegel’s dialectic: Thesis, antithesis and then synthesis.
You synthesize them and bring them together into what’s
called realism. That is, you treat reality not simply by what you observe and demonstrate
and material facts, but also you recognize there’s some abstract ideas and some
perceptions and some unseen forces in the world that are part of emotions and
so forth that determine natural things and physical reactions.
Then you have a natural last one that you call pragmatism,
which is simply a way of handling materialism, idealism and realism. That is,
whatever works, that’s it. A pragmatist says, “Hey, I don’t care where it comes
from, if it works . . .” You know, the definition of good is "what works" and the
definition of evil is "what fails to work."
So, you get those different ways of categorizing reality and
the two fundamental ones; there's the first two and the others are extrapolations of them
. . . all of the various schools of philosophy, you can put them under one of
those four headings.
Acts 17: [15] And they that conducted Paul brought him unto
Athens: and receiving a commandment unto Silas and Timotheus for to come to him
with all speed, they departed.
[16] Now while Paul waited for them at Athens, his
spirit was stirred in him, when he saw the city wholly given to idolatry.
That’s a great verse because Paul sees all these idol-worshippers
and his spirit just goes bonkers and he can’t stand what he’s seeing.
[17] Therefore disputed he in the synagogue with the
Jews, and with the devout persons, and in the market daily with them that met
with him.
[18] Then certain philosophers of the Epicureans, and
of the Stoicks, encountered him. And some said, What will this babbler say?
other some, He seemeth to be a setter forth of strange gods: because he
preached unto them Jesus, and the resurrection.
That’s interesting what he preached. He wasn’t arguing philosophy; he was preaching the gospel. That should give you an idea about what you do when you meet the philosophers and the religious crowd of the world. You take the truth; you just take God’s Word and you preach it to them. The greatest apologetic is just to preach the gospel. Know it, understand it and share it with them.
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