Some 450 years ago John Calvin encouraged people to read books by the ancient writers from Greece and Rome. He wrote instructions for the teachers in the school system he designed in Geneva, Switzerland, asking that they have the students read the great classics of Greece and Rome that were pagan and non-Christian. And he asked that they not criticize them, but rather encourage the students to celebrate what is good in them, and to learn from the truth that they could find in them. Calvin said on another occasion that it is a blasphemy against the Holy Spirit to deny that pagan writers like Plato wrote many things that are true and helpful.
I have been thinking and studying out of Acts 17, the story of Paul and his encounter with the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers in Athens. In my studies for a message called "Facing the god of thunder and war" (which was a study on how to use culture to speak to culture) I found that Paul quotes the Greek philosophers 3 times in Acts 17 (Epimenides, Aratus and Cleanthes), and Menander in 1 Corinthians 15:33 and Epimenides again in Titus 1:12.
I watched the movie Constantine the other night and thought of how Paul referenced the popular poets of the Athenians in his sermon. Quoting lines from poems to light a greater fire from a lesser fire. Christians have been painfully unarticulated in our ability to reference, interpret and connect the truth within our cultural entertainment with the truth of Christ in my opinion. We seem unable to recognize the beauty of truth in the face of anyone else but the church. I think Paul's ability to weave the poems of Greek philosophers into his conversations is a hint at our need to be conversant with what is valued in our own Athens.
I agree with C.S. Lewis when he said: The sane shouldn't become insane to reach the mad. But I think if we are going to follow Jesus we must take on the flesh of those we wish to serve, love and teach in order reach some.
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