If I were a potter (clay potter) 1000, 2000, or even 3000 years ago (a likely profession I would choose), I have a feeling that I would look at life a little differently than I do now. A silly postulate for such an ‘advanced’ era that we live in now, but I think there is significance in it. Back then I would have filtered everything that happened to me through a much more spiritual mindset. This could be attributed to the “primitive” mind, as the local 640AM radio talkshow host said today, but I would argue that a spiritual understanding of the world is more legitimate and logical than the material one we often default to now. Back then, if I was educated, then I would have been taught Plato and Aristotle, as well as all the other greek and roman philosophers. That would have given me a twofold understanding of reality, the physical and ‘spiritual’; I would have understood that there was a relationship there and I would have sought out the link between them. Sickness, health, poverty, wealth, and everything else would have had both physical and spiritual implications and causes. Even if i were uneducated, I still would have been taught this way of thinking. There was nothing else. In the western world, the God of the bible was personally interacting in the world, stories of Israel and Egypt still permeated society. In the eastern world, similar philosophical work had been done, and the material and immaterial world was understood as such. Life was understood through a very different lense.
Unfortunately for us, in the 14th century, philosophers began rejecting the special revelation of God, and all thought as we knew it began to change. Though most of the consequences did not come to flurition until the 17th and 18th centuries, the downward spiral had already been set in place. Man shifted from believing in a personal God, to an impersonal God, to no God, to man itself being ‘god’. Our priorities shifted from God 1st, to man 1st, and everything began to revolve around man. There was a period during the ‘no God’ when we had no priorities because nothing mattered at all, not even us, but with philosophers like Hegel, reality, truth, purpose, and everything else became means to the end of personal happiness and fulfillment. These very serious intellectual shifts altered our understanding of truth. Truth went from wholly absolute, to absolute with some subjectiveness, to no truth, to all truth being subjective. Truth as well, became a means to the end of man’s happiness. This intellectual shift results in an absolute eternal genocide. Man, in this postmodern era, can’t know truth, believes it is relative, and doesn’t care about ultimate reality because it doesn’t really matter when it is all relative because the only thing that does matter is one’s own happiness.
The point to this is twofold. First, we need to be aware of our own postmodern handicaps, and second, we need to be aware of them in others so that when we communicate verbally with them about reality (God, the bible, salvation, damnation, and everything else) we can remove the blinders from their eyes by the Spirit and power of God. Of course none of this is possible without God doing the work, but I believe he wants to do the work, and as his workmanship created to do the good works he has prepared for us, we should be equipped to do it. Study, question, think, read, and pray. God WILL work through us by his Spirit.
Though detailing out our handicaps in a postmodern world is necessary, it will have to wait, but I do have a couple examples of life situations where being equiped has helped me in the gospel intentionality that God has worked through me.
I have been hanging out with this guy that lives just down the street from me for about 2 weeks. He is a rad guy who has gone through some rough stuff but is trying to get his life back on track (the worlds track). A few days ago, I went to a hookah lounge with him and his girl. We had an awesome time smoking, blowing smoke bubbles, talking, and dancing, but after a couple hours, I wanted to make the conversation a little deeper. I started by asking them if they ever thought about reality, truth, life purpose, and other equally large topics. The four hours that followed were great, relationship developing, worldview (the lens we percieve reality through) challenging conversation. We talked about reality first and how the world seems to tell us it is only physical but how in experience it seems to be a dual reality both physical and immaterial. We continued in our discussion and as I tried to keep it in one line of thought instead of chasing rabbits all night, we talked about how we know things, what truth is, the difference between what 2 hours of thought gave us from what the world seems to tell us, and what that means for us as we do what we are naturally made to do (seek ultimate reality). This brought in religion and philosophy of life and its purposes. At the end of the night, we just sat on a couch and talked about poetry and video games. The conversation did not lead to division as I continued to reiterate that we were thinking together, processing together as humans should (a conclusion from our discussion). We grew together that night, and I am thankful I had legitimate things to bring to the table because if I didn’t, his worldview would still sit unchallenged, and his receptiveness to a future gospel could be hindered more than it might be now.
Another encounter I had recently was at work. A coworker was challenging me after I objected to him saying that we are all gods. Truth was called into question, reality, religion, and our own lives as well. These are just some examples from my life and although it might be unnecessary for you to bring these things up in conversation, it might not always be that way.
Jesus used rabbinical sayings and generally accepted philosophies of life to teach, Paul even quotes pagan philosophers in scripture, and for the more educated of our non-believing friends, it could be extremely beneficial for us to at least recognize why we think the things we think.
God will build his Church, God will accomplish his work, and it is not dependent on us, but we have partnered with him in his redemptive plan and the history of intellectual thought is a part of that time line.
God, we love you not because we can, but because you loved us and revealed yourself to us. May you reveal yourself more daily giving us opportunity to do the works you prepared for us and the life in the Spirit we require to see those opportunities. Equip us Lord, by your word, by your Spirit, and by your Church, that we may proclaim you more clearly in action and word. To you be all the glory in all the parts of our life. Amen
