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Most of you know that my favorite translation of the bible is Eugene Peterson's The Message. I love it, I really do, but every once in a while, he lets me down with his translation of a text. I am not a bible scholar, but I have spent a lot of time reading, studying and even selling bibles. I know that if I want the most literal translation of the bible, go to the New American Standard Version; if I want the most popular translation, go to the New International Version (if you want politically correct, TNIV), if I want pretty but confusion, go to the King James Version (less pretty, less confusing - New King James). If you want an easy to read, and fun translation, go to The Message. Mr. Peterson was a pastor and translated the text from a pastor's perspective. His goal was to make the text as readable as possible for the everyday person - that's us! All that said, I have included the most "fluid" translation along with the most "wooden" translations for us to read this morning.I typically want to post my thoughts because that's just what they are: "my thoughts." I just want to help get conversations started surrounding the text at hand. Today is no different, but I'm also including something that to me is extremely pointed in light of our church structure - and to me, worth noting.
Chapter 17 could easily be one of my favorite chapters in the bible. I love the way Luke recounts the journeys of Paul. In my mind, I feel like I work for the first-century TMZ. I could stand up in the cubicles and report to Harvey Levin that "I saw Paul going to Lydia's house again...I saw Paul with Silas and Timothy in Berea teaching to the Jews...I saw Paul in Athens explaining that we can know God."
*Note that Paul's teaching is always centered around the scriptures and explaining to the people that why Jesus is the Messiah, why he had to die, and what his resurrection means for them.
In verse 22, Paul delivers a pivotal message for the Greeks and for us, I believe. He starts by acknowledging their serious approach to religion, then notes that they have set up one shrine for "the god nobody knows." There were some things in Greek mythology that were unexplainable - and for those, they covered their bases and made an offering shrine to one god to cover all misses. Then he rocks the house. He explains that this unknown god is the Knowable God, that He doesn't live in temples built by human hands nor does He need us to serve Him, as if He needed something. God is near and does not play hide-and-seek with us. We live and move in Him, and we cannot get away from Him. This is more teaching that God does not intend for us to compartmentalize Him into our nice neat places. He is a consuming God that invades all of our lives when we choose to follow Him. Then we get to where I think our modern translations slip a little. In verse 26, Paul says, "He made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their habitation, that they would seek God, if perhaps they might grope for Him and find him" (NASB).
God created us to live on all the face of the earth, and he determines our appointed times and the boundaries of our habitation. He sets our time and our place. We think we choose where we live and where we grow up, but God has determined those so that we may seek and find Him! Our neighbors have been determined to live next door to us at this time, so they may seek and find Him! Our co-workers work next to us at this time in this place, so they may seek and find Him! If we believe that God is personal, that He is near and not far, that He cares about us and has a plan for us, we cannot miss this point. God is more active than just creating a playground big enough for us to roam around in and call it earth, playing finding games with God all day. For the Greeks this was profound - this God was different. This God was involved. This God wanted to be known. This God wanted to be found. This God came to us! This God now involves us in the seeking and finding for others!
How does knowing this change the way we live? How does believing this with our action change us? Did another part of the text get you jazzed like this one did me?
Mr. Peterson, I love you, but you lost the punch of verse 26, in my opinion. For all that you've done for my interest and connection to the text, I will let this one slide and simply make my own little footnote.
Because of v.26, right here right now is important. I am here for God's purposes. It's not just a stopover on the way to somewhere else. It's not just a wrung on the promotion ladder, or an accident, or a place or time to be endured. Verse 26 keeps me out of the "tomorrow trap." You can live your whole life for tomorrow--the promotion, the relocation, the next house, the next job, the next place we'll live, the better neighborhood, etc.--and miss most of your life. I want to know why this place, right now is God's appointed place for me. I don't want to miss that.
ReplyDeleteThis confuses me. I thought that we were given free will? Does this mean our free will only pertains to choosing Him but nothing else? This makes me feel like why bother? If he already determined things, why pray for guidance? Why am I bother worrying/praying about/researching elementary schools if God already decided what neighborhood we'll be in? Why work for that promotion if God already determined which coworkers I would be with?
ReplyDeleteOr do you think Paul means it literally? Like the number of cowlicks on your head determines how many continents you'll live on? God decided I would be born on June 6th, 1978 in Canada and in October, 1980 would immigrate to the US? And then March of 89 would move to Houston where I wouldn't live anywhere else except Austin for college? Does that mean my boundaries are the same as my older sister who has been on the same location plan as me?? But God decided that my little sister's boundaries are different?
I do believe that people are placed in our lives at different points for different reasons (or we in theirs), and I get that the right here right now is more important than tomorrow, but the big picture of these versus doesn't make sense to me.
Anyway.
i meant verses not versus. i wish this had spell/grammar check.
ReplyDeleteOR! A more cynical route:
ReplyDeleteDoes this mean that its ok that fourteen year old girls in highschool are sleeping with their boyfriends and getting pregnant and dropping out of school because God already determined that the person who was to be born to that woman was supposed to be born right then?
Uh oh, we have a thinker on the blog... Love your analytical mind, Emma!
ReplyDeleteProbably don't have to tell you that there are camps on both sides of the free will/God's will question in the Kingdom. Some folks say that if you truly believe in God's sovereignty then you must believe He is ultimately in control of everything. Others don't see God's activity in the world that way. I'm over-generalizing both perspectives, but you get the idea. You can chase your tail all day in this argument.
I think Paul's point in his speech is to convince his audience that God has been involved in their lives all along, even when they haven't recognized Him or even known who He was. Remember, this is international evangelism, and I hear Paul speaking to himself and his fellow Jews as much as to his Gentile listeners(and Luke really grabbing this notion): your ethnicity and mine, your country and mine, in our time on the planet -- God is at work in all of it, working in all of it to bring us to Himself. Verse 27 is important: "So we would reach out to Him and find Him." This is why God is at work, not just to control everything, but to lead every person to Himself.
I do believe that even for those who totally go their own way, God is at work. Maybe one person is in complete rebellion, running in the opposite direction of God's plan for them. In His sovereignty, does he send godly people across his/her path? Does just the right person move in next door (maybe you)? Does God arrange events in his/her life that point to Him? I think so. And for us, in our life decisions like jobs and neighborhoods and schools, the main thing is to see God at work there, to be looking for His guidance and honor His values, rather than just being driven by "moving on up." For His people, who are looking for His guidance in those decisions, I think it's totally accurate to say, "God led me here, not just for myself but also for those around me." That's the same thing Paul said.
I totally agree with the "leading" - that brings prayer into the picture.
ReplyDeleteI just read it in the TNIV version and actually really like it there:
"... and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. 27 God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us."
He marked out these two things (time and location) so that we would seek Him and find Him. He did it FOR us. Not TO us.
marked out vs. determined - one of these days i'll work on not getting so caught up in the individual words, but they really get me some times.
One belief that permeated the philosophies of that day was "deism" which was a belief that there was a supreme deity, but that he didn't interfere or intervene in our daily lives. They believed in God but didn't believe he had anything to do with us. Paul is directly countering that belief by explaining that God not only interacts with humanity, but that He actually lays out plans for us to connect with Him. This was a radical message.
ReplyDeleteI like the "marked out" phrase also...and I wrestle with how this affects my free will!
I once had a friend (a non-believer) ask me how God could let someone be born if he knows that they will reject him and they will ultimately end up in hell. Her point was that if God has a "plan" for everyone, how could he possibly allow that plan to lead to such a terrible place? I was honestly taken off guard and prayed right there for that guidance you mentioned. The best I could tell her was that God laid out a plan for us, but with the factor of free will in play, he had to tweak those coordinates from time to time. Free will itself bothered her, though. Why would this God of ours, who's supposed to love us, allow us to not choose him if that ultimately meant death? The best I could say was that as a parent, I hoped my kids would love me. I yearn for their love and do everything I can to keep that line open, but that love is their choice. That's what ultimately makes it special. But, it's always his desire that we will choose to love and follow him.
ReplyDeleteReading through all of this has helped me feel like I might have been on the right track. It may have had something to do with asking God to shut ME up and speak through me as I knew this could be a pivotal conversation for her.
Choices give our decisions validity. Without freewill, without choice, then the concepts of love and relationship are irrelevant.
ReplyDeleteI like how Soren Kierkegaard sets this up with this story that is an analogy of God and his persuit of man:
Suppose there was a king who loved a humble maiden. The king was like no other king. No one dared breathe a word against him, for he had the strength to crush all opponents. And yet this mighty king was melted by love for a humble maiden. How could he declare his love for her? In an odd sort of way, his kingliness tied his hands. If he brought her to the palace and crowned her head with jewels and clothed her body in royal robes, she would surely not resist—no one dared resist him. But would she love him?
She would say she loved him, of course, but would she truly? Or would she live with him in fear, nursing a private grief for the life she had left behind? Would she be happy at his side? How could he know? If he rode to her forest cottage in his royal carriage, with an armed escort waving bright banners, that too would overwhelm her. He did not want a cringing subject. He wanted a lover, an equal. He wanted her to forget that he was a king and she a humble maiden and to let shared love cross the gulf between them. For it is only in love that the unequal can be made equal. (as quoted in Disappointment with God )
Love that, Pete. Thanks!
ReplyDelete