The first century world was dominated by the Roman Empire. All military personnel, merchants, and cultural exchange went through the capitol, Rome.
As a natural outcome, Rome was a host to public displays of exchanges in philosophy. These events were more or less a pastime for spectators who witnessed men debate each other on the efficacy of various worldviews and opinions on topics. Much like at the Areopagus in Greece, the crowd would consider amongst themselves the validity of each position based on the skill and eloquence of its defender. They would weigh each worldview against the backdrop of the world stage and dismiss or accept each one based on their level of entertainment, logical acceptability, or social significance.
Christianity was fairly new on the scene and the Assembly at Rome were uncertain as to whether their worldview would be accepted in the court of established opinions and public debate. They were worried that Christianity would not find worth as currency in the cultural exchange. This worry and uncertainty amongst the believers in Rome is what compels Paul to write his letter to them, especially discussing in the first chapter:
'14I am under obligation both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish. 15So I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome. 16For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. 17For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.”'
Here Paul is identifying Christian propositions as being efficacious for competition in the arena of ideas, and is nothing of which to be ashamed in that regard. Starting in verse eighteen of chapter one and continuing through another fifteen chapters, Paul makes a short logical proof of the human condition and its relationship to the Gospel of God.
While his letter to the Romans was naturally important for them to develop and understand the philosophical propositions of Christianity which obliterated the precepts of contradicting worldviews, exposing those lofty opinions to be absurd foolishness, it was the consistency of the behavior of the Christian converts that drove the whole point home. Six-tenths of one percent of the population of Rome were professing Christians at the beginning of the first century.
This 0.6% of the people of Rome answered the Scriptural commands to:
‘Wash yourselves, make yourselves clean;
Remove the evil of your deeds from My sight.
Cease to do evil,
Learn to do good;
Seek justice,
Reprove the ruthless,
Defend the orphan,
Plead for the widow.’ (Isaiah 1:16-17),
amongst others. Thus they actively opposed the legally sanctioned child-sacrifice of their day (in addition to abolishing the oppressive gladiator games), which included active abortion guilds, outright infanticide, and the abandonment of newborns on public trash dumps to die of exposure. These Christians, in a consistent acting out of their faith, set up the world’s first hospitals and orphanages, while simultaneously spreading the Gospel, in direct obedience to the Great Commission. According to the World Christian Encyclopedia (1982), it is estimated that by A.D. 100 (less than a century after establishing themselves) there were one million Christians in the Roman Empire out of a population of 181 million. This minority, by simply viewing their propositional convictions as inspiration for their actions, affected great change in their culture.
Modern Christians are mostly Christian in proposition only. They attend some religious service once a week, they outsource their responsibility to love God to some sophist clergyman, they outsource their responsibility to love their neighbor to parachurch ministries, and other than this, they look like the world in their appearance. They idolize football, they idolize theology, they idolize their income and investments. They destroy their children through birth control and through In Vitro Fertilization. They neglect their neighbor, whether it is the homeless, or the addict, or the orphan, or the pre-born subject to a holocaust of unparalleled proportion.
It is no wonder that Christians who desire to strut their worldview into the great debates in the cultural exchange of ideas in an ever globalizing backdrop of the world stage are not very efficacious. The hypocrisy of modern Christendom, Churchianity, is a far cry from its prescribed Scriptural description. Modern Christianity is saltless and dim and dead. It loves its orators and syndicated radio, but it hates its neighbor and rejects its God. May Christians repent of their proclivities and take up their mission and bear their cross. May they rise up to do exploits, cast mountains into seas, tread serpents and turn the world upside down before they are cast out and trampled under foot, or spewed out of the mouth of the living God. May they discover repentance, revival, reformation and revolution before they receive damnation and 'depart from me, I never knew you.'
As a natural outcome, Rome was a host to public displays of exchanges in philosophy. These events were more or less a pastime for spectators who witnessed men debate each other on the efficacy of various worldviews and opinions on topics. Much like at the Areopagus in Greece, the crowd would consider amongst themselves the validity of each position based on the skill and eloquence of its defender. They would weigh each worldview against the backdrop of the world stage and dismiss or accept each one based on their level of entertainment, logical acceptability, or social significance.
Christianity was fairly new on the scene and the Assembly at Rome were uncertain as to whether their worldview would be accepted in the court of established opinions and public debate. They were worried that Christianity would not find worth as currency in the cultural exchange. This worry and uncertainty amongst the believers in Rome is what compels Paul to write his letter to them, especially discussing in the first chapter:
'14I am under obligation both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish. 15So I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome. 16For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. 17For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.”'
Here Paul is identifying Christian propositions as being efficacious for competition in the arena of ideas, and is nothing of which to be ashamed in that regard. Starting in verse eighteen of chapter one and continuing through another fifteen chapters, Paul makes a short logical proof of the human condition and its relationship to the Gospel of God.
While his letter to the Romans was naturally important for them to develop and understand the philosophical propositions of Christianity which obliterated the precepts of contradicting worldviews, exposing those lofty opinions to be absurd foolishness, it was the consistency of the behavior of the Christian converts that drove the whole point home. Six-tenths of one percent of the population of Rome were professing Christians at the beginning of the first century.
This 0.6% of the people of Rome answered the Scriptural commands to:
‘Wash yourselves, make yourselves clean;
Remove the evil of your deeds from My sight.
Cease to do evil,
Learn to do good;
Seek justice,
Reprove the ruthless,
Defend the orphan,
Plead for the widow.’ (Isaiah 1:16-17),
amongst others. Thus they actively opposed the legally sanctioned child-sacrifice of their day (in addition to abolishing the oppressive gladiator games), which included active abortion guilds, outright infanticide, and the abandonment of newborns on public trash dumps to die of exposure. These Christians, in a consistent acting out of their faith, set up the world’s first hospitals and orphanages, while simultaneously spreading the Gospel, in direct obedience to the Great Commission. According to the World Christian Encyclopedia (1982), it is estimated that by A.D. 100 (less than a century after establishing themselves) there were one million Christians in the Roman Empire out of a population of 181 million. This minority, by simply viewing their propositional convictions as inspiration for their actions, affected great change in their culture.
Modern Christians are mostly Christian in proposition only. They attend some religious service once a week, they outsource their responsibility to love God to some sophist clergyman, they outsource their responsibility to love their neighbor to parachurch ministries, and other than this, they look like the world in their appearance. They idolize football, they idolize theology, they idolize their income and investments. They destroy their children through birth control and through In Vitro Fertilization. They neglect their neighbor, whether it is the homeless, or the addict, or the orphan, or the pre-born subject to a holocaust of unparalleled proportion.
It is no wonder that Christians who desire to strut their worldview into the great debates in the cultural exchange of ideas in an ever globalizing backdrop of the world stage are not very efficacious. The hypocrisy of modern Christendom, Churchianity, is a far cry from its prescribed Scriptural description. Modern Christianity is saltless and dim and dead. It loves its orators and syndicated radio, but it hates its neighbor and rejects its God. May Christians repent of their proclivities and take up their mission and bear their cross. May they rise up to do exploits, cast mountains into seas, tread serpents and turn the world upside down before they are cast out and trampled under foot, or spewed out of the mouth of the living God. May they discover repentance, revival, reformation and revolution before they receive damnation and 'depart from me, I never knew you.'
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