It is also the place where, as recounted in Acts 17, Paul, a former chief persecutor of Christians took to the podium of the amphitheatre where the best minds of his generation, and some of the best minds in all of human history would congregate for public discussion and debate.
This Paul had formerly lived a comfortable and secure life as the superstar-in-progress of his religious community, having had an education second to none at the feet of a legend of wisdom and learning in his community. His understanding, his life, his beliefs, his goals, and and his priorites had all been transformed when, as he recounts in letters (many of which are accepted by even the most skeptical of modern scholars as genuine) an encounter with the resurrected Lord of his persecutees. He rehearses how this resulted in his calling to a life of extreme hardship, severe persecution at the hands of enemies, a life dedicated to proclaiming the truth about Jesus Christ, a proclamation that ended up costing him his life at the hands of the Roman government.
As Paul stood at the podium at the Aeropagus (commonly known as Mars Hill) in Athens, Greece, the philosophical center of the world, attended by the philosophers currently in vogue, both Stoics and Epicureans, he made a declaration that didn't quite fit in to their notions and world view. He offered them a bridge to understanding. Here is the summary of his address recorded in Acts 17:
“Men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious. For as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription, ‘To the unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us, for “‘In him we live and move and have our being’; as even some of your own poets have said, “‘For we are indeed his offspring.’ Being then God's offspring, we ought not to think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of man. The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.” (Acts 17:22-31 ESV)
By all accounts the Romans and the Greeks prayed, as have most societies in history, even those in our day, despite the best efforts of men who dedicate their life's energy to the suppression of what they consider to be ignorance, but is in fact the truth, if we accept what Paul says. But even though they are "very religious" Paul asserts that he has been commissioned to proclaim that with the advent of Jesus Christ and the proclamation of the gospel they no longer have any excuse for the ignorance of their prayers, prayers to idols or venerated figures or the constructs of their philosophies. It is not so much prayer to where according to Paul. It is prayer to Whom. They had been praying to false gods. He proclaimed to them God come as a man, Jesus Christ the Lord, who was appointed Judge of the world, to whom all men must give an account for the life given to them.
Albert Einstein, for all the philosophical and scientific genius with which he was endowed, not only believed in a Creator, which general belief we can appreciate, but he also believed that Jesus Christ was deluded, that he nobly but falsely believed he was a Messiah and that, seeking to usher in a millenial kingdom of the Jews he provoked the Romans to such a degree that they ultimately crushed him through crucifixion. Einstein could not bring himself to believe in the resurrection, so he constructed a theory that had the equally delusional disciples inventing it.
Many so-called Christians have followed Einstein in his desire to retain a philosophical form of Christianity but denying its roots in a historical Jesus as portrayed in the gospels and the letters purportedly composed by his apostles. Paul could not have countenanced such a path. In the opening chapter of his letter the Romans he says, "I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to all who believe, to the Jew first and also to the Greek" (Rom 1:17). Einstein mocked those who accept the apostles testimony to what they had seen and heard. They were unsophisticated, he thought.
Paul was used to such a reaction to his preaching even in the first century A.D. In the first chapter of his letter to the Corinthians, another Greek metropolis, he contrasts the attitudes of the Greeks with those of true faith:
"Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men."
(1 Corinthians 1:20-25 ESV)
Albert Einstein, following in the path of a long tradition (going back to Paul's day!) of those who thought the actual proclamation of the apostles quite silly and antiquated, decided they were wiser than Paul and wiser than Jesus. Therefore they could set aside their foolishness and isolate a kernal of truth which they could then construct into an entirely different religion, a philosophy of religion so to speak, all the while retaining the name of Christianity.
Tim Tebow is willing to be mocked for his faith. He is far from one of the best quarterbacks to ever grace the gridiron. But he is a sincere Christian who accepts what Paul preached, and he is not willing to mould it into something more in vogue in order to be accepted. I personally would conduct myself a little differently than he does. But that's just me. He is not a perfect vehicle for exhibiting Christianity. Neither am I, by any stretch of the imagination. Tebow has my admiration for his willingess to be mocked.
The moment he starts losing again he will be ridiculed. He knows that. And he will continue to live out his faith according to his conscience, so long as God gives him the grace to do so. He may mature and try his best to smooth out any annoyances that rub people the wrong way needlessly, but I for one hope he continues to testify to the same hope as Paul.
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