#5 - In the Beginning Was the Logos

What if the roots of Western civilization and theology are deeply intertwined in ways you've never imagined? Join us for a captivating episode where we explore the fascinating rise of Greek culture.

As we journey through Greece, we will uncover how Homer's writings became the cornerstone of Greek identity. We explore the evolution of governance in Greek city-states, highlighting the rise of the polis and the democratic assemblies known as ecclesia. Delve into the intellectual currents of the time, from the mythological rationalizations of Hesiod to the profound philosophical inquiries of pre-Socratic thinkers. Witness how these ideas laid the groundwork for the classical age's quest for order, truth, and understanding, featuring philosophical giants like Heraclitus, Protagoras, Socrates, and Plato.

Finally, we bridge the ancient quest for knowledge with timeless theological truths, focusing on the profound concept of the Logos. Drawing from the Gospel of John, we discuss how Jesus, the Logos, represents the ultimate fusion of divinity and humanity, offering salvation to all. See how the philosophical and theological endeavors of both Greeks and Jews find their culmination in Jesus, the incarnate Logos. Don't miss this enriching episode that connects ancient history with deep theological insights, providing a compelling resolution to humanity's spiritual quests.

Be sure to follow along with our recommended timeline here: https://www.thebiblicaltimeline.org/

Here are some of the articles cited in this episode along with some information about the cave allegory:
https://www.1517.org/articles/a-very-brief-introduction-to-logos-theology
https://theimaginativeconservative.org/2015/12/logos-of-heraclitus.html
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/protagoras/
https://aporia.byu.edu/pdfs/macgregor-socrates_god_and_piety.pdf#:~:text=And%20they%20are%20right%2C%20for%20Socrates%20holds%20a,emulate%20the%20god%20by%20doing%20the%20god%E2%80%99s%20work
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegory_of_the_cave

For more information about Greek philosophy and Christianity, check out Dr. Ron Guido's blog here: https://socratesjourney.org

For further study of John 1, watch these videos.
Bruce Gore: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gSx6gXRoMeI&list=PLYFBLkHop2altIzEj4zgC3XpfFQd3J1PV
James White: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_1-UjqQeMw

Here are some affiliate links to materials that I used for this podcast. Using these links will help support our show. Note that some information in these materials may not reflect the beliefs and opinions of this podcast.

If you want to create your own timeline, this book for you:
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For Bruce Gore's historical context of the Bible click here:
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Chapters

• 0:10 Christian Podcast Explores Greek History
• 14:06 Democracy and Philosophy in Ancient Greece
• 30:47 Legacy of Greek Philosophers and Democracy
• 40:10 Seeking Truth in Ancient Greek Philosophy
• 1:01:48 Incarnation of Jesus as the Logos

Transcript

Stephen: 0:10

yes, and we are back with another pipe and pencil podcast. This is actually episode five. If you stay tuned, after the broadcast we will be talking a little bit about ways that you can help us in our mission. Our mission is to make theology accessible for all. We want to encourage church members and help support pastors and even bring hope to the Bible College dropout. That's what we're about. We just want Christians from all walks of life to be able to learn about doctrine and theology. And right now we are in the well actually still the beginnings of a series on church history. And I wanted to start with church history, because one of the best ways to learn about theology and the doctrines of your faith is to go back and learn about history. So far, we're still in the Old Testament and as it stands now and I'm pretty sure I can promise you we will only do two more episodes before we get to the birth of Christ but we're going to do things a little bit different today. This is going to be so fascinating. I hope that you will get as much out of this podcast as I did preparing this particular episode.

Stephen: 1:49

We have been talking about Israel. We had mentioned Babel and we said that Israel was called out from among these nations. Well, what happened to these nations? What about the Gentiles? What is to become of them? How do they fit into the story? Was God still concerned about the people of the earth? We know he was. He wanted Israel to be a blessing to the nations. He even sent Jonah to minister to the people of Nineveh. But what we're going to do today is we're going to kind of depart off the path a little bit. We're going to read a scripture here and then we're going to go back and follow the story of Greece. Why Greece? As most of you know, the Old Testament is in Hebrew. The New Testament is in Greek in the original manuscripts, greek in the original manuscripts. So not only that, but there's so many things that the Greeks contributed to Western culture. We're not going to be able to go into everything, but we're going to squeeze in as much as we can in this time here on the podcast today. So let's get started.

Stephen: 3:24

2 Chronicles 24, and we're going to look at verses 17 through 22. It says Now, after the death of Jehoiada, the princes of Judah came and paid homage to the king. Then the king listened to them and they abandoned the house of the Lord, the God of their fathers, and served the Asherim and the idols, and wrath came upon Judah and Jerusalem for this guilt of theirs. Yet he sent prophets among them to bring them back to the Lord. These testified against them, but they would not pay attention. Then the Spirit of God clothed Zechariah, the son of Jehoiada, the priest, and he stood above the people and said to them Thus says God, why do you break the commandments of the Lord? So that you cannot prosper? Because you have forsaken the Lord. He has forsaken you. But they conspired against him and, by the command of the king, they stoned him with stones in the court of the house of the Lord. Thus, joash the king did not remember the kindness that Jehoiada, zechariah's father, had shown him, but killed his son, and when he was dying, he said may the Lord see and avenge. So this happened.

Stephen: 4:59

This whole scenario here is contemporary with where we left off last time. We were talking about Jonah, and this passage happens during his lifetime, and so this is where we're going to pick it up. This is where Israel is at now. After all that God has done for them, we see that they have turned their back on him. We see that they have turned their back on him. They in fact, even with Jonah. We see a prophet who is called to go to the Gentile nations. He's called to go to Nineveh, but he sure doesn't want to and he's not happy about it. He doesn't want to see mercy extended to them. So Israel has fallen down on the job of being a missionary, if you will, to the Gentile nations. But here's what's interesting During this time, jonah and Elisha, there's another guy who's busy.

Stephen: 6:24

He's trying to write a history of his ancestors. He's trying to write a history of his ancestors. He's trying to write a history of his people. His name is Homer and it's about this time that he writes a book, two books actually, one called the Iliad, the other one's called Odyssey. What are these books about? How does this tie into the church? Well, as you're going to see, this is very, very important. The culture that he lives in is going to set up a lot of what we see today in our country. We see it in our American Constitution, we see it in our churches. We see the influences of this country. That country is Greece.

Stephen: 7:30

Now, homer, as we said, was a contemporary of Elisha. He would have written the Iliad about 850 BC, but it was about a culture from long before that. The culture was actually the Mycenae culture. Mycenae was formed around 1400 BC, after they were able to overpower the Minoan culture, and they had a good two-year run good 200-year run, I should say and they were destroyed around 1200 BC. It was a sudden collapse, possibly a catastrophe that we don't understand yet, but this fall affected other cultures in the region. There was a lot of upheaval at this time in the Mediterranean. We even see the fall of Troy happening about 1184 BC, and the stories of Homer tell of these times. Okay, these times of Mycenae go even further back. This all happened. Times of Mycenae go even further back. This all happened. This 200-year window happened right about the time of the judges. So after Israel comes into the land it's about that time we see the rise of Mycenae and then, of course, it's fall 200 years later, years later. Now, homer, when he's writing this, he's looking back.

Stephen: 9:12

And if you look at these two books and we're not going to delve into everything about the Iliad and the Odyssey what we are going to say is that these two books are two sides of the same story. The first book is about war. The second book is about the return. The first book is about the virtue of fighting and the victory. The second one is, more so, about the virtues of loyalty of home. You see, whenever there are falls of an empire or there are hard times, that come people. They tend to write, they try to make sense of things. You can even see this with Tolkien writing Lord of the Rings after World War I, during World War I. So, as Homer writes these things, these books become part of Greek identity, of of their culture and also their gods, these gods that they serve. So these books give us a unique window into what has become of these nations that were given up to serve the gods that they chose.

Stephen: 10:52

Now, as we're going through this today, we're going to be quoting from several different people. I have to be honest, I've spent a lot of time studying the scriptures and not as much time studying Greek culture. So I am going to be quoting from some writers and there will be some affiliate links. If you want to purchase these materials, you don't have to, but if you do want to purchase these materials, you can through our affiliate links. It does help our broadcast. So if you can do that. If you would like to do that, that would be great. But the first gentleman that I'm going to be quoting from I can recommend his book. If you're a student of history, if you're wanting to study theology, I cannot recommend this book. This man who wrote this book is of his own confession, not a Christian, but he wrote a history book called Christianity the First 3,000 Years. Darmot McCulloch is the name, and we're going to quote from this book first, because McCulloch has just a unique. Well, let's just say he's very educated when it comes to church history. He doesn't know anything about being a Christian, but he knows a lot about history, so we're going to quote him first. Here's a quote from Dharmakala Quote the gods are constantly present in the Iliad and Odyssey, an intrusive and often disruptive force in human lives, often fickle, petty, partisan, passionate, competitive, in other words, rather like Greeks themselves.

Stephen: 12:58

The portrayal of human beings tended away from the personal towards the abstract, which suggested that human beings could indeed embody abstract qualities like nobility just as much as could the gods. Greek gods are rather human, so may humans be rather like gods and go on trying to be like them as possible. End of quote. So, as McCulloch is pointing out there, not a lot has changed since Babel. The goal is to not only please the gods, but to build temples that they can be housed in, that they can be housed in to bring them down to your level, to be more like them. In fact, not only has things not changed much since Babel, but I would say not much has changed since the garden. So this is where we are.

Stephen: 14:06

In about 800 to 700 BC, homer's writings became central to what Greekness was. So if you wanted to partake in Greek culture and understand what it was to be Greek, these books were an important part of that. So, therefore, the Greek language was an integral part of being Greek. This was summed up in a word Hellas, greekdom. This is where we get Hellenistic from. The Greeks at this time were spread out. They were spread out over different islands, different peninsulas, different mountainous regions, and they identified other people as Greek or Barbaroi, barbarian, based on whether or not they spoke Greek. Because of their geography. This was their common identity, and it would also go on to affect how they did government they. They had local city States as opposed to one powerful ruler, and we'll be talking more about that in a little bit. But the thing was, for all the work that Homer did on the Iliad and the Odyssey, it's a mess. It's hard to really understand what is going on.

Stephen: 16:01

The Greeks desired to make sense of their mythologies and this was what would lead another Greek, hesiod to write Theogony. It was almost like a commentary. This is kind of the first attempt at a commentary to make sense of these religious writings that the Greeks had these two books. There's a wonderful group called 1517.org. They've got some great stuff and one of their writers wrote an article about this. He said this quote truth was broadly understood as reality, but reality composed more than what the five senses could perceive.

Stephen: 17:12

Just as today we know that ultraviolet light exists even though we cannot sense it, ancients understood that lurking behind and beyond the five senses was a spiritual reality. However, they debated its features and effects on the sensible world. End of quote. So here we are. They are trying to figure out. They know that there is another realm. They know about the gods, but they're trying to make sense of it and they really worked at it. They went far beyond the previous cultures that watched the stars. They wanted to know how the gods impacted their lives. This was an obsession for the Greeks. They knew that the world that they could not see impacted the world that they could see. To find truth, they had to look around them for hints of what was not seen. Was there order somewhere? Was there truth somewhere? One of the driving factors of this that really pushed them to know these things In fact, mcculloch points this out in his book Part of this may have had to do with their unique history and what happened to their culture.

Stephen: 18:43

Because of their geography, they were broken up into city-states, and each of these clustered city-states was called a polis. You may think of that word and it may remind you of politic right. That is where we get that word. Now, understand this is a hard word to define. It's a hard word to translate. You could say that it means city, but it's more than just a city. In the same way, when we say family, think of it this way. When we say family, that doesn't just mean that this group of people are related. Family means so much more than that. We look out for each other. In fact, sometimes we'll even apply the word family to groups of people that aren't related. I've heard businesses say that their employees are part of a family. Family has quite a bit more to it in definition than just people being related, and polis is the same way. It meant everything around that city, it geography. It meant its people and even just their collective spirit.

Stephen: 20:12

The polis was made up of their collective creativity and their discussion, out of which, of course, we refer to as politics how they manage themselves, which, of course, we refer to as politics how they manage themselves. Out of this group, the polis, there were people that were called out I think maybe you might know where I'm going with this here Out of the polis, there were a group of people called out to represent them and make decisions for them. This group of people was called ecclesia, an assembly, and we will be talking more about that word, but that's where we get that word ecclesia. Each polis was a unique local identity out of the larger Hellas or Greekdom, Just like we have an ecclesia today, an assembly, a called-out body of believers maybe you're a member of one that is a local, called out group out of the bigger body of believers, the body of Christ.

Stephen: 21:37

All of this was developed during archaic Greece, is what we would refer to it in the age of the pre Socratics, and this age would have been from about 800 to 480 BC. So why? Okay, so we have these city states. What does that have to do with needing to find order in the universe? Well, during this time, in Archaic Greece, these city-states were actually ruled by noblemen.

Stephen: 22:08

We don't have time to get into the whole history of all this, but there were various problems Over time. There were growing pains as these city-states grew. You know, you have corruption, you have issues like that, you have corruption, you have issues like that. And so, over time, these groups were overthrown and they were replaced by men that they would refer to them as a tyrannos. Now that is where we get the word tyrant, but that's not exactly the meaning that we're thinking of here. What we're talking about is men who would overthrow these rulers and then they would take over and try to right the ship.

Stephen: 22:54

Now, as you may know from all of past history before this, you know, when you take over and overthrow a government, usually in ancient times they would say that they would try to link this with an act of the gods. But these men here, the men, this Tyrannos, during this time they did something a little bit different. The Greeks weren't buying this. That all of this was just an act of the gods. So what a lot of these leaders did was they would give the people of the polis a chance to play a part in making the rules. People, of course, would be expected to follow the rules, and they were able to get them to do it, not because the rules were made by their pantheon of gods, but because the people of the polis helped to make them. This is the beginning of democracy, not necessarily a republic, but democracy, but democracy.

Stephen: 24:10

We see that in this setting, even the tyrant, the ruler, even he was not above the law. Now, this did lead to some conflicts and eventually a lot of tyrants were removed and we saw the dawn of the age of the ecclesia. Tyrants were removed and we saw the dawn of the age of the Ecclesia. In fact, this style of government came to Athens in about 510 BC. Here's why this is important. Think about it. This was different for these people. The Greeks had to ask themselves were they actually capable of making these decisions? Could men on their own determine laws, determine what is right and wrong? How would they determine that? How would they determine that? How do you define right and wrong? Is there right and wrong. And, oh boy, this is where the discussion started. This is when we come into this age of the pre-Socratics.

Stephen: 25:31

There was one in particular, heraclitus. He lived from about the late 6th into the early 5th century BC. This guy was what you'd call a loner. He was somewhat depressive. He didn't have a lot of faith in humanity at all. He wasn't really impressed with anybody. He wasn't even impressed with Homer or Hesiod. In fact, he said something that you may have heard before. He said you cannot step twice into the same rivers, for fresh waters are flowing in upon you. Maybe you thought it was a Disney character that said that, but that was actually Heraclitus. The thing about it is he noticed that everything was in flux. He believed that everything was always changing, but yet there was a rhythm to it. There was an order to it. Things happened in cycles. He saw all this and he noticed that in all the randomness and all the flux, there was order, there was order. He also in his thinking. He had no problem with paradoxes in the world. He saw that the ocean could be pure and impure right, it's life-giving to the sea creature, but you can't drink it.

Stephen: 27:05

So there's a quote from her name is Eva Brunn and she wrote of Heraclitus on the Imaginative Conservative. This is what she said, quote His physics imagined a basic material he calls it fire, but clearly doesn't mean the same thing as ordinary visible fire that transforms in law-like ways, in definite ratios, into all the different parts of the world, and that it's these cycles of transformation, driven by the logos itself, that make the world the moving system it is. Heraclitus is appealing to the ability that we all have, but he thinks we don't in general use to rationally evaluate the world around us and thought that his logos constituted an explanation of sorts, covering everything from astronomy to politics. Unquote. So what is this logos? What is this logos? Well, this was something that Heraclitus developed to try to explain what he was talking about. Now, in the same way that polis is very hard to define, I have to tell you, so is logos In general. And before Heraclitus, logos just simply meant the spoken word. But now that meaning changes. It's not just the word, it's the reasoning behind it, and so much more. A gentleman by the name of Dr Ron Guadio had an interesting bit to say about this. I'll quote him. Quote From its original meaning, it evolved into what speech represented rationality or reason.

Stephen: 29:39

Eventually, for the Greeks, the meaning of logos came to be the order of the cosmos. Cosmos was the Greek word for universe. The logos was that which ordered and gathered everything into one. In fact, the Greek verb form of logos comes from a root word that means to gather or collect. It can also mean to call or to name. It made one out of many, and not just one, but a one that was organized, ordered and made sense. The logos holds everything together. When we look at the world around us, the logos is what gives us that comfortable feeling that things make sense. Without this order, everything would just be nonsense, as if we were taking an adventure like Alice in Wonderland. End of quote.

Stephen: 30:47

And I will have a link to his writings in the description. I think you guys would love his blog, but I hope that helps you understand a little bit of what Heraclitus was starting here. From here we would see the rise of the sophist. We would see the rise of the sophist, the people who would help transition from the pre-Socratic time to Socrates, going from theoretical to practical, and that would take us into the classical age of Greece. But it all started with this idea by Heraclitus, this idea that in everything around us there is not just randomness. It can't be that way. Even Heraclitus knew that behind everything we see, there was order. In fact, I think word is a fitting way to describe it, don't you? It's as if there's instructions laid out and everything that happens it's all coming from one place and it's ordered.

Stephen: 32:11

Okay, now there would be so many philosophers that would run with this teaching by Heraclitus, and it was tough, because they made a lot of assumptions. They saw things around them and they had to guess. They did the best they could with the scientific abilities that they had. In fact, dr Ron points that out in another one of his posts. He says, quote the pre-Socratics both succeeded and failed. They succeeded in moving away from a mythological view of the cosmos to a more theological and scientific one. They saw not the gods, but a god who ordered the universe along rational lines. The physical world was a world to contend with, for it was just as much reality as the spiritual realm. The pre-Socratics were the renaissance men of their time. Philosophers, theologians and scientists all rolled into one. End of quote there.

Stephen: 33:45

And this is what brings us to Protagoras, and this is what brings us to Protagoras, and he was one of these pre-Socratics, predating Socrates by about 20 years in birth. He had some interesting theories about this, a little bit different from what Socrates would come to Now. I looked at the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy and they had this to say. Quote his famous thesis according to which man is the measure of all things has been interpreted as a first stance in favor of relativism, and his claim on the gods introduces the problem of agnosticism. Besides, his conventionalist notion of justice marks a break with the traditional account of divine justice. As it has been rightly claimed, it also seems to provide a theoretical foundation for democracy based on direct participation. End of quote.

Stephen: 34:54

So here's where some of these arguments are coming up. There is order, these men are looking for that, this logos, that, this logos. But along with that, men like Protagoras are saying there's no problem with democracy, there's no problem with man making rules. After all, man is the measure of all things. But then that does kind of lead to relativism, but it did tend to push these societies towards having a democracy.

Stephen: 35:42

So now we come to Socrates himself. He lived from 470 to about 399 BC. Of course he was executed, and it's interesting, he was executed for, basically, his disbelief of the great gods. If you look into it, I think, another reason. In fact again McCulloch points this out he may have been seen as an enemy of democracy. He advocated for constant questioning and knowing yourself. He even gave us what we call the Socratic method of teaching, which involves a lot of discussion and asking questions. You don't want to be too sure of yourself.

Stephen: 36:38

Lori McGregor, in an article that she wrote about this, said this about Socrates. Said this about Socrates. Quote he believes God to be perfectly wise, moral and good. Furthermore, he believes that man would be like God if he were to emulate the God by doing the God's work. Assisting in that work would be the ultimate form of pious worship, for the God's work, socrates believes, is to improve men's souls. Thus, socrates believes that man can become like God if the man, like the God, works to improve men's souls. This, for Socrates, is piety. End of quote. So here we see that same thing wanting to be like God.

Stephen: 37:32

Unlike the gods of confusion, though, socrates believed that there was a great God above them that was good and that knowing him would allow you to know truth. He famously said that the unexamined life was not worth living. He was even quoted as saying to follow the Logos. It was his teaching, his beliefs, that led him to use logic and that led him to believe that the true authority was from the one God who decided what was right or wrong. He believed that depending on humans to decide morals would lead to what we talked about relativism and confusion. So that did leave him in a position where he was thought to be an enemy of this democracy that the Greeks had fought so hard to get. He did pass down his teachings to Plato, who, I guess, arguably, is probably the greatest Greek philosopher of all time, is probably the greatest Greek philosopher of all time, and he lived from about 428 to 348 BC.

Stephen: 38:57

And what can we say about Plato? Again? I'm going to have to just pull a quote here, and this quote, again, is from Dr Ron Let me make sure I get his name right here Dr Ron Guadio. He had this to say about Plato. Quote the ancients talked about this idea of knowing oneself as a starting point for the knowledge of the universe. According to Proclus, this encapsulates the essence of Plato's philosophy, which is why, no matter how esoteric some of his ideas may seem, he has resonated with people throughout time and across cultures. He has resonated with people throughout time and across cultures. Plato gives us keen insight into our human nature, thus giving us tools to understand the universe. End of quote. So this is Plato. In fact, let me just read something by Plato. Who better to talk about Plato than himself? This is something he said, quote.

Stephen: 40:10

Well then, protagoras, what shall we do about the man? Is the measure doctrine? Shall we say that the opinions which men have are always true, or sometimes true and sometimes false? For the result of either statement is that their opinions are not always true, but may be either true or false. Just think, theodorus. Would any follower of Protagoras, or you yourself, care to contend that no person thinks that another is ignorant and has false opinions? Do not myriads of men, on each occasion, oppose their opinions to yours, believing that your judgment and belief are false? End of quote. That is Plato.

Stephen: 41:00

Plato continues this teaching from Socrates that you have to keep asking questions. In fact, we even see here just this. I see a scriptural teaching here. He says that you have to know yourself. Well, we are made in the image of God. So as we learn about ourselves, about humans, we see little glimpses of who God is. But see. I would argue that to really know ourselves we need to know God. We need to know the God who created us. But he was really concerned about relativism.

Stephen: 41:57

Relativism, plato taught about the forms, that he had learned this story from Socrates about these. If you have men in a cave, you know. Just imagine that these men are in a cave. Behind them there's a fire. Of course they're chained in the cave and behind them is a fire. And as things go by, whether it be animals or people, anything whatever passes between them and the flame casts a shadow and all they see is the form of it. They can't understand what they're really looking at or what is making that shadow. In fact, they can't understand anything really about light. They don't realize what true light is, unless they can go outside of the cave. Even then, they'll be blinded at first by the light from the sun. Even then, they'll be blinded at first by the light from the sun. So this was something that he taught.

Stephen: 42:58

He believed that there was a oneness behind everything. He believed what Socrates had taught on the nature of the one God. He believed that this God had to be good and he had to be one. If God was not wholly good, then he was like anybody else and there could be no true good. Everything would be relative. There had to be one God. He had to be good, he had to be one. He also reasoned that this God could not change Interesting. This led him to incorrectly assume that this God was passionless and not involved with mankind directly. It also led him to not really understand how a truly good God could produce a world with so much disorder and wrongdoing. This really bothered him. It was something that he had to explain.

Stephen: 44:04

Darman McCulloch put it this way, quote Darman McCulloch put it this way, quote Even the created of the forms would most appropriately have been created by one other, that the God who is the supreme soul, perhaps an image of the supreme soul, an image which Plato describes in one of the most influential of his dialogues, timaeus, as a craftsman or artificer. End of quote. So how could God make everything if there was so much, you know, disharmony in the world that he saw around him, even going so far as to say maybe it was just an image of the supreme god, maybe a mirror image. Well, all of these things had to be figured out over time and there were a lot of different theories about it. Some people had different ways of trying to learn about the universe and follow what was right, like Pythagoras and his followers, very big on rules. And then you had others, like Diogenes of Sinop, who basically said well, we're basically just animals, we don't need to worry about rules, his followers people called him a dog. That was kind of a joke about him being a dog and his followers were referred to as cynics. In fact, if you hear Paul referencing dogs in the New Testament, I believe that this is who he was talking about. These people that well, you can look them up but basically believe that we were no better than just animals.

Stephen: 46:12

Now Plato would go on to teach Aristotle and Aristotle would continue to take these teachings of the logos. In fact, in his teaching on rhetoric, he talked about ethos, pathos and logos, credibility, emotion, logic. But he was very different than Plato. Plato was focused on what could not be seen. He kept his eyes up. Aristotle focused on what was in front of him, only what he could see. Plato was against democracy. He wanted an authoritarian society. Aristotle said well, let's just study all of them. So he studied all the different governments in the world. He wanted to take samples. He really is the father of what modern science is today. In fact, in the same way we turn to scientists as Christians when we're talking about the flood or creation, we'll turn to science to kind of fill in our understanding of it. Early Christians would reference Aristotle. In fact, aristotle even spoke of an unmoved mover, but that was as far as he got with it. He didn't see why the unmoved mover would make earth or what reason he would have to be involved in the affairs of men, but he believed it was there.

Stephen: 47:47

And all of these teachings, as you know, were spread around the world by Alexander the Great. Everywhere Alexander went, the cities that he took over would turn into small versions of Greece. The most important, of course, was Alexandria of Egypt. That city would go on to shape what Hellenism was. It is with Alexander that we see the rise of Hellenistic Greece and you have to understand, this form of Greece was very different. It didn't foster democracy. Everywhere that Alexander went, he would put these people in charge and they were fine with having temples and having all the religion of Greece, but they were the dictators. So we see these people who are living in cities that are kind of like Greece, but they don't have the democracy. They're ruled again by tyrants, and again this forces people to seek answers. These cities become breeding grounds of what an old-time preacher I used to know called religiosity that flourished in all of these places. Wherever Greek culture went, people were fascinated and superstitious. Always, like when Paul went to Mars Hill, they were always looking for something new, always wanting to talk about whatever was the new idea that someone had come up with. We even see the rise of the Stoics and the Epicureans at this time, because they're trying so hard to make sense of what is going on around them. Again, I have to refer to Dharmant McCulloch. Listen to what he says about this time.

Stephen: 50:02

Quote If philosophers could no longer hope to alter the policies of cities by influencing the thought of the people in the marketplace and monarchs seemed impervious to the instruction of the most cultivated tutors, philosophy might as well concentrate on the inward life of the individual, which no mighty ruler might tamper with. It became concerned with the proper cultivation of the self. End of quote. So how did they do? Their aim was to find the order and the reason behind everything. To find this logos, logos, the order and the reason behind everything. To find this logos To control what they could, as everything was changing around them. As you know, rome eventually would come in and take over. So how did they do? Did they find what they were looking for? Let me quote Dr Ron Guadia one more time Quote the pre-Socratics eventually hit a wall because they couldn't transcend the material universe in order to find the unifying principle. Plato tried to transcend this material barrier with his theory of forms. Aristotle did the same with his unmoved mover, thus moving the ball down the field significantly further. End of quote. These are the people. You could imagine their theme song being I still haven't found what I'm looking for.

Stephen: 51:57

During this time, the Jews were looking for a sign, a Messiah. The Greeks were looking for wisdom, and then it happened. And then it happened John, john the Apostle, would write about this. He would sit down to write his gospel and he would open it not with the manger scene, but he would go all the way back to the beginning and he wrote words that they still reverberate today as much as they did back then. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God.

Stephen: 53:00

I don't have to tell you that Word is logos, and there's so much more here than meets the eye. Ein arche ein ho logos, kai ho logos. Ein pros tontheonitheos ein ho Logos. What does that mean? What is the meaning behind everything in this phrase? I have to refer you to Bruce Gore. I'll leave a link in the description so you can hear him read this passage in Greek and expound the whole thing. And for those of you that want to do a deeper dive, james White has a great video on this as well. I'll leave a link to it.

Stephen: 53:56

But can I just give you an idea? It's saying in beginningness it's more than just the beginning In beginningness, in eternity, past, there already was the Logos. He was there. This Logos was with God. He was face to face with God, face to face, same way you face a mirror. He was the mirror image of God and God was the Word. This is what they were looking for, in fact, the Word Logos.

Stephen: 54:58

The Jews knew of this as well. In the Old Testament it says my Word shall not return void, but they didn. Testament it says my word shall not return void, but they didn't see it as a person. Jesus is God. He is the perfect reflection of God, but more than that, he is God. He said he that hath seen me hath seen the Father If you go back to the beginning. In the beginning, god created the heavens and the earth. We see the Father, we see him speak and the world comes forth. That's the word. And we see his spirit moving over the face of the waters. That's the spirit. Over the face of the waters, that's the Spirit.

Stephen: 55:52

I'm going to give you a couple of points here, just a few things, and most of this is taken from an article by 1517. I'll leave a link to it in the description. They did a whole article on this and there's several points I want to pull out for you Understand logos means far more than simply word. Logos is the story itself. Behind words are reason and logic. As you hear me talking, you hear my words, but they're coming from somewhere. They're coming from my reasoning, my logic, my mind, what we say, our words are not only from us, but they're of us. In the same way, god's word is begotten, of him Begotten. It's an interesting word. 1517,.

Stephen: 57:04

In their article they said this quote. Let me put it another way the Logos is true God, of true God, begotten, not made, not created, and one in being with the Father, through whom all things were made, and this was done for us and for our salvation. End of quote. This means that the fact that Jesus is begotten does not take away from his deity. He is no less eternal than God, the Father. Do you know what else the Logos represents?

Stephen: 57:47

When you hear a person speaking, that means that you are in their presence. The Word, the Logos, became flesh and dwelt among us. His presence was with us and you know, really, it's still here today. Think about it when you read a book. Even the Greeks understood that when you read a book, the logos, the logos of that person, was there. When we read somebody's words, that person's presence is with us. Now, the Greeks kind of saw this as secondary because, after all, when you are reading, well, that person is not in your presence. So you can kind of determine what you think the words mean that you're reading.

Stephen: 58:52

They thought it was always best to have the person actually there. That way they could define what they were saying or define what they had. Written Presence was important. Written Presence was important, but the written word in their minds was a secondary presence. They understood that the person who speaks the word is the authority on what those words mean. How many times was Jesus asked by whose authority do you do this? Who gave you this authority? Well, he's the word, he is the authority. He is the authority. In that same article 1517, he said this quote truth is more extensive than what we sense For postmoderns. The logos connects truth to authority, and authority shuts down the expansive possibilities of reality.

Stephen: 59:59

If the author is present in her book, she has some share in what the text means. She shares in or participates in the text. She is not removed from it but remains present within it, and that would mean she also has some authority over what it means. Well, how does that work for us? We have the written word, but do we have the presence? Yes, we do. We have his spirit. Jesus said I will send you the spirit and he will recall all things to your remembrance that I've said unto you. We do have his spirit.

Stephen: 1:00:36

Can I tell you something else about logos? Our words are a window to our hearts. The Bible says out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaketh. You want to know the heart of God? Read his word. Listen. It's in the word, the logos, as he speaks, that we know his heart. What is his heart. Have you ever read John 3.16? For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life. This is the Logos, this is the Trinity. I know I've gone over my time by just a couple minutes here.

Stephen: 1:01:48

Let me read you one more quote by Bruce Hillman. Listen to this quote. The Father and the Son are inseparable. They are one, god, not two, nor is one lesser than the other. The Son is not a creation of the Father, but has always eternally existed with the Father and is equal to the Father. There was no time when he was not. How? Because the Gospel of John teaches that Jesus is the Logos.

Stephen: 1:02:21

What does that mean? Well, it's like the imperfect distinction between a thought and a person who has the thought. The thought is part of the person, not a separate individual. You cannot separate thoughts from persons. If you try, they become ideas, but they are no longer thoughts. Ideas, but they are no longer thoughts as the Logos.

Stephen: 1:02:50

Jesus is like the thought in God, the Father's mind, that created the whole universe. When God spoke the universe into creation, it was the Logos that proceeded from his mouth. A word, but the word was God. It was God's reason, intelligence that created the universe. And this word also was casual, creative. It made it happen.

Stephen: 1:03:17

There was no time when God was not thinking, there was no time when God was not with the logos. And when the logos took on flesh and lived among us, he did not cease being God's Logos and therefore still eternally God. Before the incarnation, the Logos did not have a body but for our sake, became man. Thus, in his incarnation, the Logos became Jesus the God-man. The Logos makes salvation possible because it merges God and man in the incarnation of Jesus Christ. End of quote. Yes, the Greeks were searching, the Jews were searching and Jesus was the answer. And I promise you, whatever it is you're looking for, I don't care who you are, where you come from, it is you're looking for. I don't care who you are, where you come from, jesus is what you are looking for. Thank you.