DECATUR AND LOCUST GROVE II

When you talk to many folks in Decatur, GA, you’re talking to the erudite. Emory University is there with its 14,769 students who chase degrees at its undergraduate and graduate schools. Emory is pricey: tuition and fees for 2015-2016 came in at a tony $46,314. Of those who applied to enroll in the friendly confines of Emory in the fall of 2015, only 26% got in. That’s one persnickety university. By way of comparison, the University of Texas accepts “those who have graduated or are on track to graduate from high school or have received a GED. (However, the University of Texas has a better football team than Emory.)

But Emory isn’t the only kid on the block. Decatur is the county seat of DeKalb and within that small area, you’ll find Agnes Scott College as well as Oglethorpe University. More education per square mile than you can shake a stick at.

CAN WE TALK?

So, let’s talk to the erudite about spiritual matters, about the fact that God is love, just, holy, and sovereign (the #1 Ruler). Let’s talk to these modern Athenians about their problem—their sin which forms a barrier between them and God and how their good works can’t break that barrier. Let’s discuss with them that God sent His Son, Jesus, to die for all their sins, that Jesus, rose from the dead and offers forgiveness and eternal life to them freely upon trusting Him alone.

HE’S GOT AN ISSUE

The Athenian presents us with a problem since we’ve been saying over and over again, “The Bible says,” “the Bible says,” and (again) “the Bible says.” The problem is that he doesn’t give any authority to the Book we’ve been quoting, and so, he asks us, “You say the Bible is the Word of God. How do you know that?”

He doesn’t buy into our Book because his education has blocked the Book and its Author from his worldview and this blockage hasn’t been an accident or inadvertent. It’s part of the system, but he doesn’t know that (II Cor. 4:4; I John 5:19). According to Romans 1, there’s been a great deal of suppression going on.

So, can we talk to him or when we try, are we talking past each other? What to do?

THE PROBLEM

We’re coming from a different starting point than the Athenian and that’s what’s causing the problem. We’re starting with the Bible as our authority and he isn’t. We place nothing above the Bible as our authority; he does. His authority is, just as we saw last week in Part I, is his three-pound unaided brain which is limited and infected.

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR HIM AND US?

When we say that the Bible is our ultimate authority, what do we mean? We mean that we can go to no higher authority for truth. “Your Word is truth,” Jesus said. That settles the matter. Proverbs points out that, for the believer, the Word of God is his starting point: “The fear of the Lord (i. e. a positive response to the revelation of God) is the beginning of wisdom.”

Take the question, “How much is a gallon?” How do we know that when we pump gas, that the gallon we’re buying is really a gallon and not 3.9 quarts? We know because the gas pump is certified by an agency of the state government. That organization settles the matter. My gallon container isn’t the final authority; what the bureau says is a gallon IS a gallon. End of story.

The Athenian asks, “Why do you say the Bible is the Word of God?” How would you answer? To answer that question, we can only go to our highest authority, the Bible itself. Our answer is, “Because it says it is.”

WHOA!

Whoa! The Athenian calls, “Foul! You’re reasoning in a circle when you say that the Bible is the Word of God because the Bible says it’s the Word of God.” And he’d be right. But he doesn’t realize that’s exactly what he’s doing within his own system.

What’s his ultimate authority for truth and how does he know it is ultimate? His ultimate authority is his three pound unaided and infected brain. How does he know his brain is the ultimate authority? Because his brain says it is. Whoa! He’s reasoning in a circle. Ultimately everyone has to.  

For the vast majority of Athenians, they don’t realize that they’re reasoning in a circle; the Athenians only see us as doing it, but they do the same thing. He’s starting from his ultimate presupposition, “My mind, my reason, is my only tool for knowledge.” That’s why he and we can look at the same evidence and come to a radically different interpretation of it.

He may say, “Science tells us . . .” But in reality “science” doesn’t tell us anything. It can’t. What’s “telling us” isn’t science, but people interpreting with their minds what they’re seeing and hearing in the world around them.

TWO NAZI CHILDREN

A Jewish lawyer took the son of a Nazi, now grown old, to locations where his father committed atrocities against his Jewish grandparents and parents. He took Horst to the place where his father, as the appointed governor, had executed thousands of Jews, to the place where his father had locked his grandfather in a synagogue with other Jews and burned them alive. He took him to the place where his father forced the Jews as they walked single file, having each one in turn shot in the head and fall into a mass grave. He took him to walk on the land where they buried the bodies. He took him to the Nuremberg  courtroom where his father was tried, found guilty, and then to his cell and then to the place where he was executed for his crimes.

Confronted with all of his, the Nazi’s son said, “No, that’s not true. My father was a good man. I have letters from people who say, “Your father was a good man.”

The Jewish lawyer asked him, “Why do you say that he didn’t do these things, murder those thousands and thousands of Jews in the light of everything I’ve showed you?”

Horst answered, “Prove it. Show me a document with his name on it ordering such a thing to be done.”

The lawyer said, “I have such a document right here; here it is and there is your father’s name on it, dated in 1946 in which the Russians and the Poles are requesting the Americans turn him over to them for war crimes.”  He produced the document and handed it the Nazi’s son. He read it and said, “This is general, not specific; he didn’t do what you say he did.”

Then the Jewish lawyer produced a letter from Horst’s father to his wife in which he said that he had to get back to Poland and finish what he’d started and two weeks later, 75,000 Jews had been executed in the area under his authority.

Still, the document, the courtroom verdict, and the letter written by his own father made no dent in Horst. “My father was a good man,” he kept saying. No evidence could convince him otherwise because of that presupposition, “My father was a good man.”

In the same way, the modern day Athenian will suppress the facts.

TO BE CONTINUED