Chapter 1 - The Beginning of the Story

Who knew? - times change, and people stay the same! Or something like that.

Reading the first chapter of John Drane's Introducing the New Testament (2001), I could help but sense that not much will ever change with humanity. In the millennium that man has been given on this planet, and even with the revelation of God in Jesus, the people of this world are a mixed up bunch of religious appetites, consuming mostly nothing but junk food. And, as Drane points out, it has always been that way.

The author reminds us that at the time leading into Christ's arrival - and for some time following His departure - the Roman empire was filled with followers of mystery religions. Drane says that these Roman advances were probably "developments from the various fertility religions which had been popular for thousands of years through the middle east." (p. 24) Say! Do you remember mention of Baal worship - you know with it's big orgies in honor of fertility and such. Then I think about Molech - you know, that God to whom the ancient middle eastern peoples sacrificed their first child by throwing him or her into a furnace. God's law spoke out against that - "And you shall not let any of your descendants pass through the fire to Molech..." (Lev. 18:21) And then I think about the massive proliferation of pornography in all sectors of modern media, and how in 2005 there were 97,254 induced abortions across our country. You can check it out (http://www40.statcan.gc.ca/l01/cst01/health40a-eng.htm).

Drane examines the days of the philosophers in ancient Greece - men who searched endlessly, in empty caves, invented in their own mind. These "searchers of the truth" were convinced that it was to be found in the nature they occupied and within themselves. The stoics believed that "the world and its people ultimately depend on just one principle: 'Reason'." (p. 17) Meanwhile the epicureans were in constant hunt for the "good life [consisting] in 'pleasure'." (p. 18) But I can help but remember that in their search for the truth, they killed Socrates for his voice and version of political wisdom. Since then, Descartes has not made himself (or anyone else for that matter) any more or less real simply by thinking about it, and no matter what good I think of John Dewey I can't change the reality I don't like around me anymore than he can from the grave.

It was into a mixed up world that Jesus was coming. Even the religious leaders of His own ancestral people were so self assured that they knew everyone else was wrong - including each other. They saw each other in polar ways - as conservatives and liberals. Some called for war to defend their religious ways, while others went and hid in the wilderness. Now friends, my theology is conservative, and so I know yours must be liberal - but I can promise you that there are others out there who see themselves as more conservative than me and so I too am liberal. I don't want to even start about those in our world who choose to defend their faith with firearms - and I don't even need to look overseas when I remember Waco. I guess every religion has got its take on zealots.

That God would send His Son into a mess like that is incredible. Then again, He was the only One who could do anything to correct the situation. Nearly 2000 years later, the Church He started is still going - even while the world continues to rip itself apart in the same old ways. Times change, and people stay the same. That's why we need Jesus now every bit as much as they needed Him then.