Today was my last day with the students of Torrey Europe. Tomorrow like a proud parent I will send them back and some lost luggage not-with standing . . . Schubert put it best when she said that this was a priceless student experience. We have the best students in the world in Torrey from those that are “cutting edge” to the “nearly omnipotent” to those who can sing (yes sing!) the Requiem on command. Or something that reminds me of the Requiem.
I have many memories that will stay with me always . . . from using my “floatie” to try to keep up with the Teen Aqua Force of Torrey in the Aegean (thanks Mikey!) . . . to riding the Alpha-Mule up a mountain there to see the very form of Touristic Shops . . . to sitting with the group on Mars Hill and pondering the victory of the Church.
Those into the “number thing” will notice that yesterday’s post was 17 and this is 16. That is because the tour had to invert the days due to a thing called traffic. At first this made me sad, because my story (the one I was trying to tell this trip) ended at Mars Hill. I realized God was telling His story when I turned to Acts 18 and saw that we were following Paul to Corinth from Athens.
After the great victory at Mars Hill (Acts 17) where the world was changed and converts were made . . . as if a modern apologist gave a talk at Harvard and saw a chunk of the faculty repent (!) . . . Paul arrived at Corinth in a mood that must have been ecstatic. Delphi was cracked open and anything was possible. Instead, he found the same rejection from the Jewish leaders and the some Roman indifference and vice.
The city is dominated by an acropolis that is more imposing (if possible!) than that of Athens. It towers over the modern archaeological site and is topped by a massive Byzantine castle. In Paul’s day it contained the temple of Aphrodite and the cult prostitution that went with it. Coming from the sea the most imposing vision that met that the rabbi from Syria was this image of the libertine sexuality of the Roman world. Paul, who was no modern Anglican, did not temper his message, did not try to get along, but instead told the truth.
This could not have been any easier when the next greatest site of the city was the ancient (even in Roman times) Greek temple to Apollo, the god of Delphi. Its massive columns still look imposing, but when when the temple was complete with the smoke billowing from the many sacrifices it must have been worse.
Here is what the good doctor Luke says about Paul’s time in Corinth:
1After this Paul[a] left Athens and went to Corinth. 2And he found a Jew named Aquila, a native of Pontus, recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla, because Claudius had commanded all the Jews to leave Rome. And he went to see them, 3and because he was of the same trade he stayed with them and worked, for they were tentmakers by trade. 4And he reasoned in the synagogue every Sabbath, and tried to persuade Jews and Greeks.
5When Silas and Timothy arrived from Macedonia, Paul was occupied with the word, testifying to the Jews that the Christ was Jesus. 6And when they opposed and reviled him, he shook out his garments and said to them, “Your blood be on your own heads! I am innocent. From now on I will go to the Gentiles.” 7And he left there and went to the house of a man named Titius Justus, a worshiper of God. His house was next door to the synagogue. 8Crispus, the ruler of the synagogue, believed in the Lord, together with his entire household. And many of the Corinthians hearing Paul believed and were baptized. 9And the Lord said to Paul one night in a vision, “Do not be afraid, but go on speaking and do not be silent, 10for I am with you, and no one will attack you to harm you, for I have many in this city who are my people.” 11And he stayed a year and six months, teaching the word of God among them.
12But when Gallio was proconsul of Achaia, the Jews made a united attack on Paul and brought him before the tribunal, 13saying, “This man is persuading people to worship God contrary to the law.” 14But when Paul was about to open his mouth, Gallio said to the Jews, “If it were a matter of wrongdoing or vicious crime, O Jews, I would have reason to accept your complaint. 15But since it is a matter of questions about words and names and your own law, see to it yourselves. I refuse to be a judge of these things.” 16And he drove them from the tribunal. 17And they all seized Sosthenes, the ruler of the synagogue, and beat him in front of the tribunal. But Gallio paid no attention to any of this.
I stood today before the “place of judgment” (bema) where Paul was taken by his foes in the city. In the glaring sun, he stood before the proconsul Gallio. Paul, the victor of Mars Hill, got no chance to speak. Gallio wanted nothing to do with internal Jewish politics and sent Paul and his critics bustling away.
(I remembered seeing a stone inscription in Delphi confirming that Gallio was indeed proconsul in Corinth at this time. So much for the history in the New Testament being pure fantasy!)
What struck me today was the mundane nature of Paul’s time (a long visit) in Corinth making tents in the marketplace so near the place of judgment. Converts there were, even prominent ones, but here there was no immediate pay off from the Mars Hill triumph.
Paul had the one thing so many of us lack: endurance and patience to finish the race. He worked over a year to continue to widen the crack that the Mars Hill speech had created. The thunder from that first explosion was shattering, but now the hard word of driving in the wedge to split the power of paganism had to continue. Rejection came from his own people and the sacrifices continued as if nothing had happened at the temple of Apollo. They did not (yet!) pull down the temple to Aphrodite for the greater God of Love that Paul was proclaiming.
Paul persisted. He made friends, some in high places. He kept preaching. That is our job, I think, this side of death. The victory is won, but battles remain to be fought. Why? Our souls are not yet ready for the rest that is assured . . . this school for souls must continue to teach us, but we will succeed (it is promised!) if we will only persist.
Paul persisted . . . and victory came. Our Internet age expects wars to be won bloodlessly and quickly, cities to be rebuilt over night, and all problems to wrap up in an hour or over a season. The slow march of time pays no attention to our impatience.
We ended with Paul in Corinth and this was fitting as we return to our tent making . . . our normal time. The victory is ours, but our foes will continue to rail and natter. (How pitiable and sad are folk like Hitchens when compared to the Pauline Mark Roberts!) Calm, patient, tent-making will carry the day in Los Angeles as it did in Corinth.
I am off to London to see some theater and to clear my mind for more summer teaching when I get home.