How to Share Your Faith Using Twilight

clements33 »

Wed Dec 17, 2008 4:30 pm Agree: 1   Disagree: 0

"even one of their own prophets has said..." and then he uses "secular" sources again in Acts 17 in the Areopagus and again in Corinthians. Each time using Greek or Roman pagan poetry - using "unrighteousness to teach righteousness". All of these things would have been as common to his listeners as things like Twilight

How to Share Your Faith Using Twilight

clements33 »

Wed Dec 17, 2008 4:23 pm Agree: 0   Disagree: 0

Paul certainly knew the value of using popular artists of his day to teach and preach. He must have been a fan of Greek and Roman pagan poetry and philosophy (the secular rock stars of his day), because he used direct quotes from Hymns to Zeus in his sermons and in his epistles that make up the New Testament. There are three famous quotes of pagan poets in the New Testament by St Paul, first the pagan philosopher/poet/mystic Epimenides in Titus 1: 12 when he says “Even one of their own prophets has said, “Cretans are always liars, evil brutes, lazy gluttons.” The second is when Paul is speaking at the Areopagus (in Acts 17) and quotes Cleanthes (from The Phoenomena of Aratus) saying that their native poets had said, “For we are also his offspring.” And, the third is in his writing to the Corinthians where he writes, “Evil communications corrupt good manners” or “Evil associations destroy excellent characters” from a tragedy of Euripides. These quotations were from popular hymns to Zeus that would have been as common to a Greek audience as the Beatles would be to us today. These are not the only times in the Bible that the words of pagans were used by God to teach something true. Evil men speaking evil words (untrue words) and then God’s people using those words to say something right and true. God is constantly doing this. He is doing it right now, through those of us that choose to use Twilight for good...