The Bible Matters Because _______________. Shembull

The Symphony

By American Bible Society

The foreigner stands before the council of philosophers. He’s a Jewish rabbi preaching about another Jewish rabbi, but his message has exploded out of his homeland and across the world. He’s used to explaining how Jesus fulfills the Jewish prophecies, but now there’s a different fulfillment to be discussed. Here in Athens, his hearers are longing for meaning, craving a connection with the divine. Paul can see a whole culture reaching out for the Creator. It’s in their altars. It’s in their poetry.

Already he has fought for the right to bring his Jewish message to non-Jews. Some of his Christian colleagues want to restrict the Good News to the “chosen people.” But Paul has been banking on biblical promises about Israel being a light for the nations. As he sees it, the “chosen people” were chosen as a conduit for God’s worldwide redemption.

And so Paul addresses this new target audience of seekers and skeptics. He starts where they are: their worship, their ideas, their art. He recognizes the Athenians’ longing as a universal one, spanning cultures. What if all the world’s religions, art, farming methods, music, scientific research, philosophical searching—throughout millennia—were ways of reaching out in the dark, searching for God? 

Suddenly, our satellite image of the globe zooms in on the intimate. God is not far from each one of us, Paul says. How near is he? We’re his family. Our continuing existence flows from him. The rabbi is now riffing on the poetry of Greek culture, marrying it to his own tale of redemption. The point is striking: this God who created the world—including the vast diversity of national and cultural identity—actually knows our own particular hearts. 

Both parts of this message—universal and particular—are crucial. Imagine the longings of various people-groups, in places all over the planet, expressed in multiple languages—all combining in a symphony, each culture a different instrument in the lush soundscape.

But then listen for that solo violinist standing to offer a singular sound: This God “is what I am going proclaim to you.” It’s no longer a searching in the dark. The way is being proclaimed. It’s near. It’s readable. We can learn it.

Why does the Bible matter for your friends? Because they were designed to reach out and search for God, and the Bible is a point of connection.