(Biographies) Athanasius — John Piper

The following message is by Pastor John Piper. More information from desiring. God is available at www .desiring God dot o RG.

Athanasius and the Biblical Mandate for Biography

Consider Your leaders who spoke to you the Word of God consider the outcome of their faith and Imitate their lives. This is biblical mandate for biography and I take it seriously. And I ask now that among the untold number of things that you plan to do here now in this hour and in this conference You would grant us to love the gospel of the glory of Christ Who is the image of God and is our everlasting?

Satisfaction more because of this I Pray that you would make these pastors more courageous Because of this and less fearful and anxious in dealing with the truth. I pray that you will illumine our minds concerning the nature of Truth and the way it should be expressed and defended in our day.

I Pray that we would know our times and render far-seeing service to the church and I pray that we would stand against the world For the sake of the world Mingling properly Do not be conformed to this age and Become all things to all people and I pray that someday None would be missing from this room when we gather to be and see and And delight and display the glory of Christ Forever and ever with ever-increasing joy.

Help me now to be faithful to the truth. Concerning Athanasius and concerning our day as your word comes to bear on both in Jesus name I pray Amen a Few comments about books and then we launch This is the Nicene and post-Nicene fathers Athanasius selected words everything he wrote that's available is in here.

So put this in your library if you don't have the Multi-volume set you can get the one on Athanasius and I could mention individual works that are in here that are worth the whole volume. But maybe that later and then this you can read in one sitting and it's a good overview of his life very popular.

Written by a nun I believe and I that was my first thing I just jumped in here first last summer and loved it just got the big overview of his life because I don't know anything about it, and I just accept contramundum and so and Then the Holy Trinity he didn't write this.

This is the most recent big book on the Trinity that's been published. Bruce has a little accessible one that you can get at your people will not read this one. But you might and it's got a big chapter on Arius and a big chapter on Athanasius and I got help from Robert Lethem or however, you pronounce it the Holy Trinity in scripture history theology and worship.

Athanasius’s Life, Exile, and Pastoral Faithfulness

Athanasius was born 8298 in Egypt and became the Bishop of Alexandria June 8 328 at the age of 30 he was viewed by his people as the Bishop of Alexandria his whole life long until he died at the age of 75 in 373 and I say he was viewed that way because He wasn't always there as bishop.

He spent 17 years of his 45 years as bishop in exile because he was banished by imperial forces five times from his country or from his city at least and nevertheless all of the alternate bishops that the forces installed were never viewed as rightful bishops by the people he was.

Deeply deeply loved by his people and they waited for him imagine Yourself being forcefully evicted from your church for seven years and your people waiting Eagerly until you came back and then welcoming you with palm branches after that seven-year Exile, we don't know much.

I think that's one of the reasons why there aren't more biographies. There aren't a lot of details about the life just the controversies. In the whole of our minute knowledge of his life. This is Archibald Robertson who did the editing and wrote the biography at the front of this in the whole my new knowledge of his life.

There is a total lack of self-interest. The glory of God and the welfare of the church absorbed him fully at all times. The Emperor's Recognized him as a political force of the first order, but on no occasion does he yield to the temptation of using the arm of the flesh?

Almost unconscious of his own power. His humility is the more real for never being conspicuously paraded. Courage self-sacrifice steadiness of purpose versatility resourcefulness width of ready sympathy were all harmonized by deep reverence and the discipline of a single-minded lover of Christ and as we all know the way that love this single-minded love for Christ expressed itself was through a life of defending the deity of Christ over against the competing heresies.

The Arian Controversy and the Deity of Christ

The war started in 319 with Arius the deacon of Alexandria writing a letter to Alexander the Bishop of Alexandria in which he argued that if the Sun is Truly a son then like all sons He must have had a beginning and there was a time when he was not now Arius wrote Almost nothing that's preserved.

We have three letters and a fragment and so everything we know about Arius we learned through those who were against him and They were many and yet not as many as you might think. Athanasius was a little over 20 when that letter was written Arius was 38 years older then.

The young Athanasius which is a little lesson I think in itself that Older doesn't mean wiser. Always that's one of the points of the section on Elihu in the book of Job as well, by the way he wrote the deposition by which Arius was Put out of his job and that was the role that Athanasius fulfilled the rest of his life.

He was a writer in defense of orthodoxy for the next 45 plus years 321 a synod was held in Alexandria and Arius was removed from his Diaconate and declared to be a heretic by the bishops in the area of Alexandria and Egypt.

Eusebius of Nicomedia, that's up in the Turkey, it's the same as Ismet Turkey today picked up the cause of Arius and Was the head and center of the Arian cause for the next 40 years in the eastern part of the Empire by Eastern usually the Roman Empire is like the Gauls over towards Spain and then the center part where Italy isn't an Eastern means Turkey and Syria and around that direction and To my amazement in this study. I realized that most of the bishops in the East During Athanasius lifetime were Arian.

This is not a marginal Problem. This was a major major Empire wide problem. Constantine as you know saw a sign of the cross in 312 was converted to Christ and issued the Edict of Milan by which Christianity was made a legal religion and became very interested in Ecclesiastical affairs because when the bishops aren't happy it doesn't make well for the kingdom.

And he didn't like this dispute at all. And therefore he called the Council of Nicaea. And that's also up in Turkey near Istanbul. He had an advisor named hosius and the hosius said do this. We need to get this resolved.

And so 318 at least that's the traditional number Bishops came together as well as non bishops which included Athanasius and Arius. Athanasius wasn't a bishop and Arius wasn't a bishop but they were there and They worked for three months, you know, I thought in passing.

I wonder if we could pull off Councils like this today and they were there for May through August. What church would let us have four months off to go debate? Theology and. Yet if that happened If you pulled together all the all the pastors you could For three months to debate contemporary issues.

The Nicene Creed and the Need for Precise Doctrine

I just wonder if we might not get somewhere but We'll see let me read the creed of Nicaea. The Nicene Creed that we recite today as you know is not identical to the creed of Nicaea of 325. It's identical to the creed that was tweaked at Constantinople 381 which the Holy Spirit was filled out.

The anathema was dropped a few refinements were made and that's what we recite. Let me read the original one. This is very easy. You can read this in Greek if you've had one year. The Greek is is very simple and I want to point out a few things.

We believe in one God the Father Almighty maker of all things visible and invisible and in one Lord Jesus Christ The Son of God begotten of the Father the only begotten that is of the essence of the Father actase Ouseas to Patras this would Ousea became mega important for years decades God of God they on ectheu and light of light kaifos ecthotis very God of very God they on Alef and on ectheu Alef the new begotten not made genetha ooh poieta Being of one substance with the father and here it is homoous ion toe Potri you heard that that word homo Ousean of one Substance it's very hard to use language.

That's adequate here because if you say similar or same or even the word identical. Which is what Bruce was using. They could weasel on those it can weasel on those and it was Unbelievably difficult to find a word and we'll come back to that issue of wording our doctrine so as to exclude weaselers.

By whom all things were made in heaven and on earth. Who for us men and for our salvation came down and was incarnate and was made man. He suffered the third day. He rose again Ascended into heaven from thence.

He cometh to judge the quick and the dead and in the Holy Spirit period now the anathema and those who say There was a time when he was not and he was not before he was made and he was made out of nothing or out of another substance or thing or The Son of God is created or changeable or alterable.

They are condemned by the Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, which was really an absolute exaggeration. I mean this did not happen overnight. There were 60 years of war after the Council of Nicaea. During which time whole decades went by where very few people affirmed this.

Interestingly all but two of the 318 signed it. Half of them threw their teeth duplicitous like many today. Athanasius Was mentored by Alexander the Bishop of Alexandria. He was there. He didn't formulate it.

He inherited it. He loved it. It was in his blood he spent all of his life defending Nicaea and Then his bishop died and he was in 328 now made Bishop of Alexandria and under his influence Arianism in that vicinity died away in a hurry, but not in the Empire by a long shot most of the bishops who had signed the Creed of Nicaea Did not like Athanasius and they didn't like the way he Said that people were heretics if they didn't believe this.

They were just kind of loosey-goosey and they wanted peace they they were called political theologians and so they did everything in their power over the next 40 years to get rid of this man and There was political intrigue all along the way.

Political Intrigue, Exiles, and the Defense of Orthodoxy

Let's begin and watch it happen first. They accused him of levying illegal taxes. Then they accused him of being ordained too young and then they accused him of using magic and then they accused him of subsidizing treasonable Persons and finally Constantine is so worried about all these accusations.

He brings him to Rome puts him on trial. He's acquitted. And then the real intrigue begins. I'll give you just one story because it's the most remarkable. To get rid of Athanasius the bishops including Eusebius far away Conspire to get Arsenius a bishop in Hypsilee, which is up the Nile River to the south to disappear hide in a monastery up in the desert and Then they claimed that Athanasius had had him killed cut off his hand and was using it for magic.

Well Constantine didn't know what to make of this and so he called a council in Tyre and The bishops gathered and they summoned Athanasius to account well. Athanasius had a lot of friends in Egypt and he sent one of his deacons on one of these Search and find missions and they found Arsenius and So they smuggled him off to Tyre and kept him in secret while the trial was going on and at the right moment Athanasius asked did you know Arsenius personally?

Yes the bishops say and so they ushered Arsenius in with a big cloak on and The bishops demanded holding up the human hand. How did he lose his hand? Why did you cut off his hand? At which time they took off one hands cloak and he held that up and another one and held that up at which time Athanasius asked and whence did they cut off the third hand and Believe it or not.

This is the kind of people you're dealing with. He was condemned and Escaped in a boat with four other bishops and headed for Constantinople to make his case if he could with the Emperor and the Emperor Did not find sympathy with him.

Because they trumped up another charge namely that he tried to starve the king's capital by not letting wheat shipments leave Alexandria and he was Banished to Trevor II which is Trier near Luxembourg and he was there starting 336 ad.

Constantine died the next year and the Empire was divided between Constantius his son Constance and Constantine. The second had three sons. They divided up Gaul Italy and the east into those pieces and two of those emperors were happy with Athanasius and one of them Wasn't he was returned? to his sea.

Because they persuaded the Emperor on his side to let him come back. But two years later Eusebius who's running the Arian cause Persuaded Constantius to get rid of Athanasius. So he snatched ecclesiastical power sent another bishop named Gregory to take over in Alexandria put in his own secular governor there Constantius did and by force drove Athanasius out into his second exile.

This was the longest time away about seven years away from 339 to 336. And during that time there was a Council of Sardica held by the other two emperors who appreciated Athanasius in order to declare him vindicated and after several years Constance threatened war on his brother Constantius if he didn't reinstate Athanasius in his bishopric and so Constantius relented and he was back and now he had ten years of peace basically and in those ten years poured his life out loving his people and defending the cause of truth in Alexandria.

Then Constance was murdered in 350 ad and that freed Constantius to go back to what he really believed and oppose Nicene theology and oppose Athanasius and so he drove him out again and this time it was very bloody.

Athanasius’s Third Exile and the Triumph of Nicene Faith

Let me read the account of the way they moved in on Alexandria and this bishop on Thursday night, February 8 356 Athanasius was presiding at a crowded service of preparation for a communion on the following morning in The church of Theonis the largest in the city.

Suddenly the church was surrounded and the doors broken in and just after midnight Sirianus entered with an infinite force of soldiers. Athanasius calmly took his seat upon the throne in the recess of the apse and ordered the deacon to begin the 136 psalm.

The people responding at each verse for his mercy endureth forever. Meanwhile the soldiers crowded up to the chancel and in spite of entreaties the bishop refused to escape. Until the congregation were in safety he ordered the prayers to proceed and only at the last moment a crowd of monks and clergy seized the archbishop and Managed to convey him in the confusion out of the church in a half-fainting state.

But thankful that he had been able to secure the escape of his people before his own. From that moment Athanasius was lost to public view for six years and 14 days. And just a few months later the bloodletting was huge as they came in with vengeance to try to find Athanasius and to put to death and imprison those who had Followed him they forced a new bishop in his name was George.

Instigated a violent persecution and at last the people lynched George and killed him because of their Exasperation at the way the city and the bishops and the clergy were being treated that was the mingling in those days of Secular and ecclesiastical power.

But at the darkest hour. There's a lesson here at the darkest hour for Athanasius and for the cause of orthodoxy. The dawn was just about to break the third exile this third exile that he's just now been launched into for six years Proved to be the most fruitful of all of his times.

Away he had spent a lot of his time up till now in the peaceful seasons visiting the desert monks. He loved the ascetics and there formed a bond of deep friendship and they became his lifeline. Nobody knew where he was because the monks would never tell where he was and That was absolutely crucial and therefore for these years he wrote all of his major works and half of everything in this volume was written during these These six years in exile the Aryan history tracks against Aryans to Serapion on the councils of Arimian the life of Anthony and so on to me.

It is one of the great ironies of history that the triumph over Aryanism would happen largely through the ministry of a fugitive living and writing inches from his own death. Here's the way Archibald Robertson described the triumph of the third exile.

The third exile of Athanasius marks the summit of his achievement. Its commencement is the triumph and its conclusion the collapse of Aryanism. The breakup of the Aryan power was due to its lack of Reality.

As soon as it had a free hand it began to go to pieces. But the watchful eye of Athanasius followed each step in the process from his hiding place and The event was greatly due to his powerful personality and ready pen.

Knowing whom to overwhelm and whom to conciliate where to strike and where to spare. His period then of Abstention from affairs was the most stirring in spiritual and literary activity in the whole life of Athanasius.

It produced more than half of his entire extant works. Let it be noted Once for all how completely the amazing power Wielded by the wandering fugitive was based upon the devoted fidelity of Egypt to its pastor.

Towns and villages Deserts and monasteries the very tombs were scoured by the imperial inquisitors in the search for Athanasius but all in vain. Not once do we hear of any suspicion of betrayal Pays to cultivate deep friendships in seasons of peace.

He returned to Alexandria February 21 362 having been gone for six years. Another irony about that is that he came back because Julian was now the Emperor and Julian was the first really pagan Emperor in a long time and he brought him back and undid all those banishments of Constantius but that favor was very short-lived and when Julian discovered what kind of saint he was dealing with who didn't make a place for the gods.

He also banished him into a fourth exile and then he was brought back from that by a prophecy among the Desert monks who on the very day that it happened predicted the death of Julian in Persia hundreds of miles away proved to be true and Athanasius came back and a few months later six months later He was driven out again that only lasted a few months and he came back February 13 66 and then spent the rest of his day seven more years Loving his people writing letters, especially around the Empire to solidify the cause and he died May 2nd 373.

Lesson One: Defending Doctrine for the Sake of the Gospel

So what I want to do is draw out lessons from this. This is the part that I enjoy most. There isn't a lot of interesting detail to read about in Athanasius. I told you one interesting story. There are many of those but what is Powerful are the implications of his life and the implications of the dispute compared to our day.

And that's where I want to go. Now. I have seven of these seven lessons to learn. Number one Defending and explaining Doctrine is for the sake of the gospel the gospel of Christ's glory and our everlasting joy, I changed the title from what was in the original brochure.

I got that title because I Didn't know I was gonna run into this phrase. He wrote in one of his letters wherefore Considering that this struggle is for our all Let us also make earnest care and aim to guard what we have received and that phrase contending for our all gripped me.

There was no fight here for ecclesiastical power going on. There's no fight here in his case anyway for Theological triumph. This was a deeply Religious crisis involving the reality of revelation and Redemption we are contending for our all.

Everything is at stake and oh how thankful we should be that Athanasius saw things so clearly the incarnation and the deity of Christ has to do with the gospel. It has to do with salvation. It has to do with whether we have any hope or any life.

The creed that Athanasius helped draft Embrace this sentence. We believe in one Lord Jesus Christ the Son of God begotten of the Father very God of very God being of one substance with the Father who For us men and for our salvation came down and Was incarnate and was made man.

He suffered. And the third day he rose again. There is no salvation if Jesus is not God. That's the lesson. We should learn first that this argument this battle over the intricacies of homo Ocean is he really of one one?

Essence one being With the father. Or is it just like it is this hair-splitting as Gibbon sneered that the Empire almost split over an iota as though there's no difference between the words yes and no.

Because they're both short. You hear people talk like that today. It had to do with the gospel and today it has to do With the gospel. That quote that you gave from Wainwright blew me away. I said, thank you Jeffrey For saying something so, right.

Lesson Two: Joyful Courage in Faithful Shepherding

Second lesson. Joyful courage is the calling of a faithful Shepherd. Joyful courage. That's you is the calling of a faithful shepherd. Athanasius stared down murderous intruders into his church. Athanasius Stood before emperors who could have easily killed him as much as sent him away to trevory.

He risked the ire of parents. Because he recruited so many young virgins and so many young men into martyrdom. Because of their radical allegiance to the Nicene faith. Athanasius contra moon doom. Should inspire every pastor to stand your ground meekly and humbly and courageously wherever biblical truth is at stake.

But You sure you get this word? You should out rejoice all of your adversaries if Something is worth fighting for it's worth being happy about. It's worth rejoicing over. The joy is essential in the battle.

Nothing is worth fighting for that will not increase our joy in God forever. Our people need to see that. If you become sour in a battle you're fighting the wrong battle. You got a battle at home on your knees to fight first.

Before you go out make cause for doctrinal orthodoxy. Courage in conflict. Must mingle with joy in Christ. This is what Athanasius loved about Antony. I would like to give a whole message on Antony and Athanasius relationship to this desert father.

He wrote a whole biography of Antony. It's in there it's worth reading because you get the flavor of what the ideals of Athanasius were by reading the way he talks about Antony. And here's one of those excerpts.

Let us be courageous and rejoice always. Notice the linking courageous and rejoice. Let us be courageous and rejoice always. Let us consider and lay to heart that while the Lord is with us Our foes cannot do us harm.

But if they see us rejoicing in the Lord. Contemplating the bliss of the future mindful of the Lord deeming all things in his hand. They are discomfited and turned backwards. So brothers If there are times when you feel it is you contra moon doom.

Lesson Three: Loving Christ Means Loving True Propositions

Stand courageous and out rejoice your adversaries. Third lesson. Loving Christ includes loving true propositions about Christ. What was clear to Athanasius was that propositions about Christ carried convictions That could send you to heaven or to hell.

There were propositions like There was a time when the Son of God was not there was a proposition like He was not before he was made. Or The Son of God is created. These propositions were strictly damnable if they were spread.

If they were believed they would damn the souls of those who embraced them and therefore Athanasius labored with all his might in page after page after page to find Propositions that would conform to ultimate reality and lead the soul to faith and worship in heaven.

I believe that Athanasius would have abominated with tears and thinking Philippians 3. Have I not told you before I say it with tears that their enemies of the cross is God is their belly. I think he would have abominated with tears the contemporary call for Depropositionalizing.

That you find among some reformists the emerging church younger evangelicals post-fundamentalists post-foundationalists post-propositionalists post-evangelicals, I think he would have said to them our young people in Alexandria die for the truth of propositions about Christ.

What are your young people die for. And if the answer came back we die for Christ not propositions about Christ. I Think Athanasius would have said that's what area says and Which are you gonna die for.

Athanasius would have been grieved Over sentences like this one. It is Christ who unites us. It is doctrine that divides. Sentences like we should ask whom do you trust rather than what do you believe?

He would have been grieved because he knew this was the very tactic Used by the Arian bishops to cover the councils with fog so that the word Christ could smugly in anything. Those who talk like this Christ unites doctrine divides have simply replaced a Proposition with a word and they think they've done something profound and fresh.

Lesson Four: Protecting Biblical Language with Precise Non-Biblical Terms

When in fact, they've done something old and stale and deadly. Which leads now to lesson number four the truth of biblical language Must be vigorously protected with non biblical language. The truth of biblical language must be vigorously protected with non Biblical language.

I did not expect to find this in the fourth century. Athanasius experience as I read him over the last six months was critically illuminating to me in the battles that I See around me today illuminating with regard especially to liberally minded Baptists and Pietists liberally minded baptistic pietistic traditions.

Who say or let me put the conclusion like this? The slogan The Bible is our only creed is Often used as a cloak to conceal the fact that Bible language Simply carries Bible falsehood. You can use Bible language to say things that are false to the Bible.

The Aryans were experts at this. They affirmed every biblical sentence at Nicaea that could be brought forward. It was maddening to the Orthodox bishops. Let me read it for you. The Alexandrians Confronted the Aryans as a quote With the traditional scriptural phrases which appeared to leave no doubt as to the eternal Godhead of the Sun.

But to their surprise They were met with perfect acquiescence. Only as each test was propounded it was observed that the suspected party whispered and gesticulated to one another Evidently hinting that each could be safely accepted since it admitted of evasion.

If their assent was asked to the formula like to the Father in all things. It was given with reservation that man as such is the image and glory of God the power of God Elicited the whispered explanation that the host of Israel was spoken of as do not miss career and That even the locust and caterpillar are called the power of God.

The eternity of The Sun was countered by the text. This is the most absolutely staggeringly unbelievably amazing with the text. We that live are all way period 2nd Corinthians 4 2. And since we're all way to say that the Sun is all way doesn't make him any more than we.

This is the way the Bible. Bible language was being handled by the Aryans effect. Day after day the issue of homo ocean was being forced. And it wasn't a biblical term. It just happened to be the only one Available that would keep people from using biblical terms to say biblically false things.

RPC Hanson explained the process like this quote. Theologians of the Christian Church were slowly driven to the realization that the deepest questions which face Christianity Cannot be answered in purely biblical language.

Because the questions are about the meaning of biblical language itself. The Aryans I've seen this railed against unbiblical language sees the biblical high ground as pietists and Fundamentalists and biblical people who just want to say what the Bible says.

And not bring in external pinching clarifying defining words of precision and light. Athanasius saw through this postmodern post conservative post propositional strategy and Save for us not just biblical words, but biblical truth.

Lesson Five: Doctrinal Disagreement Does Not Prove Doctrinal Stalemate

May God grant us discernment of Athanasius for our day. Because very precious things are at stake. Lesson number five a widespread and long-held Doctrinal difference among Christians does not mean That the difference is insignificant or that we should not seek to persuade toward the truth and seek agreement if someone had said to Athanasius.

Athanasius people have disagreed over this issue for 300 years. And there never has been any official position on this. That the church has ever taken. Establishing one side is Orthodox or the other. So who do you think you are?

Half the bishops in the world disagree with you. It was more than half and they read the same Bible you do. So would you please stop fighting and making a ruckus and just learn to get along with diversity?

What if that had been said and We may thank God that Athanasius did not think that the amount of time that had elapsed or the number of Christians that disagreed. Defined How important the truth is or whether it should be?

Fought for and so today we should not conclude that the absence of consensus in the church means doctrinal stalemate. God may yet be pleased to pour out a blessing of unity on Some crucial area of doctrine not yet resolved.

I mean picture yourself as Athanasius. There's no council to appeal to. You realize how much we lean on these councils. You wonder why is he doing this conference? Nobody's really worried about this anymore.

This is done. They finish this 381 finish it's over and we do lean on them. Thank God. Those people fought but they had nothing to lean on. They had to decide is this biblical is this central is this gospel.

And we'll fight for it. And it makes me wonder today. There was no yet papacy. There was nobody to say get the council together just happened to be the Emperor. It makes me wonder since there was no papacy since Bishop Briggs were at war with each other all over the world and they pulled off something like a world council with 318 people.

Spontaneously with a little bit of help from the Emperor. It just makes me wonder whether there might happen something like that. I see be eyes the closest thing I can think of in evangelicalism International Council and biblical inerrancy.

That was an amazing thing back in the 70s. That did a great work for the church in Stating in a Chicago statement something about the nature of inerrancy and though it had no official, you know big overarching ecclesiastical thing on it.

Thousands of us benefited from that collective wisdom. Might there not be a day in which God would be pleased to take some issues and make that Happen. I think of manhood and womanhood issues. I think of justification by faith issues.

I think of the nature of how Christ saved sinners. Atonement issues. I think of sovereignty of grace in conversion. Issues and I'm simply not going to say stalemate. 2 ,000 years hasn't done anything about this.

So it won't happen. Who do you think you are to say it won't happen? Put yourself in Athanasius shoes knowing that the whole world was Aryan almost. Here we are sitting in this room many of us loving the same glorious doctrine.

Athanasius couldn't have begun to pull together a group like this on the side of orthodoxy. They didn't exist. There weren't that many bishops who believed in the deity of Christ. So lesson number five is do not use length of time elapsed or number of Christians disagreeing to say stalemate on any issue.

Lesson Six: Creating Biblical Categories of Thought

That's biblical and important number six lesson number six. I have two more. Don't aim to preach only in categories of thought That can be readily understood by this generation. Aim at creating biblical categories of thought that are not present.

There's a key word in that I don't want you to miss name the word only. Don't aim to preach only in categories of thought that can be readily understood by this generation. Aim at creating biblical categories of thought that are not present.

Here's another way to say that and I benefited so much from Andrew Walls his books on missions and he has a Cluster of ideas that have really brought light at least to an issue if not all the solutions to the issue and the two clusters are the Pilgrim principle and the indigenous principle of the church.

The pilgrim principle says Do not be conformed to this world. Be transformed by the renewing of your mind. You've got to make new minds and the Indigenous principle says I have become all things to all people.

That by all means I may save some. Those two principles do not fit together easily. It's one of the reasons why there are worship wars and Missiological controversies and church planting controversies church structure controversies because the counterculture and the accommodation culture principles do not mesh easily.

Some what I'm pleading for is that you not sell out to the indigenous principle but that you bring the pilgrim principle to bear powerfully some of the most crucial precious truths of the scripture are counterintuitive to the fallen human mind.

They don't fit our heads. The Orthodox understanding of the Trinity is surely one of these if the indigenous principle Had triumphed in the fourth century. We would all be Aryan. Because it's far easier for the human mind to say that the Sun like all other Suns Once was not and came into being then it is for the human mind to say The Sun has always been there with God and there's only one God.

But the Bible will not let its message Fit into the categories we bring with our fallen finite minds. The Bible is relentlessly pressing on our brains to create new Categories of thought to fit the mysteries of the gospel.

That's what preaching is. You're a wimp if you sell out to the accommodation culture. Enculturation principle that's easy easy to grow a church that way Archibald Roberts points out with the conversion of Constantine and the edict of Milan in 313 That gave legal status to Christianity.

There's a quote the inevitable influx of heathen into the church. Now that the Empire had become Christian brought with it multitudes to whom Aryanism was a more intelligible creed than that of Nicaea.

So if your front-end preaching is all accommodation You'll fill your church with people who don't have new minds and the pressure to shape those Doctrines to fit those people will be almost insuperable over time.

Rather I say Alongside the biblical underline that the biblical principle of accommodation and contextualization Athanasius would plead with us to have a deep commitment to the pilgrim principle of confrontation and transformation and brain-boggling mind-altering Re-categorization of the way people think about reality.

That's the hard work of preaching. Easy to tell those stories and put everything in categories of the people already like that's easy takes no effort at all but oh to state the glorious gospel in such a way that it Explodes their categories and holds on to them so that they know the best thing in the world is happening to them.