When Rome attacked...

Our confidence cannot rest in our pursuit of technology... Terry Dashner (www.ffcba.com) When Rome attacked Syracuse during the Second Punic War, the Roman commander Marcellus expected to capture the city with only a five-day siege. However, the Romans found their land-and-sea attack repulsed by a variety of unusual war machines. The land forces were met by stones and other missiles hurled from great distances. The naval attack faced catapults hurling five-hundred-pound stones. Syracuse also used cranes. Some of these dropped huge stones on the ships, while others with chains and iron claws picked ships up, spun them around, and smashed them upon the rocks along the shore. Legend tells us that the city's defenders also used large mirrors that focused the sun's rays upon Rome's ships and caused them to catch fire. The inventor and director of all this somewhat strange war machinery was Syracuse's most famous mathematician, Archimedes. So effective was his defense that the Romans never tried another assault upon the city. In 212 B.C. Rome finally captured Syracuse, but with a blockade and trickery rather than a direct attack. Part of the reason for the Syracusans' defeat was the fact that they so trusted in their machines that they were unprepared in the final hours to use their more conventional weapons (World History for Christian Schools, David A. Fisher, Bob Jones University Press 1984). The people of Syracuse were so enthralled by Archimedes' high-tech-weapons-of-war that they forgot how to employ conventional warfare. And, ultimately, the Romans conquered them. I see a parallel in modern-society to this fact of history. It seems we have become so confident in science and technology--it's ability to save us from annihilation--that we've relegated the Word of God to an antiquated status with little relevance. Especially in the local church do I see this. It seems we are placing more confidence in the world's way--glitz, glamour, and tired programs--than we are in doing it God's way--proclaiming the same Gospel that our forefathers did. Here is a case in point. Psychologist Karl Menninger's 1973 book, Whatever Became of Sin? was not only a startling title but a sobering benchmark to gauge the slippage from the founders' position. The notion of evil, Menniger argued, had slid from being "sin" defined theologically, to being "crime" defined legally, to being "sickness" defined only in psychological categories. In Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan's more recent analysis, Americans have "defined deviancy down." What was "deviant" fifty years ago is today just par for the course (Time for Truth, Os Guinness, Baker Books 2000). Here is a case in point. Os Guinness in his book entitled, Prophetic Untimeliness (Baker Books 2003) says this, "So a disconcerting question arises: How on earth have we Christians become so irrelevant when we have tried so hard to be relevant? And by what law or logic is it possible to steer determinedly in one direction but end up in completely the opposite direction? "This is exactly the fate of a significant number of the articulate leaders of Western Christendom. After two hundred years of earnest dedication to reinventing the faith and the church and to being more relevant in the world, we are confronted by an embarrassing fact: Never have Christians pursued relevance more strenuously; never have Christians been more irrelevant. "The paradox of modern life is that it pretends to relieve this problem for us even as it makes it worse. On the one hand, modern communication holds out the offer of 'instant total information,' or 'total information awareness.' Surely it is now possible to be in touch with everything that matters to us, and therefore to be more relevant than ever before. But on the other hand, the outcome of instant, total information is inflation--when more and more of anything is available, less and less is the valuable." Good point. "Nothing is finally relevant except in relation to the true and the eternal" says Guinness. And I say, "Amen!" The point of this paper? It is this. In order for the church to move forward in today's society, we must reach back to the Book of all books--the Bible. If we are going to impact this culture, this society, this day of modernism, we need to faithfully preach and live the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It might be an old message, but it is still "News." It is still relevant, no matter how modern man becomes. Only the timely message of Jesus Christ will change the heart of man and save the world. We don't need a unique technique for getting the world's attention. We need the unique message of the cross. Jesus suffered and died for you and me. He was buried in a borrowed tomb, and on the third day he rose again. If you will believe this, and receive it by faith, you will live again too. Keep the faith. Stay the course. Jesus is coming again, soon. Pastor T.