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April 27, 2014 |
| The Arena | ||
Every major center in the Roman world had places of entertainment. This was true even in Israel, which was part of the Roman world. These buildings came in three main shapes. There were Theaters which were semi-circular in shape so that voices would carry. Remember that they didn't have sound amplification back then. There were Amphitheaters which were circular in shape so that the maximum number of people could see an activity at the center. There were Hippodromes which were shaped like stretched circles. The length allowed for racing events. These were all called arenas.
The events at these arenas were wildly popular in the Roman world. There were plays at the Theatres. The Amphitheatres specialized in sporting events - but in those times the "sports" were often executions and blood sports - battles between animals, man and animals, and between men. These battles were often to the death.
The events in the Hippodromes were horse races. "The Circus Maximus was the largest hippodrome in Rome and could hold up to 250,000 people. Chariots were pulled by 2 - 4 horses, and were driven seven times around the ring at extremely fast speeds. Sometimes accidents happened and drivers were often trampled to death. There were four teams - red, white, blue and green - and fans of each team would wear their team's colors."1
These events were so popular that, while the Roman Empire was falling apart, it was most important to make sure the events kept going on so the people's unhappiness with the state of their country was distracted.
For this lesson, the verse comes from a translation that renders it in English a little differently than most others.
6 But she who worships the Arena is dead while she lives.
Other translations render it more generally, saying something like
6 But she who is self-indulgent is dead even while she lives
There isn't any disagreement between these verses; they express the same idea. The first of these verses, however, states the problem using a specific example that we can build on so we'll use that one.
In this section of Timothy, Paul is speaking in particular about widows in the church, but the problem he talks about is not limited to widows. As we dig into it more we'll see that the problem is living for the pleasures of the world which is a problem for men and women, married, unmarried, or widowed. In 2 Timothy 4 Paul talks about one of his helpers.
10 for Demas, because he loved this world, has deserted me and has gone to Thessalonica
The three key parts of the main verse are:
We covered worship in a previous lesson that was dedicated to just that topic. Stated simply worship is a love within your heart that causes you to make sacrifices for that thing you love. The sacrifices can be praise, money, time, relationships with family and friends, duties and responsibilities, and many others.
Specifically "the arena" refers to the kinds of events that were described before, sporting events, theatrical events, and what we would now call Reality shows. In fact the parallels between that time and our current time are quite close. We have very similar buildings and very similar events. One difference is that we no longer need to be at "the arena" we can see it all through our TVs.
In this verse "the arena" serves as an example and thus really refers to all kinds of worldly activities. This includes activities that are not in arenas. The most amazing things can be our arenas. For one person reading books can be their arena. For another it can be nature hikes.
The problem isn't the activity - the problem is the worship of that activity. There are some activities of course that Christians shouldn't be involved in at all, but that's a different topic.
Paul then tells us the result of that worship - dead, while he or she still lives. By that he means spiritually dead while physically alive.
James sums it up this way in James 4
4 Adulterers! Do you not know that the love of this world is hatred toward God? Therefore whoever chooses to be a friend of this world is an enemy of God.
Note that he uses the word "love" which is the basis for worship and leads to worship. Therefore when he says "love of this world" he could also have said "worship of this world"
Those things that we worship are gods. Those things that we worship that are not God are false gods.
As was mentioned before, some of the pleasures the world offers are completely off-limits to Christians. Even the smallest amount or the shortest encounter of that kind would be wrong. But there are many other pleasures the world offers that Christians can participate in as long as we have control of them.
We sometimes see controlling worldly pleasures in our lives as being a numbers game, a few is OK but too many would be wrong. But that isn't the way to think about it. An alcoholic can still be an alcoholic even if he only gets drunk once a month. This is another case where what matters is what's in the heart.
It might seem odd to refer to an activity like a sport or going to the movies as a god but it can be correct to do so. False gods can be people, places and things, seen or unseen. Remember that false gods only become false gods when they have worshippers. It is the worshipper that creates the false god. Because worship comes out of love, anything that we can love can be a god.
We humans can even love false constructions of the true God. If a person says he worships God but knowingly rejects some of what God has said, that person has created a new false god to worship. We see this often in society. People decide to reject some attribute of God because they don't like it, but continue to say that they worship the one true God. They often go so far as to say that their representation of God is the true God and everyone else is wrong.
Just a few examples of this are:
There are an almost unlimited number of things in the world that we could make into false gods by worshipping them. It's likely true that there is someone who is worshipping each one of them. It's an easy trap to fall into and it's difficult to realize when we have fallen into it. Here are some ways to see if something is becoming a false god to you.
Christians, aware of the trap of falling into a worldly life, have a tendency to classify certain things as worldly. These lists tend to vary widely from person to person and culture to culture.
"One result of his habit of categorizing things as worldly, and making an index of that which is right and wrong in the Christian life, has been that today nine out of ten Christians have mental lists of do's and don'ts. They call these lists their 'Christian standards.' And solely on the basis of such a list they blithely determine whether they are worldly or spiritual."2
"Now then, since most of the things that are on [the list] are being done by the unsaved, worldly-minded people around us, there comes a tendency for us, consciously or unconsciously, to avoid temptation by avoiding worldly people."
"[One] result of this isolationist separation is a tremendously increased amount of worldliness in Christian living! Does that seem strange? It is a paradox. Christians isolate themselves from the world to avoid worldliness, and it inevitably results in more worldliness."
"If you really believe that [all] the worldly things are [listed] on your mental list, and you are careful to avoid them, then the result is you let down your guard at other points, and the world begins to seep into a thousand places, unrecognized by you. Instead of being worldly in the ways that are on your list, you are worldly in a thousand other ways, all of them equally bad."
"The truth is that worldliness is not a matter of things, of doing this, or not doing that. But worldliness is a matter of the attitude of the heart, the attitude of life in thinking and dealing with things."
"[For example if a lady] wears a new dress in church in order to attract attention, that is worldliness! You are trying to attract attention to yourself, just as the world continually seeks to do. The fact that you do it in church makes no difference whatsoever. If anything, it makes it more reprehensible. If the opinions of others mean much to you in this matter of dress or conduct, then you are worldly. You may never drink, dance, smoke, or go to a nightclub; but you are just as worldly as if you did."
"On the other hand, if you wear a dowdy, out-of-style dress to church in order to be thought spiritual, that is worldliness, too. The dress, you see, has nothing to do with it. It is the attitude of the heart, the motive behind the act, that constitutes worldliness."
We began with Paul saying people could become dead spiritually because they had gone off to worship the pleasures of the world. Then we looked at what it means to worship something and saw that worship is the natural outcome of love. From that we learned that worshipping the things of the world is the result of loving the things of the world. Then we saw that worship can turn ordinary things into false gods.
Then we took a look at some of the kinds of things that can become false gods and we found the list is almost unlimited. We can love tangible things like cars and houses, less tangible things like sports and other activities, and intangible things like gods that do not exist and false representations of the true God.
Fighting worldliness requires vigilance. A harmless activity can grow into a sin if we aren't watchful. As has been said in many ways in this lesson, the problem is not the activity but the heart and that can change slowly without us noticing.
Matthew 6
21 For where your treasure is, there is your heart also.
1 John 2
15 Do not love the world, neither the things that are in it, for whoever loves the world does not have the love of The Father in him.
Mark 7
7 And in vain they pay reverence to me as they teach doctrines of commandments of the sons of men.
Exodus 20
3 You shall have no other gods before me.
1 http://www.historyonthenet.com/Romans/entertainment_in_rome.htm
2 The Christian and Worldliness, Ray C Stedman, http://www.ldolphin.org/worldly.html