In the beginning there was nothing and it exploded. Or at least that’s what some people like to believe.
It is well to remember that there are two great contributors to the early Church. We hear a lot about the Jewish contribution at church a lot these days. But the Greeks had a big role in bringing Jesus’ Holy Kingdom about.
The Greeks liked to hang out in the public places and discuss ponderous things like: Why is it smoke leaves wood when it burns? How dose fire make the smoke leave the wood. How did the smoke get in the wood. Where dose the smoke go now it’s left the wood. How is it the rivers keep flowing into the oceans but the oceans never fill up? What is it to be happy? The elements were very important to the Greeks. Earth, Air, Fire and Water, that is why we have four Gospels, and there was a ponderous fifth element that Aristotle thought may be the eternal stuff the stars are made of. These were the philosophers those who loved wisdom. They pursued a life of leisure – a life of self improvement.
Among theses idol worshipers came the Stoic philosophers who argued the Gods were all made up stories and you didn’t need to be bothered about offending them. There is no immortal soul; so you don’t need to be concerned about death. If you are alive you are not dead, if you are dead you are not. They pondered what it was to be happy, not the woohoo kind of happy, but aderexia a contentment that lasts over time. You achieve aderaxia buy not making a fuss about things you can’t do anything about. By doing everything in moderation. Buy being kind and polite; as this leads to having friends which is the most important key to happiness and the lit goes on of some really good advice on how to live your life.
Then came Plato who thought Truth was very important. Truth was the highest form in a hierarchy of forms that is the idea of a thing that is more real than our tangible experience of a thing. He was into eternal things and shunned transient things. He argued that the god’s of his time were corrupt and a bad example to live by. He wanted a Good God who was the embodiment of Truth. Then came Aristotle who was more scientific than spiritual Plato. Aristotle pondered how one thing moves because something moved it because something moved it; back and back – until you get to an unmoved mover. By the time of Jesus the philosophers around the Mediterranean were discussing Logos: was it Plato’s Truth, or Aristoteles unmoved mover, or was it Pythagorus and his triangles.
John came into this and announced “In the beginning was the Logos, and the Logos was with God, and the Logos was God. The Logos you seek has come in the form of a simple man. A prophet and holy healer, who was beaten, whipped, and crucified upon the demand of his Jewish leaders at the hands of the Romans. He died and rose again three days later on the first day of the Jewish week. And ascended to Heaven in bodily form with the promise to return and bring the Kingdom of Heaven.
The two ideas merge: the Jewish with its nameless God and lots of rules. And the Greek with its rational inquiry.
When the Greek mind encountered the Gospel Truth they encountered something there ponderous minds could work on. There were these three things: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – The Holy Trinity. No one made the other, each is dependent on the other two. They exist since eternity and for eternity. The Trinity danced the universe into existence.
The first name in the Bible for God is Elohim. In the beginning Elohim. That means the creators. That is a plural because there were three. The three part God that created everything.
In the beginning was the Logos
And the Logos was with God
And the Logs was God
John 1:1
The divine dance of the Holy Trinity is called Perichoresis. Three interdependent entities making one Holy Trinity dancing like a jugglers balls in patterns that dazzel the receptive soul.
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