Читать книгу The Literature and History of New Testament Times - J. Gresham Machen - Страница 16

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The purpose of the present lesson is to make the student feel that the gospel was from the beginning a real gospel in a real world. If we isolate the early preaching from its environment, we make it seem like an unreal thing. Study of New Testament times makes the New Testament itself become a more living, a more interesting book.

In the Student's Text Book an outline of the Hellenistic age has been provided. It has been supplemented below by illustrative material. But in the class the lesson can probably be best approached from the side of the New Testament itself. In what languages is the Bible written? How did the New Testament come to be written in Greek? What other languages are mentioned in the New Testament? What light do these passages shed upon the linguistic conditions of the time? What is the attitude of the apostles toward Greek thought? Is that attitude altogether unfavorable, or did the early missionaries ever lay hold upon the higher aspirations of their Gentile hearers (Athens)? Where did the missionaries come into contact with heathen superstition? (Several fine examples in The Acts). What was the moral condition of the Greco-Roman world? How was the Hellenistic age like our own? Why did God send our Lord just in the first century? What was the social condition of the early Christians? Do you think that was an advantage or a disadvantage? What men of higher position are mentioned in the New Testament? Questions like these will serve to relate the general expositions in the lesson helps to the New Testament itself. The lesson helps are intended to provide merely the presuppositions necessary for intelligent study. God working for real men in a real world—that is the subject of the lesson.