[no dialogue]
>> Dean Lanham: 
Good morning to all.
It is a pleasure to see you
hear at Booth Library
to continue our series
on Ancient Greece.
We have traveled far to
get to this point.
There have been several scholars
before our guests today, and
we will have many more
opportunities to study about
different aspects of Ancient
Greece during this series.
And I hope you'll consult your
program after the
presentation is over today.
We have several activities
tomorrow, and there is a film
on Friday, and then coming in
next week, there are seven
or eight other speakers, each
one bringing a distinct point
of view from a different
discipline around the campus.
I know probably you all have
many different majors, and
perhaps your major is
represented by a
speaker or two on this--
in this series.
So, there is also a student
drama production where
you will be in the coliseum
in the evening.
Consult your program, and that
is coming right up
tomorrow night in the Atrium
of the Library.
So we hope you will
join us there,
among various other events.
This type of series brings
students just like you
a different view of things from
some of your other classes.
We hope to explore so many
different varieties of
life and study in Ancient
Greece that you will
feel a part of that society if
you attend enough and ask enough
questions, and do some reading.
So its an exploration of some
place that you might
not have visited, but that you
might visit in the future.
So, I hope you'll explore
all of these.
Dr. Wafeek Wahby is the
coordinator of this
series, and I will ask him to
introduce our speaker.
>> Dr. Wahby: 
Thank you.
Well, welcome to A Futuristic
Look Through Ancient
Lenses, and last year we looked
through the ancient Egyptian
lenses, this year we are looking
through Greek Ancient Lenses.
And the spirit of this series
of lectures is to look to
the future through the past, and
see our footsteps so that we
don't fall and I hope that we
can make big strides
doing this, looking to the
back, the future, and today.
How we do that?
This is a genius [unclear
dialogue] I guess.
Our speaker today is a
renaissance man, he is a
multi-faceted multi-talented,
and you talk to him, or
with him about any topic;
he will say,
well, swallow, and give
you something.
And I was really impressed by
the topic he will be
talking about, I will not steal
your thunder, but usually you
think of culture emphasizing and
influencing people but now you
talk about the person
influencing the culture.
It's all yours.
>> Dr. Andrew Robinson:
Thank you very much.
I would like to thank Dr. Wahby
and also Dr. Lanham
for allowing me to come and
to speak today.
I count it an honor to be a
part of this symposium,
A Futuristic Look at Greece,
and so, my topic, as you
have probably seen in the
handout, is the
Apostle's Paul's influence on
ancient Greece.
A little bit of disclosure
on my part, I am not
only a communications studies
faculty, but I am volunteer
pastor for one of the campus
ministries here on Campus,
called Acts, and I have been
involved in ministry for
28 years, and I have pastored
three different
churches through the years.
I have been their senior
pastor so
this is something that is
dear to my heart.
It is not just something
off the cuff, and
you'll find that a lot of times
these ancient symposiums that
when I talk about, it is
something from a
biblical perspective and one
of the most interesting
characters in the Bible of
course, is the Apostle Paul.
I'd like to thank my wife that
she has agreed to bring her
Bible with her today,
and when I need
a scripture read, she is
my volunteer reader.
And those of you who do not know
her, her name is Wanda Kay
Robinson, her last name of
course, I always tell everyone,
she is the sweetest and nicest
gal I've ever met after 28
years of marriage, that's
something
that a lot of men can't say.
But I am glad to see several of
my students here today as
well, and so glad that you are
here, each and everyone.
But the Apostle Paul was a very
interesting character
because, oh I almost forgot.
My wife, I always got to have
her in the congregation too, I
want to explain this is not
part of my costume, today,
for presentation.
My sunglasses.
I actually had cataract surgery
yesterday, and direct sunlight,
you know, bright room
causes me a little
difficulty, now.
Hopefully in a few days it
won't bother me
so much, but that's one of
the reasons I didn't
bring a PowerPoint and show you
a lot of pictures and things
like that, but hopefully, you'll
find this presentation
interesting, in spite of not
having the presentational aids
here with me today.
But the Apostle Paul, getting
to him, he
was one of the, he wasn't one of
the original twelve apostles
that Jesus had selected.
But he referred to himself
as one who
was selected out of season.
And there were eleven
apostles that
continued the gospel.
The twelfth disciple Judas who
had hung himself,
committed suicide because of
the remorse he felt
for betraying Jesus, but the
apostle Paul had a
tremendous influence on
the ancient Greece.
He was a person first of all
that was a devout Jew.
He was so committed to Judaism
that he persecuted
the Christians initially.
And I wanted Wanda Kay first of
all to read, it give a
description, Paul's description
of himself and his
qualifications as or his
credentials for speaking to
the church at Philippi, and it
was in Philippians 3:4-6.
>> Wanda Kay: 
4 Though I might also have
confidence in the flesh.
If any other man thinketh that
he hath whereof he might
trust in the flesh, I more: 5
Circumcised the eighth day,
of the stock of Israel, of the
tribe of Benjamin, an Hebrew
of the Hebrews; as touching the
law, a Pharisee; 6 Concerning
zeal, persecuting the church;
touching the
righteousness, which is in
the law, blameless.
>> Dr. Robinson: 
So the apostle Paul had all the
right credentials of religion.
He was a Pharisee, he referred
to himself as the
Hebrew of the Hebrews, of the
tribe of Benjamin, and so
all the credentials for
persecuting the church and
stamping out Christianity, he
had that, and that was his
number one goal, when he first
heard about Christianity,
because he took letters
from the
governor with him to have
Christians martyred.
You know, to kill them and but
then, on his road to Damascus,
on another journey, to stamp our
Christianity, there was
something unusual that happened
to Paul. He had a spiritual
experience that transformed
his life.
Up until that point, he thought
that he was right.
He felt that he was righteous,
and he felt that
he was doing exactly what
God wanted him to
do, from an intellectual
capacity, from a religious
capacity, but everything in
Paul's life turned around, with
that experience on the
road to Damascus.
And what happened was, there was
a light that shone down upon
him, and Jesus began to speak
to him from out of Heaven.
And he said, "Saul, Saul, why
persecutest thou Me?"
And he said, "Lord, who are You
that I persecute You?"
and He said, "I am Jesus."
And so, that conversation went
on and He told Paul where to
go from there, and Paul was
smitten with blindness, for a
while until he went and met a
man named Annaias, who
prayed for him, and he
received his sight.
So this was something that
was completely, you
know, unbelievable to most
people at the time, that
something like this could occur
because they were so stooped
in the formalities of religion,
and not focused on the
spiritual aspects of religion
and so here Paul was doing
his duty, and then all of a
sudden, this spiritual
transformation takes place in
his life, and just simply turns
his life completely upside
and he realized that
'I am fighting against God'.
And so as a result of that this
spiritual transformation
that takes place in his life,
he even referred in
one place, that in Him, talking
about in Christ,
we live and we move and
we have our being.
So from that point
on, everything
was for the cause of Christ.
And he first tried to present
his message to the Jews,
but the Jews, most of them
rejected Paul's message, and
they didn't trust him, because
he had persecuted the
Christians before, and he would
even try to meet with the
apostles and apostles were
afraid of him, because
they knew his reputation
of someone
who was out to kill Christians.
And have them arrested.
And so they didn't trust him,
so then Paul, when he
was at one time he had so much
rejection from the Jewish people
about the message of
Christianity, and how they,
their mistrust for him, that
finally, he made a statement, he
said I am going to go to
the Gentiles, and
those being the non-Jews.
And that is in Acts
18:6 Wanda Kay.
>> Wanda Kay: 
6 And when they opposed
themselves, and blasphemed,
he shook his raiment,
and said unto them, your blood
be upon your own heads;
I am clean; from henceforth I
will go unto the Gentiles.
>> Dr. Robinson: 
And so go unto the Gentiles was
one of the primary places that
he traveled in his
missionary journeys was to
Ancient Greece to take
that message and when he got
to Greece, one of the
things he discovered was,
it was a, much
of Greece was stooped
in idolatry.
Polytheistic religions, multiple
gods, they had you know, most
of them had believed in
one god per month.
There was a god that they
honored for each
month in the calendar year.
And you have probably have
already heard that from some of
the other presenters that
have been here.
But this, but Paul, here
he comes, and
he is preaching a monotheistic
religion.
One God, the believe
in one God.
It is interesting however, some
of the famous people,
philosophers of ancient Greece
believe in one
God, but yet the society
believed in many gods.
Like, for example, Plato,
believed in only one
God, and he referred to,
Plato referred to
this God as form of the Good.
And then another one, Aristotle,
who was Plato's student,
referred to the supreme God
as the Prime Mover.
But they didn't know what
his name was.
They didn't, they knew, they
felt that there was a
supreme God, but didn't know
what his name was.
And so Paul comes, and he sees
the inscription in
Corinth, that says, To
the Unknown God.
And he said I see that you are
very superstitious,
he was telling the Greeks
of that day.
There's a lot of superstition
that you have here too.
The message to the unknown God.
They didn't know who he was,
and so Paul began to try
to enlighten them to cause them
to understand who the God was.
But let me first say this,
that there was several
cities that he visited
in Greece.
One of them was Philippi, in
Acts 16 and the other one
was Thessalonica in Acts 17
records the story of that.
And then he visited Athens the
capital of Greece in Acts 17
and then in Corinth in
Acts, chapter
18 talks about his trip
to Corinth.
But he did find that there was
so much worship of many gods.
And not only that, it was a
strange style of worship.
Because in one place there was a
thousand prostitutes that were
there at the temple, and this
sexual intercourse, or orgy,
was a part of their worship
that they participated in.
And so Paul comes to them,
and he talks to
them, but even more than the
emphasis on this pagan style of
religion, there was something
that the Greeks probably put at
the foremost of their worship,
and that was intellectualism.
They were considered a highly
well-read intellectual
people, some of the greatest
philosophers of our time
came from Greece.
Socrates, Plato, Aristotle
that we referred to
numerous times, in being a
communications studies
professor, we talk about those
things, about those people,
those famous philosophers
in history.
And one of the things he
mentioned to them, regarding
their intellectual
conceptualization of God, one
of the statements the apostle
Paul made, he said,
"I became all things to
all people, that
I might by all means,
save some."
And so what he did, he adapted
to the Greeks and let them
know in his message to
them, that he
understood where they were
coming from.
That they were focused on
intellectualism, that
they were focused on learning
something new.
In one place, he said you are
pretty superstitious,
because and things you are
always ready to try
to learn new things.
And in Athens, that was one
of the things that
he noticed, that to them, when
he tried to speak to
them about the resurrection of
the dead, Jesus Christ's
resurrection, resurrecting from
the dead, then in Athens,
they laughed at him, many of
them did, and they mocked
him, because they thought
he was
crazy for believing
such a thing.
There was a couple of people
that also thought in Corinth
a couple of groups, or Athens,
I mean, that he argued with.
One of them was the Epicureans
and the others were the Stoics.
The epicureans they
believed that
religion is a form
of ignorance.
That gods are far away and
not to be feared.
And they probably today would
be considered to be more
atheistic, but they couldn't
be atheists in Athens
then, because Atheism
was illegal.
So they come up with this
concept that religion
was a form of ignorance, and
the gods were so far away
that they didn't have any real
impact upon our lives and we
could completely ignore them and
we did not have to fear them.
The Stoics believed that only
the educated are free.
People who are truly
educated are free,
and wisdom occurs when reason
controls passion.
You know we often, you've
probably heard the
phrase before that someone has
a stoic look on their face.
That means it is expressionless.
And so the stoics did not, they
thought people were
ridiculous who allowed
their emotions
to control them in a capacity.
And they also felt that wisdom
occurs when reason controls
passions, but also evil occurs
when passions control us.
Our passions we become
passionate about anything, or
emotional about anything,
then that
is when evil occurs as
a result of it.
And so Paul says I've seen that
you're pretty superstitious
and you have this inscription
to the unknown god.
And so Paul begins to call out
to them that the god that
they had, the name of God that
they were missing, that they
were searching for, he
begin to explain
to them was Jesus Christ.
And how that he had come to
rescue them and to save them,
and so as a result of
that, he had
tremendous response in the
Greek culture.
Ancient Greece was full of
polytheism, worshipping many
gods, but it is interesting to
note that after Paul
influence, after he took the
Christian message to
Greece, today, how many know,
who knows how many people, what
the Christian population
is in Greece today?
Anybody got an idea?
It was pretty much
non-existent, of course,
until Paul got there.
Anybody want to take
a quick guess?
Ninety-eight percent.
Ninety eight percent
Christian today.
So it shows his influence
on the Greek culture
that kind of transformed
everything.
But what Paul did, that just
really made an impact was
he remember Wanda Kay read the
part in Philippians chapter
3 about all of his credentials,
he learned at the feet of
Gamaliel, who was one of the
greatest scholars of his time,
Paul was a highly intellectual
person, but one of the
things I noticed with all of
these Greek cities that he
visited, there was one main
message that he had to them.
And I want Wanda Kay to share
in Acts, or let's go
to 1 Thessalonians 1:5
first, Wanda Kay.
>> Wanda Kay: 
First Thessalonians?
>> Dr. Robinson: 
Yes, 1:5
>> Wanda Kay: 
5 For our gospel came not unto
you in word only, but also in
power, and in the Holy
Ghost, and in much assurance;
as ye know what manner
of men we were among you
for your sake.
>> Dr. Robinson: 
Ok, now Philippians 3,
now notice she said the Gospel
that I brought
to you is with much power, of
the holy ghost, the power
of the spirit, the same
experience that Paul explained
to them that he had
experienced.
That transformation in his life,
and then in Philippians 3:7-10
>> Wanda Kay: 
7 But what things were gain
to me, those I counted
loss for Christ.
8 Yea doubtless, and I count
all things but loss for
the excellency of the knowledge
of Christ Jesus my Lord:
for whom I have suffered the
loss of all things, and do
count them but dung, that I may
win Christ, 9 And be found in
him, not having mine own
righteousness, which is of the
law, but that which is through
the faith of Christ, the
righteousness which is of God by
faith: 10 That I may know him,
and the power of
his resurrection, and the
fellowship of his sufferings,
being made
conformable unto his death.
>> Dr. Robinson: 
And so here Paul says I have
forsaken my previous, all
the things that I
have accomplished for myself, he
was going up the religious
hierarchy, he was a Pharisee,
and all those things he had
obtained in just his career
pursuit, and he said I
have suffered the loss of all
these things that I might
win Christ, that I might know
him and the power of his
resurrection and the fellowship
of his suffering
and being made conformable
unto his death.
And so he said, this power of
his resurrection, so here
to the church at Philippi, he
again mentions the power is
what brings the transformation.
Just like he did to the church
at Thessalonica, and then
now at Corinth, look at
this one as well.
Look at I Corinthians 2:1-5
Well, lets first read
verses 18-25 of chapter 1.
>> Wanda Kay:
[unclear dialogue]
>>Andrew Robinson:
Yes.
>>Wanda Kay: 
18 For the preaching of the
cross is to them that perish
foolishness; but unto us
which are saved it is the
power of God.
19 For it is written, I will
destroy the wisdom of the wise,
and will bring to nothing the
understanding of the prudent.
20 Where is the wise?
Where is the scribe?
Where is the disputer
of this world?
Hath not God made foolish the
wisdom of this world?
21 For after that in the wisdom
of God the world by wisdom
knew not God, it pleased
God by the
foolishness of preaching to
save them that believe.
22 For the Jews require
a sign, and
the Greeks seek after wisdom:
23 But we preach Christ
crucified, unto the Jews
a stumbling block, and unto the
Greeks foolishness; 24 But unto
them, which are called, both
Jews and Greeks, Christ the
power of God, and the
wisdom of God.
25 Because the foolishness of
God is wiser than
men; and the weakness of God
is stronger than men.
>> Dr. Robinson: 
And then go to Chapter 2:1-5
>> Wanda Kay: 
1 And I, brethren, when I came
to you, came not with excellency
of speech or of wisdom,
declaring unto you the
testimony of God.
2 For I determined not to know
any thing among you,
save Jesus Christ, and
him crucified.
3 And I was with you in
weakness, and
in fear, and in much trembling.
4 And my speech and my preaching
was not with enticing words of
man's wisdom, but in
demonstration of the Spirit and
of power: 5 That your faith
should not stand in the wisdom
of men, but in the
power of God.
>> Dr. Robinson: 
Ok, so get, you see, in each
of these cities where he
established churches,
in Greece, that he, especially
here in Corinth, he
addressed specifically where the
Greeks had their major focus
and that was on wisdom and
intellectualism, and he said,
if you have all of this, then
you cannot obtain
God, only with that.
And so here he is saying that
I have learned at
the feet of Gamaliel, I am
a scholar myself, I
understand where you are coming
from, I understand
intellectualism, and he said all
of that, he said I count it by
dung, in other words I could
not win Christ that way.
I could not find God that way.
But he said when I had this
experience with God on the road
to Damascus, the power of God
that transformed my
life, then that's what made
the change.
That's what turned his life
completely around.
And so at Corinth, he said I
came not to you with
enticing words of man's
wisdom, but in
demonstration and power
of the Holy Ghost.
And so Paul was saying, so here
was Paul who was very capable
of intellectually having a
conversation, because in Athens
he disputed with the
Epicureans and
the Stoics, these philosophers.
He went back and forth, he
practiced the Socratic dialogue
with them, you dialectic
it is called.
He had that exchange with
them in conversation.
But he said, if you want to
truly find God, then you,
we have to have that genuine
encounter with this
spiritual transformation
that takes place.
And then in verse 14 of 1st
Corinthians, chapter 2,
he says the natural man cannot
even understand the
things of God, because they are
spiritually discerned.
And so he said if you really
want to understand God,
then you need first
of all to have
this spiritual
experience with God.
It begins with this spiritual
experience.
And so as a result, Paul had
much greater success among the
Greeks and the other gentiles
cultures, with the gospel
message that he brought, than
he ever did among the
Jewish culture, where he first
made his attempt but there
was people who readily received
the message that Paul
had, and we can see the results
of what has happened.
Ninety-eight percent of Greece
is now Christian.
You know, the Christian
religion, or
Orthodox, Greek Orthodox.
98% is Greek Orthodox.
And so, he made a tremendous
impact on Greece to
move them from polytheism, to
believing in Jesus Christ,
the Christian message.
Now one of the things I love
about the apostle Paul,
well, one other thing is that
he was constantly faced
with persecution, everything
that would try to deter
him from you know, sharing what
he felt to be the truth of
the gospel message.
He shared it everywhere he
went, and sometimes he
was imprisoned in Philippi
as a result of it.
He was beaten with stripes
at times by
the Jews, and eventually, he
was beheaded by Nero.
Lost his life for what he
believed in, and I
love this passage and I am about
ready to close here, in 1
Timothy 4:6-8 because it is
Paul, Paul is about to realize
that his life is going to end.
He's allowed himself to be
completely spent
for spreading the gospel
message.
He took it all over Greece, he
took it to Rome, you know,
Antioch, and it was spreading
everywhere, but now he's
done everything that he can do,
and most of the letters that
he wrote, we see the Epistle
of, Paul's Epistle to the
Thessalonians, Paul's Epistle
to the Philippians, Paul's
Epistle to Ephesus, all of those
Epistles he wrote over half of
the New Testament but most of
those Epistles that he
wrote, Epistles being letters,
he wrote those letters to
different churches from prison.
And one of the statements that
the Apostle Paul made was he
said I am bound even unto
chains, in other words he was
imprisoned much of his life as
a Christian, but he said the
Word of God is not bound.
And I think we really have
evidence of that today.
Because here he was, he was
writing those letters,
and he said the Word of God is
not bound, and Wanda Kay's
got evidence right
there with us,
there's his letter to
the Philippians.
His letter to the Ephesians,
his letter to the
Romans, his letter to the
Corinthians, his letter to the
Galatians, his letter to Titus,
his letters to Timothy.
All his letters are right
here with us.
And certainly he gave
us evidence that
the word of God is not bound.
And so, read that if you would.
Here's just prior to his death,
he makes this statement.
>> Wanda Kay: 
6 For I am now ready to be
offered, and the time of my
departure is at hand.
7 I have fought a good
fight, I have
finished my course, I have kept
the faith: 8 Henceforth
there is laid up for me a crown
of righteousness, which the
Lord, the righteous judge, shall
give me at that day: and not
to me only, but unto all them
also that love his appearing.
>> Dr. Robinson: 
And so Paul was completely
spent, for Jesus Christ.
And he has certainly discredited
the Stoic's philosophy
that emotion and passion is
a source of evil, and
the Epicureans that thought
religion was just simply a sign
of lack of intellect, because
here was a man who was
highly intellectual, but what
Paul, the message that Paul got
across was that it is ok to,
that it is good to learn, it is
good to educate, but to be truly
free is to have that passion
for something that you believe
in greater than yourself,
and feeling that you have the
greater purpose in life
than just what you can
accomplish, what you
can obtain in this
natural life.
But what we do, what Paul
said we do here and
now has a great affect
on our eternity.
And he says, "I have fought a
good fight, I have kept the
faith," and he says,
"Henceforth there is laid
up for me a crown of
righteousness."
And so he says the passion, I
get so excited about Paul,
because there was such a passion
for what he believed in.
Such an excitement and he did
not even fear death as a
result of his strong belief
in his Christian faith.
It didn't matter if he
was facing chains
and imprisonment, being beat
with stripes,
he was the only man that
I ever read about in
history who was stoned, and
survived the stoning.
But he certainly did fight
a good fight.
I am sure that he was
concerned with some
of the letters you read from
him to the Greeks.
He was concerned about
their welfare,
whether they would survive.
Whether they would fall back
into temptation.
But yet most of what was
accomplished
he laid the groundwork for it.
And then, the results began to
grow from there and
now 98% of Greece is Christian.
Thank you for the opportunity
to share with you today.
>>Dr.Wahby: 
Thank you very
much Dr. Robinson.
We appreciate your coming
with your eyes,
and we see you better this way.
Any questions for Dr. Robinson?
I have a couple of them if
you are not ready.
So, I'll start then I'll
give you a chance.
What is your definition
for wisdom?
You have read that Greeks seek
after wisdom, what is wisdom?
>> Dr. Robinson: 
The simple definition of wisdom
is the answer to the problem,
or answer to the question.
Knowledge is certainly knowing
what the question is, or knowing
what the problem is, being able
to define the problem.
Wisdom is the answer
to the problem.
And Paul's reference to
wisdom, it was you
know talking about the Greek
culture, they were
constantly trying to find, what
is the answer to our being.
Why do we exist?
Isn't that the same
question that
many young people ask today?
Why am I here?
Why do I exist?
And so, Paul tried to give
them the answer
to what he felt was the reason
they exist.
Particularly to the, he made a
statement to the Philippians
in Philippians 1:6 he said,
being confident in this
very thing that he that had
begun a good work in
you will perform it unto the
day of Jesus Christ."
>> Dr. Wahby: 
Thank you.
Now follow-up questions, if you
don't have questions.
Please prepare something;
otherwise I'll continue asking.
If I put in front of us on the
table, five elements in a
matrix, how would you relate
them to each other?
How would you organize them?
Like, for example, data,
information,
facts, knowledge, and wisdom.
How would you organize
them, or would
you eliminate any of the list?
Or put them together?
How would you make something
out of this?
>> Dr. Robinson: 
Well, I think what I'd do,
is first of all, because I
mentioned previously
with Paul's preaching to the
Greeks was, the first
thing that he mentioned
was the encounter,
the spiritual element.
I think that would be on of the
five is that the spiritual.
That is one of the things that
even scientists, and
doctors, and much of our
research today demonstrates
that there is a, something to
this spiritual element of a
person, that we are not just
mind, soul, and mind and body,
but we there's a spiritual
element for us as well, and if
that spiritual element doesn't
find fulfillment, then
it can cause some, quite a
few complications.
Like, even doctors have
discovered, that prayer is
something that is helpful in
people's healing process,
and minimizing pain.
But the spiritual element
will be key,
because it is like if the
spiritual element is not where
it should be, then it is like
everything else doesn't bring us
satisfaction or fulfillment for
individuals, so that
would be number one.
And then another thing would
be, the next thing
would be knowledge.
And, but all of this ties
together, if we
look at it from where I was
sharing the scriptural basis,
the Bible tells us that the
beginning, that the fear of God
is the beginning of knowledge,
and that the fear of God is
the beginning of wisdom.
And the fear of God is the
beginning of understanding.
And so all of those would
be, if we had that
spiritual element, that
spiritual connection, first of
all, then it gives us a deeper
understanding to anything
else within in knowledge, or
wisdom, or understanding,
or any of the other five things
that you mentioned, the data.
Now one other thing that
Aristotle disagreed with
polytheism, because he said
there's not enough
empirical research to support
that, and so that was his
basis for the belief in
the supreme God.
>> Dr. Wahby:
Enlightenment is has a
definition in the dictionary
but it has some
understanding of the term,
and connotations
and different faiths, or
beliefs or belief systems.
Is there any relation between
enlightenment either
by definition by dictionary,
or by
faith, different faiths,
and wisdom?
>>Dr. Robinson:
Well, I think, well
enlightenment would be coming
to a new understanding,
of course, that one could not
arrive at with his own efforts.
It comes to an individual, and
what's the second part of
your question again?
>> Dr. Wahby: 
Are they related to each other?
I mean are they related or
don't they relate?
>> DR. Robinson: 
Well, I think you could find
some relation there with
enlightenment and this, but of
course, everyone has their
belief systems, and it is not
hard to find what mine is, with
the things that to me the
enlightenment and just from
a personal perspective.
I talk about enlightenment,
and what brings
about that clear understanding
where everything
else is bearable in life, and no
matter what happens in the
world, no matter whether it is
adverse circumstances,
whether it is death of a family
member, whether it is a
career problem that you are
having to deal with, if
you have that enlightenment, or
that what I call that
relationship with God, and
that's one of the things that
the Apostle Paul was emphasizing
to the Greeks, that it is not
about religion, it's not about
following religious
principles, but it's about a
relationship, and so what
he was promoting was you can
have an actual genuine
relationship with God, and
so that's where Paul
emphasizes, well, that he said
in Him, talking about God,
we live and we move, and
we have our being.
And so, outside of that, he
said, 'the natural man cannot
understand the things of God,
neither can he know them,
because they are spiritually
discerned'.
And so he said, outside
of God, if we try to
obtain utopia, without God, or
outside of God, it is
impossible, but with God,
he emphasized
that all things are possible.
And one statement that he made
to the Philippians in
Philippians 4:13, he said ,"I
can do all things through
Christ, which strengthens me."
>> Dr. Wahby: 
Well, I tell my students; if you
don't speak [unclear dialogue]
it will be a monologue.
I'll continue talking, so
please, anybody?
I have a question about
foolishness.
We can't talk about
wisdom without
talking about foolishness.
Now, it has been said about
Solomon, King
Solomon that he was a wisest
man who ever lived.
Not before him, not after him,
was wise, as wisdom,
but he did some foolish things.
Very foolish things.
How come and his wisdom
stayed with
him, so how would you
talk about that?
>> Dr. Robinson: 
Well, to me I can find a lot of
answers in the wisdom book that
you know there's a passage
that says it gives some callings
of God, or without repentance,
so we have these gifts in our
lives that are a part of who we
are, they are basically
God-given and they'll operate
in our lives whether we choose
to use them, to advance the
kingdom of God or not, they are
there because they are a part
of who we are, and a part
of our orientation.
>> Dr. Wahby: 
Ok, last question about Athens.
It is said here that
Athenians are
either natives, or visitors.
They have nothing to do other
than talk about something new.
They want to know
something new.
They have all these gods and so
forth, and Paul talked to
them and he made his
presentations very well, but
will you find it interesting
that these people are so
intellectual or at least
searching for wisdom
or searching for knowledge they
laughed at him and very few
listened, very few number
believed in what he said?
>> Dr. Robinson: 
A few wanted to hear more of
what he had to say.
>> Dr. Wahby: 
Yes, very few, and he was killed
eventually, and now you
tell us it is 98%?
>> Dr. Robinson: 
Yes!
Yeah, sometimes you just have
to be patient and
wait and see the results.
One of the things that we are
not familiar with
in our American society, our
individualistic culture,
is that, is the practice of
delayed gratification.
And
>> Dr. Wahby: 
We want it now!
>> Dr. Robinson: 
Yeah, we want it immediately!
Instant tea, instant coffee,
fast food, McDonalds, if
they don't have that cow ready
in about 30 seconds,
then they say what's wrong
with them?
But with, when it comes to these
spiritual aspects, and the
transformation there,
patience is key.
And because there is a
scripture that says
"because in your patience
possess ye your soul".
>> Dr. Wahby: 
Well, it is lunchtime I think
and would you please
give a round
of applause to Dr. Robinson?
>> Dr. Robinson: 
Thank you.
[no dialogue]
