Plato (400s BC) came to be understood as teaching that the real
world is not this world but the real world is the ideal world of perfect forms
in another realm. Alcorn says that the Christianity practiced by many Christians
could really be called Christoplatonism – a Christianity that equates any
enjoyment of the material gifts of God (food, drink, color, cars, Superbowls)
with sin. The early church was influenced by Platonism, Gnosticism, and Manichaeism, all philosophies that teach a dualistic view that says spirit is good and
physical is bad. Some of the Desert Fathers took this so far that they lived in
caves, deserts, and on top of poles to deny themselves the sinful “pleasures”
of this evil world.
Alcorn is not advocating debauchery rather a balanced view that
sees God as our all in all who gives good gifts to his children. While some
Christians need to be called to not turn God’s gifts into idols, this chapter
is for those who may have been tyrannized by a theology that says “if you are
enjoying any THING you must be sinning.”
Here are some biblical thoughts to counteract this THING-denying
theology.
1. After creating the world (stuff) God called it good.
2. God commanded the Israelites to celebrate his feasts with feasting,
food, and joyful singing.
3. Jesus was sarcastically called a drunkard and a glutton because
he ate with sinners (note – he never sinned in his life. And he did a 40 day
fast too).
4. He rose from the dead bodily, will raise us bodily, and will
place us on a New Earth for eternity.
5. Ecclesiastes 9:7-9 tells us to, “Go, eat
your bread with joy, and drink your wine with a merry heart, for God has
already approved what you do. 8 Let your garments be always white.
Let not oil be lacking on your head. Enjoy life with the wife whom you love,
all the days of your vain (fleeting) life that he has given you under the sun,
because that is your portion (reward) in life and in your toil at which you
toil under the sun.”
6. After warning us about putting our ultimate hope in riches, Paul tells us to set our hopes on “God, who richly provides us with everything to enjoy” (1 Timothy 6:17).
“There is no good trying to be more spiritual than God. God never
meant man to be a purely spiritual creature. That is why He uses material
things like bread and wine to put the new life into us. We may think this
rather crude and unspiritual. God does not: He invented eating. He likes
matter. He invented it.”
“I know some muddleheaded Christians have talked as if
Christianity thought that sex, or the body, or pleasure, were bad in
themselves. But they were wrong. Christianity is almost the only one of the
great religions which thoroughly approves of the body—which believes that
matter is good, that God Himself once took on a human body, that some kind of
body is going to be given to us even in Heaven and is going to be an essential
part of our happiness, our beauty and our energy.”
Know thyself.
Do you find it hard to enjoy God’s good gifts to His glory? Do you
feel guilty when you enjoy life? You might just have fallen into Christoplatonism.
How can we overcome Christoplatonism without falling into the other extreme,
Christopaganism?
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