Two Cities – Part 5 – The Long Conversation
In his introduction to the Everyman’s Library edition of The City of God, Sir Ernest Barker observed, “This is what makes the work one of the great turning-points in the history of human destiny: It stands on the confines of two worlds, the classical and the Christian, and it points the way into the Christian. For there is never a doubt, in all the argument, from the first words of the first chapter of the first book, of the victory of that ‘most glorious city of God’ proclaimed, as with the voice of a trumpet, in the very beginning and prelude.” He referred to Augustine’s great work as “his lifelong task of justification and interpretation of the Christian faith” (p. viii).
Augustine took 13 years to write his masterpiece, releasing it in periodic installments until the whole was completed a few years before his death. His work can be seen as a kind of long conversation, and it suggests an approach to confronting wrong belief that can help Christians today in their calling to be witnesses for our Lord Jesus Christ.
Augustine may have modeled his approach to justifying the Christian faith on his own experience. He began his journey to faith as one of those privileged Roman elites who considered themselves the keepers of civilization. As the Lord began to work on him—through the prayers of his mother, his own unsettled moral state, and the witness of Ambrose of Milan—he came to see the folly of his chosen Manichaean faith, a form of wrong belief that appealed to certain elites but which, upon rational examination, held no water. Moving on from there, Augustine resolved to believe nothing that did not satisfy the tenets of reason. This led him to embrace certain moral adjustments—he left off attending the gladiatorial games and drinking himself drunk each night, but held on to his licentiousness. He began to go to church, but only to appreciate the singing of the believers and the eloquence of Ambrose.
Soon enough, reason broke through to the image of God in his soul, and Augustine professed himself a believer in God. He embarked on a devoted pursuit of God, but he steered clear of Jesus because of the Nazarene’s insistence on purity. The more Augustine sought to know God, the further away God seemed. He became anxious in his soul, feeling that what reason told him he must achieve—the knowledge of God—was forever eluding and even mocking him.
His quest left him with what Michael Polanyi referred to as “the intimation of a mental satisfaction which is lacking,” the result of his failure to reason his way to God apart from Jesus. But this intimation of a deep-seated dissatisfaction in his soul ultimately led to his conversion. Anxious and despairing one afternoon in his mother’s garden, he heard a child’s voice singing a song he did not recognize: “Take up and read, take up and read.” He took up a Bible from a nearby table and opened it at random to Romans 13.13, 14: “Let us walk properly, as in the day, not in revelry and drunkenness, not in lewdness and lust, not in strife and envy. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to fulfill its lusts.” Jesus broke through to him at that moment, and he gave his life to the Lord.
It was a long journey for Augustine, and he considered that it would probably be a long journey for many of his readers as he sought to lead them out of the darkness of wrong belief and the city of man into the truth that is in Jesus in the City of God. We must be prepared to engage wrong believers in our generation with just the same kind of long conversations that may unsettle their souls enough to open a fissure for the light of truth to break through.
Barker’s comments summarize Augustine’s approach to the long conversation, and we can learn from them how we must proceed.
First, be clear about your objective. Our goal must always and only be to justify and interpret the Christian faith as the only path to true beauty, goodness, and truth because Jesus is the only way into eternal life with God (Jn. 14.6). We must be absolutely and immovably convinced of this. And we must know our position thoroughly and be always ready to give a reason for the hope that is within us (1 Pet. 3.15).
Second, we’ll need to practice straddling two worlds—that of the various forms of wrong belief that characterize our secular age and that of the Gospel of the Kingdom. Our purpose in this is not to halt between two opinions or think we might be able to serve two masters. We want to come alongside our wrong believing generation, showing the love of Jesus, taking a sincere interest in their worldview, and engaging in conversations designed ultimately to demonstrate our generation’s wrong belief and point beyond it to the truth that is in Jesus.
We must be patient yet firm, exposing the contradictions and inconsistencies of the worldviews of our secular age and demonstrating from Scripture how God accounts for and regards the folly of wrong belief. Our approach will be here a little, there a little, line upon line, precept upon precept, praying and waiting on the Holy Spirit to unsettle too-easily-satisfied souls and pave the way for the Word of God to break through.
Like Daniel, conducting his long conversation with Nebuchadnezzar, we must be quick to learn, ready to serve, patient to convince, willing to convict, and trusting only in the Lord to do as He will to bring our conversation partners to their senses.
We may not achieve a turning-point in history by our efforts. But if we will be faithful in our calling as witnesses for Christ—by our words and our demeanor—we may be assured that such as the Lord are calling to Himself will indeed be saved.
So today, make sure you know the people to whom God is sending you for long conversations. Pray that He will direct your steps and give you the wisdom and direction to engage your friends, co-workers, and family members with the love of Jesus, in the hope of leading them to know, love, and serve Him with you.