1503 - "Possible Connections with Enthusiasmos and Ecstatic Utterances at Ancient Delphi and Ancient Corinth"

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:01

Welcome to On the Way with Tony Crisp. Each weekday, Dr. Crisp will be discussing biblical passages, people, places, and prophecies. Tune in daily to start your day right and deepen your understanding of how to better walk the way and enjoy the journey. Here's your host, Dr. Tony Crisp.

SPEAKER_00 0:21

Welcome to On the Way. This is Tony Crisp, and this is Podcast 1503. Today I'm going to continue what I started yesterday as I talked about Corinth and the ecstatic utterance that went on that the Apostle Paul addressed and tried to give order to. And I want to give you some historical background and religious background of the area of Corinth that I believe is so relatively close to ancient Delphi that it warrants us at least investigating the similarities between the two ecstatic utterances that took place. Because I personally believe, and this is my personal opinion, that one influenced the other. And I believe that Delphi and what was going on there, which was very, very well known during the first century when the apostle Paul came to Corinth, that it had influence over what was going on at Corinth. And I'm not saying it's the exact same thing, but it did influence it. Now the reason I say that is because all over Greece, even in as far away from Delphi as Philippi, you had the Apostle Paul confronting a spirit that he called Pythia, Pythia or Pythia, as we would say, PY T H I A. That was the spirit of divination. And you'll recall when Paul and Silas were at Philippi in Acts chapter sixteen it says in verse sixteen, now it happened as they went to prayer that a certain slave girl possessed with a spirit of divination. Now those of you who know the Greek text know that that is the word Pythia, and that is the name of the spirit or the oracle of Delphi. So it was a very well known spirit that dealt with fortune telling or divination. Now this girl followed Paul and us and cried out, saying, These men are the servants of the most high God who proclaimed to us the way of salvation, and this she did for many days. But actually it got on Paul's nerves. I love the way that the New King James says it, but Paul, greatly annoyed, that's to say the least, turned and said to the Spirit, This demon, I command you in the name of Jesus Christ come out of her, and he came out that very hour. But when her master saw that their hope of profit was gone because she was a demonic fortune teller, that they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace to the authorities, and you know the story, how they were put in uh stocks and bonds, uh, and that's not a portfolio financially speaking, that was humiliation out in the middle of the agora of Philippi. And this was a notorious deed that Paul and Silas ended up not only getting whipped and beaten, but also put in the innermost dungeon. And of course, God used that and used them because they were singing at midnight. You know the story. God sent an earthquake and the Philippian jailer was saved and all of his household that night as he took care of Paul and Silas. Now, when the magistrates found out what was going on, and that's what they were called magistrates, they tried to shush them out of town, and Paul would have no part of it. He said, You come and apologize to us. We're Roman citizens, you have uh treated us wrong, you convicted us without a trial, and you could get in big trouble with Caesar over this, and they knew that, and so they did everything that Paul and Silas wanted them to do, and they treated them well, and then uh they departed. But what I want you to understand is that this spirit of Pythia, this demonic spirit, was something that Paul confronted, and he did that first at Philippi. But when he got to Corinth, which if you're standing at ancient Delphi at the Temple of Apollo, you cannot see Corinth, but if you go just down the road a little bit, the Gulf of Corinth will come into view. And just on the other side of a lower hill that separates the view between Corinth and Delphi, or other than that you could look right at the temple of Apollo that is at Corinth. Those were two centers of Greek mythology and all the gods, especially Apollo, was worshipped and honored at Delphi, where Pythia, the oracle of Delphi, would make her pronunciations. Now what you need to know is this was historical in every way, and you can read about this in ancient Greek literature. It's well documented. What they found out was under the temple of Apollo, where Pythia would often be, there was a fissure in the earth, and from that they believed that methane gas and ethylene and other uh gases would intoxicate her and put her into a trance, and uh hence she would have these ecstatic utterances. And the ancients says that was enthusiasmos. That's where we get our word enthusiasm when someone's beside themselves with excitement and they say things many times in their enthusiasm that uh they wouldn't ordinarily say. Well, that comes right out of this Greek period. These ecstatic utterances would be interpreted. They would often bring people and even the ancient Greeks, their leaders would come there and seek advice from this oracle Pythia. It was just considered mythology until the archaeologists began to discover and uh those geologists that dealt with the rocks there and the fault lines, they found that fault lines converged right under that temple. And that due to the water and the gas that came up from the earth, that's the answer for w what Pythia was actually doing and how that Satan used that in her life and during that period of time and others where they would be in this ecstatic utterance state or trance, those utterances would be interpreted. Now the amazing thing is that when the archaeologists came in the late nineteenth century and then the twentieth century and twenty first century, even in the two thousands, they found out that the earth had sealed back up those fissures, but uh underneath that they found just exactly what it had been doing back during the days of the Apostle Paul and of the Oracle of Delphi. And so these were very closely linked because there was another temple of Apollo's, but it was dedicated at another place, uh, really to that Greek god, small g, Apollo, to his brother Artemis. And so the two that had to do with uh Apollo, these great, beautiful structures. I have been to both of them. I was just at both of them in May of this year, this is 2026, when I'm doing this. I was just over there a couple of months ago and spent time there and listening to Learned Guide. And I've read about this over and over again. I've studied more, read articles about it. It is absolutely fascinating. The parallels are too close uh not to be linked to Corinth. Both of them were centers of Apollo honor and worship, and one was at Corinth and one was at Delphi. And you just cannot convince me that somehow there was not the influence of the oracle of Pythia. It was as far away, certainly, as Philippi, because Paul confronted it there, and he may have confronted the very same spirit, or at least the uh effects of it and what was trying to be mimicked there. You see, anything that God does, the devil counterfeits. And we know that the supernatural gift of tongues is not ecstatic utterance. The supernatural gift of tongues, the only time we have it really clearly delineated and explained, was in the book of Acts, chapter two, and then again in chapter ten. It showed up again in Ephesus in chapter nineteen, when the conversion took place of those who had just heard of John the Baptist and did not even know that Jesus had come and lived and died for their sins. He was the Messiah, and they believed that and they experienced that supernatural gift of tongues, same thing that happened in Acts 10, same thing that happened in Acts chapter 2. Now there's no other reason for us to say anything other than that except biases that we have, because any type of hermeneutic has to be consistent. If it's not consistent, it's always suspect. The only clear passage we have of the supernatural gift of tongues when we know it was a foreign language and a foreign dialect that someone had never studied, but the apostles were supernaturally gifted when the Spirit of God came upon them at that baptism of the Spirit at Pentecost when God came to live in the life of every believer, and when they spoke in tongues there, the very same gift was witnessed by the Apostle Peter at the house of Cornelius in Acts chapter 10. He said in chapter eleven, it was the very same gift that they had experienced at Pentecost in Jerusalem a decade earlier. Now I'm telling you all that to say I'm not going to go into all of the um details about what happened at Delphi and the oracle at Delphi, but this is a critical period of time, and the fact that they were taken away with enthusiasmos and the Corinthians were an emotional people, they were an athletic people, they were taken away with things very easily. And I personally believe that's what was happening at Corinth. I do not believe that an ecstatic utterance, what I would call gibberish, is the supernatural gift of tongues. I believe it is a deviation from that. And you have every right to disagree with me. I love my Pentecostal brothers and sisters, and I so respect them, I just disagree with them on what the supernatural gift of tongues is, and I am following a proper hermeneutic. It's not based upon my feelings, it's not based upon a friendship, it's not based upon anything except how you interpret scripture. It's not some private interpretation. We don't just come up with what we believe what happened because someone else experienced. One of the principles of hermeneutics that I've shared with you is of course always keep something in context. Always interpret an unclear passage, one that can be interpreted more than one way with a clear one. That's how I arrived at that. But also one of the other principles is, and when you're interpreting scriptures, uh always interpret your experiences by the word of God, never the word of God be your experiences. And I think that is done from time to time when we deal with emotional subjects like tongues. Now I want to remind you that the gifts of the Spirit were not given for personal edification. People say, well, it just helps me to know God better. Well, that's great, but that's not the purpose of the spiritual gifts. The purpose of the spiritual gift is to build up the body of Christ. Now that's consistent and confluent throughout the New Testament. The supernatural gift of languages, according to 1 Corinthians chapter 14, has to do with assigned to unbelievers so that they will be able to validate the Word of God. Now, again, some of my Reformed brethren and others, who many of them are great scholars, they would say, well, all of that has ceased. Well, they're saying that for a couple of reasons, but one is they say that the Word of God is complete. I believe that. I believe that there's no new revelation. God will help us to understand more of it as we go along. There's still mysteries to be revealed within the Word of God that says this is a moosterion. It's something that's going to be revealed in time. But now listen to me. There are places in our world today where the word of God is not available. And I mentioned this when I talked about Moslem countries where the Word of God is outlawed. Now I know that people sneak in, this, that, and the other, but many and uh most in those countries have never read a portion of Scripture. That is the Bible, the Old or New Testament. And so God, in many instances, now thousands upon thousands of testimonies have been documented that have a good result. That is, in a dream or a vision, they're told to go and seek the Lord this way or that way. From many times a person who does know the Lord Jesus and has a copy of the Word of God and has studied the Word of God, and they will tell them the gospel of Jesus and they'll be saved. I just think that sometimes we close our minds before really thoroughly seeing the Scriptures. See, I believe the Scriptures just like as much as those who are cessationists who believe that tongues have ceased. And I believe that it's a rare occasion, but I do believe that there may be instances, I don't know, in foreign countries where believers might be gifted to uh speak in foreign languages and dialects that they have never uh studied before to validate the message that's being told to them because they don't have copies of the Word of God. They don't have access to that, but they have access to the gospel of Jesus through one passing it on to another. And so I just want you to consider some of these things, and I tell you, evangelical, conservative, Bible-believing Christians can be some of the stubbornest people on earth, and it's gonna be my way or the highway. And if you don't believe 100% like I do, I'm gonna cut you off. And and this is why that we're splitting churches to the four winds, because we have no grace. We have no mercy with people, no gentleness with people. And uh somebody that's uh studied a little Greek or they've studied a little Hebrew, all of a sudden they know more than God. They'll let you know that too. Pride comes along with that, and it's really sickening, I believe, to God, and it's certainly if it is to me, as carnal as I am, I know that it must be to a holy righteous God. And so I'm not casting stones at anybody. I'm just saying consider some other things besides what just you and I know. Well, that's all for today. For On the Way, this is Tony Crisp.

SPEAKER_01 16:18

Thanks for listening to On the Way with Tony Crisp. Tune in every weekday for information on biblical passages, people, places, and prophecies. Fridays are for your questions. Email your questions to questions at TonyCrisp.org, then just listen for your question to be answered on Friday's podcast. That's questions at TonyC R I S P dot org. Thanks for listening and have a blessed day on the way.