Do you remember when movies went away during COVID? That was kind of a bummer. I like going to movies sometimes. We were watching Onward at the Riverton, Wyoming downtown Theater there, and we came out and there were news stories. It was like there's the apocalypse, there's no more movies, all the movies are canceled, and everything shut down for a few months. I started to kind of miss movies. And when the movie theaters reopened, they all started running these pre-roll, very dramatic ads before you would watch the actual movie. So you'd get all the trailers and then you'd think, oh, it's movie time. No. First, you're gonna watch Nicole Kidman walk through a rainy parking lot into a Cineplex and get some snacks that she would never consume in real life. And then she's gonna deliver this ridiculously dramatic, self-important monologue straight to camera about the silver screen and how we see the best of ourselves in film, and how humanity once groveled in boredom, clawing out to the gods, begging for deliverance, and the gods gave us cinema. That's not exactly what she said, but it was, I mean, it was very self-important. And then that would get over with, and you'd watch Madame Webb or Morbius or Moonfall or whatever movie came out during that era. And this really hasn't gone away. You go to the movie theater, you get self-aggrandizing movie theater stuff. You watch the Academy Awards, it's oh, the importance of film. It's all so self-congratulatory. And likewise, I think that's also kind of the tone of maybe the most famous beloved philosophy book of the pre-Jesus world, that being Plato's Republic. That's the one everybody's heard of. It's the one that unfortunately we all encounter at like age 18 or 19. And you power through it for an assignment, your freshman year, you write a dumb little integration paper, and then you never really think about the republic again. But in your brain, it's kind of cemented as really good thinking, and that's kind of the ideal from the ancient world about how to think about the you know government and stuff like that. But when you go back and you read The Republic as an adult, you realize it's got kind of a Nicole Kidman cinema pre-roll ad self-congratulatory air to it. Plato is very smitten with the philosophers and the idea of philosophy and how enlightened philosophers are, and how philosophers are the only ones who really get how the things are, and he has this idea that philosophers should run everything. Now, in fairness to Plato, he's a very smart guy. He's pretty socially sophisticated in terms of how he delivers those opinions. He writes these dialogues, like we talked about a while back with Timaeus, where different characters bounce ideas back and forth. And usually the main talky character in Plato's work is his mentor, Socrates. And then usually there's a listeny character, a straight man, a dude whose job it is to just be like, oh, that makes sense. Yes, okay, I agree. And in the case of the part of the Republic that we're about to look at today, that listen-e character is Glaucon, G-L-A-U-C-O-N. I think this is supposed to be Plato's brother. And again, I say, when you go and put your social emotional adult brain on this book and you reread it again through adult lenses, you kind of see the insecurity from Plato, you see the self-congratulatory nature of all of this, and it's kind of comical that one of the biggest thrusts of this most famous of philosophy books is that it would probably be best if the person who wrote this book were in charge of everything, just for everyone's good. Maybe he has a point, maybe he doesn't. You can go read The Republic if you want to to figure it out. But the two concepts that probably are most famous and most remembered from this most famous philosophy book are the concept of the cave illustration and the concept of the philosopher king. Both of those concepts are fleshed out in book seven of Republic. I always say the Republic, but I think the actual name of it is just Republic. But the reason I'm talking so much about Greek philosophy and Plato and Republic and all of this kind of stuff in the middle of a Bible podcast about the book of John is because, well, it's enormously relevant. Very clearly, John had these most famous, most influential, most culturally pervasive Greek philosophical ideas in view when he wrote at least the opening prologue of John. Yesterday, I talked about how the first couple verses of John, I think, are gonna resonate more, like 8020, with the part of his audience who would have said, like, oh, in the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God, even though literally the word word is logos, which is a very loaded term. I still think that for the most part, John here is targeting the idea of the mighty word of the Lord motif from the Old Testament. But he's also teasing the word logos, which is attached to Plato and the Stoics who came after him, and the Jewish philosopher Phila, who came after him, Lagos, the idea of this impersonal ordering force that makes everything go. So, in the first couple of verses of John, I think what we're getting is mostly a nod to the Old Testament, but also the words John chose to express that tease the idea of certain popular Greek philosophies at the time as well. Well, after verse two, I think that equation flips from John talking mostly about the mighty word of the Lord and a little bit about Greek philosophy, to talking a lot about Greek philosophy, and we'll get back to the mighty word of the Lord stuff from the Old Testament. Here's how the rest of the passage plays out, and then we're going to talk about how this ties in with Plato. In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God, he was with God in the beginning. That's the end of verse two, now into verse three. Through him, all things were made. Without him, nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it. I'm just going to keep going. There came a man who was sent from God. His name was John. This is John the Baptist. He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all men might believe. He himself was not the light, he came only as a witness to the light. The true light that gives light to every man was coming into the world. He was in the world. And though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. Okay, there's a lot going on there, and obviously we're going to break down every last bit of it carefully. But let's just think about it in big broad strokes. 10,000 foot view for a minute here. What what do we have so far? Okay, in the very beginning, before existence, as we understand existence, there was the Lagos. And the Lagos is more than the Greek idea here. Okay, so somehow this is God because the Lagos was with God and the Lagos was God. Okay, cool. We'll put a pin in that. Hopefully, John will explain more later on. And he will explain more later on. He was with God in the beginning. Cool. That's very Bible-y sounding language, but now it flips and sounds more Greek philosophy-ish. Through him all things were made. Without him, nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of man. Okay, now we're talking about life and light, and we're talking about somebody who came into the darkness as a witness to the light. His name was John. He himself was not the light. So he's this John fellow, he's not the word. Rather, he is one who has seen the light and at least understands the light well enough to go back into the darkness and be like, hey, everybody, there's light and it's super. And I have seen it. And I'm going to come explain it to you, and I'm going to point you toward it so that you can see it as well. And then the next part is about Jesus. He was in the world. And even though the world was made through him, okay, so now we're back to talking about the Lagos, the world didn't recognize him. He came to that which was his own. Why is it his own? Well, because he made it, because he made existence out of non-existence. I mean, it's his existence is his, people are his, but his own did not receive him. Now, for most of us, it just sounds like the apostle John is explaining kind of what we got in the other three Gospels that Jesus' cousin, John the Baptist, he came first and he was Jesus' hype man. He told everybody that you know to pay attention to Jesus. So there was a big religious revival that happened before Jesus came on the scene publicly. And then John the Baptist kind of shifted all the momentum from that big public revival that was happening out in the wilds under his leadership. He shifted all of that to his cousin, to Jesus, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. But to the original audience and to the handful of you dorks who remember a little bit from your philosophy class, or maybe even have those high-neck sweaters and go to fancy philosophy parties and do this for a living, you're going to encounter what the Apostle John is writing right here. And you're going to be like, whoa, that sounds really Plato-y. That sounds very republic-y. That sounds very cave illustration-y. That sounds very philosopher king-y. Except you might notice a few key differences. And for those of you who've been around philosophy a little bit, you remember that the Republic has that air of, well, I guess the people who should lead all of society and teach truth should be whoever invests the most in understanding the mathematical order of the world and being trained carefully over decades for knowledge and leadership and artistic talent and to appreciate ethical beauty and to dedicate their lives to the pure pursuits of knowledge. I mean, who who really fits that bill? Anyway, who's like that? Oh, me? Us? The philosophers? Well, I I well, it is with a it is with a great sense of burden and humility then that I accept the weight of governance. I guess I guess we'll just have to govern then, since we're the only ones who fit the bill. Plato has a little bit of that air to it, and you're gonna see it tomorrow when I r actually read you this relevant passage from the Republic. But Jesus doesn't. Jesus isn't propping himself up. Jesus had his own hype man in John, but Jesus didn't need to be hyped up. He's not a man. I mean, he is fully man, but he's fully God. He is the ordering force that is the Lagos, but he's more than the ordering force because he can make stuff out of not stuff, and he can't just organize things, he can sustain things. He isn't around God, he isn't a part of the concept of that which is God, he is God, he predates the beginning, he doesn't reflect light or redirect or channel light into dark places. He is light, he is life. Unless your name happens to be Vicini, you think Plato is awesome, one of the smartest guys who've ever lived. I happen to think that about him. What an amazing intellect. Also, maybe a little more smitten with himself, his class of people, and his skill set than he should have been. You be the judge. But what I can say for sure is that the only person ever in the history of ever who actually fits the bill for what Plato imagined the perfect ruler to look like isn't Plato. It's Jesus of Nazareth. And tomorrow we're going to look very specifically at Plato's vision for that perfect king. And more importantly, we're going to look at the way John points to Jesus as the fulfillment and satisfier of the most robust man-made vision of what kingship and leadership could possibly be. John thinks Jesus more than fits the bill for Plato's ideal ruler. We're gonna have fun. Get ready for history and philosophy nerd deep dive coming up tomorrow. I'm Matt. This is the 10-minute Bible hour podcast. Let's do this again soon.