Little Words That Mean A Lot (Part 11 of 0)

Bema – Part 11

“For all the Athenians and strangers which were there spent their time in nothing else, but either to tell, or to hear some new thing” (Acts 17:21)

There was a time when one could go out to the town square in almost any small town in America on a Sunday afternoon and find someone standing on a soapbox.1He would be haranguing whatever audience he could gather, pitching his views on everything from politics to religion and beyond. Many big cities had similar places for extemporaneous public speaking; in New York, one such location was Washington Square Park.2When I was in high school, I went there several times and preached the gospel unsuccessfully. I was not very good at handling hecklers! I recall once being told by several in the crowd to “get off my soapbox and go home”, when I mentioned there was no such thing as going to heaven, and that even King David had not ascended into the heavens.3I wasn’t even standing on a soapbox, since that would have been too awkward and bulky to carry by subways from my home in Queens to Washington Square Park in Manhattan. The few times I spoke, I simply found an unoccupied park bench and stood on it while attempting to draw an audience.

Nevertheless, the term “soapbox” speaker has become so ubiquitous that it is used to describe anyone, regardless of the platform used, who addresses an audience to persuade them with respect to a particular crochet. National Public Radio has a regular feature called Sunday Soapbox, where one can hear views (usually political and/or social) not normally voiced on commercial stations. Today the Internet has created a whole new way of “soapboxing”, through such venues as Facebook, Youtube, and the personal so-called “blog”. This technology has become a powerful tool for preaching the gospel, but it has also raised the specter of ir­responsible use: one can also find a plethora of websites with outsiders slamming our community and, worse yet, Christadelphians bashing each other!

The history of the bema                                                                  

The informal address to a crowd gathered to hear views from all and sundry is hardly a modern phenomena. The ancient Greeks started doing this hundreds of years prior to the birth of Christ. The exact date this public communication media began is lost in antiquity, but one thing is certain — it wasn’t done on a soapbox; it was done on what the Greeks called a “bema”.

The primary meaning of the Greek word “bema” is a step.4The word came to designate a raised platform for public speaking. The primary meaning probably came from the use of steps to a temple, or to a marketplace. This would give a speaker elevation, so that the prospective crowd could see and hear him. This was precisely the means by which the apostle Paul addressed the crowd at the Roman barracks in Jerusalem, after being arrested under the false charge of bringing the Gentile Trophimus into the Temple precincts.

“So when he [the commander] had given him permission, Paul stood on the stairs and motioned with his hand to the people…” (Acts 21:40, NKJV).5

Eventually, purpose-built platforms were constructed. By the fifth century BCE the practice was established, and almost every town and city in Greece had a bema for public speaking and debate. The bema was usually in a prominent position in the marketplace (known as the Agora in Greek) for the convenience of the townspeople. It was a means for sharing ideas, debating public issues, and on occasion making public announcements relating to court decisions. Figures 1 and 2 show the bema and Agora (marketplace) locations, respectively, that archeologists have discovered in Athens.

A similar platform was built in the town of Corinth for public speaking, and the remains of this structure are shown in Figure 3. In both Athens and Corinth, these speaker’s platforms could hardly be missed by those coming and going in their daily shopping.

In his 18 months in Corinth, the apostle Paul probably delivered numerous public gospel lectures there. It is also at this site that the proconsul Gallio held a public hearing to determine if charges should be brought against Paul for insurrection (Acts 18:13), as the Jews had requested:

“The Jews with one accord rose up against Paul and brought him to the judgment seat (i.e., bema)” (Acts 18:12, NKJV).

We can be certain that, in Athens, Paul stood on the bema in the marketplace to preach, exactly as described in Acts 17:17:

“Therefore he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and with the Gentile worshipers, and in the marketplace (Greek agora) daily with those who happened to be there.”

Rules for the Bema

There were certain rules for addressing a crowd from the bema. Generally, there was only one bema located in the Agora, and only one speaker at a time was allowed to address the crowd. Furthermore, the speaker had a limited time to complete his plea; when his time was expired he had to yield the platform, even if he was in mid-sentence. To insure that this was respected, a timekeeper con­trolled the activities. The amount of time might vary depending on a number of factors, including the importance of the occasion, the prestige of the speaker, and the number of people waiting to be heard. Figure 4 shows a water clock6dug up in Athens, attributed to some time between the 4th and 5th century BCE. This limited each speaker’s time so that all would have a fair chance to be heard. The upper basin was filled with water, the hole at the bottom being plugged. To activate this stopwatch, the plug was removed and water dripped into the lower basin. Time expired when the upper pot was completely emptied, and the speaker had to yield his place to the next in the queue.7This particular water clock allowed for approximately a six-minute period. Clocks of this type were also used to limit speech in the Areopagus (i.e., the law court) of ancient Athens. Part of the inscription accompanying the exhibition of this clock in the Stoa museum in Athens reads as follows: …An experienced speaker adjusted his speech to coincide with the last drop.

A six-minute hydraulic clock

The apostle Paul was taken to the Areopagus (called Mars Hill in the KJV) and made his famous speech concerning the “unknown god”. I have heard it said that it is a pity we didn’t get the whole text. However, we may indeed have the complete text in what is recorded in Acts 17:22-31. If indeed Paul was under a time limit, as seems to have been the practice, then we can be certain he saw to it that every single word would count. It is one of the most masterful public speeches ever given. Judging from the almost immediate reaction by Dionysius and Damaris (and some others), it has to rank as one of the most successful preaching cam­paigns ever. Sometimes we think we need to say a lot to get our message across to people, but it may simply be the lack of sufficient forethought and focus in our preaching. Our Lord Jesus Christ tells us in speaking of the heathen, “For they think that they will be heard for their many words” (Matt 6:7, NKJV). We can use the wisdom of Solomon to guide us: “He who has knowledge spares his words” (Prov 17:27, NKJV). It is often a question of not how much we say, but how well we say it.

I obviously cannot prove it, but I get the feeling that, due to the time constraint, we do have the whole speech the apostle made on Mars Hill (the exact site is pictured in Figure 5). That speech teaches us several very important lessons that we can apply to preaching the gospel:

  1. Introduce your subject by winning the audience over: “Men of Athens, I perceive that in all things you are very religious” (Acts 17:22, NKJV). This was a compliment that was guaranteed to elicit at least nodding agreement and a favorable ear from his audience.
  2. Relate what you are saying to the experience of the group (or the individual): “…as also some of your own poets have said…” (v 28).
  3. Finally, the most difficult part: Challenge those listening and clearly make them appreciate the importance of the gospel message — “Truly, these times of ignorance God overlooked, but now commands all men everywhere to repent, because He has appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness…” (vv 30,31, NKJV).

The evolution of the word bema

The Greek word bema is translated as “judgment seat” ten times in the KJV, while the NIV uses the concept of “court” in all but the last two citations (Rom 14:10 and 2Co 5:10), where it reverts to the King James usage. The Diaglott uses the word “tribunal” on six occasions and “judgment seat” on the other four (Acts 25:6,10,17; Rom 14:10). The original Greek city-state democracies never had “judgment seats” because their courts had juries chosen from the citizenry. The town bema might have been used, on occasion, as a place to announce a judg­ment, but it was not a court of law — that was held in another place called the Areopagus, as we have seen in Athens.8Why then did the King James translators and subsequent scholarly Bible translations use the legal terms of judgment seat, court, or tribunal? The answer appears to lie in the evolution of the word bema as a result of the Roman conquest of Greece.

The Roman conquest of Greece in the middle of the second century BCE turned Greece into a Roman province, one subject to Roman law and justice.10of in­fantry soldiers. When a legionnaire was accused of a crime, a panel of tribunes was assembled to judge the matter, hence the origin of the tribunal. Prior to the establishment of the empire by Caesar Augustus, civil courts also had an elec­tive office of tribune to try matters of offense against the law. Later, in the age of the empire, this system was naturally exported to the provinces under Roman control, with provincial governors acting as judicial agents. This is exactly the position that was held by the likes of Pilate (Matt 27, etc.) and Felix and Festus (Acts 24 and 25). These judicial hearings usually took place on a raised stage in a conspicuous place. Sometimes, if a public show of the trial was found necessary, a seat for the judge was set on this platform so that a large crowd could witness the proceedings.

In Matthew 27:17-22 we have a perfect example of Pilate doing precisely that. From the platform, he played to the crowd as charges were brought against our Lord Jesus Christ. One could hardly imagine such an uncivilized court proceed­ings taking place in any democratic nation in the world today (at least one would hope not!). Much as the words “soapbox orator” came to be associated with an extemporaneous speaker to an ad hoc audience, the term bema came to include public court proceedings. A magistrate or Roman official in charge of the trial would seat himself on the judicial platform, or bema, to preside.

Some Christians have taken the primary meaning of bema as a vehicle for public debate and announcements to imply that the “judgment seat” really has no judicial function, but is rather only a means of announcing degrees of reward.11However, this cannot be supported either by the generally broader meaning of the word prevailing in the time of the apostle Paul, nor by Scriptural context. The context of the passages in Romans 14:10 and 2 Corinthians 5:10, coupled with the admonition of the apostle Peter, make this abundantly clear:

“For the time has come for judgment to begin at the house of God; and if it begins with us first, what will be the end of those who do not obey the gospel of God?” (1Pe 4:17, NKJV).

Over the years much has been written in our Christadelphian community about the bema of our Lord Jesus Christ, but not all of it has been edifying. Some have insisted on details that cannot be supported in Scripture with respect to the exact location and procedure. We need to be careful not to lay undue burdens upon the consciences of our brothers and sisters by elevating mere speculative details to first-principle status. When it comes to an apt and succinct exposition on “The Judgment Seat” (or bema), it is hard to improve on Bro. Robert Roberts’ article entitled “True Principles and Uncertain Details”.12

There he wrote the following in 1898, regarding the judgment seat:

“Uncertain detail: Where will he [Christ] set it up? Will it be in Palestine, or in Egypt, or in the Arabian Peninsula, in the solitudes of Sinai? We cannot be sure. All available evidence seems to point in the direction of the last-mentioned; but an uncertain detail must not be made a basis of fellowship. We must not insist upon a man believing the judgment seat will be set up at Sinai or any particular place so long as he believes that Jesus Christ will judge the living and the dead at his appearing and his Kingdom.”

Given this simple but essential doctrine, it is important that our hearts be pricked with awareness that our mortal lives can be a prelude to greater things. To labor for the meat that perishes (or, to put it in a modern context, to labor for careers, houses, autos, and other material things that will all perish too), while ignoring, forgetting, or putting aside to some future date our service to the LORD God is to take Him for granted. None of us can guarantee how long we will live; to­morrow or the next moment could be the last breath we ever take. When I keep these thoughts before me I tremble, as did Felix when he heard of the judgment to come (Acts 24:25). However, I also rejoice in the grace provided by the Lord Jesus Christ, who through his conquest of sin provided a way for forgiveness of our sins. As long as we seek to do our best, we may have confidence that our sins will be forgiven (cp 1Pe 2:3). But if we turn our backs on the Lord’s grace, we can be equally certain that we will be condemned (cp 1Co 15:19).

Are we prepared to stand before the bema of our Lord Jesus Christ?

  1. Soap was a particularly dense product that needed a strong wooden crate for shipping. Pre­sumably such a crate made a good platform, giving a speaker enough height to command an audience. Other types of shipping crates were also used, but soapboxes were so ubiquitous that they became the standard adjective to describe an outdoor orator. The term apparently came into use around 1907 (Webster’s New Universal Unabridged Dictionary, 2nd edi­tion, Dorset & Baber, Pub.). The term “soapbox” does not appear in The Oxford Universal Dictionary. This appears to be strictly an “Americanism”.
  2. Public speaking in London, England, is famously done at Hyde Park Corner, usually on Sundays. Some sources say this started in 1872.
  3. Acts 2:34.
  4. Strong’s number 968. bhvma bema, bay´-ma; from the base of 939; a step, i.e., foot-breadth; by implication, a rostrum, i.e., a tribunal; judgment-seat, set (foot) on, throne.
  5. The NIV used the word “steps” in Acts 21:35 and 40. However, the Greek word here is not bema but Strong’s number 304.
  6. This type of hydraulic clock is called a klepsydra in Greek. The actual time allowed varied from place to place and even depended on the reputation of the speaker, i.e., a famous orator might be allowed more time to address his audience.
  7. Such polite protocol was not always followed, particularly in times of civil or religious un­rest.
  8. The modern Greek usage of the word bema primarily refers to a speaker’s platform. For example, the raised area at the front of Eastern Orthodox churches where the priest gives the sermon is known as the bema.
  10. “In 146 [BC], Rome defeated the revolted Greek cities. Corinth was destroyed and Greece became a Roman province.” From http://flagspot.net/flags/gr_chron.html#rom[/note The concept of a “judgment seat” was introduced along with the Roman occupation. In the Roman legions a tribune was the officer who ruled over a cohort9By the time of the apostle Paul, a Roman legion was composed of 10 cohorts, each cohort commanded by a tribune. The cohort was further made up of six centuriae, each led by a centurion. Originally a centuriae was composed of 100 men, but by the time of the apostle Paul most legions were understaffed, and typically a centurion commanded 80 men. From http://www.unrv.com/military/legion.php.
  11. 1 Corinthians 3:15 is usually cited to justify this interpretation.
  12. The excerpt on “Uncertain Details” concerning the Judgment Seat is quoted in full from The Christadelphian, May 1898, pp. 182-189.