MacArthur-John-F-MacArthur-John

Description

The Greco-Roman world at the close of the first century A.D. was in a state cultural,philosophical, and religious ferment. Religious syncretism and inclusivism were the watchwords of the day, as Donald W. Burdick notes: Apart from the Judaeo-Christian sphere, the world was religiously inclusivistic. There was always room for a new religion, provided of course that it was not of an exclusive nature. Syncretism, however, did not merely express itself
in a mood of tolerance toward other faiths. Its characteristic expression was in the combination of various ideas and beliefs from different sources to form new or aberrant religions. This was the age of the developing mystery religions, the age of the occult, the age of the proliferation
of Gnostic sects. (The Letters of John the Apostle [Chicago: Moody, 1985], 4