Happy π (Pi) Day!
It is a great day! Pi Day Friday! Celebrate mathematics and get a slice of pie! 🥧
Firstly, let me acknowledge what I am sure most of you are surely and most absolutely thinking (and for full clarity, /mild sarcasm): I know the original Greek letter is pronounced like our English letter, p. But in the maths, we generally call it “pie” for delicious and practical reasons.
Secondly, why talk about mathematics and π on a biblical blog? I’m glad you asked! I was going to get around to it! (😉)
The symbol of pi is what is called a constant number (universally true), an irrational number (not simple, reducible, or strictly finite, like “1” or “3” or “42” or “1/3” or “70”), and a fun number (at least by me), and it is used to help find the circumference (length of the outside) and area of a circle, as well as so much more. As far as we know, it has an infinite number of decimal places, starting with 3.1415926……
Hence Pi Day being celebrated on March 14, or as the US and a few others annotate it, 3/14 or 3.14.
So, Please: Why on a Bible blog?
To circle back to our primary purpose, we see the use of this rounded of non-round numbers actually appear in the Bible: 1 Kings 7:23 – the bronze/metal/molten sea/basin that is used for ritual washing in the Temple. It’s measurements were 10 cubits across (about 15 feet/4.5 meters, diameter) and 30 cubits around (about about 45 feet/13.7 meters, circumference). Thay works out to roughly 3, or close to pi.
However, I also like pi for a more punny but very serious reason: the Christian life.
It has to do with being a constant and irrational number.
Pi is a reminder of the Trinity: the constant God that does not make perfect sense to our finite minds.
God’s faithful love is constant.
Psalm 52:1b, CSB
“For I the Lord do not change; therefore you”
Malachi 3:6a, ESVJesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.
Hebrews 13:8, CSB“And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever. He is the Spirit of truth.”
John 14:16-17a, CSB
Pi serves as a reminder that Christ taking on humanity puts a human element in the Trinity, which sounds irrational and like more than 3 in 1 (like 3.14?), which also sounds irrational to our finite minds. (To be clear, I am not saying that humans are now part of the Trinity or that we become God!)
Pi is also a reminder that simple things are not necessarily easy things to understand and can seem foolish to others.
But the person without the Spirit does not receive what comes from God’s Spirit, because it is foolishness to him; he is not able to understand it since it is evaluated spiritually.
1 Corinthians 2:14, CSBbut we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to the Jews and foolishness to the Gentiles. [24] Yet to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God, [25] because God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength.
1 Corinthians 1:23-25, CSB
So, on Pi Day, get some pie, and remember that the Cbristian life may seem irrational, but it is grounded in the constant God who cleanses and purifies us, who brings our lives full circle to be in relationship with Him through the forgiveness of sins by the work of Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit to the glory of the Father.
Simple as pi[e].
a simple man of God 