Church Voices

In this presentation by DA Carson he makes many great points, but there is one particular point that I’d like to single out. He illustrates this point by pointing out that when he’s in New York he never identifies himself as an evangelical because to the average secular New Yorker the word evangelical is the Christian equivalent to the Taliban, he concludes this statement by saying “if you don’t know that, then you’re not even in the discussion, go somewhere else”. This illustration caps off his general point that for many people today words like God, faith, spirit, truth, repentance, sin and every other “God talk category” mean something other than what someone with a Judeo-Christian worldview means. We often think that we’re writing on a blank hard drive when we’re communicating/evangelizing, but we’re actually dealing with a hard drive that already has files written on it that have to be changed before its possible to explain the gospel, or what the Bible says.

While this may be daunting, especially since it is a radical shift in less than a generation and a half, in some ways it makes the scriptures even more powerful because this was precisely the same culture Paul was dealing with once he left the synagogue and began to discuss, interact, preach, teach and speak with the polytheistic Greek population. In other words, our current culture, especially as you move into centers of secular populations, more directly reflects the cultures of Athens, Ephesus and other places Paul was founding churches, and so the methodologies and practices of Paul in these polytheistic centers are now relevant in the United States in ways they were not 40 years ago.

In Acts 17 Luke records Paul’s Areopagus address which is preceded with Paul giving the gospel, perhaps in a similar way as a street preacher might today. And this address is completely incomprehensible to his audience. Some dismiss him as a babbler, and others believe he is advocating foreign gods (it should be noted this second group was as wrong as the first group was dismissive, as they shuffled the Living God into the same category as pagan gods who were local and limited, just local and limited in a different zip code). So they bring Paul to the gathering of the Areopagus where they spent their time talking and listening to the latest ideas so that they can try to sort out what exactly this strange little man’s strange little ideas are.

And it is here that Paul begins re-writing the files of the gathering of the Areopagus so they can understand his strange little idea which we have come to call the gospel, and he begins by explaining God was neither local nor limited, but created everything, and everyone and is sovereign over everything. The gospel makes absolutely no sense whatsoever unless you begin with this understanding of God. The idea that Jesus’ work was planned from the beginning, and that he willingly gave up his life and was resurrected only works if you believe God controls everything from the creation of the universe to the close of the universe because if He does not then the death of Jesus is just another forgettable skirmish between deities in which one lost and died, and the other won and killed rather than the singular event that changed history.

I’ve always found the story of Alice in Wonderland to be more creepy than charming (which may or may not be a compliment). The story essentially is of Alice showing up in a world that makes no sense to her. She has no way of knowing what creatures are sentient, what powers are at work, who wishes her harm, who wants to use her presence for their own gain, and what actions will bring certain disaster. In other words, all of her assumptions, and all of her knowledge that has aided her well in her own world don’t apply, and will actually work to hinder her because she is plunged into a world that works in a fundamentally different way from her own. Many times when we give what is in our minds “the simple gospel” it isn’t so simple. We are essentially turning people into Alice and plunging them into Wonderland because we assume they inhabit the same world as the gospel.

Paul recognizes this fact and communicates accordingly in Athens. Rather than describing sin in legal context, he does so in a relational context using works from their own poets. It should be noted here (as DA Carson noted), that though the record of Paul’s address is very short, in all likelihood it lasted for several hours and these are the general headings under which he spoke which serves to further illustrate the care Paul took to insure the message he spoke was the message that was heard.

In fact, Paul takes this a step further and applies the principle not just to his communication, but to his conduct. In Acts 19 we are told of Paul’s ministry in Ephesus, another pagan city filled with a specific pagan goddess. While there a riot initiated by makers of idols for Artemis is stirred up. What finally quells the riot is a plea from the city clerk that these men had neither “robbed temples nor blasphemed our goddess”. We can assume that blaspheming Artemis would include saying things like Artemis isn’t real, or by going out and letting everyone know that they’re a bunch of idolaters on their way to hell. Something Paul did do on occasion, but apparently not on this one. Why not? Well, we can presume that Paul was familiar with the law in Ephesus and in order to continue operating there obeyed the law, one which inhibited particular evangelistic method rather than the practice of being a Christian. We see a similar discretion exercised in the previously mentioned passage in Athens where Paul sees the entire city filled with idols and is “greatly distressed”, yet does not begin his address by pointing out how evil and wrong his listeners are, (in fact he begins his address with a sort of compliment as to their religiosity).

Paul does all of this for the sake of the gospel. Can you imagine what the gossip of Ephesus would have been like if a riot had broken out in the city of Artemis which involved Christians? I doubt the story told from lips that worshiped Artemis to ears that listened for Artemis would have been all that complimentary, and would likely have resulted in the banning of all evangelistic and discipleship activity not to mention could have endangered Christianity’s protected status with Rome (as it was still not distinguished by Romans as separate from Judaism and so was a licit religion, at least for another couple of decades).

In Matthew 10 when Jesus sends out his disciples to spread the message that the Kingdom of Heaven is near he tells them they’re being sent out as sheep among wolves, and so they must be as shrewd as snakes and innocent as doves. Being ministers of the gospel means far more than simply repeating the same few lines which make perfect sense to us. It means being shrewd enough so that the gospel is understood by those hearing what we say, and acting wisely enough that the best possible outcome for the spreading of the gospel occurs.