Reach Them Where They're At

I was going through the book of Acts the other day and skipping between the discourses given by the apostles throughout the book when I noticed some interesting differences between them depending on who their audience was. For example, when Peter is talking to the Jews who were gathered in Jerusalem on the Day of Pentecost he begins almost immediately with quotations of prophecy from the Old Testament:

But Peter, standing with the eleven, lifted up his voice and addressed them: "Men of Judea and all who dwell in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and give ear to my words. For these people are not drunk, as you suppose, since it is only the third hour of the day. But this is what was uttered through the prophet Joel: "'And in the last days it shall be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams; even on my male servants and female servants in those days I will pour out my Spirit, and they shall prophesy. And I will show wonders in the heavens above and signs on the earth below, blood, and fire, and vapor of smoke; the sun shall be turned to darkness and the moon to blood, before the day of the Lord comes, the great and magnificent day. And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.'" (Acts 2:14-21)

He doesn't bother to try telling his audience about believing in one God because, of course, that would be repetitive and useless since they already believe that. He begins right where they are at. Paul does the same thing at the opposite end of the spectrum in Acts 17 when he is talking to the Greeks at the Areopagus:

So Paul, standing in the midst of the Areopagus, said: "Men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious. For as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription, 'To the unknown god.' What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, in the hope that they might feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us, for "'In him we live and move and have our being'; as even some of your own poets have said, "'For we are indeed his offspring.' Being then God's offspring, we ought not to think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of man. The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead." (Acts 17:22-31)

This is an amazing lesson when you stop and think about it. He starts from absolutely nothing and goes all the way to the resurrection... in 9 verses! Notice how he starts with one God (clearly arriving at this by contrasting God with multiple gods since the Athenians had altars to gods all over the city) who created the world and everything in it. You really can't get any closer to the "beginning" than that. While Paul is doing this he also establishes, almost incidentally, that God is "spirit and must be worshiped in spirit and truth" (John 4:24) when he points out that God, "does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything." He also points to God as Father and uses their own writings to link this to their cultural consciousness when he says, "As even some of your own poets have said, 'For we are indeed his offspring.'" This he uses to counteract the notion that idols have anything to do with the reality of God. After all, since we are God's offspring how can God be "like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of man"? Amazingly enough, he saves what we would see as the "Christian message" for the last 2 verses (30-31):

The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead. (Acts 17:30-31)

Of course this is the preaching of Jesus, but Paul has had to establish the existence of God, his rule over all, his aspect as spirit and Father and a denial of idolatry to even get to this point. I think that this is especially instructive for us today. I believe that America is becoming increasingly pagan, but it is difficult for us to perceive how pagan it really is because so much of the culture is still using the terminology of Christianity. However, when people say "God" and "Jesus" although we are familiar with the terms the entities they are talking about are no more the God and Jesus of the Bible than Baal or Zeus. This is problematic because it means that we aren't really communicating at the right level. We are going to have to establish some of the basics (like Paul does with the Athenians) before we can really reach most of non-Christian (and even much of so-called "Christian") America with the gospel message.

What do you have that you did not receive?

Today my youngest daughter was playing with her sister and their friends and, as often happens in such cases, came in crying. When I asked her what was wrong I discovered that she was sad because her friends had told her that they didn't like one of her toys. I'm not really sure that they actually told her in such a way, but it wouldn't surprise me in any case because many of her toys are for a kid that is younger than they are (her sister is 3 years older than her and the oldest of the four friends is older still). It struck me as interesting because in their young minds it makes sense that they wouldn't want to play with a little kid's toys, even though, of course, they are all little kids and they all have little kid toys; but since everything is relative and at their particular age they are always right they don't see the weird inconsistency in their thinking. It is because of this that I believe we parents have as our duty to pass on mature ways of thinking. I would say "adult" ways of thinking but many adults in our society haven't learned mature ways of thinking so that would be a misleading label. Most people behave exactly as my kids do, believing their own way of thinking to be absolute truth and uninterested in what absolute truth actually is. In any case, I think that the way that I saw my kids' behavior today is most likely how God sees us humans when we fight and bicker over things that make no sense in the long run and yet we believe ourselves to be right in all circumstances. The passage in 1 Corinthians 4:6-7 is applicable here, I think:

I have applied all these things to myself and Apollos for your benefit, brothers, that you may learn by us not to go beyond what is written, that none of you may be puffed up in favor of one against another. For who sees anything different in you? What do you have that you did not receive? If then you received it, why do you boast as if you did not receive it?

I like the question Paul asks in verse 7, "What do you have that you did not receive?" I think it would be a good idea for us to ask ourselves this question often since it really points to God's view of us. What do we have that we did not receive? The answer would be, "Absolutely nothing." Air? Light? Life? Work? Children? Loved ones? No, we received all of that and earned none of it. We have nothing that we have not received, and so Paul follows up the question (since its answer is so obvious he does not have to actually state it) with another marvelous question: "If then you received it, why do you boast as if you did not receive it?" Yes, absolutely, why do we humans boast about anything as if we did not receive it? Because of course it is in our nature to do so. We believe ourselves to be so important and to have earned so many of blessings. We worked so hard for them and so we are so puffed up as though we did not receive the very air that we breathe. How ridiculous we are. I'm going to try making "What do you have that you did not receive?" my new motto and repeat it to myself constantly to see if it helps to beat down my idiotic boastful pride. I'll let you know how that goes.