Reaching to Pull
i have never been one who engages well with culture. though i'm sure we all feel this way in high school, my teen years were the beginning of me understanding i just don't fit in. it doesn't cause pain, i'm arrogant enough to see it as the world doesn't get me, not vise versa. (joke, yet some fact too, if i'm honest).
i know that i don't get the culture, but i don't really feel bad about that. it's funny how heavily i lean on guys like Brian to not only keep me posted on the culture, but also on the ramifications of the latest trends. it's not that i don't care. i do. i get that understanding the culture is necessary to reach souls.
i understand that being a social alien (not just a spiritual one) may make me the last person in the world to speak on this, but i wonder if we do a disservice to people when we focus on their worldview....allow me to explain.
who that has studied acts 17 does not love it? certainly, no person who loves preaching (i enjoy it so much i would honestly consider it a hobby of mine) can look at that passage and not marvel. the way paul engages their culture is breath taking. how i've longed to have that ability to see a person's stack of cd's or read their post on the internet and immediately identify the "God-shaped hole in their heart."
yet paul does not leave them there. a closer look at the passage displays that paul engages in their language (an altar inscribed "to an unknown god"), yet immedately exposes their error, calling it ignorance. paul sees an altar to an unidentified god reveals their religion is unfulfilling, addresses that he knows the One who can fill the void, but then even attacks their most foundational view that God could be created or contained. paul addresses them where they were, it's their altar. but he doesn't leave them there.
i wonder if we do a person a favor when we approach them in their language (modern, postmodern, transmodern, what have you) and leave it there. biblical christianity doesn't fit any of those systems exclusively. i want to reach a person in their world, but i also must then show them that their world is built on a foundation of sand. if i leave them in their old house, and merely help them change fixtures and appliances, it's still built on a house that will crumble. have we discipled if a person doesn't see some error in their preregenerational (is that a word?) mind?
i know that i don't get the culture, but i don't really feel bad about that. it's funny how heavily i lean on guys like Brian to not only keep me posted on the culture, but also on the ramifications of the latest trends. it's not that i don't care. i do. i get that understanding the culture is necessary to reach souls.
i understand that being a social alien (not just a spiritual one) may make me the last person in the world to speak on this, but i wonder if we do a disservice to people when we focus on their worldview....allow me to explain.
who that has studied acts 17 does not love it? certainly, no person who loves preaching (i enjoy it so much i would honestly consider it a hobby of mine) can look at that passage and not marvel. the way paul engages their culture is breath taking. how i've longed to have that ability to see a person's stack of cd's or read their post on the internet and immediately identify the "God-shaped hole in their heart."
yet paul does not leave them there. a closer look at the passage displays that paul engages in their language (an altar inscribed "to an unknown god"), yet immedately exposes their error, calling it ignorance. paul sees an altar to an unidentified god reveals their religion is unfulfilling, addresses that he knows the One who can fill the void, but then even attacks their most foundational view that God could be created or contained. paul addresses them where they were, it's their altar. but he doesn't leave them there.
i wonder if we do a person a favor when we approach them in their language (modern, postmodern, transmodern, what have you) and leave it there. biblical christianity doesn't fit any of those systems exclusively. i want to reach a person in their world, but i also must then show them that their world is built on a foundation of sand. if i leave them in their old house, and merely help them change fixtures and appliances, it's still built on a house that will crumble. have we discipled if a person doesn't see some error in their preregenerational (is that a word?) mind?
posted by danny2 @ 10:56 PM
3 Comments:
At 3:35 PM,
Jeremy Bear said…
Thanks for the post. Some interesting thoughts.
For awhile, I've had a theory that Acts 17 is one of the most pertinent passages for modern Christians living in the United States. The truth is, all of the cultures in Biblical times are very different from our own, but I think the people of Athens may have been the closest to the modern American secularist.
You have to hand it to the Athenians - at least they were interested in truth, even if it was a pluralist truth... and who can blame them? If you don't know, you're going to guess and their way of guessing was to keep their options open.
Here in Southern California, I see that all over the place. Unfortunately, "keeping your options open" has become its own religion. Everything's permissable except a concrete answer. Include the inclusive, but exclude the exclusive.
Several months ago, a friend at work told me the story of why he doesn't believe in God: despite his prayers, his mom died of cancer when he was in high school. He'd prayed for a God that didn't bother to show up. He mentioned that the only encouragement he found was when his atheist friends showed up to lend him strength.
I told him how sorry I was to hear that, and asked if he thought it could be possible that God did indeed show up in the form of his friends, rather than in a cancer cure.
He said maybe, but he doubted it.
But maybe.
It's a tricky thing, but sometimes I think a part of witnessing to the Athenians has to do with pointing out what they already know or suspect. And maybe listening.
At 4:16 PM,
Jason Knavel said…
Good post Danny and I think the answer to your final question is pretty obvious. If a non-Christian does not see some error in their thinking, then they certainly will not be reached.
And I think Jeremy makes a good point as well. We're not always perfect and we don't always come up with the exact answers to the questions that non-Christians are pondering, but we have to be able to show them that maybe there is another answer to the questions they have. Maybe the answer is not that the atheists are right because they were the most helpful, but maybe the answer was that God put those people there for a reason.
That's why ministering to the lost is about building relationships because it is usually a LONG process to get them to see many instances in their lives where there is a different answer. Because culture teaches them to come to one conclusion, when the true conclusion is counter-intuitive (whoa, did I just use the word counter-intuitive?).
At 8:14 PM,
Gary Underwood said…
Danny, I like where you're going with this post, but I'm not sure if you got me there.
You bring up the issues of addressing culture in "their language" like postmodern, modern, etc. In reality, I think biblical Christianity is so versatile as to fit ALL of those systems. The Christian faith has survived and thrived in countless settings, cultures, time periods, languages, and nations -- when people are committed fully to the God of Scripture.
Unfortunately, we live in a country where Christians have long ago decided to seperate from the culture rather than take leadership in it. Christians have decided to sit in judgment of an unbelieving culture rather than dive in with an attitude of servanthood and love. We have told Zaccheus to go back up into his freaking tree.
It sickens me to think that, while Acts 17 is preached and admired in American pulpits, most Christian leaders refuse to seek out the "Mars Hill" of 2005 and lovingly cut to the heart of things like Paul does.
Are we afraid of Mars Hill? Afraid of rejection? Afraid of failure? Afraid of sin-pollution? Afraid that even the very attempt to engage in culture might make other Christians think that we're watering down the gospel?
Once we think it's more important to judge, evaluate, and preach against culture - rather than to engage it, reach it, and transform it - we have lost our priority and opportunity to invest in the Great Commission.
I agree 100% with Jeremy Bear's post, actually. We need to be willing to enter the world of "maybe" - where we live today - and to listen to where people are at and point out what they already know. Sounds like Jeremy is thinking like Erwin McManus, a fellow pastor in Los Angeles. Jer's connection with Erwin is long overdue.
Jer, if you're reading this, please at least visit Mosaic just once!!! Find info. about it on www.mosaic.org.
Danny, kudos for a great thought-provoking post, and for getting Knavel to post something intelligent as well! I'm impressed - keep blogging!!!
Post a Comment
<< Home