Last Saturday during our yearly CLD we talked about defending our faith in a world that is anti-Christian. We spoke about why our faith needs to be defended and offered some strategies for how to do so. We realized that there is no strict strategy that a Christian can learn which can then be applied to any and all witnessing encounters with an unbeliever. During that time, we touched on Acts 17 and Paul’s strategies for reaching the lost in Athens. Let me remind, and expand, on that chapter.
Let’s begin at the beginning by reminding ourselves of the similarities between Paul’s times and our own. Three things that jump off the page at us:
Paul faced pluralism, not merely diversity, but principled diversity/pluralism organized by the governments. We too are faced with pluralism and not merely diversity. Pluralism is not so much a belief as it is a social condition in which numerous different religions, ethnic, and cultural groups live together. Pluralism has become almost unquestionable in our Canadian context.
Paul faced massive biblical illiteracy - They didn’t know the Bible, its characters, or its plot line. In Steinbach, this may not be as true as in other places, but I think there is more biblical illiteracy out there than we would like to admit. People may know snippets or a few verses but they don’t know the Bible.
Paul faced profoundly alien worldviews – Simply defined a worldview is “The comprehensive framework of one’s basic beliefs about things” – Albert Wolters, Creation Regained, 1. The worldview of the Athenians was massively antithetical to a Christian outlook - their vocabularies were different, their thought categories were different and thus communication was extremely difficult between these secular worldviews and the biblical worldview. We too live in a world where sizable numbers of people are buying into worldviews that are wholly alien to the biblical worldview. They have different foundations, vocabularies, and categories so much so that we cannot just dump the Christian message into it. People’s ideas of God, Jesus, love, sin, truth, salvation, spirituality, etc., are different from what they were even a few years ago. So we cannot, therefore, start with the assumptions of the Christian faith, as though people will just be able to understand what we are saying. We must understand the alien worldviews that are around us so that we can speak our message in the midst of them.
In light of this context, we need new strategies for gospel-sharing so that we can fulfill our mandate to be Christ’s witnesses everywhere we go. We must introduce post-Christians to Jesus with freshness, without resorting to traditional formulas or to mere Bible-verse quoting. But we must do so with faithfulness, telling it the way it was and is. So how do we minister the gospel in such a context? We follow Paul’s example. But remember following won’t be easy, it’s going to require some work on our part.
The first thing we must do is to engage our audience where they are (Acts 17:17-23). We must be as distressed by the sinful world in which we live as Paul was as he looked around Athens (v 16); pray that his distress becomes yours. But we must not only be distressed but active. We must go into the sinful world and its alien worldviews as Paul did in his setting. When Paul looks around Athens he doesn’t see the obstacles, but the opportunities that are there for God’s story. Notice what he does NOT do – no smashing and screaming, no calling out from a distance, etc. Instead, he engages the people in conversation in light of their sinful rebellion. No avoidance or judgment, only conversation about Jesus and him crucified. But he doesn’t go in blindly, he has a strategy. One that we would do well to understand and emulate. Three things to note:
Paul does not shy away from the gospel message (v. 18) – Paul declares boldly the message of the gospel, preaching clearly about Jesus and the resurrection. Paul believes that the gospel, the story of salvation, can stand its ground in the intellectual capital of the world; that it can stand its ground under the most intense intellectual scrutiny; that it can stand its ground among the philosophies of the age; that it can stand its ground under hostile worldview conditions. Paul believes that the Christian story of the gospel is, in fact, the only idea, worldview, philosophy, or whatever you want to call it that is true, consistent, rational, logical, metaphysically consistent, and therefore worth committing your life to. We must believe the same.
Paul finds a point of contact (v. 22) – Put simply our point of contact is this – that the unbeliever already knows God because of God’s general revelation (cf. Romans 1:18ff; 2:12-16). Every person, believer, and unbeliever have a knowledge of God that is present, permanent, plain, clear, and evident, but which is also suppressed or hindered by sin. So, with this as Paul’s underlying presupposition, he looks around the Areopagus for some particular expression of these truths and he finds it as he looks at the “objects of... worship” that the Athenians possess (v. 23). This becomes his specific point of contact knowing that the people are “very religious” (v. 22) as demonstrated by their many idols including the idol to the “unknown god” (v. 23). He is not going to conjure up something out of thin air but draw a specific connection to a reality that he sees around him in the Areopagus. He will use this then as a connection between the people, their philosophy and religion, and the message of the gospel. How do you preach Jesus and the resurrection to a people who don’t know the Bible? Who have never read the Bible? That takes a different starting point, so Paul must begin his discussion by appealing not to the Bible but to the point of contact that all people have as a result of God’s general revelation. We too must pay enough attention to the people around us to do this. We need to look around us, observing, trying to find out where our ‘in’ is going to be. The points of contact are there, are we looking intently enough to find them?
Paul identifies a point of inconsistency (v. 23) – Where does the unbeliever's worldview fall apart? – “If the Christian faith is true, then however consistently an unbeliever may appear to be living out his or her position, it cannot hold together. Somewhere there is a flaw because we do in fact live in God’s world. It may be a flaw of logic, emotion, or simply the irony of unsuccessful pride. [Our] work. . . is to uncover the tension between unbelief and the knowledge of God that everyone has.” (Edgar, Reasons of the Heart, 56) The unbelieving person can never be consistent in their unbelief and Paul identifies this inconsistency by pointing to the altar to “The unknown god.” They were covering their bases by having an altar to an unknown God. Paul believes that Christianity is true no matter what test you hold it against, and it is the only consistent belief system or worldview that one can hold. He believes that any other position than the Christian one, than the gospel, is inconsistent and full of inconsistencies that cannot be held. He exploits this by identifying their inconsistency - they suffer from a lack of assurance; they fear the gods and their lives are consumed with this fear. The Athenians can never be sure they have done enough, or that they have appeased the right gods thereby bringing a good life and successful endeavors. So it is on this point of inconsistency that he pushes the Athenians to be consistent with their position and he jumps on it. In light of this inconsistency, and the lack of assurance and fear that it brings, Paul then begins to gently but firmly nudge the Athenians to acknowledging this inconsistency so that they will awaken to the impossibility of holding to their viewpoint, and it is in light of this impossibility that he presents the Christian gospel.
How does this look practically? Well, it’s actually quite simple. “We cannot allow the natural man’s assumption of himself as an ultimate reference point to remain unchallenged. ” (Edgar) Any appeal to an absolute, to a universal is an opportunity by an unbeliever we MUST challenge. Things such as beauty, goodness, right / wrong, etc., and the nature of the world, are all areas on which we must challenge the false unbelieving assumptions of the unbeliever as we see them arise.
Following this strategy of exploiting the inconsistency, Paul explains the gospel story (Acts 17:22-31). His presentation is simple, tell the whole story of the Bible from beginning to end.
Creation (vv. 24-28) – not just the nature of the world, but who God is. Much of what he says here is in direct contrast to the Greek worldview of multiple gods. These verses teach who God is and who he is as Creator, King, and Providential Lord over his creation and specifically humankind.
Fall (vv. 28-30a) – we have committed the great exchange (bad version). Exchanging the truth of God, based on the previous verses, for the lie. This is not who we were created to be and thus there is a big problem in who we are.
Redemption (v. 31) – Paul focuses on “assurance” that there is salvation from God in the midst of a reminder of his judgment. This, remember, is his point of inconsistency which he identified above and it is in light of this that he makes his appeal for a response of repentance.
Response (v. 30b) – repentance is necessary for salvation. They must turn from their sin to Christ.
There are two things Paul’s teaching strategy demonstrates to us:
We must make sure to tell the gospel story and not merely our story. The message of the gospel is tied to historical events that are non-negotiable. Only when they are understood and believed can we be sure that any confession of faith is genuine (Carson). The message of the gospel is not subjective (tied to my experience or anyone else’s) but to the objective reality of history (real, true facts that happened). We must tell this objective, historical story.
We need to start at the beginning and not in the middle or at the end – This is exactly what Paul does here - Paul’s story leads up to Jesus, and his story builds to Jesus as the Savior just as the Bible does. Given the increasingly secularized world in which we live, we must increasingly see that our struggle in evangelism is a worldview clash which means that we must now start further back than we used to. We must proclaim the big story of the Bible, not just quote a bunch of verses. The Bible gives us a big story of which Jesus is a part, the main part, the focus, but the big story must be told so that Jesus makes sense to the person to whom we tell it. Only then, once the biblical worldview has been explained in its entirety and understood, can we expect people to embrace it and the gospel that is at its core.
The last aspect of gospel-sharing that we learn from Paul’s example is that we must expect a response (Acts 17: 32-34). The characteristic fruit of the gospel is born here – some mocked and some joined. Our Christian witness will always have the same effect - mocking and joining. Gospel sharing is not easy. Over the years many people and organizations have tried to make it such, but it simply isn’t. Are you willing to do the work?
Soli Deo Gloria
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