I ended the previous post with the observation that the world and everything in it is broken by sin. Because of that brokenness, Jesus left his disciples a command to go into all the world and preach the gospel (Mt 28.19-20). Even in Paul’s day, and even with the relative cultural unity brought by the Greeks and then the Romans across the Mediterranean Basin, there were cultural issues to address:
- Just within Judaism there was division between those who spoke Hebrew/Aramaic and kept closely to Hebrew customs, and those (“Hellenists”) who admired the Greek culture and tried to adopt as much of it as they could (e.g. Ac 6.1).
- The division between Jews and “Gentile dogs” was as deep and wide as it could be (e.g. Ac 10.28; 11.2-3).
- As Paul traveled the Roman Empire, he faced occasions where he didn’t understand the local religious practices, or even the language (Ac 14.8-18).
- Even within the church there were disputes about whether one should keep kosher or celebrate the Mosaic feast days (Ro 14.2, 5), or whether one should eat meat that had been offered to an idol in a pagan ritual (1Co 8.4-13).
These were real concerns, real disagreements, that caused real divisions. Answering these questions was hard.
Throughout this process of early evangelism, the apostles made it clear that there were some things, both doctrinal and practical, on which Christians must agree. They evidenced this primarily in their sermons, all of which tended to focus on the same set of core doctrines, the hub around which the wheel of Christianity turned. (That link is important; take a minute to read the post, and ideally the whole series, since it’s foundational to the current discussion.) They began with the well-founded assumption that the Hebrew Scriptures—what Christians call the Old Testament—are God’s inspired Word and thus to be trusted—and obeyed—implicitly.
But beyond that core, they demonstrated some flexibility on how they approached various groups. For example, Paul addressed a synagogue in Pisidian Antioch, with a discourse on how Jesus fulfilled the Hebrew Scripture, since these educated, observant Jews had a cultural context for that argument (Ac 13.15-41). But at the Areopagus in Athens, facing a pagan audience, Paul quoted none of the Hebrew Scriptures, focusing instead on the writings of various Greek poets and philosophers (Ac 17.18-31)—specifically,
- Epimenides, Cretica (Acts 17.28a)
- Aratus, Phaenomena l. 5 (Acts 17.28b)
By the end of this sermon, however, Paul demonstrated the importance of the doctrinal core by emphasizing unapologetically the resurrection of Christ, an assertion that brought mocking from this culture (Ac 17.32).
It’s interesting to compare the two sermons more closely:
- Opening Hook: national pride (Ac 13.17) vs. “unknown god” (Ac 17.22-23)
- Storyline: national covenant (Ac 13.18-22) vs. creation (Ac 17.24-29)
- Consequence: Messiah as fulfillment of promise (Ac 13.23-41) vs. certainty of coming judgment (Ac 17.30-31)
These two commissions—to preach the undiluted and undistorted gospel, and to preach to every culture on the planet—give rise to disagreements. Believers are priests, illuminated by the Spirit, but they’re imperfect, and so they differ as to how to go about this central task.
- We are tasked with taking the gospel to every culture on the planet—cultures that exist because we are created in the image of God.
- Good stewards will represent Christ, in word and deed, in the most effective way to reach the culture.
- But the message must not be compromised by that accommodation to the culture.
- While contextualization means doing what’s necessary to make the gospel understandable in the target culture, it is not a blank check to be as groovy as possible.
This raises—it does not “beg,” but that’s for a different post—a question. Which ways of making the gospel message more easily accessible by a different culture are appropriate, and which are not? How do we tell the difference? Where do we draw the line?
More on that next time.
Photo by Joseph Grazone on Unsplash
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