Engaging Our Culture

So the question that we continue to look at together in this little miniseries is how can
we, as believers, engage our culture when the values of our culture and the values of
the church are increasingly miles apart and when the language that we speak sounds like a foreign
language to each other. Let me give you an example just to illustrate the kind of problems that we
face. Last council meeting in the break that we had and I don't quite know if I ought to tell you
this but I'm going to anyway, the conversation turned to 50 shades of gray. 50 shades of gray for
those of you not in the know is a bit of a cultural phenomenon. It's part of a trilogy of books
that has become an astonishing bestseller worldwide. It has sold over a hundred million copies
two weekends ago I believe it was. It came out as a movie or a film and so far in the first two
weekends I think worldwide it racked up sales of 400 million dollars and the topic came up in
our conversation because two of our men in council working offices where they are surrounded by women.
And that particular at the end of the day in both of these offices these women were
getting together to plan going to this movie. 67% of viewers of that movie that first weekend
were women, interestingly enough. And for those of you not in the know this movie is not only
an erotic love story but it deals with what's known as as bondage and masochism. It's a violent
kind of sex where the woman is subjected to ill treatment at the hands of her lover. I think
as Giangameshi's story minus are with the consent because that's part of the story in the book
as I understand that. So but is this conversation is progressing? One of the guys was invited
by these women to come along to the movie and she you know he showed his obvious discomfort
and they try to ease his discomfort by saying well you can invite your wife along too.
And you got to picture this because here we are with values that the opposite end of this
spectrum and that is part and parcel of the society that we live with in Ian. I mean the provincial
liberal government just this past week of course came out with the sex ed curriculum and while
there may be many good things that are part of that curriculum that many of us can agree with
there is also an underlying value in it that is at odds with biblical values in terms of sexuality.
So we live in a world where increasingly the church is over here in terms of its values
and the world is over here in terms of its values. And then the challenge is how do you engage
each other in a meaningful fashion so that you're not just resorting to name calling demonizing
and writing each other off? That is the challenge today for engaging your culture.
And that challenge is identical I believe to the issue that Paul faced here in Athens.
Paul we could say was the product of Jerusalem that is to say he was the product of a biblical
spirituality that is shaped by heaven's values of faith hope and love. He believes in a God who
reveals himself who gives a law who is a God of salvation who invites people to live in relationship
with him. He's in the middle of Athens which is the opposite of all of that it is the embodiment
of worldly values it is steeped in idols it knows very little about the true God in fact one of
the ancient writers says concerning the city of Athens there were more gods there than people
if you can believe that so they were very religious but they were not religious in the sense of
submitting to God's authority or embodying biblical values they were as far removed from biblical
values as they could possibly be that's why when Paul was walking around in that marketplace
he was so incensed in his spirit about all the idolatry that was taking place ancient writers
tell us there was a god and an idol on virtually every street corner and so the question is how
did Paul handle engaging his culture and is there anything that you and I can learn from the way
that he did that so in the time that we have this morning let's see how far we can get we won't be
able to touch a base on all the things that we want to look at but I think we can make a good beginning
so lessons to learn number one Paul goes to where the people are verse 17 of chapter 17 so he
reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the godfaring Greeks as well as in the marketplace
day by day with those who happen to be there Paul's strategy we've talked about this before
in ministry was always to go to the synagogue first that's the place where the believing Jews were
that's also the place where the Gentiles that had become Jewish believers were they're called the
godfaring Greeks because the message of the gospel was meant for the Jewish people the literal
descendants of Abraham first and foremost so as is his custom he goes to the synagogue
but this time he does something more that we don't read much about in any of his other
missions to the cities he goes to the marketplace and he goes to the marketplace because he is so
upset because of the obvious idolatry in this city and as we'll see in a few moments he begins to
engage people there he goes to where the people are and the obvious lesson there is this for you
in me for the church to engage society it's got to be in contact with and it's got to have
relationships with the rest of the world Jesus said we are in the world even while we are not to
be of the world Paul writing to the Corinthians later on says I never told you not to associate
with any immoral people in the world only stay away from immoral people in Christian community
you have a responsibility to judge them but you don't have a responsibility to judge the world
and here of course is where the rubber hits the road we talked about this two weeks ago the
whole year the church gats and the more sinful the world becomes the greater is the gap between those
two and once generally speaking once people have been Christians for a little while they abandon
their non-Christian friends or the non-Christian friends abandon them the two groups are uncomfortable
with each other and pretty soon we have Christians doing the holy huddle thing and the world is doing
it's pagan whatever they do out there and never the train shall meet and the ongoing challenge for
Christian community is how can we be in the world but not of the world how can we have relationship
without being sucked into their sea and because that's the other negative side that causes us to
shrink away because we all know of people who who are so accommodating to the world that they
fall into the world and before you know they become like the world so then salt loses its
saver light loses its its penetrating power and the church is no different from the world so
how can you be in the world but not of the world that's the challenge and the genius of Jesus
and the genius of the Apostle Paul is that they were able to do that they could hold on to their
identity before gone they could remain faithful to God they could hang out with the world yet not
seen with the world Jesus for example could speak to prostitutes but could resist the temptation
if I can put it in those words of going to bed with them how do we strike that balance how can we
be where the world is well I think part of the key is building on existing social networks
all of us are families many of us depending on what our background is will have family members
who are not following Jesus in some case maybe having completely turned their backs on him
and many of us are in a workplace situation where we rub shoulders with bosses or clients or
customers or coworkers who do not name the name of Jesus and who are pretty blatant in some
instances about what they value and how they live and all of us are part of a larger community
where of course we take our presence one way or the other so the challenge in those situations
is to cultivate those relationships it's to stay in contact with family members or with friends
who are very different from us when the temptation is to say I don't want to be part of you I don't
want to be part of your circle of influence I am much more comfortable with my Christian friends
and with my Christian community only the Holy Spirit can lead us there but the Holy Spirit has
to give us wisdom and passion for connecting with the world and we ought not to be so afraid
of being polluted by the world that we refuse to touch them because we think they are unclean
but it takes grace to do that and it takes community to do that lest we go down the tubes together
I'll give you an extreme example Alan Hurch I think he's an Australian church planner tells this
story of striking up a relationship with a woman who works in a strip club and he is getting
to know her heart and recognizes how God is at work in her life and then he gets to this crisis
situation where one day she says to him shyly would you come to my club and watch me strip now
what are you going to do most of us would say never in a thousand years I'll you know I'll
ruin my good Christian testimony and and all my friends will think I've gone but he went
and it's easy for us to sit in judgment on that because you can go for all the wrong reasons
but you can also go with an attitude that says I really love this woman this is important to her
and I want her to understand that I see her heart and I want to bring her to Jesus
now understand I'm not recommending you go to strip clubs so let's let that be on the record like
really solidly and if you're going to step into any kind of a situation you want to be surrounded
by Christian community that can hold you accountable lest you deceive yourself and you go down
the tubes but let's not be so holy and so righteous that we don't want to touch people where they
are or where they do their living because they are dirty Jesus never had that problem and Jesus
had confidence that the power of the gospel was greater than the power of sin and so Paul
goes to where the people are and I don't know what that looks like for you or for me
but we can discern from the Holy Spirit are there situations that we can step into are there
relationships that we need to cultivate are there hearts that at the core have a longing for
biblical triivh and does God want to use me in that person's life to lead me or to lead that person
to salvation so first of all he goes to where the people are and then the second thing that we know
in terms of his procedure here is that he engages them in conversation he engages them in conversation
verse 18 of chapter 17 a group of epicurean and stoic philosophers began to dispute or debate
with him some of them asked what is this babbler trying to say and others remarked he seems to be
advocating foreign gods they said this because Paul was preaching the good news about Jesus
and the resurrection three things in that verse that we ought to take note of and the first is
the emphasis on the epicurean and stoic philosophers these were two philosophical movements that were
solidly situated in the city of Athens and that exercised influence over large swaths of people
now to appreciate why that was we need to understand that then as well as now
the human race has two particular fears that it needs to contend with from day to day the first
fear is how can I control life when it seems so often out of control and in the old pagan culture
that came down to how can I live in a world that is ruled by thousands of gods who seem to
arbitrarily take their frustrations out on the human race that's a big big issue how can I
be safe from the gods the second one is what happens to me when I die and how can I face the fear
of death so these philosophical movements developed in response to those and other fears that people
had and they came up with different answers depending on the values that the founders of these
movements proposed and so the epicureans were people who were true materialists that is to say
they thought the universe was was the product of random actions of atoms coming together
they believed in the existence of gods because in that day and age if you didn't believe in the
existence of god you were considered an atheist an atheist got their heads cut off but they
didn't believe that the gods were involved in the affairs of life and so it was your responsibility
to try to cope with the affairs of life as best as you could and their theory was you did that by
pursuing pleasure and by avoiding pain and so for the epicureans the ideal human state was sitting
around in your garden eating food talking with your friends and if you look up the meaning of the
word epicurean in the English language then it refers to a person who enjoys fine food it's
all about managing your discomforts in life by feeling good and by avoiding things that were
painful now Stoics founded by a guy with the name of Zeno were somewhat different in their
philosophies because they believe the world was created by the gods in particular they believed
in Zeus who is one of the chief gods in the Greek Roman mythological picture of the gods as close
to the Christian god as you can get but not quite close enough because he in turn was the offspring
of two other gods and our god of course is eternally existent so they believed the Zeus created
the world but they also believed that he wasn't involved in running the affairs of the human race
in any kind of a personal way life was managed by what they called fate and fate is stuff just
happens and there isn't anybody that you can appeal to as a god about the stuff that just happens
and so their solution to the uncertainty of life was not just to avoid pain and to experience
but their solution was that you hold your passions in check you don't let yourself feel anything
too excited about things that you cannot control because then you won't be disappointed and so the
word stoic has come through in the English language as that kind of a person a person who is just
nothing bothers me they did not believe the soul was eternal but they thought it lasted as long
as the universe did and then the universe would go through these repeated cycles of burning up
and starting all over again and keep these kind of things in mind because Paul's sermon to them
later on and their responses to his sermon picks up on some of these belief systems so Paul engages
these epicurean and these stoic philosophers and that's one of the things I want us to notice
in this verse that we just read together a second thing that is of particular interest here
is their use of the word babler you may have noticed that a group of epicurean and stoic
philosophers began to dispute with him some of them asked what is this babler trying to say
the Greek word there is word spermo logos which comes from two words spermo which means seed
and lego which means pick up and the literal application of it is a bird picking up seeds
and then speeding out the shell and it was a very derogatory term that in that particular culture
meant that here is a person who is picking up a tidbits of information in this very complex
philosophical world and he is just spouting them off arbitrarily he doesn't know what he's talking
about he's an idol babler you'll meet a lot of those at Christmas parties when some people drink too
much and they just go on and on and they have an opinion on every subject under the sun and they
haven't a clue what they're really talking about that's how they wrote off the Apostle Paul
and the reason for that is that's the third thing to notice in this particular passage is that
they were confused so some scholars think about what he was really saying because you'll notice
when they talk about uh it goes on to say in verse 18 he seems to be advocating foreign
gods not just the foreign god but foreign gods and this is because Paul was preaching the good news
about Jesus and the resurrection now the word for resurrection in Greek is the word
Anastasus from which we get the English name Anastasia which I understand is the name of the woman
in 50 Shades of Grey but you're not supposed to know that the guy's name is Christian
interestingly enough I know that because I read the reviews not because I read the book so
just relax about that Jesus in the resurrection so they think Jesus is one god
and Anastasus is the other god but they are intrigued by what they consider babbling
and so they enter into conversation with him now hold onto that thought for a moment
because we'll come back to it it isn't good enough just to be in relationship with worldly people
it is we got to go beyond that we have to engage them in conversation but more than that
eventually we need to be able to engage them in conversation about God and that's the third
thing that we need to notice in this particular passage is that Paul gets an invitation
to formerly address them. Verse 19 then they took him and brought him to a meeting of the
Ariopagus where they said to him may we know what this new teaching is that you are present at
and the operative word there is the word Ariopagus the literal meaning of that
is Mars Hill I'll come back to that in a moment you may have heard of Mars Hill radio network
if you listen to the Christian station across the lake you'll you'll have heard of churches called
Mars Hill Church there is a university called Mars Hill University there's a seminary called
Mars Hill unit seminary all goes back to this story now the Ariopagus to this day is a
a huge rock in the middle of the city of Athens here you see it and I'll explain the name
and where that comes from in a few moments it's a huge tourist attraction as you can see
I'll show you the next picture that is the front of it here you see a plaque that contains all
of Paul's sermon in Acts chapter 17 this is a world famous spot and it served for hundreds of
years as the seat of sort of a supreme court where cases were tried by very wise and fair people
and that's where the name Mars Hill comes from because the name Ariopagus is a compound name
of Eris and Pagos Eris is the Greek name for the god of war which in Roman mythology became Mars
you get that connection Pegos is Hill and so there you have Mars Hill and in Greek mythology the
story behind that is this Mars was taken there on trial because he was accused of killing the
son of Neptune and the reason he killed the son of Neptune was because the son of Neptune
had raped his daughter and so trial was held on Mars Hill four Mars in Greek mythology
and eventually he was found not guilty I don't know the rest of that story but that's the
context of this situation so what we have happening here is Paul is a costing people on the street
he's running into these epicurean and stoic philosophers they hear tidbits of what it is that he's
saying they don't understand what it is that he's saying because he's talking about Jesus and
the resurrection they have no framework any of them to to even think about resurrection and they
say well let's hear this guy out so they take him to the Ariopagus now some commentators think
they take him by force to hold him accountable most commentators don't think that's the case
they just want to give him a hearing and this is where this hearing takes place in the Ariopagus
surrounded by all these wise people and as we'll see later on it is from there then
that Paul eventually launches into his sermon but the point of course is this it's not enough
for us to be in connection or relationship with unbelievers if we're going to engage your culture
it's not enough for us to know how to talk to the drunken the family or the woman in the family
that nobody wants anything to do with or any of the alternate lifestyles that the world is so
full of today we also need to know how can I bring this conversation to the things of God so that
they can at least make the choice of accepting the gospel message or rejecting the gospel message
and the big question is how do we do that because we so often speak different languages we live
in different worlds and remember that was the function of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit
on the day of Pentecost the Holy Spirit in the church will teach us to speak the language of
the people not everybody's going to be able to do that equally but if the Holy Spirit is in you
he can give you words and passion and love so that you can address people where they are and
connect with them in places that they would have never thought the gospel can apply and you do
that you do that by finding out where they do their living you have to establish a point of
contact and that's what Paul does here because now listen to verse 21 you know sort of
parenthesis look throws this in here all the Athenians and the foreigners live there spend their
time doing nothing but talking about and listening to the latest ideas and so that provides fertile
ground for Paul to begin to connect with their interest in new ideas because he's got some new ideas
that they've never heard about and he has earned a hearing so that at least he gets an opportunity
to talk about the things of the good news now how do we do that there's a lot of different ways
of doing that and each one of us sort of has to find in the way that we have relationships with
people how to establish that point of contact I'm jealous sometimes of those of you who rub
shoulders on a regular basis with pagan people because mostly I only get to run rub shoulders
with you and most of you think God are not too pagan so that's an encouraging thing
but there's nothing like having a good conversation with a pagan person how do you do that well
you find out what the points of interest are you can talk about your own family or your own life
or the activities that you engage in you know we're often embarrassed to say well I go to church but
to tell somebody I'm going to church is a great conversation starter as a matter of fact when I do
have opportunity to sort of arbitrarily connect with people that I don't have much of a relationship
with one of the first questions that I often ask people is well are you church going person
well that always gets the conversation going because people almost always trip all over
themselves to explain why they're not church going people anymore and they used to be and here are
my reasons why I don't great great great great opportunities for speaking another way of addressing
those kind of practical issues with people is to address current affairs things that are in the
news things that you can talk about together now I talked earlier about 50 shades of gray I'm not
recommending you read 50 shades of gray I'm not recommending you go to the movie but it is a cultural
phenomenon and there's enough reviews online of Christians that you can read the review and
get a pretty good picture of what the story is about and one of the things that Christians
are scratching their heads about is what is it about this book and about this movie that is so
incredibly attractive particularly to women including Christian women one reviewer who talks
about the movie talks about walking into a church secretary's office with a book plainly on her
desk now I find that rather fascinating though I must confess I was Michelle and I were
in the bible's formations store in Kingston I'll quite a number of months ago perusing through
their used book section and what would I find but 50 shades of gray so my wife asked me later
well did you you know did you think of alerting them to the fact that this is sitting on the
shelf and to my shame I had to confess it ever even occurred to me I thought I was afraid that
she might have a heart attack if she do the kind of literature that she was stalking in her good
Christian store so Lord will have to forgive me no idea whose hands that ended up being
but what's the appeal and without reading the book or without seeing the movie but having read
a number of reviews I'll give you my personal opinion and you can take them for what they are
number one it pushes the envelope sexually and that always intrigues society at a particular point
so that's an appeal but more than that the appeal is that it appeals to the desire of a certain
category of women to be pursued insistently and to be wanted desperately and thirdly
because I understand that the end of the trilogy she wins him over he leaves his abnormality
I think it appeals to something in some women about thinking that their love can straighten out
crooked men and all three of those are fallacies I can tell you from years of working with people
that dude named Christian ain't gonna change his way alive he's gonna break her heart and she's
not going to read him over but those are great contact points if you get into conversation with
people around you why are you reading this what is drawing you into this world of fantasy
and what the heck is the matter with your own marriage or with your own relationship
that you need this kind of kick to fuel your own passion good conversation starter don't you think
other area you know ISIS isn't the news a lot and for months now I had been wondering
why are these folks so provocative in the public execution of people you know you know
that of course they they cut people's heads off and they put it on video and then they broadcast
that all over the place and you'd say what kind of idiots are you because all you're doing is
you're getting the whole world mad at you isn't it I mean Jordan was staying out of this whole
business until they they burned their pilot to death in a cage and how Jordan is mad
and Jordan is bombing the snort out of them and he used to look at that what are you thinking
are you just trying to shock us are you what's your agenda and maybe I'm just slow but I have
finally found out what the agenda is they are trying to provoke a Muslim version of Armageddon
they are trying to draw the western world into a battle that according to their apocalyptic
literature is going to take place in the city of the beak which is a northern Syria close to the
border of Turkey and when they executed one of the first Americans whose head they caught off
they executed him in that city their magazine their flagship magazine is called the beak
because under their version of theology they are provoking the western Christian nations
to put boots on the ground where they are because in that battle one third of their soldiers
are going to be killed one third of their soldiers are going to deny and run away and one third
of the soldiers are going to remain standing there's going to be five thousand of them left
and when it feels like the battle is over and they have lost their Messiah is going to come to fight
with them and then Jesus is going to come and he's going to join them he's going to denounce all
Christians and then their kingdom will be established overall the earth that is the philosophy
and that's what motivates they don't care about they want boots on the ground
and they don't care if it looks like they're losing because that's all part of the prophecy
now for me that was a huge eye opener because now it finally makes sense what they're doing
and I share that with you not because you know each one of us is going to become an expert on
apocalyptic literature but this stuff is in the news all the time this past week
over 300 Assyrian Christians have been captured the news says it's only 200 it's well over 300
though I heard this morning the 23 of them have been released and it's all part of this the Assyrian
Christians are some of the oldest Christians in the world one of the few groups remaining that
speak a version of biblical Aramaic which is the language of the Jesus fall and the Bible says
if one part of the body suffers we all suffer so you and I not only need to be acquainted each of
us in his or her own way but we need to be able to use these as conversation points with the people
around us to bring in the message of the gospel because the Bible message is that the final
battle of history is not going to happen at Debeek it's going to happen at Armageddon
it's going to be Jesus and it's Jesus who establishes kingdom not first and foremost by war
and by sword and by violence he doesn't call us to precipitate the end by going to war
now he calls us to precipitate the end by living lives of holiness and godliness
and hastening the coming of the day of the Lord so there's all kinds of very practical ways
in which you and I can make connections and if our hearts are filled with love and we're reasonably
knowledgeable about biblical truth and we care for the people around us the Holy Spirit will create
opportunities and as we step into those opportunities with the graciousness of God's Holy Spirit
only God knows whose hearts going to be open and whose life is going to change and I'm always
reminded of these words of Peter in 1 Peter chapter 3 the verses 15 and 16 in your hearts
set apart Christ as Lord always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give
the reason for the hope that you have but do this with gentleness and respect keeping your clear
conscience so that those who speak maliciously against your good behavior in Christ may be ashamed
of their slander