Engaging Our Culture 2

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 mind 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 uh
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 uh that has become an astonishing
bestseller worldwide it has sold over a
100 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
million
dollar and the topic came up in our
conversation because two of our
men in Council work in offices where
they are surrounded by
women and that particular uh 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 uh
this movie is not only an erotic love
story but it deals with what's known as
as bondage and masochism it's it's a
violent kind of sex where the woman is
subjected to uh to ill treatment at the
hands of her lover think think xan gesi
story uh
minus uh or with the consent because
that's part of the story in the book as
I understand that so but as this
conversation is progressing one of the
guys was invited by these women to come
along to the movie and she you know he
he showed his obvious discomfort and
they try to ease his discomfort by
saying well you can invite your wife
along too
and and you got to picture
this because here we
are with values at the opposite end of
the spectrum and that is part and parcel
of the society that we live with and in
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 curricul 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 is 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 truth 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 unver virtually every street
corner and so the question is how did
Paul handle engaging his culture and is
there anything that you want 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 uh 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 God-fearing Greeks as 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 God-fearing 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 and
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 Holier the
church gets 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
abandoned their non-Christian friends or
their non-Christian friends abandoned
them uh the two groups are uncomfortable
with each other and pretty soon we have
Christians doing the holy huddle thing
and the world is doing its
pagan whatever they do out there and
never the twain shall meet and the
ongoing challenge for a 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 sin because that's the other
negative side uh that causes us to 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 Savor light
loses its its penetrating power and the
church is no different from the world so
H how can you be in the world but not of
the world that's the challenge and the
genius of Jesus and the Gen of the
Apostle Paul is that they were able to
do that they could hold on to their
identity before God they could remain
faithful to
God they could hang out with the world
yet not sin 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
um
building on
existing social
networks all of us have families many of
us depending on what our background is
will have family
members who are not following Jesus in
some case uh 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 co-workers uh who do not
name the name of Jesus and 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 uh we we we take our our
presence uh 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
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 hch I think
he's an Australian uh Church planter
tells this
story uh of striking up a relationship
with a
woman uh 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
shily would you come to my club and
now what are you going to
do most of us would say never in a
thousand years I'll you know I 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 let's
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
tubs 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 their
hearts that at the core have a longing
for biblical truth 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
note 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 epicurian and stoic
philosophers began to dispute or debate
with him some of them asked what is the
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 uh that we ought to take note of
and the first is the emphasis on the
epicurian 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
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 uh proposed and so the
epicureans were people who were uh true
materialists that is to say they thought
the 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 and
atheists 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 epicurian 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 epicurian 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 uh founded by a a guy by the name
of
Zeno uh 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
uh Greek
Roman uh 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 that 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 uh 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 PL 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 uh they did not
believe the soul uh was
eternal but they thought it lasted as
long as the universe did and then the
universe would go through these repeated
cycles of uh burning up and starting all
over
again and uh 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 uh these epicurian 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 babbler
you may have noticed that a group of
epicurian and stoic philosophers began
to dispute with him some of them asked
what is this
babbler trying to say the Greek word
there is the word spero logos which
comes from two words spero which means
seed and Lego which means Pi up and the
literal application of it is a bird
picking up seeds and then spitting out
the
shell and it was a very derogatory
term that in that particular culture uh
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 babbler 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 of 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 a 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 anastasis from which we get
the English name
Anastasia which I understand is the name
of the woman in 50 Shades of Gray 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 anastasis is the other God but
they are intrigued by what they consider
babbling and so they enter into
conversation with him now hold on to
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 we got to go beyond that
we have to engage 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 areopagus where
they said to him may we know what this
new teaching is that you are presenting
and the operative word there is the word
areopagus 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 called Mars Hill unit
Seminary all goes back to this story now
the
areopagus uh to this day is
a a huge Rock in the middle of the city
of Athens here you see
it and uh I'll explain the name uh 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 uh 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 and uh that's where the name
Mars heel comes from because the name
areopagus is a compound name of ays and
pagos ays is the Greek name for the God
of War which in Roman mythology became
Mars you get that connection pagos is
heel and so there you have Mars heel 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 uh for Mars in Greek
mythology and eventually
uh 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 accosting
people on the street he's running into
these epicurian 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
to even think about resurrection and
they say well let's hear this guy out so
they take him to the areopagus 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 areopagus 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 our
culture it's not enough for us to know
how to
talk to the drunk in the
family or the woman in the family that
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 uh verse
21 you know sort of in parenthesis Luke
throws this in here all the Athenians
and the foreigners who live there spent
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 uh 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 an 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 a church
going
person well that always gets the
conversation going because people almost
always trip all over themselves to
explain why are they're not churchgoing
people anymore and they used to be and
here are my reasons why I don't great
great great
opportunities for 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 for Missions store in Kingston
oh quite a number of months ago Peru in
through their uh used book section and
what would I find but 50 Shades of Gray
so my wife asks me later well did you
you know did you think of alerting them
to the fact that this is sitting on
their shelf and and to my shame I had to
confess it never even occur to
me I thought I was afraid that she might
have a heart attack if she knew 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 in 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
feel 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 at 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 they 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
going to change his way of life he's
going to break her heart and she's not
going to win 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 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 is in the
news a
lot and for months now I had been
wondering why are these folks so 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
that true I mean Jordan was staying out
of this whole business until they they
burned he their pilot to death
in a
cage and now Jordan is mad and Jordan is
bombing the snot out of
them and he used to look at that
and 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 Deek which is in Northern Syria
close to the border of um of
turkey and when they executed one of the
first Americans whose head they cut off
they executed him in that
City their magazine their Flagship
magazine is called
Deek 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 onethird of their soldiers is are
going to be killed onethird of their
soldiers are going to deny and run away
and onethird of the soldiers are going
to remain standing there's going to be
5,000 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
over all 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 uh although I heard this morning
that 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 uh one of the
few groups remaining that speak a
version of biblical
Aramaic which is the language of the
Jesus
PA 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
way but we need to be able to use these
as convers ation
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
Deek it's going to happen at
Armageddon it's going to be Jesus and
it's Jesus who establishes
Kingdom uh 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 no
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 uh with the graciousness
of God's holy
spirit only God knows whose heart's
going to be open and whose life is going
to change and I'm always reminded of
these words of
Peter in one Peter chapter 3 the verses
15 and
16 in your heart 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 a clear conscience so that those
who speak maliciously against your good
behavior in Christ may be ashamed of
their
slander
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