After a simple lunch of grilled hot dogs, we came into the worship center for the second-to-last general session message from Grace To You executive director and web-guy Phil Johnson. Those of you reading this blog likely already know this; but if you don’t you should check out his prominent websites:

• Pyromaniacs
• The Spurgeon Archive
• The Hall of Church History

The organist provided a prelude to our post-lunch general session with “Grace Greater Than Our Sin,” “Be Thou My Vision,” and “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God.” After a call to worship from Psalm 40:3, we were led by Bill Brandenstein in singing “O for a Thousand Tongues to Sing” and “How Firm a Foundation.” Then Andy Snider, a professor at Grace Church, and his wife Pam & daughter Emily sang a song, “Jesus Draw Me Nearer.”

Rick Holland then introduced Phil Johnson to the audience, emphasizing that while Phil is definitely a bulldog apologist, he is also known in Grace Church as tremendously pastoral, overseeing the large Grace Life fellowship in the church.

Phil Johnson opened his message explaining his desire to address the four key tenets of the postmodern “missional” evangelical landscape: culture, contextualization, conversation and charitableness. Opening to Acts 17 as a key text, Phil explained that Paul sets a completely opposite example from the postmoderns of our day who think the way to reach people, to be “missional,” is to be as much like people as possible. They think that the best way to reach the lost is to be just like them. This has become the prevalent way of thinking among evangelicals today, which is a bad thing. The complete opposite is shown to us by Paul’s example from Acts 17. Here is how:

Culture: When Paul arrived in Athens, and saw their false religions, he was so upset he couldn’t contain it. he was obviously well educated and knew the history of greek mythology an dth relgiion of athens. he’d memorized passages from literature. but this was first time personally in athens, and to witness the omnipresent idolatry for himself. Everythwere he looked he saw the signs of it. Completely unspiritual religion with no reference to the true God. It grieved Paul deeply. So he began confronting it by proclaiming Christ.

Paul did not have tea & quiet conversation. He stood somewhere people couldn’t possibly miss him. Then he interacted with hecklers & genuine inquirers alike. Luke uses ‘dialogomai’ to convey the sense of a debate, a verbal disputation. It can also refer to a sermon or polemical argument. In the KJV, it says he “disputed.” Not pugnacious, but he proclaimed Christ, then responded to their false beliefs. Paul deliberately counter-cultural. He didn’t say, “The resurrection is foolish to them, so I’ll low-key it.” He studied the culture and preached the very truths they were prone to reject.

Note v 18, he wasn’t getting any praise from the local intellectual elites. The Stoics were secular determinists. They believed everything is foreordained by random chance, so they thought nothing really matters. Epicureans were at the other end, trying to avoid pain and indulge in pleasure. There was yet another system, Cynicism, who are not spoken of here. Remember, Paul was grieved by athenian culture. He was not embracing any elements of that culture. His message offended all the major philosophies of that culture. He stood in opposition to all of them. It was obvious because of what he preached: Jesus and the resurrection. We know this because they called him a “seed-picker” (babbler). He was clearly out of step with every major system of human thinking at the time (“a proclaimer of foreign gods.”) But he was still articulate enough to catch their attention; and what’s more, he was a novelty, which they loved (v. 19).

Athens was the place to surf the ancient web, and Paul was like the latest viral YouTube video. They brought him to the Areopagus, and wanted to hear what he had to say.

This brings us to Paul’s sermon (v. 22ff):

22 So Paul stood in the midst of the Areopagus and said, “Men of Athens, I observe that you are very religious in all respects. 23 “For while I was passing through and examining the objects of your worship, I also found an altar with this inscription, `TO AN UNKNOWN GOD.’ Therefore what you worship in ignorance, this I proclaim to you.”

V. 23 is where people say Paul was being relevant and not being antagonistic to their culture. But remember, in context, that was the very part of Athenian culture that grieved Paul — their ignorant worship. That was the main lie he wanted to answer with the truth! They had the trappings of religion, but their ancient religion were nothing but superstition. And all of it had morphed into a simple love of human wisdom (1 Cor 1:22). Philosophy was the only god they served. All of them either were atheistic or deified pleasure, materialism, or nature. Their quasi-spirituality was not spiritual at all. They didn’t believe in a personal God. They were all practical atheists — a mirror of our society today. Their worldly wisdom was not vastly different from what supposedly enlightened people believe today. Paul is clearly being sarcastic here! You had lots of superstitions, traditions; but all entirely devoid of any kind of true faith! The had the same significance as the massive empty cathedrals in your Europe today. They didn’t believe in real deities. They had Olympian gods, ethereal gods, the titans, the nymphs, hundreds of lesser gods. And no educated person really believed any of those gods were real. So when they ran out of things to deify someone decided to put something up so as to avoid overlooking any missed deity.

When Paul saw that altar, he seized on it. It was not an affirmation, but a condemnation of their culture! He was honing in on what was most odious in their culture. The irony was rich because they worshiped human wisdom and knowledge. Paul more or less rubbed salt into their ignorance of the one thing that matters most! It was like someone going amongst a bunch of postmodern college professors and telling them the Bible is true! That’s what this was like! Paul is not using culture as a pragmatic evangelistic tool in order to get into their inner circle; he stands in their midst as an alien to their culture and proclaimed the truth about God to them, in his words.

Conversation. Notice Paul is not sponsoring a colloquium, he’s simply proclaiming the truth! He doesn’t say, “Let’s talk about this, you tell me about your approach, your ideas & philosophies; maybe we can learn from one another.” He hones in on the heart of what he wants them to know!

24 “The God who made the world and all things in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands; 25 nor is He served by human hands, as though He needed anything, since He Himself gives to all people life and breath and all things; 26 and He made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their habitation, 27 that they would seek God, if perhaps they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us;

This is a simple declaration of truth, not an exchange of ideas. He starts with theology proper, the starting place of all Biblical truth. Even though our society wants to weasel around it, and Christians today willing to accomodate, Paul doesn’t. He affirms the authority and spirituality of God, and the sufficiency, sovereignty, transcendence, immanence of God; and His power as the giver and sustainer of life. And all of it was flatly contradictory to what these philosophers believed. No give and take of opinions. He doesn’t assume a false humility, a truth-seeker looking for companions. He declares the truth with authority and conviction. He wasn’t arrogant because he was declaring infallible truth that God had revealed. It would be arrogant for him to pretend he didn’t know for sure. He used an appropriate method: a sermon, not a conversation.

Contextualization. Paul didn’t use that tactic either. There is an obvious need to speak a language people can understand. Paul didn’t use Hebrew, he used Greek. But what he did not do was adapt his message to the basic values and beliefs of that culture. That’s what it means when we say he shunned the tactic of contextualization:

28 for in Him we live and move and exist, as even some of your own poets have said, `For we also are His children.’

He’s quoting Greek poets who were several hundred years passed in Paul’s time. He was quoting from their ancient literature to express his own worldview, to show that these truths were available to them also in their own ancient writings. He was using it to confront the worldview of that generation. He’s demolishing their worldview, the ideas they held in error. Amid countless temples and superstitions, amidst quasi-spiritualists and materialists, they all denied the existence of after-life or a human soul; much like our secularized culture today.

29 “Being then the children of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and thought of man. 30 “Therefore having overlooked the times of ignorance, God is now declaring to men that all people everywhere should repent, 31 because He has fixed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness through a Man whom He has appointed, having furnished proof to all men by raising Him from the dead.”

Paul could hardly have said anything more counter-cultural or less “contextualized” for these philosophers. Let me point out at least 6 points that would’ve been deeply offensive to his listeners:

• vv. 24-25: Paul was summarily dismissing all the fundamentals of Greek-style religion and preached authoritative truth from God himself, and stressed God was not just a character in their bucket of gods.
• v. 26: Paul was attacking the common assumption of the Athenian race that the Greek race was superior to every other strand of humanity
• v. 27: Paul emphasizes the immanence of God, which was ludicrous to them
• v. 26: Paul emphasized the sovereignty of God which offended their theology of chance
• He ridiculed their idols (stones, etc.), and called it ignorance!

It looks like Paul was trying to provoke them! And in a true sense, he was. And his call to repentance was no less offensive than it would be today in the U.N. General Council. Every sentence he had said something that would be offensive to those philosophers.

Paul did not employ culture, conversation or contextualization as the primary tools for evangelization.

Charitableness. This is not the biblical version of charity (e.g., 1 Cor 13, “it rejoices in the truth.). This is the postmodern notion of broad-minded altruism where you refuse to take any dogmatic position on anything. You never write off someone else’s beliefs, always looking for ‘common ground,’ full of good will toward the other person’s worldview. “Nothing we believe is any more than a personal opinion.” That approach often uses appeasement rather than confrontation. Did Paul do that here? No. He simply proclaimed the message God gave him to preach (1 Cor 2:4). Once again, he headed for the one truth that would seem like foolishness to these guys: the resurrection. To a bunch of materialists, that was unthinkable. When he got that point, it ended the sermon.

32 Now when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some began to sneer, but others said, “We shall hear you again concerning this.” 33 So Paul went out of their midst. 34 But some men joined him and believed, among whom also were Dionysius the Areopagite and a woman named Damaris and others with them.

Three reactions:

1. Some mocked. You’d expect this, from Greeks seeking after wisdom (1 Cor 1:22-23). Most of these folks simply turned away. But it doesn’t mean Paul failed! His only task as an ambassador of Christ is to deliver the message clearly and accurately. If they had picked up stones to kill him as in Lystra, God would have still judged Paul as faithful.
2. Others had an open door for future preaching.
3. A handful of people chose to follow! This was a moment of conversion. They believed and became disciples.

Real ministry isn’t shaken by rejection, isn’t changed to suit the prefs of the audience. It has one theme: Christ and his death and resurrection. One strategy: to proclaim the meaning of Christ’s death and resurrection. And it confronts every worldview, false religion, superstition belief, skeptical opinion; rising above all of them speaking with authority because it is the truth of God.