iii. Reacting to our culture

ii. Discerning our cultural context i. Why Glenabbey is not a ‘cool’ church

Why Glenabbey is not a cool church #3
13th August 2008

Last time, we noted that Paul was an astute observer of the culture he found himself in in Athens. But there are dangers in this, of course. Being in the world while not becoming of it is challenging. We know from Scripture that the values of the world are opposed to the truths of the gospel – the world prefers lies to the truth of a gospel that demands radical repentance (Rom 1:21-25). And scripture warns us time and again of the sin of worldliness – James 4:4 “You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God?” We daren’t take this warning lightly.

Mark Driscoll says, ‘Before we naively seek to be relevant to a dying world, we must realise the dangers before us and proceed with our eyes open and our hand ready for the spiritual war. Tragically, I have seen many young pastors undertake reformission without a wise understanding of worldliness, pastors who, instead of converting lost people, were themselves converted and are no longer pastors but instead are adulterers, divorcees, alcoholics, perverts, homosexuals, feminists and nut jobs.’ (The Radical Reformission, p124 – he doesn’t pull his punches!!).

Ah well, ‘when in Athens’, I suppose…!
How do we avoid this pitfall? We can be helped as we look at Paul’s example. Verse 16 tells us that, as he was wandering around noting the widespread idolatry of the Athenians, Paul was ‘provoked’ by what he saw. This attitude he displayed is vitally important. He didn’t simply note it and remain unmoved; he didn’t merely observe it, shrug his shoulders and say, ‘When in Athens…!’ He was deeply disturbed by what he saw. He felt a deep revulsion of the scandal of the idolatry he saw all around him, because this idolatry was robbing God of the glory that is due him and him alone.

In this, he was simply reflecting the character of the God he loved and served. Right at the start of the Ten Commandments, God gives a stark warning: “You shall have no other gods before me … you shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I, Yahweh your God, am a jealous God” (Ex 20:3,5). This is not the jealousy of covetness, or of envy, but the jealousy of a wife when her husband has an affair, the kind of jealousy that is offended because an intruder has entered the marriage, one who has no right to be there.

So Paul identified a deep-rooted and disastrous flaw right at the heart of the Athenian culture – they had ‘exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator,’ as Paul would put it in Romans 1. They had allowed the worship of the one, true God to be usurped by the worship of trinket gods, and Paul was deeply disturbed by this.

Provoked ... yet still engaged
And so, to avoid being contaminated by such dreadful idolatry, Paul simply stayed in hiding till his friends arrived, before breathing a sigh of relief and withdrawing into a holy-huddle with his Christian mates where they sang nice little songs about how great it was to be saved from such disgusting things. Well, not quite. Acts 17:17 says “So he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the devout persons, and in the marketplace every day with those who happened to be there.”

Paul was disturbed by what he saw – and certainly there is more than enough to deeply disturb us about the culture around us today – but that was exactly the reason why he sought to proclaim the truth of the gospel right in the heart of Athens (note the little word ‘for’ connecting Paul’s attitude in v16 with his actions in v17). He was horrified by what he saw in the culture, but his love for the people living there prompted him to act to play his part to try to save them from the very situation they were living in.

What about us as we try to reach out to thsoe around us? Are we on guard to try to ensure that we are not sucked into the very idolatry we're trying to save people from? As we us things from culture around us, are we aware of the potential pitfalls, areas where we might be caught out? Are we truly provoked when we see things that rob God of his glory? I believe that it's as we follow Paul's example in the attitude he displayed that we will be most protected from the dangers of the very things we uses to spread the gospel. Then we can be most safely in the world, but not of it.

As Paul sought to engage the Athenians with the truths of the gospel, at first he followed his usual pattern of preaching to the Jews in the synagogue. But, at the same time, he was in the market place, engaging the gospel with ‘those who happened to be there.’ And it was this technique that got him the invitation to speak to the philosophers at Mars Hill.

Next time
Next time, we’ll revisit Paul’s conversation with them, seeking to learn how he used the partial truths found in culture while speaking prophetically into the error found there. We’ll also seek to answer the question: does being engaged with culture by definition mean that we are being worldly?

Alistair Hamill