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December 21, 2017 - January 19, 2018
But it doesn’t appear that he believes all Christians bear the responsibility for the kind of bold proclamation to which he is called.
COLOSSIANS 4:2-6 For evangelists, Paul asks for opportunities to share Christ and for the courage to proclaim the gospel clearly (verses 3-4). But he doesn’t suggest the Colossians pray as much for themselves. Rather, evangelistic believers are to pray for the evangelists’ ministry, to be wise in their conduct toward outsiders, and to look for opportunities to answer outsiders’ questions when they arise (verses 2, 5-6). When it comes to the spoken aspect of their ministries, evangelists are to proclaim, and believers are to give answers.
the biblical model is for leaders to (1) identify, equip, and mobilize gifted evangelists (who then take a leadership responsibility for the church’s evangelism) and (2) inspire all believers to live questionable lives.
Gifted evangelistic leaders should be training their congregations to speak about Jesus conversationally when questioned about how they deal with suffering, or why they spend their vacation serving the poor, or why they’ve opened their home to refugees, or why they’re fasting during Lent, or why they’ve made career choices that allow them to contribute to the greater social good.
But I don’t hear Paul telling his congregations to preach in the Areopagus like he did. He doesn’t berate them for not creating opportunities for bold, clear proclamation. He does want them to talk about Jesus, but as we’ve seen, he assumes it should be in the context of wise socializing, prompted by the questions of others.
These ordinary believers devoted themselves to sacrificial acts of kindness. They loved their enemies and forgave their persecutors. They cared for the poor and fed the hungry. In the brutality of life under Roman rule, they were the most stunningly different people anyone had ever seen. Indeed, their influence was so surprising that the fourth-century emperor Julian (AD 331–363) feared they might take over the empire.
method, I say, the Galileans also begin with their so-called love-feast, or hospitality, or service of tables—for they have many ways of carrying it out and hence call it by many names—and the result is that they have led very many into atheism [i.e., Christianity].[2] Julian was concerned that the Christians’ acts of hospitality and philanthropy were winning too many of his subjects. He decided to launch an offensive against them by mobilizing his officials and the pagan priesthood to out-love the Christians. He decreed that a system of food distribution be started and that hostels be built
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I think this is what Paul referred to as “adorning” the gospel—or in more contemporary language, making the gospel attractive.
Nothing would be more questionable in the first century than a slave who loved his master, or a self-controlled young man, or an old woman who didn’t engage in slander. In other words, this was Paul’s recipe for a questionable life in his time. Our challenge is to find what similarly questionable lives look like in the twenty-first century.
There’s an old communication theory that goes like this: When predictability is high, impact is low. In other words, when the audience thinks they know what you’re going to say, and you go ahead and say it, it makes very little impact. On the other hand, when an audience is surprised or intrigued, they will think long and hard about what they’ve heard.
Acts of philanthropy by Christians today are relatively commonplace, so they don’t surprise the world. If we hear that a Christian business owner has donated money to a cause, or that a church has opened a feeding program or a hospice, we aren’t intrigued. Such things are expected. I’m not suggesting Christian philanthropy shouldn’t continue as an expression of the grace offered to us in Christ, but it doesn’t evoke questions the way it might have in the fourth century. Neither does living a fine, upstanding, middle-class lifestyle in the suburbs, for what it’s worth. Again, I’m not saying we
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We need to become a godly, intriguing, socially adventurous, joyous presence in the lives of others.
the majority of Americans would have the view that getting married, building a career, buying a house, and raising a family are important and desirable milestones. These are examples of an American habitus. They are desirable practices (or habits, if you will), which in turn reinforce a belief system that values monogamy, homeownership, professionalism, consumerism, and reproduction.
In fact, I think this is a much-overlooked aspect of discipleship. We need to be fostering a set of habits among Christians that will in turn shape their values and beliefs. That’s what BELLS is;
By missional, I mean all that we do and say that alerts others to the reign of God.
Mission is both the announcement and the demonstration of the reign of God through Christ. Mission is not primarily concerned with church growth. It is primarily concerned with the reign and rule of the Triune God.
When our lives become questionable, our neighbors invite us to proclaim the reign of God.
The trick is to develop habits that unite us together as believers, while also propelling us into the lives of others.
Plowing a lot of energy into changing church structures, designing vision statements, teaching values, and fashioning strategies can be wasted unless people have some clear understanding of what actual behaviors are required.
We need to develop a rhythm of gift giving, time spending, and affirmation sharing as an end in itself because it fosters a spirit of generosity, it mirrors the character of God, and it alerts others to his reign.
Even if no one asks us about our motivations, we resolve to live out a habitual rhythm of gift giving, time spending, and affirmation sharing.
All this implies that blessers must become students of those whom they bless. We must become attentive to the needs, fears, hopes, and yearnings of our neighbors in order to bless them appropriately.
The founding father of Kenya, Jomo Kenyatta, was noted as saying, “When the missionaries arrived, the Africans had the land and the missionaries had the Bible. They taught us how to pray with our eyes closed. When we opened them, they had the land and we had the Bible.”[9]
Hospitality is an attitude of the heart which is about openness to the other. . . . This mirrors the hospitality of the Trinity as God chooses to open himself to the other through the Incarnation and to subject himself to the created order. . . . It is about a generous acknowledgement and meeting of common humanity as well as meeting the needs of humanity, emotional, spiritual and physical, with generosity. As such it mirrors the activity of God towards creation.[11]
some of you go ahead with your own private suppers.
one person remains hungry and another gets drunk.
Or do you despise the church of God by humiliating those...
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In other words, the habitual practice of the love-feast was to be an incubator in which Christians learned to accept the outsider, offer generosity to the poor, and have fellowship with those of so-called lower rank.
What’s more, we should respond if unbelievers reciprocate our hospitality and invite us to their homes.
The act of Jesus was to reverse this structure: communion first, conversion second. His table fellowship with sinners implied no acquiescence in their sins, for the gratuity of the reign of God cancelled none of its demands. But in a world in which sinners stood ineluctably condemned, Jesus’ openness to them was irresistible. Contact triggered repentance; conversion flowered from communion. In the tense little world of ancient Palestine, where religious meanings were the warp and woof of the social order, this was a potent phenomenon.[14]
I agree with theologian John Stackhouse when he says, “What did Jesus say?” . . . is the wrong question for Christian thought just as “What would Jesus do?” is the wrong question for Christian ethics. “What would Jesus want me or us to think, be, and do, here and now?” is the right question.[23]
