Acts 17: Mixed Results

"Even though I am free of the demands and expectations of everyone, I have voluntarily become a servant to any and all in order to reach a wide range of people: religious, nonreligious, meticulous moralists, loose-living immoralists, the defeated, the demoralized—whoever. I didn’t take on their way of life. I kept my bearings in Christ—but I entered their world and tried to experience things from their point of view. I’ve become just about every sort of servant there is in my attempts to lead those I meet into a God-saved life. I did all this because of the Message. I didn’t just want to talk about it; 

I wanted to be in on it!"

(1 Corinthians 9:19-23 The Message)

In the above passage, we read the apostle Paul’s philosophy of personal evangelism. Please read it carefully – it is brilliant – full of passion and a profound sense of personal mission.

In today’s reading, we see Paul’s philosophy of evangelism “with skin on.” Even a cursory reading of the chapter shows Paul entering the world of those he was trying to reach for Christ. To reach the Jewish people, he went into their synagogues and “reasoned with them from the Scriptures” about who Jesus was and what he had done. Paul understood that the Jews held the Scriptures in high regard – as did he – so he approached them on the basis of that commonality.

But, when Paul hits Athens and reaches out to the Gentiles, we find that he does not begin by first appealing to the Scriptures. Why? Because he knew that the Greeks did not recognize the Hebrew Scriptures as God’s Word. So he began where they were, by appealing to their very own idols, philosophies, and religious leanings. But front and center in his appeal is the person of Jesus, the power of his resurrection, and the need for personal repentance.

The message is identical. The methods were very different. Think about the circles that you run in, the people that you rub shoulders with. How can you, like Paul, enter into their world for the sake of Christ and his message?

Ken Jackson