Paul’s Evangelistic Methods, Part 3

A Satellite View of the Attica Basin (Courtesy of NASA)

Now that seminary has wound down, I’m excited to return to this series, and to kick off a few over the next couple of weeks that have been percolating in the back of my mind.

For this post, I’m going to return to the passage last discussed in Part 2:  Acts 17:16-32.  The focus of the last post was on the need for Christians to develop the skill of discernment–this is not a unique spiritual gift, but a part of every Christian’s growth in maturity–and to apply that skill to the regular evaluation of the art forms of today.  Particularly, I argued that Christians should view and evaluate film and television, as I have found that this is the area most Christians are most hesitant to integrate into evangelism.  But how can we choose to partition off any portion of our lives from Kingdom activity?

In any case, I am turning in this post from a study of Paul’s practices and to a study of his words.  In what follows, I want to present what I believe is a helpful breakdown of Paul’s presentation of the Gospel.

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Paul’s Evangelistic Methods, Part 2

"Saint Paul Writing His Epistles"

As stated in the first post of this series, the apostles employed a wide variety of approaches as they proclaimed the gospel, and these approaches were both deeply personal and deeply informed.  In this post, I want to address Paul’s gospel message in Acts 17:16-34.  In doing so, I’m going to recommend a practice that John Piper generally recommends against.

Before continuing further, I want to state my respect for John Piper and for his clear desire for God’s glory to spread across the world.  Desiring God transformed the way I approach the Father, and Don’t Waste Your Life is one of the forces God used in pushing us towards service abroad.  At the same time, I disagree with Pastor Piper on his choice to avoid contemporary art forms (particularly film and television) in proclaiming God’s good news.  For instance, in a recent posting, John Piper wrote:

I think relevance in preaching hangs very little on watching movies, and I think that much exposure to sensuality, banality, and God-absent entertainment does more to deaden our capacities for joy in Jesus than it does to make us spiritually powerful in the lives of the living dead. (“Why I Don’t Have a Television and Rarely Go to Movies”)

I want to say that I completely agree with him on the first point–relevance in preaching indeed hangs very little on watching movies.  In fact, it hangs much more on studying movies.  Unfortunately, Piper presents a popular false dilemma and a more popular straw man.  I hope to show that Paul’s evangelism in Acts 17:16-34 proves these to be incorrect.

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Paul’s Evangelistic Methods, Part 1

"The Conversion of Saint Paul" by Caravaggio (Wikipedia)

For Bible Study up at Mayer Community Church, we’re discussing Mark Dever’s helpful book, What Is A Healthy Church? The chapters for this evening are focused on the gospel and conversion.  While re-reading his chapters, and considering ways to encourage evangelism by the members at MCC, I began to review the wide variety of evangelistic approaches used by the apostles.  The apostles felt an incredible amount of freedom in sharing the content of their faith.  They viewed almost every type of discussion or activity as a means of proclaiming Christ.  Their evangelistic approach was deeply personal and highly informed.

At the same time, I began to consider the relatively anemic form of evangelism that I have encountered at many churches.  Abut two weeks ago, a pastor gave me a tract and said to me, “This tract is great, because you don’t even have to talk to them about the gospel.  A lot of times, if I’m in a hurry, I just give them one of these and leave it at that.”  (Emphasis mine.)  This is not the apostle’s approach!

In light of that contrast, I thought it would be helpful if I kicked off a semi-regular series on the ways in which Paul and the other apostles shared the gospel.  The hope is that looking at these methods (or the lack of method!) might encourage us to share the gospel more freely.  Today, I want to focus on Paul’s very simple and very personal approach in Acts 26:1-23.

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ESV on the iPhone

If you have an iPhone or an iPod Touch, I strongly recommend the new ESV App.  I’m a huge fan of the ESV translation (I preach from it weekly, and I use it for personal study and devotional reading), and it’s nice to have an easily-searchable, offline-accessible version on my PDA.  You can find it here.

If you haven’t joined the dark side (by purchasing an Apple product), then you can find a mobile version of the ESV here.  In either case, the world has been transformed by the free availability of the Bible, and it’s nice that Crossway Publishers further that by making this excellent translation available at no charge.

Grace & Peace,
Dan J.

Isaac: Good Start, Poor Finish

"Isaac Blessing Jacob" by Govert Flink (Wikipedia)

In my devotional reading this morning, I was going over the stories of Isaac’s life, from Genesis 24-26.  This period covers what happened to this patriarch between the death of Sarah and the marriages of Esau.

Now, going into my devotional reading, I was less than expectant.  I have read Genesis dozens and dozens of times, and it was the first book I preached through as a pastor.  In every case, Isaac has been the lull in the action, the dip in the road, the “why is this here?” for me.  And I say that self-critically.  But why is Isaac here?

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