6:50 AM
I have a good friend who's a great guitar player, but he doesn't read music or chord charts. As a result, our discussions about guitars and music often use what might seem to be a silly dialect. For instance, I don't refer to the second fattest string on the guitar as "the A string," but instead simply, "the second fattest string." It's not like I'm lowering some intellectually learned (pronounced "learn-ed" for best auditory effect) standards when I talk like this -- the guy can play circles around me. I do this so that we can understand one another better.
When I talk in this way, it doesn't change the fact that I am, indeed, still talking about the A string. While I've changed my delivery, the message is completely intact.
In Acts 17:16-34, Paul visited the city of Athens and used a somewhat similar approach in telling the people there about God. (Note that he did not tell the whole group about Jesus. The chapter closes hinting that he was able to have individual conversations with those willing to hear more, and notes that several people believed and joined him when he left the city.) Paul referenced their particular culture and even quoted their own poets to do so. He didn't soften the message, but began it differently -- on their footing -- and he even wound up calling their idolatry "ignorant," which surely didn't go over too well.
I've found that people who don't know or care much about Christ can sometimes instantly understand and relate to what I'm talking about when I draw parallels from Scripture to modern culture. I've further observed that this works particularly well when I reference Monty Python and the Holy Grail, a movie that everyone in the world seems to know some parts of.
I have no doubt that more people would actually share their faith if they realized that it's not heresy to kick off a discussion this way.
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Manga, anyone?
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[image: Serious Post Ahead warning sign]
Not my usual post, thought it needed a warning!
I was in Barnes & Noble the other day, and noticed something that ...
2 comments:
I copied the following from "A Shattered Visage: The Real Face of Atheism" by Ravi Zacharias. It pretty much says the same thing you are.
"The philosophical process I have undertaken is somewhat akin to the three-step method that leads us to any conclusion--our assumptions, our arguments, and our applications. This necessitated incursions into the realm of logic, the testing of its conclusions in experience, and the mandating of those applications as prescriptive for others. Putting it differently, I have had to cover ground from the logically persuasive (that which can be demonstrated by argument) to the experientially relevant (that which can be tested and illustrated in life). Only after these steps can one establish norms and make applications for life."
Basically, the argument "the Bible says so" is not convincing to non-Believers, so a common ground must be established first.
"For it is only right for me to feel this way about you all, because I have you in my heart, since both in my imprisonment and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel, you all are partakers of grace with me. " -- Phillipians 1:7
The key here, to me, is "in the defense and confirmation of the gospel." Where by defense he must mean using something other than the gospel as a defense for the gospel because logically a thing cannot be its own defense (this is called circular logic or begging the question).
The final stage is the application, the Bible.
Heresy! :)
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