Saturday, August 30, 2008
At least they should be. Mars Hill is a famous place in Athens Greece. It was there that the parthenon presented the world with many great ideas; it was there that Socrates was tried and drank hemlock as a death sentence; and it was there that the Apostle Paul presented Christianity to the greek people.
But it was very different from Peter’s preaching to the Jews on Pentecost. Why?
Well Peter could take a bullhorn and yell at the Jews because they had witnessed the events around Jesus life for themselves and they were familiar with the Bible and the stories of a coming messiah [rescuer] So he could tee-off in a religious rhoid rage like any good flipped-out Old Testament prophet and the people understood.
But try that in Tokyo…or New York City…or Ashland. And what do you get?
Paul on the other hand is a much better example for our situation. He uses a poem about Zeus written by a famous stoic “in him we live and breath and have our being” and sets the stage for talking about God with pop-culture. On Mars Hill he uses what they know to explain what they don’t know. Just like if we use u-tube; films; music etc. This was Paul’s style…but the substance was the same as what Pete talked about at Pentecost. The substance was still Jesus.
So here’s the gig for you. What is your evangelism style? Do you really wanna act like a used car salesman shouting through a bullhorn?! Probably not. How about instead inviting people over for dinner…or making a video testimony…or some graphic art…or a short film…or baking some cookies…or…
This is the martian way of evangelism. And everybody loves martians because they are just strange little people from another world usually with cool powers. And yes our citizenship is from another world. Heaven. But while we are still here we have a job to do for Jesus. We need to tell people about him. The trick is to tell it in a way that provokes the response Paul got when they said in my paraphrase “freaky dude, let me mull it over…come back tomarrow and we’ll pick it up where we left off.”
“count conversations NOT conversions”
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