My dad was born in 1901. One hundred fourteen years ago. He was a preacher and he used to have a sermon called “Changes”. He didn’t know that David Bowie also had a song by that title. Honestly, he didn’t know who David Bowie was. But my dad’s sermon basically listed off all the changes that he’d seen in his lifetime. For instance, when he was born, the main mode of personal transportation was still the horse. It’s actually a funny sermon, but ironically, wildly outdated today because so much has changed in the 20 or more years since he last taught it. What made that sermon really special was how he ended it. He went through all the things that haven’t changed, like how love is still sweet and grace is still amazing. There are still commonalities in the human experience that don’t change, that are sewn from generation to generation and culture to culture.

We live in a world of vast changes that are happening so rapidly that it can be disorienting. I believe this represents a challenge for the Church. We can spend our energies trying to resist change and re-establish societal norms that provided a more comfortable space for Christianity, or we can learn a new language with which we can engage a new world with the unchanging gospel.

If we choose the latter we have a wonderful example in the Apostle Paul as he engaged Athenian culture in Acts 17:16-34, which is the passage we’ll be reading this Sunday.

Paul starts off in the Synagogue, but Luke doesn’t seem interested in that. The action moves to the marketplace, a place where philosophies and religions were exchanged as much as commodities. There Paul encounters and converses with Epicureans and Stoics.

This results in him being invited…or possibly subpoenaed to present his beliefs before the counsel of the Areopagus. He was being called a “babbler” and in a veiled threat, was suspected of trying to introduce foreign deities. It probably wasn’t as friendly as we might tend t think. In what ways has our culture become suspicious of Christianity? What are the charges leveled at us? How can that help us understand our present culture?

There Paul provides a brilliant, cross-cultural presentation of a narrative gospel. He is aware, familiar and sensitive to Athenian culture. He doesn’t out-rightly condemn, but rather, in a very complimentary way, overlays a new narrative on their existing one.

He starts by appealing to a sign-post to the true God that was already present in Athens – the altar to the “unknown god”. He uses that as his platform to present an alternate vision of reality. What kinds of altars to unknown gods does our culture have? When we think about our culture’s recent agony over race relations or hopeful enthusiasm over the LGBT marriage equality laws, how could we see those questions and longings as bridges of commonality on which we could introduce the message of Jesus?

The Epicureans believed that if the gods existed at all, they were far removed from our world. What part of Paul’s message would they have agreed with, and what would have challenged their worldview?

If you were to paraphrase what Paul presents as the Good News – what would it say?

We live in a vastly new world. If we follow Paul’s example, we won’t be filled with fear or respond in anger towards the present culture. We will learn a new language and engage a new world with the timeless hope of God’s good rule through Jesus the Messiah.

Cats can be such jerks. But y’know what’s interesting? The gospel is sort of like that cat. Not that the gospel is a jerk, but that it comes into our world and shakes things up. The claims of the gospel have a tendency to put a hand to everything on the table…and push.

This gets people upset sometimes. It certainly did in the book of Acts, which we’ll be reading this Sunday, in chapter 17:1-15.

We’ll be reading how some folks felt that Paul and company were people who were there to “turn the world upside down”.  I think if Paul were asked, he would say he was on a mission to turn the world right way up – but its all a matter of perspective, isn’t it?

The first way the gospel message turns the world upside down in this section is in the world of religion. How do you think the message that Jesus brings upsets the apple-cart in the world of religious assumptions? Has the message of Jesus and His grace upset any of your religious assumptions over the years?

The second way the gospel turns the world upside down has to do with who is ruling our lives. They complained in v7 that Paul presented “another king, Jesus”. There are a lot of things in the broken world that lay claim to our loyalties – how does Jesus interfere with this? Our loyalties can be demonstrated by our time, resources and energy. If you apply that test to your own life, where do your loyalties seem most stringent (don’t answer that out-loud, its just something to mull over)?

When Paul and company get to Berea, the Jewish Bereans are commended for “receiving” or being open minded towards the gospel “eagerly”. But this wasn’t simple gullibility, they were also commended for their discipline in regular examination of the gospel’s claims testing them against Scripture. The story seems to encourage an open mind that employs critical thinking. How open minded would you say you are when it comes to hearing things that are unfamiliar to you? How well would you say you examine and test the things you believe about God?

The gospel stares us down and pushes the glass over the edge. How do we respond?

My heart is breaking for the families of the victims of the racial terrorist attack in South Carolina last Wednesday. Only the grace of God will heal these wounds – it’s hard to imagine how God could bring something good out of this act of evil.  As followers of Christ, let’s remember that racial prejudice has no place in God’s kingdom. It is a malevolent evil that God will surely judge. Let’s be quick to reject all forms of it – and through it all, let’s pray for peace.

This Sunday we’ll be reading Acts 16:11-40. It’s a passage filled with irony, and we’ll consider the way God seems to employ irony in the way he leads us through this adventure. Situational irony is when a series of events lead to an unexpected result.

For instance, gunpowder was discovered in the process of looking for the elixir for immortality. That’s irony.

In the section we’ll be reading we’ll see several examples of “divine irony” – where expectations get upended and surprising results are revealed. Paul and Silas go to Philippi in search of a man Paul saw in a vision only to find a group of women, one of whom God plants the 1^st church of Philippi through.

A girl is demonically inspired to declare the truth about Paul and Silas and Paul, an emissary of truth stops her from saying it.

The same girl is set free from spiritual bondage which results in a loss of physical freedom for Paul and Silas.

Paul and Silas are in the worst of situations and use it as a cause for singing praise songs.

An earthquake opens the jail doors and breaks the chains but Paul and Silas remain inside the jail.

The man who does great harm to Paul and Silas is warned not to harm himself.

In all of these things God is using terrible situations to shape beautiful things. It’s just his way. How has life gone a different direction than the way you expected – how can factoring in God’s employment of irony help us to cope with bad situations?

Have you ever gone to a party thinking it was a casual get together only to find that everyone has arrived in formal attire? Have you ever been to a wedding thinking it was formal, only to discover that everyone was wearing casual clothes? How did you feel in those experiences? It’s a pretty uncomfortable feeling, isn’t it? It’s sort of how the gentile Christians of Syrian Antioch must have felt when, while they were all stoked at embracing salvation through Christ, some people came telling them that they were still not dressed right for the occasion – that their failure to keep the Law of Moses was making them conspicuous outsiders.

That is the stage on which our text for this week (Acts 15:22-35) is set.

The Jerusalem counsel decided that it wasn’t right to lay a further burden on the gentile church of keeping the law – so they drafted a letter to explain that, but instead of just emailing it to Antioch or sending an emoji text to explain things….they sent personal delegates from their church to confirm the acceptance of the gentiles. How do you think it must have felt for the gentiles in Antioch to get this news personally? Considering what a huge deal it was for Peter to even go into a gentile’s house (Acts 10), what message was this sending to them? What can we learn from this model about how love is to be expressed on a community level?

V28 indicates that this loving desire for harmony between very different churches was inspired…by Whom? Harmony in the face of disagreements is something that doesn’t just occur spontaneously, it has to be orchestrated (It’s interesting that you never read bumper stickers that say “harmony happens”). Spirit-led love will still hold fast to the truth (v24) but will seek harmony in the process. That is what rescues our expression of love from shallow sentimentalism or emotional groupthink. How can we cooperate with the Holy Spirit when we are confronted with disagreements in the community?

In v 31-32, what word is repeated twice? Between v31-33, what words are used to describe the nature and effect of this mission of reconciliation and harmony? What should we look for in evaluating our own ministries within the church community? How does this provide an example of a loving ministry?

Hope you’re enjoying the Book of Acts as much as I have been! – See you Sunday!

 

 

The Bible Project has this really great overview of the book of Leviticus – you should really take the 7 minutes to watch it before continuing to read. Go ahead, I’ll wait.

“Why did we watch that Rob?”

I’m glad you asked. I wanted you to see that the Law of Moses wasn’t some mistake God made in the past, but that it had a real point and message to it.  It succinctly sets up the crisis of how a sinful humanity is supposed to come into a relationship with a holy God.  The Law of Moses provided a system that gave Israel the confidence to believe that they could live near God’s presence even in their imperfection.

But along comes Jesus and the Good News of the Kingdom of God – and Jesus fulfills all the promises made to Israel about the removal of sin by going to the cross, and taking all the consequence of our sin on himself – thus making a way into God’s presence that requires nothing from us except faith.  It is a salvation and redemption by grace alone – based solely on God’s unmerited love for us.

Now frankly, this has been a struggle for the church all through it’s history to this very day. We don’t seem to track well with this concept. And right at the outset the gentile church in Antioch faced the challenge of a mounting legalism, which we’ll be reading about this Sunday in Acts 15:1-21.

Many scholars believe that the events of Acts 15 are the same that Paul described in Galatians 2:4-6.

Paul doesn’t mince words there. He calls these people spys, spying on the freedom that the church in Antioch was enjoying. They felt it was still necessary to obey the Law of Moses in addition to believing on Jesus. It was a Jesus plus gospel…Jesus + keep the law = salvation. That is the basic formula of legalism.

Legalism feels the need to impose a standard on others, as we see in the case of those who came to Antioch. Why do you suppose that is? When, if ever, have you been tempted to get someone conformed to your convictions? What was the result?  Have you ever been on the receiving end of that kind of pressure? How did it make you feel?

How can we avoid this sort of trap? What did the early church do and what can we learn from their conclusion?

I’m really looking forward to this study – as a recovering Pharisee myself, I feel like this is in my wheelhouse!

Hope to see you Sunday!

This Sunday we’ll be reading about the further adventures of Paul and Barnabas as they continued their missionary journey in the region of Galatia. We’ll be reading all of Acts 14.

As you read this, v4 tells us that the gospel had a familiar effect as it was introduced to the city of Iconium, what is it? How would you feel if you were these guys and constantly facing opposition for their faith? What does this tell us about the nature of the gospel and what we can expect as we attempt to represent it in this broken world?

There’s a humorous little story when they get to Lystra. An amazing healing takes place which results in people making an assumption that Hermes and Zeus have appeared in human form. They start the process of sacrificing a bull and celebrating and feasting…while Paul and Barny tear their clothes and plead with everyone to cut it out. It’s sort of alarming the things that can happen when people try to co-opt the gospel and insert it into a preconceived belief system. Have you ever seen that happen in our own world of 21st Century America? What examples can you think of that would represent a twisting of the gospel to promote an element our culture?  The gospel confronts our established belief systems – it doesn’t provide a way to manage our old gods.

in v15-18 we have an example of how Paul framed the gospel message for an uninitiated gentile audience. He declares that there is one God who is Creator. Then he describes the ways in which this God has left clues about his existence. If you were to use a single word to describe the tone of his message, what would it be? Have you ever thought about God demonstrating his reality through a good meal (v17)? There is something so clean and uncomplicated about this message, I really love it.

The gospel still ends up getting Paul in trouble – he’s dragged out of town and stoned. Miraculously, he doesn’t die…but I imagine he’s pretty busted up. When he gets up, where does he immediately go and what does he do? Is he like Kurt Russell shouting “Tell ’em I’m comin’, and Hell’s comin’ with me! That doesn’t seem to be the gospel approach. What does Paul do? What is the most natural response to mistreatment? Does this example encourage you…or overwhelm you? What can we learn about the way the gospel is made known?

Welp…hope to see you Sunday! Have a great Memorial Day weekend, and please pray for those who’ve lost so much in our national conflicts – and above all, pray for peace.

Sometimes we repeat the old adage, “Want to make God laugh?”…..”Tell Him your plans.”

We say those kinds of things because we are implying that first, there is a God, and second, He has a plan of His own and third, His plan supersedes our own plans. That would be a scary thought if we weren’t sure about this God’s intention toward us. On the other hand, if there were some way to know if this God wanted what is best for us, the thought that He had an immovable plan in action would be of immeasurable comfort, wouldn’t it?

We’re going to continue our study in the book of Acts this Sunday, and we’ll be reading Acts 13:13-52.

It’s a lot of verses – but it’s mainly one long sermon by Paul – the first one he delivers in Acts.

Paul, like Peter and Stephen before him, starts his presentation of the gospel by going way back into Israel’s history? Why do you think they do that? What can that tell us about God’s plan for the human race throughout history?

When Paul culminates the story in v38-39, he says that forgiveness and freedom are found in Jesus and not in the Law of Moses. What does that tell us about what has happened with the story in the past and the story in the present? How huge would that statement be to Paul’s Jewish listeners?

The sermon Paul gives slices through the group and divides them into two categories: those who embrace God’s plan and those who don’t. Barnabas gives some strong warnings to those who reject God’s plan. What future ramifications do we discern from this text about how we respond to God’s plan?

This Sunday is our first Surf-N-Grill of 2015 – pray that the rain stays away! See yez Sunday!

There’s a phrase we say sometimes, though it may be slipping into antiquity: “He/she is from the wrong side of the tracks”. It was a phrase used to describe a person who came from an undesirable part of town, back when railroad tracks often divided towns between the upper, middle class residential areas and the lower income, industrial sections. A person from the wrong side of the tracks was looked down upon because of economic, cultural or ethnic status. Often all three of those went together.

We’ll be returning to our study in the book of Acts this Sunday after an awesome Easter service. We’ll be continuing the story of Peter and Cornelius in Acts 10:24-48.

Clearly, God’s love is loose in the world, smashing through boundaries both ethnic and religious. Peter makes the profound statement “God is no respecter of persons”. This is a message that has been presented all the way through the Old Testament to the New – God doesn’t judge by outward appearance like we do, he discerns the heart. If we are called to emulate God, how well do we do this? Are there people you’d rather avoid, people who are defined in your thinking as “them”? How easy is it for you to depersonalize someone if they hold a different set of values than you or have a worldview you are unfamiliar with? What steps can we take to recapture this revelation of Acts 10:34?

As you read through v36-43, how would you summarize Peter’s presentation of the gospel? What words does he use that would lead you to believe that this news is good? How much does Peter say to Cornelius about hell, or heaven for that matter? What do you discern as the emphasis of Peter’s description of the good news about Jesus? What can we learn from this section about how we represent the gospel in the world in which we’ve been placed?

In v44-48 an amazing outpouring of the Holy Spirit occurs, hearkening back to the events of chapter 2. When Peter sees that the same Holy Spirit has been given to this Roman soldier and his family, he calls for  immediate baptism, accepting them into the community of God. What does his lack of other requirements say to us about who we should welcome into the family of God? This immediacy is a repetition of the Eunuch’s baptism in chapter 8. Does this repetition say anything to you?

Hope to see you this Sunday!