This is the third and final post regarding our need for political and cultural awareness as Christians. This kind of awareness is simply paying some attention to the world around us, what motivates and moves people, and how society functions. There could be much more said, but so far, we have briefly looked at two different reasons for this kind of awareness: (1) to avoid the sins of the culture, and (2) to address the sins of the culture. In this final part, we will discuss our need to (3) adequately announce the gospel, which requires a basic understanding of the culture.
To Announce the Gospel
Most Evangelicals know the Great Commission very well; this is Jesus’ call to His disciples to make more disciples of all nations (Matt 28:16-20). Fundamental to this command is the fact that we must go out into the world, to people who are by nature opposed to Christ and His people (see Matt 5:43-44; Col 1:21). Now you might be wondering what being culturally aware has to do with making disciples; sure, we have to go out into the world, but does that really mean we have to spend some time reading the news and thinking about how people tick? My answer to that question is yes, and the reason I say yes is because of what is entailed in being a disciple of Jesus. In Luke 6:40, Jesus teaches that a disciple will eventually become like his teacher, the one he is a follower of. Therefore, a genuine follower of Jesus must change, he must turn from his own ways and follow the ways of his Lord (Isa 55:6-7). This is exactly the message that Jesus preached when he said “repent and believe in the gospel” (Mark 1:15). Repentance is the act of changing your mind, thinking one thing, then radically altering views, with the effect that your actions will be changed (Luke 3:8; Acts 3:19). And it’s not just the Jews of Jesus’ day that need to repent; it is all of us (Acts 20:21). If we want to be disciples of Jesus, we must turn from ourselves, or whoever/whatever we are living for, and follow Christ. This means that a call to repentance is an essential part of the gospel message.
The question then becomes, “How do we call people to change their minds?” Part of the answer is that we must help people to see what sin they must turn from when they turn to Christ. Essentially a call to repentance reveals sin to the sinner. We will briefly look at two calls to repentance that do this very thing. As we go, you might notice that slightly different approaches are taken depending on the audience. Basically, there are subtle ways and blunt ways of calling people to repentance, and the method taken is all dependent upon the people being addressed. But even more importantly, the content of the call changes depending on who is being called to repentance; this is because each of us needs to repent and believe in Christ, but we all have different specific things to repent of, and different reasons why we might not be following Jesus (e.g. 1 Cor 1:23).
The first example demonstrates Paul’s subtle, yet still clear, call to repentance from his speech in the Areopagus (Acts 17:16-34). Paul’s audience consists of intellectual pagan Gentiles, and his speech demonstrates he is fully aware of who they are and at least generally what they believe. He quotes from some of their writers (Acts 17:28), makes mention of their statues (Acts 17:23), and acknowledges their religious fervor (Acts 17:22). And he does all of this in order to call them to repent, to change their view of things and see God for who he truly is (Acts 17:24-26, 30-31). Paul needed to start with some basics in this conversation; he needed to start with the fact that there is only one God, He is not at all like the idols in Athens, and He made everything and sustains everything (Acts 17:24-29). This is Christianity 101 and it is what they needed to hear because it is not what they already believed; these Gentiles were not Theists – these were Pantheists. Paul then goes further to talk about Christ’s resurrection and the future judgment of the world. Whether Paul intended to push buttons here (like by his discussion of who God is) or not, he does, and the crowd reacts to the idea of a person coming back to life. The takeaway is that the call to repentance was tailor-made for the audience. Paul knew who he was talking to, so his speech was informed by the culture of the people he was addressing. Paul could have given a generic gospel presentation, but he did not. That presentation might not have been adequate because it might have assumed too much of the hearers. Even though Paul does not quote from the Scriptures, his speech is still entirely informed by them. This should remind us of what we have been seeing all along: we need to know God’s word in order to respond properly to our knowledge of the culture around us. Paul demonstrated a great example of a more subtle approach to a call for repentance. His approach was likely subtle because his audience was not familiar with God’s word or the ministry of Jesus. Another, much less subtle, call to repentance can be found earlier in Acts.
When Peter addresses the Jewish people, those who were directly responsible for Jesus’ crucifixion, he is much more straightforward with his call to repentance (Acts 3:11-26). He tells the Jews that they “denied the Holy and Righteous One” when they decided to crucify Him (Acts 3:13-15; See Luke 23:18-21). The fact that Jesus rose from the dead demonstrates that they put to death the Author of life (Acts 3:15). Peter recognizes that they were ignorant of what they were doing, and that it was ultimately God’s plan for Jesus to suffer (Acts 3:17-18), but this does not excuse their sinful actions. So, he bluntly calls them to repent, to now believe in Jesus (Acts 3:19). Just as we noted in Paul’s call to repentance, Peter’s call to repentance demonstrates an understanding of his audience. If Peter was going to adequately proclaim the gospel to this crowd, he needed to address their sin – they denied and killed Jesus – and they needed to change what they thought about who Jesus is.
These two examples demonstrate that we need to have a functioning understanding of our audience, which means we need to be politically and culturally aware. We cannot just stay inside our little Christian bubble and then expect to be able to adequately present the gospel to people outside of that bubble when the opportunity arises. People outside of our bubble think differently than us, that’s why we call it a bubble. This means we have to pay attention to what motivates and moves people outside of our bubble. We need to know what people are living for and the sins that the culture promotes. The gospel is good news, but accepting that good news includes rejecting what was formerly believed. This is because the gospel is good news of the Lord Jesus, and we can only actually serve one lord (e.g. Matt 6:24). Knowing the lords of your audience is so important for presenting the gospel because these lords must be humbled and dethroned if Christ truly is Lord of lords and King of kings (Rev 17:14).