God to the godless.

Scripture:

Acts 17:28

For ‘In him we live and move and have our being’; as even some of your own poets have said, 'For we too are his offspring.’

Observation:

Paul doesn't just teach, he studies too. Even though Paul was accomplished in many things - even though he had been commissioned as the apostle to the gentiles by Jesus himself - he doesn't just roll into town and expect that people will line up around the block to hear him tell them "how it is". Rather, Paul takes time to get to know the people and the context into which he hopes to preach and teach the good news of Jesus Christ. So, he meets people in places of worship (synagogues) and in places of civic importance (university halls, public squares…) and in the marketplaces as he plied his dual trades.

How seriously does Paul take this need to "get to know his audience"? Well, he takes time to visit holy places of religious traditions that he does not follow. Also, he because fluent in the arts and entertainments of his hosts. And you know what? It looks like Paul's approach was astoundingly effective.

Application:

At some points in our collective Christian history, followers of Jesus have succumb to the temptation to withdraw out of the world. This temptation is driven by the heretical assumption that God is more spiritual than material; or, light without darkness. But when we withdraw from the world, we are abdicating the calling to go out into all the world and make disciples, baptizing them in the name of the Triune God. None of this is to say that we should enter into full and uncritical participation with the cultures in which we find ourselves. We are after all, "in the world, but not of the world." We must critique the wider culture when it fails to offer the life we have come to know through Jesus - Life, that is to say, received by grace as abundant!

Still we must not withdraw from the world lest we lose the ability to speak in languages and images that are the only effect tools we have for communicating the gospel.

So, by all means: 

read 50 Shades of Grey; 

watch the Super Bowl and all those 

great commercials; 

go out and  hear a live band; 

try that new craft beer; 

vacation at an 

all-inclusive resort … and, as you do 

all these things - 

do them to the glory of God.  

As you live life in the abundance that God intends for us, don't be surprised if you start to have some people (strangers even) wanting to know the secret to your contentedness and joy. And, when they ask - be prepared to tell them about the unnamed God: the God who knows you (and them) by name.

Prayer:

Revelatory God, you delight in making yourself known to the world through the joyful lives of your servants. Grant us this day the courage, will and skill to identify when you bring people across our paths who long to know you more fully; and, having noticed them, to regale them with the many and various ways by which we have experienced your amazing grace. Amen.