Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

This is supposed to be a lecture, but...

I was born at Caledonian Hospital in Brooklyn.

That space is now a luxury apartment building across the street from Prospect Park.

But it was walking distance from the house I grew up in; a house I would regularly visit until 2018 when my mother sold it and moved to DC to live with us.

I’ve had NYC connection for 51 years now.

I went to Midwood HS at Brooklyn College, and studied electrical engineering (and black studies) at CCNY in Harlem.

My wife, Kim, also went to Midwood HS and, like me, is a CUNY product.

She studied accounting at Baruch.

We left NY for the DC Metro area in 1995 for job opportunities.

Kim got a job offer from UNCF as a budget manager for government grants.

I started work as a systems engineer with Motorola.

Here’s why I’m giving you all this background.

When we left NY I had no designs on ministry.

I had no designs on following Jesus either.

God, in his grace, grabbed hold of Kim and I at New Bethel Baptist Church in Washington, DC later that year.

We made a profession of faith and began following hard after Jesus.

The pastorate was the furthest thing from my mind.

My personal goal and desire was to become a Corporate VP at Motorola.

Climbing the corporate ladder as a faithful Christian in the workplace was my agenda.

But how many of you know that God’s got an agenda too?

And his agenda isn’t just for the world in general, he’s got one for us in particular.

And his agenda always trumps our agenda.

So, a few years into my engineering career I’m beginning to think about going back to school for an MBA so to prepare myself for management opportunities.

And as I am praying about this, the Lord does a little switch-a-roo on me.

And all of a sudden, I’m thinking about seminary.

In fact, the thought of pursuing an MBA became distasteful to me.

And I was scared!

What does this mean for my dreams?

I remember praying to the Lord and saying, “Lord, what is this about?

I know you’re not calling me to be a pastor!”

That’s because pastor was nowhere on my list of dreams.

As God would have it, RTS had recently started a campus in the DC area.

I’d become Reformed in my theology, so RTS was on my radar.

When I visited a class and had conversations with folks in the RTS orbit at least a couple of them suggested the idea of selling my house and living off of the equity so that I could attend seminary full-time and simultaneously support my family.

My immediate thought when they said that was, “You must be outchyo mind!”...

Kim had at that point come home to be a full-time mom.

We had three young children, and I had a good job.

There was no way I was making that radical of a shift.

I didn’t have personal model for it in regard to ministry, but this seminary thing was going to have to be done on a part-time basis.

I know there are far fewer credits in an MBA program than there are in any Masters program at RTS, but I was going to do the MBA while working full-time.

That was the same mindset I was taking into my seminary studies.

Now, look, I’m not trying to make my experience the norm, or a prescription that folk have got to follow.

However, I titled this lecture, The Butcher, The Baker, The Candlestick Maker for a reason.

It’s not just a line from a nursery rhyme.

The phrase denotes people of various trades, businesses, or professions considered collectively.

It’s my expectation that in certain urban contexts in particular, like NYC or DC, you’re going to find the butcher, the baker, and the candlestick maker, and e’erbody else, coming to seminary.

And the expectation is that many, if not most, will need to be bi-vocational seminary students and become bi-vocational in ministry.

And I’m so glad that God doesn’t leave us without a witness.

I want to hone in on two things in the passage we read.

Verse 3 Luke says that when Paul got to Corinth he stayed and worked with Aquila and Priscilla because they shared the same occupation.

They were tentmakers by trade.

Then, in v. 11 Luke says that Paul stayed in Corinth a year and a half, teaching the word of God among them.

I love how much Paul talks about the bi-vocational nature of his ministry.

2CO11.

I told you this is a “precture”… I’m going to continue to weave in some personal thoughts and experiences as I talk about these two points: The Place and The Push.

I told you this is a “precture”… I’m going to continue to weave in some personal thoughts and experiences as I talk about these two points: The Place and The Push.

The Place

Here’s the context for the passage.

We’re in Paul’s second missionary journey.

He’s been traveling with Silas and Timothy.

When they were in the city of Troas, which was in the district of Asia, Paul had a vision of a man from Macedonia urging him to “come over to Macedonia and help us” ().

So they sailed over to the district of Macedonia.

And at this point Luke himself is with them.

Luke said, “we sought to go on to Macedonia concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them.”

They preached this gospel in the Macedonian cities of Philippi, Thessolonica, and Berea; encountering trouble in every city.

Silas and Timothy stayed in Berea, and the church sent Paul away out of Macedonia.

They brought him, Luke said in 17:15, as far as Athens.

Athens is in the district of Achaia.

There he debates the Stoic and Epicurean philosophers in the midst of the Areopagus.

Athens wasn’t the major city it had been in the past, but it was still the cultural capital of that district, and one of the cultural capitals of the empire.

We’re still in what’s known as Paul’s second missionary journey.

He’s been traveling with Silas and Timothy.

When they were in the city of Troas, was in the district of Asia, Paul had a vision of a man from Macedonia urging him to “come over to Macedonia and help us” ().

So they sailed over to the district of Macedonia.

And at this point Luke himself is with them.

Luke said, “we sought to go on to Macedonia concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them.”

We saw them preach this gospel in the Macedonian cities of Philippi, Thessolonica, and Berea; encountering trouble in every city.

Silas and Timothy stayed in Berea, and the church sent Paul away out of Macedonia.

They brought him, Luke said in 17:15, as far as Athens.

Athens is in the district of Achaia.

That’s where we last saw him.

In the city of Athens debating with the Stoic and Epicurean philosophers in the midst of the Areopagus.

Athens wasn’t the major city it had been in the past, but it was still the cultural capital of that district, and one of the cultural capitals of the empire.

Now we find Paul moving on to another place.

After his time in Athens, Luke says in 18:1 he left and went to Corinth.

He’s silent about why Paul moved on to Corinth, but what we do know is that Corinth was the capital of Achaia.

It was the gateway city of the Roman empire, serving as the trade bridge between Europe, Asia and North Africa.

So you had people from all over the world in Corinth.

Paul had left the cultural capital of the world in Athens and come to the business capital.

Corinth as a city was economically prosperous, religiously pluralistic, and socially promiscuous.

It was full of money and full of moral and spiritual confusion.

And this is where Paul decided to go next.

A few years after leaving NY for the DC area, I remember coming back to the city for a holiday.

The thought that ran through my mind as I took the train from Brooklyn into the City, a thought popped into my head.

“This is just like Corinth.”

What I mean is that coming back to the City with the eyes of faith made it look different to me.

There was an excitement about NYC that wasn’t there for me when I left.

Let me point out two things about Paul coming to this place.

First, Corinth was a messy place.