Sermon Tone Analysis

Intro

Finding our place on this world can be challenging.

And in today’s world is is very difficult for the church.

What role does the church have in this society today?

Living as Christians in a godless world.

Contextualization

Keller:

Contextualization is not — as is often argued — “giving people what they want to hear.”4

Rather, it is giving people the Bible’s answers, which they may not at all want to hear, to questions about life that people in their particular time and place are asking, in language and forms they can comprehend, and through appeals and arguments with force they can feel, even if they reject them.

Keller, Timothy.

Center Church: Doing Balanced, Gospel-Centered Ministry in Your City (p.

89).

Zondervan.

Kindle Edition.

Principles of Faith

Contextualization: Paul gives us a great example of how to do it here:

A Christian living in a hostile world

Understands his culture

doesn’t become a part of it - tolerance and pluralism

Pluralism

“pluralism is a faith that exists as a people are on their way from one orthodoxy to another.

We are moving from a Christian West to something else, pluralism serves as the necessary faith bridge, if you will, to get us there.”

- Milton, Cooperation without Compromise, p. 7

Not to be subscribed to by Christians

Contrary to

Tolerance

Not in the sense that the world uses the term

everyone’s truth is valid and should be valued as truth

Thus a true understanding of the gospel itself ought to enable Christians to be firm in their allegiance to Christ as the way, the truth, and the life, and also to be ready to enter into a genuinely listening dialogue with those who do not give this allegiance but from whom they know that they have to be ready to learn.

Newbigin, Lesslie.

Foolishness to the Greeks: The Gospel and Western Culture (p.

139).

Wm.

B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.. Kindle Edition.

This is the foundation on which a true tolerance, not indifference to the truth, can be founded.

Newbigin, Lesslie.

Foolishness to the Greeks: The Gospel and Western Culture (p.

139).

Wm.

B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.. Kindle Edition.

doesn’t avoid it - monasticism

Monks of the early church

Paul however, sought to understand the culture in which he lived

He saw what God had done through him with the Gentiles

He saw his work as glorifying to God, even amidst adversity and potential death

He knew there were believers spread out in the culture

He knew their zeal and understood their theology

App: If we are going to regain our culture and influence, as individuals and a church, we must first understand the culture we live.

Not, becoming a part of it, nor running from it.

We will live in it and allow God to be glorified through living as a Christian in it.

Speaking the truth in a world that is devoid of it.

When we contextualize faithfully and skillfully, we show people how the baseline “cultural narratives” of their society and the hopes of their hearts can only find resolution and fulfillment in Jesus.

Keller, Timothy.

Center Church: Doing Balanced, Gospel-Centered Ministry in Your City (p.

90).

Zondervan.

Kindle Edition.

A Christian living in a hostile world

Serves his culture

Often takes the form of what we do as the hands and feet to care for others

This is only one aspect

The other can be a more full orbed understanding of service

Paul served - Ministry

διακονία - Service; ministry; table service

used mostly to denote service or ministry

rarely used to denote relief, distribution

What does it mean to serve?

The church is to demonstrate a new lifestyle before the world, one that breaks the cycle of anger, reaction, and revenge that characterizes the world’s practices.

The core of this lifestyle is to be Christian service.

Christians are to serve both fellow believers and unbelievers, even when they are hostile and mistreat us (12:14–21).

Gelder, Craig Van.

The Essence of the Church: A Community Created by the Spirit (p.

152).

Baker Publishing Group.

Kindle Edition.

Gelder, Craig Van.

The Essence of the Church: A Community Created by the Spirit (p.

152).

Baker Publishing Group.

Kindle Edition.

He goes on to discus Corporate responsibility & Witness

Serving is the motivation that we see in Paul as he serves Jesus Christ

Illus: It is why Paul did not argue his innocence.

It is why Paul

Acts 21:

Paul was being falsely accused of being anti-law

We as Christians will often be falsely accused.

So, how should we respond?

Paul, like Christ, let God respond.

We faithfully serve and let God do the witnessing through us.

Jesus:

App: Our service, which comes from our understanding of our ministry to the world is to: understand our culture, and then serve in it . . .

A Christian living in a hostile world

immerses himself in that culture

We don’t serve in it as if we are somehow better than

Again, this is a pulling away from the world.

Rather, we take our faith and live in it and immerse ourselves in the culture.

Why does Paul go through this weird purification ritual

Paul believed in Christian liberty

Not binding the conscious with rituals and laws

He believed in the gospel and that these things were unnecessary for one’s salvation

So, why?

He did so because he had the liberty to do so and the intended outcome was to prove that the law was still useful for the believer in Jesus Christ

Paul was speaking to a culture using their own rituals and practices.

He did not violate any command of God

He essentially took a vow/oath that coincided with his theology and did not conflict with God’s Truth