Using Our Bibles Well (that is, Intelligently)

“…as even some of your poets have said, ‘For we are his offspring.’  Being then God’s offspring, we ought not to think that the Deity is like gold or silver, or stone…”  (Acts 17:28,9 -- the Apostle Paul speaking in Athens).

First things first.  I am terribly, terribly sorry for the inconsistent timing of my postings these recent weeks.  I began my blog a few weeks ago with the intention of posting nearly every day.  Yet it has been so very busy these recent days (many additional sermons including a few major funerals just a few days apart, plus preparing for a major event I am about to describe) that I have hardly been able to write at all.  Now, even with Christmas ahead of me I will still have more time to revisit my blog.  My new and more realistic plan is to post on Monday, Thursday, and Saturday mornings.

I have in hand a letter I have been asked to deliver to a third party.  I don’t want to.  Just a few days ago I went head-to-head with an atheist in a public debate at Everett Community College on the question, “Does God Exist?  Where Do The Facts of Science and History, and the Insights of Human Nature Point?”  The letter is from a Christian who attended that debate and who wishes to communicate, by means of his letter, with my atheist counterpart.  There is little in his letter that is factually false.  It is not obnoxious.  Yet at the same time its contents are not appropriate to his particular situation.  It is largely a repetition of Bible verses.  I don’t want to be put into the position of defending the letter.  Neither do I wish to decry it.

Our God is able to use any means He wishes to bring a sinner to faith in Christ.  I myself came back to Christ four decades ago through the preaching of a famous pastor (probably not who you think) I regard to this day as rather obnoxious.  Multitudes of other people may recount similar stories.  I thank God to this day that God used him.  Yet at the same time the Bible does not encourage offensive or over-bearing mannerisms.  To the contrary, the Apostle Peter calls us to speak to others with gentleness and respect.  And the Apostles urge still more.  I have already referenced 1 Peter 3:15 about the importance of “being prepared to give and answer.”  “The Apostle Paul writes similarly, “Conduct yourselves wisely with outsiders, making the most of the time.  Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with popcorn salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer every one” (Colossians 4:5,6).  Here Paul explicitly encourages what he put into practice in Athens chapter 17.  The Apostle Paul, who repeatedly affirms in practice the drawing on of Holy Scripture, understood the audience to whom he was speaking.  He didn’t clobber them with the Bible.  He firstly understood both who his audience was and why they thought as they did.  Then he began where they actually were by drawing on the array of concrete (well, stone) images erected at mars Hill that surrounded them all.  He also quoted passages from three famous poets out of their own literature.  THEN he drew on the insights of Holy Scripture that we Christians all know to be true.

Notice that to a non-Christian audience the Apostle Paul did not begin with the Bible.  That does not mean he wasn’t pointing toward the message of the Bible.  Indeed he closed with the strongest biblical declaration of all.  This called for study, empathy, and courage.  Goodness knows I myself am convicted by this charge.  But it seems this is the calling of Christians in every time and place.  Of course behind the scenes we are to be animated and directed by the words of the Holy Bible.  But to use the words of Elton Trueblood, as we inwardly reflect from a Biblical foundation, we must “out-think the world.”