Connections
I find that it is easy to connect with people who are like me or have common interests and beliefs, don’t you? The connection that Paul makes with the Athenians in Acts 17 could hold a good lesson for all of us. Paul observed that the people in Athens had built many shrines or idols and the ESV says he was “provoked within” or the NIV “very distressed.” So, he began having discussions with the Jews in the synagogue and the marketplace and some of the “sophisticated, intellectual philosophers” began to chime in. They loved anything new to talk about and debate, so Paul’s preaching about Jesus and the resurrection stirred their intellectual curiosity. It caused some to mock and some wanted to hear more.
They brought him to a place called Areopagus, a cliff on a hill overlooking Athens, and Paul begins by telling them that they are “very religious” because he had observed many “objects” they worshipped. He did not challenge their idolatry or jump in with judgmental statements. He didn’t quote Jewish Scripture as he knew they would not be interested in a quote from a book no one read or accepted as authoritative. This is a great example of Paul’s willingness to “become all things to all people in order to preach the gospel," as he said in 1 Corinthians 9:22. He wasn’t complimenting their shrines or idols but just stating the fact that they were “very religious people.” Now he had their attention.
Then he told them he had even found a shrine inscribed TO THE GOD NOBODY KNOWS. Off he went . . . “I am here to introduce you to this God you don’t know so that you can worship intelligently.” (Acts 17:23, The Message) I think the idea of worshipping more intelligently was appealing to some of these sophisticated intellectuals In Athens.
Paul wanted them to know the Creator of all things, the merciful and just God “in whom we live and have our being, as even some of your own poets have said, for we are indeed his offspring.” (vs.28) Paul quoted two of their own poets rather than those same truths from the Old Testament, knowing that their understanding of scripture was limited, and they would relate better to what “their own poets” said.
Do you see the wisdom that Paul used to build a bridge or a connection with these people? For all their ‘religiosity', they were really seeking God in their own way by worshipping idols, but without the truth and the knowledge of Jesus and His resurrection they were “groping in the darkness.” Paul never compromised his beliefs but met them where they were, and by speaking truth captured their attention and interest. He brought them to hope in the one true God and the resurrected Jesus. Let's pray that we learn from Paul and are guided by the Holy Spirit to find the common ground with people we encounter while always having the courage to speak the truth.
Deb Hill
Executive Admin. Assistant
Seasoned with Grace
Luke summed up the city of Athens pretty well in Acts 17:21 when he said that it was a place where people “would spend their time in nothing except telling or hearing something new.” The fact is that by the time of Paul, Athens had become very familiar with new ideas and new ways of thinking. Athens is known as the birthplace of Philosophy and it was the home of many famous Philosophers, including the likes of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. But Athens dealt with so many new ideas, that they had to create a system of councils who would judge these new teachers in order to decide if they could continue teaching. The Areopagus was one of those councils. In fact, history tells us that even Socrates’ teaching was considered so dangerous when he was alive that one of these councils actually decided to put him to death! Socrates was charged with "failing to acknowledge the gods that the city acknowledges,” “introducing new deities," and “the corruption of the youth.” Sure enough, Socrates made his case, but he wasn’t able to convince them and he didn’t walk away. So, this scene could have been a very dangerous one for Paul. It is about 450 years after Socrates' death, and the reason that they bring him before the Areopagus is quite similar: they said, “‘He seems to be a preacher of foreign divinities’ because he was preaching Jesus and the resurrection” (17:18). If Paul didn’t win them over here, he too might not have walked away.
So, how did Paul do what Socrates couldn’t? He seasoned the truth with grace. Notice the grace in Paul’s first words. He doesn’t judge them for their clearly idolatrous worship; he calls them “very religious.” While Socrates was accused of not acknowledging their gods, Paul brilliantly draws attention to their worship of the “gods” without technically acknowledging them as real gods. Then in the next breath, Paul completely destroys their entire belief system by proclaiming that the one true God doesn’t live in temples made by man. While Paul spoke those words, he would have been standing in front of one of the largest and most prized temples in the ancient world, the Parthenon. This was the pride and joy of the Athenians, and Paul was completely diminishing its value in front of them. Sure enough, if they had a reason to kill him, it would be for that. But they didn’t, because Paul kept seasoning with grace. He immediately quotes Epiminedes, one of their beloved Athenian Poet/Philosophers, to make the same point. He could have quoted from the Hebrew Scriptures to make the same point, but he didn’t. He decided to graciously recognize some good in their own culture. Now, if they disagreed with Paul, they would be disagreeing with their own poet.
The reason that Paul was able to walk away from a situation that Socrates couldn't, wasn’t because he was smarter (although I think he was), it was because he was more gracious. Grace always wins! It will not fail. Remember friends, it is grace that makes a Christian, a Christian. Not just grace that we receive, but the grace that we give and grace that we live. Let’s be people who are seasoned with grace.
Josh Rose
Teaching Pastor
Observe
Back in the Spring of 2018, while living abroad in Spain, I had the opportunity to travel to Athens and visit the Areopagus. It was amazing to think about how the Apostle Paul may have also stood on the rock that I was standing on leading to the temple and one couldn’t help but think about what it was that he saw. If you’ve never been to Athens, you may have still heard of the Acropolis, an area of worship that hosts the Parthenon. It’s a place that thousands of people flock to each year, and a stone’s throw from where Paul gave this famous address. Can you imagine the scene? Paul looks around and sees so many people walking up this hill, headed towards the temple to worship. He looks and sees this huge temple and everyone in it that is currently searching, but very lost. He finds people clearly dedicated to seeking and finding or maybe just appeasing something and probably starts asking the question, “What’s going to be the best way to share the good news of Jesus with these people?”
It’s in Athens that Paul begins to observe the people, the culture, the things that they worship and he makes a couple of key observations. One of the most significant is that they have an altar to an “unknown god.” He observes that they are people that are looking for something. You’ll notice something critically important here, that Paul uses the cultural settings, surroundings, pre-existing beliefs even, but the gospel message is unchanged! By paying attention to the culture and creating the bridges towards sharing the gospel, the message didn’t change and it doesn’t change, but by lessening the barriers towards understanding or acceptance, God worked powerfully through Paul’s message. The message doesn’t change, but context and culture has and does.
What’s the challenge to us? To pay attention! Observe. How do we remove barriers towards sharing the good news of Jesus with others? What are the ways God would call us to pay attention to the people and culture around us so that we might speak God’s truth into it? May we consider what God may do in us and through us and the ways that he might have us speak to people where they are at and would God use each of us mightily as we pay attention and share with those around us.
Seth Redden
HS Pastor
Other People’s Music
Have you ever been irritated by someone else’s music? As a bus driver for youth groups and children’s events, I’ve heard the following on almost every trip:
One student starts to sing, and this could be any song. On my first trip driving children for EFCC’s Winter Camp, I probably heard the ABC song, shouted more than sung, by most of the 40 riders on board, about 55 times in a row.
At some point another student yells out, “Shut up, no one wants to hear that!” Does that stop the student(s) from singing? No way! It actually helps to get some of the other students to join in. Then, a competition ensues to see who can be the loudest and hold their position the longest, the singers or the shut-up’ers.
Recently, at the beach in La Jolla, there were several ice cream vendors pushing small ice cream carts on wheels up and down the beach. Each vendor had a swinging line of bells attached to the cart. The bells did not create a melodious invitation to purchase their product. They produced irritation, and I felt a strong urge to chuck the bells, maybe even the carts, into the sea.
I imagine that everyone has multiple stories of being irritated by other people’s music.
That is partly why the story in Acts 16:25-30 fascinates me:
About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening to them. Suddenly there was such a violent earthquake that the foundations of the prison were shaken. At once all the prison doors flew open, and everyone’s chains came loose. The jailer woke up, and when he saw the prison doors open, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself because he thought the prisoners had escaped. But Paul shouted, “Don’t harm yourself! We are all here!” The jailer called for lights, rushed in, and fell trembling before Paul and Silas. He then brought them out and asked, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?”
Paul and Silas’ prayed and sang, and their music didn’t bring irritation, it brought transfixion. How else could one explain the fact that the other prisoners didn’t bolt the moment the doors were opened?
I hope the praise of my life, the praise of my heart, and the praise of our church make that kind of difference to the people around us too.
Pastor John Riley
Junior High Ministry
Praise Frees
The other night, our dog Louie and I were playing and wrestling. In the course of our tug-of-war battle, I backed him into a corner. As soon as he realized it, his tone changed. He became a bit more aggressive and agitated. After I let him out, he changed back to his normal playful self. It made me wonder, what do I do when it feels like I’ve been backed into a corner? What do you do?
We will all find ourselves in places where we don’t know what to do and it seems like our options are limited. It might come in the form of a call from the doctor. It might be a relationship that meets its demise. It could be in a bank account that you can’t seem to get into the black. Corners have a way of finding us, don’t they?
I’m struck by the way Paul and Silas responded when they were backed into a corner. Their corner came by way of being thrown in jail for sharing about Jesus. Listen to what they did in response. “About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them…” (Acts 16:25) Can you imagine being thrown in jail and then hosting a worship service? That’s exactly what Paul and Silas did. Listen to what God did in response. It says, “and suddenly there was a great earthquake so that the foundations of the prison were shaken. And immediately all the doors were opened, and everyone's bonds were unfastened.” (Acts 16:26) Paul and Silas were in chains, but when they raised their hands in worship, God moved in power.
I don’t want to make a formula out of this account. I’m not saying that every time you’re in jail if you pray and worship God will send an earthquake to break you out. However, I think there is a principle for us to grasp. The principle is that when we worship, we experience freedom. Worship aligns us with the heart of God, it puts God in his rightful place and us in our rightful place… and when we walk in that truth, we experience freedom. This is similar to what Paul stated in 2 Corinthians 3:17 when he wrote, “Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.” When God shows up (and we know he does when we worship), he brings freedom.
What if we started to respond in worship when we’re backed into a corner? Instead of shaking our fist at God, what if we bowed our knees to him – even when life was hard, and it felt like the options were limited. I think we’d start to experience his freedom in a myriad of different ways! Today, take some time to worship. You could do it through a time of prayer focusing on the attributes of God. You could make a music playlist and go on a prayer walk. There are a variety of ways to worship, choose one and spend some time worshiping God today and pay attention to the way he brings freedom.
Pastor Ryan Paulson
Lead Pastor
Praise Reminds
It seemed like the end of the world. In fact, in some very real ways, it was.
The Jewish nation had suffered invasions from the Assyrians, constant in-fighting between themselves, and was looking at nearly certain destruction at the hand of the Babylonians. The line of kings was turning out to be a massive disappointment with nothing to show for it except devastation.
The prophet Habakkuk tells us that the trees were bare, the olive crops were failing, the fields were producing no food, and there was no livestock. And yet, in the midst of all of this he says, “yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will be joyful in God my Savior” (Hab. 3:17-18).
The season of life was a disappointment.
His circumstances were bleak.
The condition of the nation was devastating.
And yet, Habakkuk praised the Lord! How?
The answer is found in his knowledge that the Lord is sovereign over all circumstances, seasons, and conditions: “The LORD is in his holy temple; let all the earth be silent before him,” (Habakkuk 3:20).
Our praise of the sovereign God reminds us that he is in control no matter what may come.
This is the same posture that Paul and Silas take when in the Philippian jail (Acts 16:25). Though their circumstances and condition seemed bleak in that cell, they looked at the track record of a God who raised the dead to life and figured that no matter how bad things looked in the moment, God was using “all things for the good,” (Rom. 8:28) even their current imprisonment.
Praising God in the midst of our circumstances reminds us of God’s sovereignty despite how our current conditions and seasons might appear.
Pastor Ryan Lunde
College Ministry
Prisoners Freed
About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God…. Suddenly there was such a violent earthquake that the foundations of the prison were shaken. At once all the prison doors flew open, and everyone’s chains came loose. - Acts 16:25-26
I’d like to begin by asking a very simple question: What do you think Paul and Silas were praying for before this miraculous earthquake? What would you be praying for if you were in prison under trumped-up charges? Would you be praying for freedom? I know that I would be.
However, I would like to suggest to you that Paul and Silas were probably not praying for their freedom. Why not? Well, because they didn’t leave! If you keep reading after these verses above, you will see that Paul and Silas stay in the custody of the jailer overnight and until they are completely exonerated. If they had been praying for freedom, don’t you think that they would have taken this earthquake as a sign that God wants them to walk free? If an incredibly precise, violent earthquake that somehow opens doors and loosens chains, but doesn’t kill anyone isn’t a sign from God, I don’t know what is.
That brings me back to my original question. What were Paul and Silas praying for? If they weren’t praying for their freedom, what were they praying for? I want to suggest that they were praying for the jailer. You see, the jailer was the real prisoner in this story. He was a slave to the Roman authorities of his day (authorities who had other jailers killed for similar situations, see Acts 12), and ultimately, like all people who haven’t found their freedom in Christ, he was a slave to sin. So this is actually a story of the jailer and his household finding freedom (see verses 30-34), not Paul and Silas. And even if they began the night praying for their own freedom, at some point in the night, their prayers moved away from their own needs and onto the needs of others. By the time midnight rolled around, I think that Paul and Silas were so aligned with the heart of God that they interpreted this miraculous sign of the breaking of chains, not as a sign that points to their freedom, but as a sign that points to the freedom of the jailer.
For Paul and Silas, there was something more valuable than freedom. They chose obedience, sacrifice, and imprisonment, for the sake of others, instead of their own freedom. Wow! And sure enough, that jailer and his whole family found true freedom that day. May it be true of us as well.
Josh Rose
Teaching Pastor
Praise in the Pain
Have you ever been in a situation where the unthinkable happened? When I was 18 I worked on a Christian ship and along our journey, the unthinkable happened. Because a few people wanted money- the captain, the owner, and the first mate were arrested, interrogated, and pressured to give ransom money. I brought food to them one night as we waited to see how God would get us out of trouble and that was the first night I was physically attacked. I remember thinking that this was how I was going to die as 5 men punched and kicked me. Then as suddenly as it started, it stopped and I was sent on my way. As I walked back to the ship scared, confused, and hurt; all I could do was talk to God, thank him for my life, and ask him to protect us.
To be honest my pain was pretty minor to what Paul and Silas faced in their travels preaching the Gospel and discipling people in Philippi. We are told in Acts 16:23 that, “After they had been severely flogged, they were thrown into prison, and the jailer was commanded to guard them carefully.” They were persecuted unjustly and then beaten severely. Yet something astounding happened, Paul and Silas prayed and sang to the Lord (V. 25)!!! They did not complain, scream for a fair trial, or fight back- they praised God! This is amazing because in the midst of pain, praise arose. Imagine what must have been happening in the hearts of the other prisoners, in the guards, and anyone else who could hear.
Of course, God responded in a way that only God could, he had an earthquake come and shake with such force that the prisoner's chains and cells became free (V. 26). The pain of Paul and Silas became a life-changing moment for all who were there because of God's handiwork. God used Paul and Silas’s pain and praise to save the jailer and his whole household (v. 29-34). God uses everything so people can meet Jesus and be saved.
You might be in the midst of pain, it might not seem fair, it might not make sense, and it's at times like those we need to talk to God. We need him to help us see and trust him, so even in the midst of pain (physical, emotional, or any other), there can be praise. If you need help or someone to talk to, please call. We are here to walk alongside you.
Pastor Jeremy Johnson
Family Pastor
The Final Word-Scriptural Affirmation
When I bake, I definitely need a recipe, so I go to a cookbook—or Pinterest. When a lawyer is facing a difficult case, he goes to his law books. When a student is studying, they go to textbooks. Pastors use commentaries in their studies. An authoritative manual or book is needed by most people at some point. Not every question can be answered by google. (smile) As believers, our reference for life is Scripture.
Last week we talked a lot about the power of words and encouragement. This week we are looking at a scriptural affirmation/response to a disagreement or debate. The difference between encourage and affirm is that encourage is to mentally support; to motivate, give courage, or hope while affirmation is to agree, verify or concur; to answer positively. We have a prime example of scriptural affirmation in Acts 15.
Here we see a great debate between the apostles and elders due to “some believers who belonged to the party of the Pharisees” who wanted the new Gentile believers to be circumcised to keep the law of Moses. We see Paul, Barnabas, and Peter in verses 8 and 9 reminding this group that “God who knows the heart, gave the Gentiles the Holy Spirit just as he did the Jews.” In vs 11, they summarize by saying “we believe that we will be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, just as they will.” Then in verse 15-18, James addresses the assembly with words from Old Testament Scripture that conclude with this:
“God said it and now he’s doing it. It’s no afterthought; he’s always known he would do this.” (Acts 15: 18 The Message)
Or in the NIV “… says the Lord, who does these things— things known from long ago.”
So, I think of James as the closer of the debate. He closes powerfully with the words of the prophets that affirm God’s plan of ages past which was taking place currently. The things known from long ago affirm that this new way revealed is really part of an old promise.
Disagreements are just part of life. The apostles even disagreed with each other but here we see a big decision that caused a huge debate, and, in the end, the final authority was Scripture. So, when we need affirmation that our position or decision is right, shouldn’t our handbook be the Bible as it was for the apostles? And maybe sometimes it is okay to agree to disagree or compromise. When life is just plain hard, Scripture is our source of personal affirmation, encouragement, and hope—and it is our final authority.
Deb Hill
Exec. Admin Assist
Catch the Wind!
As a family, one of our favorite things is sailing. I can keep us from crashing but my husband is the true sailor. He gets the art of trimming the sails perfectly so as to catch the best wind. Depending on the direction and power of the wind, the currents, and the day, the sails have to be trimmed just right in order to keep from going into irons; or in other words, losing the wind and therefore any movement forward. On a windy day, when the sails are perfectly trimmed, sailing can provide a fast and exhilarating ride!
Throughout Scripture, the Holy Spirit is compared and likened to wind. In fact, the Greek word pneuma means “wind, spirit or breath." In Acts 2, the Holy Spirit is introduced as a powerful wind enabling believers to utilize the gifts of the Spirit. Wind and the Holy Spirit share many characteristics; both are invisible, powerful, and while they can’t be seen with the human eye, the results can be both seen and felt. Both can be unpredictable and often unexplainable. Isaiah 40:13 says, “Who can fathom the Spirit of the Lord, or instruct the Lord as his counselor.” The Spirit goes where he wishes.
In Monday’s devotional, Pastor Scott pointed out how the phrase, “it seemed good” appears in Acts 15 three different times. On the third time, in verse 28, it says, “it seemed good to us and the Holy Spirit”. Does that mean that we can follow God’s leading without a clear and direct word from God? Trimming your sails is not so different from staying connected to God’s Word. We can listen for and feel the wind, but staying in tune with the truth of Scripture will help us not only evaluate what is truth, but it will also free us to enjoy the ride. St. Ignatius says that when we say yes to the responsiveness, openness, and flexibility to the unpredictable stirrings of the Holy Spirit, he brings surprises that are greater than we could ever plan or imagine. The Holy Spirit just doesn’t fit in a box, nor does he always tell us which way he is blowing!
Where do you sense the Holy Spirit leading you today? Are you grounded in God’s Word such that when the Spirit blows you are prepared to trim your sails? Wind can bring about unknown adventure and an exciting or unpredictable ride. Are you open to the Spirit’s leading even if the journey may be unknown?
Lynette Fuson
Director of Care & Counseling
