Strange Ideas

Just the other day I got one of those calls. It's the kind of call that you get sometimes when you're a minister. One of our older ladies here at church called to express some grievances about my preaching style. At least she was kind about it. She said she didn't like the way that I bring elements from "the world" into my messages. She specifically mentioned my recent references to Spiderman 3 and the show Touched By An Angel. "We just need to hear the Bible," she stated. "Use examples from the Bible instead of these worldly things."

This lady is a good person whom I love and I welcomed her thoughts. I explained that our objective was the same, helping people to hear the message of Scripture so that it takes root in their lives. But our ideas about the method are different. My job (and the job of any believer trying to teach the Bible) is to be a bridge-builder between the ancient text and the world that the listener(s) know.

Shortly after that conversation, I was reading in Acts 17. Paul was sharing the message of Jesus to the pagans of Athens. They responded at one point by saying, "You are bringing some strange ideas to our ears, and we want to know what they mean." Bingo. To most people, the gospel and the teachings about the way of Christ sound really "out there." They may think them strange or irrelevant, as did these people in Athens. As Paul went on teaching them, he spoke from the vantage point of their own world-view, not his. He quoted from their own popular literature (v. 28) to illustrate his point and draw a connection between what they were already familiar with and the novel concepts of Christianity. That's just good communication.

Many people are not interested in what the Bible says until they see how it addresses things that they are concerned about in their own experience. We need to know and understand our culture as well as the Bible so that we can draw the connecting points and the points of contrast. Only then can we be effective in convincing people that they need to give the Bible a voice as they wrestle with the problems and needs of today's world.