Sensitivity
Acts 17 records three encounters that Paul has with three groups of people who live in three different places – the Thessalonians, the Bereans, the Athenians. In the first two encounters we find Paul in the local synagogue “reasoning and explaining and proving from the scriptures” who Jesus was and why Jesus came. He is in the building of a faith community and he is using the Old Testament scriptures to teach and explain about this person named Jesus. But his encounter with the Athenians is a radical departure from the first two encounters. He is in the marketplace or the town square and there is no mention of his use of scripture. Instead of direct references to the scriptures he makes direct references to the various statues and images of the “gods” of that culture focusing primarily on the “altar to the unknown God”. He understood and was sensitive to the cultural climate of his surroundings and spoke and reasoned with that climate as his backdrop. He didn’t approach it the same way as he did in the first two encounters. Listen to his own words – ”as I walked around and carefully looked at your objects of worship, I noticed…” He was fully aware of and sensitive to the cultural dynamics of his audience and he spoke to them from this place of awareness and sensitivity. There is no mention of Jesus in this dialogue, only of God. There is no mention of Jesus’ death and resurrection which was the hear in his teaching in the synagogues, instead he talks about the life giving character of God. They had reduced their “gods” down to images and statues that were displayed in town square and religious temples. Paul talks about the impossibility of putting God in that kind of box. To them, their gods were cold and distant and uninterested in human affairs. Paul describes God as being close – that they could reach out and touch him.
I love the sensitivity that Paul had for his audience. He took the time to carefully understand the unigue dynamics of that culture and then he shared about God in a way that they could relate to and understantd. When he was with those who had a religious background he used the scriptures to reason with them. When he spoke to those who had no spiritual worldview he reasoned with them in a different way.
Before we share the life giving, life changing message of Jesus, we need to first carefully understand our audience and the culture that they live in. Too often we use a “one size fits all” approach to sharing the good news of God’s word. Then we wonder why we have little or no impact.
Paul takes about this approach in 1 Corinthians 9:22 , “To the weak I became weak to win the weak. I have become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some.” To those who had a strong spiritual foundation Paul reasoned with them from the scriptures. To those who had little or no spiritual worldview, he reasoned another way. I think wisdom and insight tells us that we should do the same.