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Home Theological Blogs-Commentary

Engaging Without Imbibing

John MacArthur by John MacArthur
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Engaging Without Imbibing
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Table of Contents

  • 1. Cultural Relevance?
  • 2. Now while Paul was waiting
  • 3. So Paul Stood
  • 4. Now when they Heard
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Every Christian throughout church history has been faced with the challenge of living faithfully in a sinful society to be in the world but not of it.

by John MacArthur 

Scripture strongly warns against exposure to carnal, worldly culture. The apostle Paul commands us, “Do not be conformed to this world” (Romans 12:2). John likewise admonishes us, “Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him” (1 John 2:15). And James sternly warns, “Whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God” (James 4:4).

Obviously, isolation from the outside world is no solution for those of us who want to please God. After all, how can we “go therefore and make disciples of all the nations” (Matthew 28:19) if we remain quarantined from the outside world?

The challenge then, for all Christians, is how to reach this sinful world without being seduced by it—to engage the culture without imbibing it. The apostle Paul’s missionary endeavors provide us with the ultimate biblical blueprint for navigating that challenge.

01
of 04
Cultural Relevance?

Those who believe “cultural relevance” is the secret to powerful preaching often point to Paul’s ministry in Athens as a prime example of how Paul accommodated his message and his methodology to the culture in which he ministered. They suggest that Paul’s sermon on Mars’ Hill is a paradigm for market-driven ministry.

And at first sight, it may seem that they have a case. Paul was preaching among the city’s intellectual elite. He spoke to them in their own language, quoted extemporaneously from their own poets and philosophers, and used their method of discourse public debate as the vehicle through which he communicated to them. Is this not a fitting prototype for “contextualization” and market-driven methodology?

Acts 17:16–33 thus becomes a key text in addressing modern innovations and fixations regarding the gospel and cultural assimilation:

02
of 04
Now while Paul was waiting

Now while Paul was waiting for [Silas and Timothy] at Athens, his spirit was being provoked within him as he was observing the city full of idols. So he was reasoning in the synagogue with the Jews and the God-fearing Gentiles, and in the market place every day with those who happened to be present. And also some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers were conversing with him. Some were saying, “What would this idle babbler wish to say?” Others, “He seems to be a proclaimer of strange deities,”—because he was preaching Jesus and the resurrection. And they took him and brought him to the Areopagus, saying, “May we know what this new teaching is which you are proclaiming? For you are bringing some strange things to our ears; so we want to know what these things mean.” (Now all the Athenians and the strangers visiting there used to spend their time in nothing other than telling or hearing something new.)

03
of 04
So Paul Stood

So Paul stood in the midst of the Areopagus and said, “Men of Athens, I observe that you are very religious in all respects. For while I was passing through and examining the objects of your worship, I also found an altar with this inscription, ‘To an unknown god.’ Therefore what you worship in ignorance, this I proclaim to you. The God who made the world and all things in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands; nor is He served by human hands, as though He needed anything, since He Himself gives to all people life and breath and all things; and He made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their habitation, that they would seek God, if perhaps they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; for in Him we live and move and exist, as even some of your own poets have said, ‘For we also are His children.’ Being then the children of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and thought of man. Therefore having overlooked the times of ignorance, God is now declaring to men that all people everywhere should repent, because He has fixed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness through a Man whom He has appointed, having furnished proof to all men by raising Him from the dead.”

04
of 04
Now when they Heard

Now when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some began to sneer, but others said, “We shall hear you again concerning this.” So Paul went out of their midst.

Paul’s ministry experiences prior to Athens amounted to one long chronicle of persecution and rejection. Now he was by himself in a vast, highly cultured but extremely pagan city. His familiarity with Greek culture could have afforded him the luxury of infiltrating their society virtually unnoticed—he certainly knew enough to fit in and avoid further persecution.

But as Acts 17:16–33 reveals, Paul proceeded to use his cultural awareness to confront the gross idolatry that was rampant in Athens. And as we’ll see in the days ahead, Paul’s sermon on Mars’ Hill is an example of cultural confrontation—not accommodation.

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John MacArthur

John MacArthur

John MacArthur is the pastor-teacher of Grace Community Church in Sun Valley, California, as well as an author, conference speaker, chancellor of The Master’s University and Seminary, and featured teacher with the Grace to You media ministry. After graduating from Talbot Theological Seminary, John came to Grace Community Church in 1969. The emphasis of his pulpit ministry is the careful study and verse-by-verse exposition of the Bible, with special attention devoted to the historical and grammatical background behind each passage. Under John’s leadership, Grace Community Church’s two morning worship services fill the three-thousand-seat auditorium to capacity. Several thousand members participate every week in dozens of fellowship groups and training programs, most led by lay leaders and each dedicated to equipping members for ministry on local, national, and international levels. In 1985, John became president of The Master’s College (formerly Los Angeles Baptist College; since 2016, The Master’s University). Located in Santa Clarita, California, it is a distinctly Christian, accredited, liberal arts institution offering undergraduate and graduate degree programs. In 1986, John founded The Master’s Seminary, a graduate school dedicated to training men for full-time pastoral and missionary work. John is also chairman and featured teacher with Grace to You. Founded in 1969, Grace to You is the nonprofit organization responsible for developing, producing, and distributing John’s books, audio resources, and the Grace to You radio and television programs. Grace to You radio airs more than a thousand times daily throughout the English-speaking world, reaching major population centers with biblical truth. It also airs over a thousand times a day in Spanish, reaching twenty-seven countries across Europe and Latin America. Grace to You television airs weekly on DirecTV in the United States, and is available for free on the Internet worldwide. John’s 3,300-plus sermons, spanning more than five decades of ministry, are available for free download on this website. John has written hundreds of study guides and books, including The Gospel According to Jesus, Our Sufficiency in Christ, Strange Fire, Ashamed of the Gospel, The Murder of Jesus, The Prodigal Son, Twelve Ordinary Men, The Truth War, The Jesus You Can’t Ignore, Slave, One Perfect Life, The Gospel According to Paul, Parables, and One Faithful Life. John’s books have been translated into more than two dozen languages. The MacArthur Study Bible, the cornerstone resource of his ministry, is available in English (NKJ, NAS, and ESV), Spanish, Russian, German, French, Portuguese, Italian, Arabic, and Chinese. In 2015 The MacArthur New Testament Commentary was completed. In thirty-four volumes, John takes you detail by detail, verse by verse, through the entire New Testament. John and his wife, Patricia, live in Southern California and have four married children: Matt, Marcy, Mark, and Melinda. They also enjoy the enthusiastic company of their fifteen grandchildren.

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