0417 KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE

APRIL 17 = ACTS 17

KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE

Know your audience. That’s essential for any author or speaker or especially, as it turns out, evangelist. As any missionary could tell, part of the secret to success in sharing the gospel is to be able to say it in the other person’s language. I don’t just mean the sounds they make, but the cultural heart language of a person.

This chapter includes a couple of cultural adaptations that make a good study for us. Paul shares a brief account of Jesus with a Jewish audience, and then later in the chapter he does the same with a Greek audience of philosophers. What we find is that his approach is quite different for each group.

In a city where he could speak with an exclusively-Jewish audience, Paul’s message is summarized like this: “As was his custom, Paul went into the synagogue, and on three Sabbath days he reasoned with them from the Scriptures, explaining and proving that the Messiah had to suffer and rise from the dead. “This Jesus I am proclaiming to you is the Messiah,” he said.

He starts in the synagogue.

He waits until the Sabbath.

He reasoned with them from the Scriptures. (The Old Testament)

He was convincing them about the Messiah (his suffering and resurrection)

He concludes by saying that Jesus is the Messiah.

All five of these talking points indicate that Paul is addressing a group of listeners who are Jewish. I probably don’t need to explain further, but let me know if you are not making the connection.

Later in the chapter, Paul is speaking with Athenian philosophers. To be sure, these men are coming from a very different place with their logic. They aren’t in the synagogue. They don’t observe the Sabbath, either. Sharing Scriptures would not be a wise starting point with a group that has no knowledge of the Old Testament. And they certainly are not looking for the Messiah. So all of his talking points will go in the opposite direction as they went in the Synagogue.

 

And now we find Paul at the Areopagus, atop a hill just outside the city of Athens talking with Stoic and Epicurean philosophers. Here is how Paul shares with them:

He starts in the marketplace, not the synagogue.

He speaks day by day, rather than waiting for the Sabbath.

He still spoke about Jesus and the resurrection.

Some of the philosophers then took Paul to the meeting at the Areopagus, atop a hill, where philosophers of all stripes were practicing their logic and listening skills.

When he begins his message, “I see that in every way you are very religious.” Their religion may have been quite varied from one another, but Paul is finding a common ground with them.

“I even found an altar with this inscription: to an unknown god. . . . and this is what I am going to proclaim to you.” Rather than proving that Jesus is the long-awaited Messiah, he presents Jesus as the unknown god.

Now Paul must give some background information, because not everyone there acknowledges a single, all-powerful God. So he can’t start with the Athenians the same place he started with the Jews in the synagogue. He says, “The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands.” He goes on with some basic background information about who God is and what he has done. Such background information is not needed with a Jewish audience, of course. 

Now Paul begins to swing it around toward Jesus. He says, “God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us.” 

Then Paul does something that is even more impressive. He is so culturally aware that he supports his message with quoting a secular philosopher. He says, “As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’” What a great bridge to build, crossing over to their side, so that they can follow him back again.

Soon, Paul’s message calls for repentance. But it is not repenting for having put the Messiah to death on a cross, but repenting of the ignorance of making idols and worshiping them.

When Paul introduces Jesus into the flow of his talk, he says it this way: “he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed.” So Jesus is a just judge who is approved, rather than an anointed prophet. 

And, sure enough, Paul finishes with talk of the resurrection. But when speaking to these philosophers, he says that the resurrection is proof of his being the judge of all the earth “He has given proof of this to everyone by raising him from the dead.”

May you and I know how to share Jesus with each person we meet, speaking in their heart language and starting with their cultural view. Amen.