Living Out Lout Through Evangelism

Hi all! It’s a new pen man today. Yeah, today’s blog post is written by Angel Obiorah. Some of you may not know me, but I am Trinity’s sister. Such a pleasure and honestly an honor to be writing today’s blog post.

So, official welcome to you!!!! Anyways, this message is adapted from a church sermon that struck a chord within me. I am currently doing summer research, and I alongside the rest of the people in the program live together in a house provided by the program. So, the point of this backstory is that since we all live in the same house, we see a lot of each other. So, it dawned on me that these are people I can reach out to spiritually. I could actually evangelize to these people. We live in close proximity to each other, so it’s a prime environment for evangelism. However, then after that Eureka moment, I was a bit stuck. I didn’t even know how to begin. How do I introduce a spiritual conversation with them? So, these kinds of questions were already going through my head before the sermon.

As God will have it, the following day’s sermon (ie today’s excerpt) was Acts 17:16-34

16 Now while Paul was waiting for them at Athens, his spirit was provoked within him as he saw that the city was full of idols. 17 So he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the devout persons, and in the marketplace every day with those who happened to be there. 18 Some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers also conversed with him. And some said, “What does this babbler wish to say?” Others said, “He seems to be a preacher of foreign divinities”—because he was preaching Jesus and the resurrection. 19 And they took him and brought him to the Areopagus, saying, “May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? 20 For you bring some strange things to our ears. We wish to know therefore what these things mean.” 21 Now all the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there would spend their time in nothing except telling or hearing something new.

Paul Addresses the Areopagus

22 So Paul, standing in the midst of the Areopagus, said: “Men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious. 23 For as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription: ‘To the unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. 24 The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man,[a] 25 nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. 26 And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, 27 that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us, 28 for

“‘In him we live and move and have our being’;[b]

as even some of your own poets have said,

“‘For we are indeed his offspring.’[c]

29 Being then God's offspring, we ought not to think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of man. 30 The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, 31 because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.”

32 Now when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked. But others said, “We will hear you again about this.” 33 So Paul went out from their midst. 34 But some men joined him and believed, among whom also were Dionysius the Areopagite and a woman named Damaris and others with them.

So, this excerpt from Acts 17 focuses on arguably the most notable evangelist in the bible, Paul. Those of us who studied in Nigeria must know that the most painful part of CRE (Christian Religious Education) was memorizing all of the places of Paul’s missionary journeys. So, Paul was the Christian that spearheaded the preaching of the gospel to the gentiles. The section above highlights Paul’s most famous speech to the gentiles.

So, we are going to analyze this text together and learn a few things from the father of evangelism and summarize it in a few points

Perceive: The first thing that Paul did when he got to Athens was that he looked around. Through which he then saw that the city was full of idols. He observed his audience. In Vs. 23 he mentioned that he saw an altar with the inscription ‘To an unknown God’. Also, very importantly, through taking his time to perceive and know his audience, he had insight on how to construct his message. If we examine the passage, through it all, Paul never mentioned Jesus, death on the cross, sin, or the resurrection. Neither did he quote any bible passage. He did this not because he forgot or something. Rather, after studying his audience, he realized that his audience were Greeks that probably haven’t been exposed to the bible. So, quoting the bible will do nothing to convince them because to them the bible was insignificant.

Also, perception gave Paul an inner fire to preach. After he looked around and saw all the idols littered all over the place, he was provoked within his spirit. He was uncomfortable with staying there and not doing anything. Alright, a little bit of context here is that: Paul was waiting in Athens for Timothy and Silas. Meaning that this was not his intended destination. But, while he was here and he saw all the idols, he was troubled for them. It’s interesting that the bible uses the word “PROVOKED”. Idols for the Athenians here were literal physical idols. But, in our current age, it’s probably something like social media, physical appearances, romance, games, and TV shows. Not that any of these things are necessarily inherently bad, but that we sometimes place too much attention on them, and begin to worship them. Thus becoming idols. So, this is a good place to stop and reflect on potential idols in your life. Also, maybe in the lives of people around you. Are you provoked by it, like Paul was? Or are you content with letting people carry on worshipping those idols?

Praise: The next important aspect of Paul’s speech was how he began. He began by praising his audience. Verse 22 says:

“ So Paul, standing in the midst of the Areopagus, said: “Men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious.”

It might seem a little weird that Paul begins his sermon this way. One might think that since he was ‘provoked’, he might start off by calling them ignorant people. However, that’s not what he did. He called them religious… Interesting right? You might be asking: “Why and how is this important”. It’s important because he was trying to establish a rapport with them. It’s a fundamental human phenomenon. If you establish common ground (Paul did this by praising their spirituality), they are more likely to listen to what you have to say. Firstly, Paul isn’t doing this for flattery, but still, you don’t want to start out by calling people dumb.

So, this point focuses on finding common ground to begin the conversation. It might be a conversation about people desiring meaning and purpose. Or that we have a moral compass, deciphering wrong versus right, injustice, and oppression. Just starting from those conversations and then turning them in a spiritual direction like: We are not accidents, rather we are created for a purpose. We have a creator….

Just like that, you have opened the door to a spiritual convo. It’s not easy, but it’s definitely a good tactic!

Persuasion: The next part and the majority of his sermon is persuasion. Paul begins to use logic, reasoning, and evidence to persuade the Athenians. He uses majorly common sense. It’s very interesting that by studying his audience, he decides not to use biblical phrases. Rather, to use phrases that they are accustomed to.

Vs. 28 says

‘In him we live and move and have our being’;[b]

as even some of your own poets have said,

“‘For we are indeed his offspring

It’s interesting to note that those two lines were written by Greek poets. So, they were very cognizant of those lines. That also kind of ties it with the perception point. By knowing his audience, he knew what phrases to use and what references to make. That also applies to us. We need to take the time to know these people that we are trying to reach out to, and by doing so, we know how to phrase our message.

Also, back to the point of persuasion, “It takes guts to begin the conversation, but it takes brains to keep it going”. We need to challenge ourselves to build up our knowledge of the gospel, to learn how to introduce Christ to people, and to learn how to defend our faith. There are so many books that we could read to build ourselves up in that area. This is really important because we don’t want to begin a conversation and start babbling. That’s not to say that we must be masters before we try to reach out to people. No! In fact, through experience, you learn how to answer certain questions better, how to introduce a spiritual conversation, etc. However, we should still be spurred to deepen our knowledge.

Also, on this point, while we sometimes feel like we need to start from the very beginning to introduce the gospel and give1 hr. speech, that’s not often necessary. We can keep such conversations short, like 10-15 minutes because people’s attention spans aren’t great, and also, you don’t want to go on a whole monologue. Short 15 minutes conversations, 2 days a week is better than 1 long speech. Of course, there are exceptions to this.

Persevere: While Paul was a very eloquent preacher and evangelist, it’s important to point out that he did not have an outstanding success rate. We see from verses 32-34 that there were 3 reactions to Paul’s message: Some mocked, others were not fully convinced, and a few believed. Maybe he had like a 10% success rate, but even if we think we fail, we don’t know how God will use the see that we planted.

So, quick recap, from Paul’s message, we learn 4P’s: Perceive, Praise, Persuade and Persevere!

Thank you all for reading this really long blog. I really need to learn how to keep it short and sweet! Anyways, thank you all once again! It’s been a real pleasure!!!!!!! Remain blessed!!!

-Angel Obiorah