"The Attitude of Christ" (Phil 2:1-11)

Not Playing the Same Game

This spring I’ve gotten my first taste of coaching soccer as an assistant coach for my nephew’s soccer team. At our first practice, it became clear that some of our players had a bad habit that would need to be addressed immediately. Namely, using their hands to control the ball. As you probably know, “no hands” is a fundamental rule in soccer. You can use your feet, your thighs, your chest, your head—but not your hands. If this bad habit persisted in any of our players, then we would have a real problem on our hands. They would effectively be playing a different game.

In one sense, Paul and the Philippians (the Christ-followers to whom he writes in Philippi) are dealing with a similar situation. They are not playing the same game as the world around them, and it’s causing a real problem. (Paul wouldn’t be in prison if it weren’t.) Twice in his letter to them, Paul encourages the Philippians to “live as citizens”—not of Rome, but of a different world (cf. Phil 1:37; 3:20). If you listen to the Greek words that Paul uses here—politeuomai and politeuma—you can hear what he’s getting at. Following Christ means living by a different politics. To be clear, Paul’s not talking here about partisan politics. He’s not telling the Philippians they need to move to the right or to the left, that they need to be more Republican or Democrat. He’s telling them that following Christ means they don’t even play that game.

Which begs a big question, “Okay, then. What game are they playing?”

The Old Game

1    If then there is any encouragement in Christ, any consolation from love, any sharing in the Spirit, any compassion and sympathy, 2 make my joy complete: be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. 3 Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. 4 Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others.

Christ-followers who lived in the Roman empire daily faced significant social pressures, if not outright persecution. When they went to the market, they were often required to burn incense before an altar of Caesar and to declare, “Caesar is lord”...which is an awkward thing to do and say if the confession of your faith is “Jesus is lord.” When their neighbors or friends hosted social gatherings, the meat that people would eat together was often first sacrificed to a Roman god, which again put Christ-followers in an awkward place—if they ate the meat, would others assume they put their faith in the god to whom it had been offered? Beyond these common situations, Christ-followers often sidelined themselves from other popular activities—like attending the local sauna or the games at the coliseum—because these pastimes frequently celebrated sexual promiscuity and violence. By not playing the same game that their neighbors played, many Christ-followers earned confused and suspicious looks from others. “Who are these weirdos?” (Imagine how today we might look on people who never go to the gym or the movies, and you’ll get an approximate sense of how Christ-followers were seen back then.)

The raised eyebrows and disapproving frowns that Christ-followers endured, the shameful rumors and disgraceful gossip that they withstood—not to mention the risk of actual imprisonment, as Paul  himself has suffered—all of this forms the backdrop to Paul’s words of encouragement in today’s scripture. Notice how the first two verses are a call to unity. Essentially, “stick together, be strong!” There is a fundamental truth here: community gives us a strength we do not have on our own. If you’ve ever been a part of a book club or an exercise group or any other sort of regular group activity, you’ve likely experienced this truth. The support and accountability of others help us to do what we could not on your own.

But Paul’s words turn quickly from encouragement to warning—specifically warning against “selfish ambition” and “conceit.” I’m reminded of a phrase that appears sporadically in the book of Judges to describe the gradual disintegration of the people of Israel: “And everyone did what was right in their own eyes.” It is a dynamic that threatens any community. When personal preference becomes more important than the interests and well-being of others, division and conflict quickly follow. The church is no stranger to this experience. The so-called “worship wars”—hymns or praise songs, organs or guitars—have divided congregations for years. Similarly, ambitions of “church growth”—which means growth measured by bottoms in the pew and by bucks in the plate—have resulted in many spiritual casualties, as ministries and members not deemed profitable or productive have been sidelined.

Paul’s warning against ambition and conceit, however, is not only about the potential for division and conflict, which would themselves be quite detrimental for a church that is already swimming upstream against culture. Paul’s warning is also (and perhaps more importantly) against “playing the old game,” which is to say, the game that they used to play but stopped playing. The game of ambition and self-importance. The game of competition and conflict. The game of trying to climb the ladder. That is the game that the world plays—the world of the Roman empire 2,000 years ago, the world around us today. But according to Paul, Christ-followers don’t play that game.

So, if the old game is selfish ambition, what is the new game? What is the game we Christ-followers are playing?

“The Mindset of Christ”

5 Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus…

“Mind” here refers not to what you think, but how you think. If you’ll remember, a moment ago Paul was calling his audience toward unity. This should not be confused with uniformity. Thinking the same thing would be uniformity. When a couple centuries later the Roman empire and the church join forces, there is a push toward creeds and doctrinal statements, which seek uniformity. “Let’s all think the same thing.” 

Paul is inviting his audience not to think the same thing, but to think the same way. Personally, I think the word “mindset” or “attitude” is a better translation for what Paul is getting at: “Let the same mindset (or attitude) be in you that was in Christ Jesus.”

The Franciscan priest Richard Rohr gets at this “mindset” or “attitude” of Christ with a provocative theoretical question. I’d invite you to chew on this long after today’s service: “Is it better to be right in the wrong spirit, or to be wrong in the right spirit?” Personally…I think it is better to be wrong in the right spirit. Which is to say, how we think (about others, about ourselves, about the world) is more important than what we think. How we think—our mindset, our attitude, the spirit in which we live—is what aligns us with Christ or not. Christ whose mindset or attitude was not ambitious but meek, not haughty but humble, not controlling but caring, not bitter but benevolent, not oriented toward productivity but patience. Christ cares less about us getting it right (what we think), than about us treating others right (how we think of others). Some of the most Christlike people I know have intellectual disabilities. They couldn’t recite a creed or a doctrine of faith to save their life. But they would treat you better than most people would. Their mindset, their attitude—humble, simple, meek, trusting—how they think is more aligned with Christ than anything you’ll find among the sharpest financial or business or political minds.

Not Grasping

Paul follows this fundamental instruction—“let the same attitude be in you that was in Christ Jesus”—with what most scholars and historians agree is the oldest recorded Christian hymn. Indeed, it is quite likely that the words we’re about to read were composed before any of Paul’s letters, before any of the gospels, before anything else in the New Testament. It is rich in meaning, but for today, let’s read it in the context of Paul’s invitation to have the same attitude as Christ. In other words, let’s read it asking, “What is a Christlike attitude?”

6                 who, though he was in the form of God,

                                        did not regard equality with God

                                        as something to be exploited—or “grasped”  (we’ll come back to this word)—

7                 but emptied himself,

                                        taking the form of a slave,

                                        being born in human likeness.

                    And being found in human form,

8                                     he humbled himself

                                        and became obedient to the point of death—

                                        even death on a cross.

9                    Therefore God also highly exalted him

                                        and gave him the name

                                        that is above every name,

 10              so that at the name of Jesus

                                        every knee should bend,

                                        in heaven and on earth and under the earth,

11               and every tongue should confess

                                        that Jesus Christ is Lord,

                                        to the glory of God the Father.

If there were any doubts that Christ—and his followers—play a different game than the world plays, then they are put to rest with this hymn. The world—with its “selfish ambition” and “conceit”—is all about upward mobility. Life becomes a game of climbing the ladder. Getting to the top. But in this hymn, we see the opposite from Christ, whose game is humility, who is all about downward mobility, who descends continually—from the form of God to the form of a human to the figure of a criminal crucified on a cross. To be clear, this hymn is not promoting self-punishment or self-debasement. Rather the point is solidarity. Christ descends in order to be with us, every one of us, even us who are on death row, even us whom society has judged and shamed and put to death. Because of Christ’s radical descent, there is no experience that can separate us from him. His descent is for the purpose of companionship with every single one of us, no questions or conditions.

Biblical scholars point out that one key phrase toward the beginning—“did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited” (and other translations have it as “grasped”)—seemingly alludes to the story of Adam and Eve in the garden. Whereas Adam did regard equality with God as something to be grasped, and so grasped after the forbidden fruit, Christ does the opposite. His attitude, his mindset is not about “grasping.” It’s about companionship. It’s not about moving up. It’s about being down to earth, being connected with everyone.

“Downward mobility” is not a tagline that would sell well in our culture today (and I imagine it was no different in first century Rome). But this ancient hymn insists that Christ’s descent is in fact one and the same as Christ’s glory. God exalts Christ—not because he’s been through the wringer and God compensates him with a luxurious afterlife, but because God affirms what Christ did as what is good and beautiful and true. It is as though God looks out upon all the world and points to Jesus, saying, “Yes, that is the way. That’s the game I want them to play. That’s the pattern, the blueprint, the way of abundant life.”

The hymn concludes on a wildly, defiantly hopeful note. It insists that one day God will not be the only person to recognize Christ’s greatness—everyone else will too. Everyone will be brought to their knees. And not because their arms have been twisted in a game of cosmic mercy. But because their hearts have been pierced with the goodness and beauty and truth of Christ. And so it is that they will no longer declare “Caesar is lord” but rather “Christ is lord.”

May it be so now in our lives—until the day when it is so in all the world.

Prayer

Humble Christ,
Whose downward mobility confounds the world
…
May your way bring us to our knees
In awe and wonder
And inspire us to live with the same attitude,
Not grasping to be right or to be powerful,
But letting go to be with each other,
Especially with the last and the least among us.
Amen.

"A Good Work" (Phil 1:1-18)

“God Intended It for Good”

Toward the beginning of the Bible, there is a story about the strange way that God works in our world. It’s the story of Joseph and his brothers. You might remember how, early on, Joseph’s brothers become envious and resentful of Joseph for the way their father, Jacob, seems to favor him and for the way Joseph flaunts his favored status. Joseph’s brothers sell him into slavery , and as a result he endures many hardships. But through several fortuitous turns of events he rises to great power in Egypt and ends up saving the Egyptians and many others, including his own family, from a horrible famine. Although he reconciles with his brothers, they harbor doubts about his sincerity. When their father, Jacob, dies, they fear that Joseph will take his revenge, and so they throw themselves at his feet and declare themselves to be Joseph’s slaves.

But Joseph responds, “Do not be afraid! … Even though you intended to do harm to me, God intended it for good, in order to preserve a numerous people…. So have no fear; I myself will provide for you and your little ones” (Gen 50:20-21). Many readers have interpreted Joseph’s words as a declaration of God’s providence, a pronouncement of the way God powerfully manipulates events toward the good. They envision a God high in the clouds, pulling invisible strings. According to this interpretation, “everything happens for a reason.” God is a masterful orchestrator, causing seemingly bad events—such as the brothers’ selling Joseph into slavery—only to turn them later to the good.

Personally, I am not persuaded. Such an interpretation seems ultimately to justify evil behavior. It uses the logic that the ends justify the means, that God may cause bad things to happen (like hurricanes or genocide) in order to achieve a good end. But this seems to me like the way of the world, where a desirable end like profit can justify something bad like the neglect of people, where a desirable end like military victory can justify something bad like the collateral damage of innocents. I do not see this ends-justifying-the-means logic in Christ, who forgives unconditionally no matter the end, who gives without expectation of a beneficial return. No, I do not think the favorable outcome of Joseph’s story is the result of a divine puppeteer, who causes things like family separation and unjust imprisonment in order to save many people from a famine. I think the favorable outcome results from Joseph’s choice to live as God lives: with trust, with patience, with forgiveness. Think about it this way: God could have engineered events precisely as they happened in the story, and yet if Joseph had chosen not to forgive his brothers, it all would have been for nought. God did not cause bad things in order to achieve a good end. Joseph chose God’s way in the face of bad things, and God’s way redeemed the situation toward a good end.

To say God was not pulling the strings is not to say that God had nothing to do with the way things turned out. God had everything to do with it! The only difference is, in this interpretation, God is not the cause of everything that happens. Rather God is a call in everything that happens. A call that Joseph heeds. To trust, to be patient, to forgive. In this way, Joseph’s story becomes a picture not of God’s providence—not of God masterfully pulling invisible strings, causing events to align just so—but rather a picture of God’s grace, a picture of God’s gift or possibility hidden in every situation.

One does not have to say that everything happens for a reason or that God is the cause of everything to be able to affirm the even more profound truth that God can use anything for good.

“I Thank My God”

1   Paul and Timothy, servants of Christ Jesus,

To all the saints in Christ Jesus who are in Philippi, with the bishops and deacons:

2   Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

3   I thank my God every time I remember you, 4 constantly praying with joy in every one of my prayers for all of you, 5 because of your sharing in the gospel from the first day until now.

You wouldn’t know it from these opening verses…but Paul’s letter to the Christ-followers in Philippi is written from prison. Of all Paul’s letters, this one is commonly identified as being his “letter of joy.” Eighteen times throughout the letter he expresses his joy or refers to the joy of others.

We see in these opening verses the foundation for Paul’s joy, namely gratitude. “I thank my God every time I remember you” (Phil 1:3). Now, I don’t think Paul is thanking God as an invisible puller of strings, as someone who providentially brought Paul and the Philippians together. I think his gratitude has instead to do with the depth of their relationship, with the love that has drawn them closer to one another and to God.

To put Paul’s gratitude in the simplest terms: when Paul looks backwards, he sees God. In the love that has drawn him and others into community. In the patience and trust that has kept them strong in trying times.

I’m reminded of a line in the Big Book, the book that Alcoholics Anonymous and many other twelve step groups regularly recite. “We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it…. No matter how far down the scale we have gone, we will see how our experience can benefit others.” Paul has a checkered past, for sure, but when he looks backwards, he sees not his own shame but God: how has God has changed him, used him, brought him into the abundant life of the gospel and into community with others who are also on the Way. And he is so grateful that even in a place like prison, he can share his joy.

“Grace”

6 I am confident of this, that the one who began a good work among you will bring it to completion by the day of Jesus Christ. 7 It is right for me to think this way about all of you, because you hold me in your heart, for all of you share in God’s grace with me, both in my imprisonment and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel.

In these verses, Paul turns from the past to the present. He discerns God’s handiwork in the Philippians; God has begun “a good work” among them (Phil 1:6). He explains that he thinks this way because the Philippians share with him in “God’s grace” (Phil 1:7).

Paul’s words paint a very different picture of life than the one that predominated back then (and predominates still today). The popular picture of life (then as now) is that each person makes plans and then either achieves them or doesn’t. Of course there are twists and turns along the way, but we like to think we’re in control and our lives are either a success or a failure.

But Paul’s words suggest that our lives are God’s work, that we are dependent on grace. And grace is just a religious word for “gift.” What Paul is saying, I think, is that at every turn in our lives there is always a divine possibility. Even in the worst of circumstances, such as your brothers selling you into slavery, God is there, desperate to turn a bad situation toward the good. Not with a flick of the divine wrist and a tug of some invisible string, but with a call to choose life: to trust (rather than despair), to be patient (rather than hurry and worry), to forgive (rather than seek revenge). God’s grace—God’s possibility—is always there for us to choose.

“Harvest”

8 For God is my witness, how I long for all of you with the compassion of Christ Jesus. 9 And this is my prayer, that your love may overflow more and more with knowledge and full insight 10 to help you to determine what is best, so that in the day of Christ you may be pure and blameless, 11 having produced the harvest of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ for the glory and praise of God.

If grace looks backwards with gratitude for how God has used the past or can use the past, it looks forward with hope toward growth. Paul’s prayer for the Philippians is that their love would grow and that they would yield a “harvest of righteousness” (Phil 1:11), which is to say their growth would bear fruit.

It’s worth drawing a contrast here. The typical worldview—namely, that we are in control of our lives—tends to look backwards with regret and forward with fear. There’s regret for what has been lost in the past and fear for all the ways things could go wrong in the future. But a worldview of grace, which sees God’s gift around every turn, looks backward in gratitude and looks forward with hope toward growth. Everywhere it looks, grace sees God’s possibility.

“For Christ”

12   I want you to know, beloved that what has happened to me has actually helped to spread the gospel, 13 so that it has become known throughout the whole imperial guard and to everyone else that my imprisonment is for Christ; 14 and most of the brothers and sisters, having been made confident in the Lord by my imprisonment, dare to speak the word with greater boldness and without fear.

15   Some proclaim Christ from envy and rivalry, but others from goodwill. 16 These proclaim Christ out of love, knowing that I have been put here for the defense of the gospel; 17 the others proclaim Christ out of selfish ambition, not sincerely but intending to increase my suffering in my imprisonment. 18 What does it matter? Just this, that Christ is proclaimed in every way, whether out of false motives or true; and in that I rejoice.

Yes, and I will continue to rejoice….

Paul’s words here make me think of the therapeutic tool—you may have heard of this before—that distinguishes between “got to” and “get to.” It is a little trick to help reorient our attitude. Imagine that you are with you are with your family on a road trip, and you hit traffic. There’s no way around it. You’re going to be stuck in the car for an hour longer than you expected. The typical reaction is, “Oh man, we got to wait here in traffic for another hour. What bad luck.” But if we change the “got to” to “get to,” it becomes something like: “We get to spend an hour longer together. We could talk, we could play a game, we could learn more about what’s going on in each other’s lives.”

Now, I’ll confess, I’m suspicious of tools like this. They seem like trite mind-tricks; in theory they might sound great, but in practice they can be quite difficult. Does anyone really expect a group of people cooped up in the same car to rejoice at being stuck in traffic for an hour longer? But I have to admit, even if this tool is more difficult in practice than in theory, it hits upon the solid rock of the gospel. It hits upon the thing that Paul is hitting upon in today’s scripture, namely grace. It hits upon the fact that God’s gift—God’s possibility—is hidden within every moment of our lives, waiting to be chosen, received, cherished, celebrated. It hits upon the “good work” that God is doing in us and in our world, if you would believe it.

Paul may not have known the “got to”/“get to” trick. Instead, he has his own phrase: “For Christ.” “My imprisonment is for Christ,” he says—“I get to be here, for Christ”—and I imagine he would say the same for anywhere else he was. “This is for Christ.” Which is to say, God’s grace is here. God can do something great here, if I believe it.

Our circumstances may seem far removed from Paul, who wrote his letter from a dungy Roman prison. But the truth is, life can get to feeling like a prison wherever we are, particularly when we’re in a “got to” mindset. Paul’s strange joy in today’s scripture could perhaps serve as a spark for us wherever we are, a reminder that our faith is in a God whose grace—whose gift, whose possibility—can redeem the darkest of situations. And so we can look back not with regret but with gratitude, and we can look forward not with fear but with hope for growth, because we like Joseph have faith that God is doing a good work among us—if you would believe it.

Prayer

Dear Christ,
You lived in God’s grace,
Giving thanks for what was,
Even as you looked forward with hope toward what could be
…
May your example
And the example of others like Paul
Inspire us to look for God’s gifts
Wherever we are
And to trust that God can redeem
Anything. Everything.
Amen.

"Rather Strange" (Acts 17:16-31)

Because of a Table

Caleb Campbell grew up in church, but as a teenager he became resentful toward Christianity. At the time, he understood the gospel primarily as a negative message, a list of don’ts: “Don’t do these bad things, or else God will punish you.” But Caleb noticed that many people who went to church were also doing things on the don’ts list: smoking, drinking, dancing, R-rated movies. In his adolescent mind, Caleb decided Christianity was a farce and its followers hypocrites.

One night at a party in high school, a group of tough-looking guys invited Caleb to join them: “Hey bro, come here. Have a beer.” Caleb felt “a thrill at being seen and chosen and eagerly took up their offer.” These guys were neo-Nazis, and before long Caleb had shaved his head and joined their crew, happy to be accepted without a purity test, happy to have found what seemed like real camaraderie. Of course, some other stuff came with the territory: getting into bar fights, heckling interracial couples, proclaiming white supremacist propaganda. But for a while, it felt worth it to Caleb. It felt like a family.

In his 20s, however, Caleb saw cracks in the surface of this happy community. “As I surveyed my skinhead peers,” he says, “I saw they had no real joy, financial stability, or actual strength. Instead, they were running from the law, ruining their careers, and destroying their families.” Disenchanted, Caleb gradually drifted from them and found himself in a lonely place once again.

Today, Caleb is a pastor. He remembers with awe and wonder what changed everything for him. A church had seen his information in the local classifieds for musicians (Caleb was a drummer) and had called to ask if he’d help out with their music. He did for a little while, figuring even if he didn’t believe in Christianity or the church, it was something good to do. But eventually one of the guys on the music team, Seth, invited him over for dinner. And then again the next week. And the next. “No agenda, no pressure,” Caleb recalls. “Just warm hospitality.” Finally, when Caleb was ready to talk, Seth asked him about his anger with Christianity. The floodgates opened. Caleb had so much resentment that it all came tumbling out. Rather than argue with him, Seth simply nodded and agreed. He said, “I share some of your concerns. I think Jesus does too.” Over time, Caleb came to hear a different gospel than he had before. Not the fearful old story of a punishing judge, but the genuinely good news of a God whose unconditional love was changing everything. Caleb’s heart softened, and he became a follower of Christ.

And not, he insists, because of an argument or a debate. But because of a table.[1]

From Contempt to Compassion

16 While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he was deeply distressed to see that the city was full of idols. 17 So he argued in the synagogue with the Jews and the devout persons, and also in the marketplace every day with those who happened to be there. 18 Also some Epicurean and Stoic philosophers debated with him. Some said, “What does this babbler want to say?” Others said, “He seems to be a proclaimer of foreign divinities.” (This was because he was telling the good news about Jesus and the resurrection.)

Remember how Paul (previously named “Saul”) used to treat with contempt the people with whom he disagreed? How he “breathed threats and murder” against those Christ-following heretics (Acts 9:1)?

We see a completely different person today. The translation we have, which includes words like “argued” and “debated,” can be a little misleading. The Greek words themselves can also simply mean “discuss” or “converse”—one of the Greek words, symballo, literally means something like “to throw back and forth,” suggesting that the dialogue is a friendly game of conversational catch.

What’s most revealing to me is what Paul says in these games of conversational catch. “He was telling the good news about Jesus and the resurrection” (Acts 17:18). That is a far cry from “threats and murder” (Acts 9:1). Paul’s transformation in Christ—“it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me” he writes in one of his letters (Gal 2:20)—this transformation manifests in a dramatic change of attitude. Toward those with whom he does not see eye to eye, Paul no longer shows contempt. He shows compassion. He no longer breathes curses against them, but blessing.

He desires that they hear the good news of God’s love. 

“It Sounds Rather Strange to Us”

19 So they took him and brought him to the Areopagus and asked him, “May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? 20 It sounds rather strange to us, so we would like to know what it means.” 21 Now all the Athenians and the foreigners living there would spend their time in nothing but telling or hearing something new.

What do you think sounded “rather strange” to the Athenians?

I imagine the idea of a crucified God struck them as rather strange. In a letter to the Corinthians, Paul himself acknowledges that the crucified God seems like weakness and foolishness to the world (cf. 1 Cor 1).

The Greek tradition is no stranger to the idea of the divine. Greek mythology is full of gods and goddesses. But they behave very differently than the crucified God. They frequently act like petulant children, impulsive and prideful, putting themselves first and giving little thought to the consequences of their actions. What we learn from the Greek pantheon of gods and goddesses, is not unlike what we learn from our popular culture today. Greek mythology teaches lessons like: it’s a dog-eat-dog world. Better to strike than be struck. Better to be feared than loved. If you want peace, get ready for war.

So yeah, when Paul starts proclaiming the good news about a crucified God, whose compassion for the world is so great that he endures death rather than to inflict it on a single soul—I imagine his audience are scratching their heads.

Paul Believes in the Athenians

22    Then Paul stood in front of the Areopagus and said, “Athenians, I see how extremely religious you are in every way. 23 For as I went through the city and looked carefully at the objects of your worship, I found among them an altar with the inscription, ‘To an unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as 

unknown, this I proclaim to you. 24 The God who made the world and everything in it, he who is Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in shrines made by human hands, 25 nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mortals life and breath and all things.

Remember how at the start of today’s scripture, Paul was “deeply distressed” by all the idols he saw around him. On top of that, his audience shows perplexion toward his message, referring to it as “strange.” I imagine that the old Paul (which is to say, “Saul”) would have reacted with bitter accusations and denunciations, telling these idol-worshipping Athenians they were godless and destined for God’s wrath.

But this new Paul, transformed by Christ, begins instead with an affirmation, with words that might even be construed as praise: “Athenians, I see how extremely religious you are in every way” (Acts 17:22). Some readers think that Paul is cunningly employing a rhetorical strategy. He’s buttering them up, ingratiating himself to them, only so he can pull them more persuasively to his side in just a moment.

But what if his words are no strategy? What if they are genuine? To me, Paul’s affirmation of the Athenians’ religiosity is a beautiful expression of love. Remember how Paul writes about love in his letter to the Corinthians: “Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things” (1 Cor 13:7)? Well, here we see Paul believing in the Athenians. Put more colloquially, he’s giving them “the benefit of the doubt.” He believes that they are faithful, even if maybe they have misplaced their faith a little bit. (Paul, after all, is no stranger to misplaced faith, as we might recall from his earlier days as a zealous persecutor of Christ-followers.)

All this to say, Paul builds a bridge between himself and his audience. “We are both people of faith,” he seems to say, before going on—“Let me share a little more about mine.” And then he shares his faith in the one God who created all things.

Pointing to the God Already There

26 From one ancestor he made all nations to inhabit the whole earth, and he allotted the times of their existence and the boundaries of the places where they would live, 27 so that they would search for God and perhaps grope for him and find him—though indeed he is not far from each one of us. 28 For ‘In him we live and move and have our being’; as even some of your own poets have said,

                    ‘For we too are his offspring.’

For me, today’s scripture provides a model for how we as Christ-followers might relate to our surrounding culture. Tragically, the prevailing model today seems to be what is known as “the culture wars,” where the idea is that Christianity is losing ground in our culture and must fight back to preserve its dominance in society. Hence the legal struggles and legislative battles and bitter debate, as Christians seek the force of law to impose their way again on society.

But what we see in Paul is not a denunciation of the surrounding culture nor an argument against its misguidedness, but rather the spirit of a companion who begins by affirming the truth he sees. Paul quotes twice here from Greek tradition, both times to shore up his assertion that God is indeed near.

Paul’s response to culture is neither fight nor flight. Instead it is a patient discernment of where God already is already at work in the culture. Paul points out how God is already present. Paul does not presume to bring God to the Athenians. He has already been at pains to emphasize the misguided idea of idols: no one can hold or handle God. Paul’s role is not to introduce the Athenians to God, but to point out where and how they are already acquainted with God—and to invite them deeper into that relationship.

I can’t help but think here of how Caleb was graciously welcomed into the church. How the friend who hosted him for dinner week after week did not try to change his mind or correct his thinking, but rather how he affirmed the truth of Caleb’s experience and suggested that Christ was already with Caleb in this experience. Perhaps Christ was also disappointed with the superficiality and hypocrisy that Caleb saw in much of the church. Perhaps Christ also wanted something more than that. At that dinner table, Caleb discovered Christ was already with him—and it changed his life.

For the Salvation of the World

29 Since we are God’s offspring, we ought not to think that the deity is like gold, or silver, or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of mortals. 30 While God has overlooked the times of human ignorance, now he commands all people everywhere to repent, 31 because he has fixed a day on which he will have the world judged in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed, and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.”

It is difficult to read this passage and not immediately imagine a scene of punitive judgment. It is difficult to read this passage and not envisage Caleb’s childhood picture of Christianity, namely “Do what’s right, or God will punish you.”

But I am convinced this is a case of our domesticating scripture according to our own ways. I think that this picture of punitive judgment is one that we humans, who are prone to judge and condemn, have superimposed on scripture. We have made God in our own image. In the gospel of John, Jesus insists, “I came not to judge the world, but to save the world” (John 12:47), and “God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him” (John 3:17). In other words, when the world is “judged in righteousness” by Jesus, it is not for the condemnation of the world but for its salvation.

The Greek word for judgment (krino) refers literally to a process of discrimination or discernment, a process of determining what is good and bad, of keeping what is good and letting go of what is bad. Christ is judge not as a punisher but as the criterion that shows us what is good and what is bad. The strangeness of Christ (whose vulnerable way of love seems weak and foolish) surprises us: what we thought was bad is good. What we thought was weakness is strength. What we thought was losing is winning. As Caleb discovered in his transformation from neo-Nazi to follower of Christ, it is not power and fear that bring life, but patience and compassion. It is not fistfights and force that bring life, but a table and hospitality.

So when Paul calls his audience to repent, it is not with a threat hanging over their head, but with a promise that pulls them forward. He is not breathing “threats and murder” as he did in his earlier life, but “good news.” And the good news? It’s “rather strange.” A crucified God whose forgiveness covers the sins of the world and brings life from death. A crucified God who comes not with contempt but with compassion, not with condemnation but as a companion. A crucified God whose kingdom gains ground on this world not on a battlefield, but at a table.

It is this God who turns lives upside-down in the best of ways: Paul’s and Caleb’s. Yours and mine.

Prayer 

Christ of the cross,
Christ of the empty tomb,
Who is near to each of us,
Whether we know it or not
…
Grant us eyes to see
Your strange spirit
At work in our world,
And hearts hospitable
To others,
That we might affirm your presence with them already
And share the good news of your love.
Amen.

 

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[1] This story comes from Caleb Campbell, “The Gospel Comes for a Neo-Nazi,” https://www.christianitytoday.com/2025/05/gospel-neo-nazi-skinhead-christian-nationalism-pastor/, accessed April 27, 2026.