In the previous post, we saw how Antioch was the church’s true breakthrough to the ends of the Earth, and how it represents the parts of our society that are the furthest from God. A key purpose of this blog is to seek fresh insights for reaching into this darkness. A different post described the spiritual principle that the Spirit will guide us to speak in the ways that are needed.
This was indicated by the direct mention of God’s involvement at the Antioch breakthrough:
Now those who were scattered because of the persecution that arose over Stephen traveled as far as Phoenicia and Cyprus and Antioch, speaking the word to no one except Jews. But there were some of them, men of Cyprus and Cyrene, who on coming to Antioch spoke to the Hellenists also, preaching the Lord Jesus. And the hand of the Lord was with them, and a great number who believed turned to the Lord.
Acts 11:19–21 (ESV, emphasis mine)
We can expect the Lord to guide us how to speak today, but we still need to get people’s attention, engage with them in a way that leads into the words that God will give us. The early disciples seemed to realize this, for when they prayed for boldness to go out and speak, they also asked the Lord to lead the way with signs and wonders:
And now, Lord, look upon their threats and grant to your servants to continue to speak your word with all boldness, while you stretch out your hand to heal, and signs and wonders are performed through the name of your holy servant Jesus.”
Acts 4:29-30 (ESV, emphasis mine)
Miracles were not the only way that messages were introduced, and in some cases messages were given without any sort of clear pointer. In any case, there seem to be a handful of places where messages are associated with a clear lead-in, miraculous or otherwise, and although I think more work is needed, there does seem to be a pattern that relates the introduction with the message. We can see that by considering these events at Pentecost, the Gate of Beautiful, Cornelius, Lystra, and Athens.
At Pentecost, people noticed the strange behavior and heard them speaking of the “mighty acts of God”. Peter described how the strange behavior was the fulfillment of prophecy, and described how the mighty acts that God performed through Jesus validated who He was.
When Peter healed the lame man at the Beautiful Gate, he did so in Jesus’ name. Then when he preached to the crowd that formed in Solomon’s portico, he pointed to that sign as an example of God’s power validating Jesus as the Messiah.
When Peter encountered Cornelius, they obviously shared a profound experience. Peter built on that by pointing to the events throughout Judea that they all knew about concerning Jesus, emphasizing his personal experience of the resurrection, something that Cornelius would have had sympathy with considering the profound experience that they had both recently experienced.
At Lystra, Paul healed a lame man, but the people completely misunderstood what happened, even after Paul tried to explain the truth to them. His message seemed to have little to do with the miraculous event that started the incident. Could that be why there seemed to be no fruit? There’s more worth investigating there, but perhaps it could be an example of how some important principles need to be applied consistently.
There is no miracle reported when Paul was in Athens, but his message on Mars Hill built directly on the reactions of people to his message in the marketplace. They apparently didn’t understand about the resurrection, but realized he was talking about some “foreign gods”. Paul used that by starting with their knowledge of “gods”.
There are other miracles and other places where messages are presented without an obvious sign, but these examples demonstrate the power of a “pointer” to introduce the gospel message in some situations. This also needs to be investigated further, but perhaps something is needed to help introduce spiritual concepts in this post-Christian culture for those who aren’t interested in Christianity.
So, this leads to some encounters consisting of two pieces – first a sign or pointer, and then a message.
Working with this concept of a sign, or a pointer, it probably doesn’t need to be a miracle if Athens is any indication. This raises the question of what else might be a pointer today. Perhaps some things that are used in apologetics, such as arguments from science or morality. But I think of pointers more as introductions with context, so they may also include things like art. For example, a compelling work may evoke emotions that lead into a presentation of the gospel that starts with that emotional perspective.
In that way, I’ve been led to explore a type of photography that seems helpful in getting people to think beyond the natural and creating openings for spiritual discussions. It is sometimes called “virtual reality” or “360” photography, and consists of pictures that are viewed in a window by clicking and dragging the viewpoint around. Initial experiences with unbelievers have been positive, and I am starting to expand that work to provide clearer pointers in a photography blog called “Whole Reality”.
Since the photography is intended just to point to spiritual concepts, there needs to be additional content to further develop the ideas that have been raised and take them to the gospel. I plan to have a second blog for this work, called “Kelvin’s Clouds”, for such content. The photographs will point to this section of writings. The approach used in this blog is based on years of prayerful listening to unbelievers, and will help place Christianity within a rational framework that recognizes the profound unknowns existing in even the best materialist descriptions of reality.
This is just a start of digging into this spiritual framework, but gives enough basis to continue work on the two efforts mentioned above. In addition, I hope that simply walking this path myself will lead to a deeper understanding of these principles that may be helpful to others.
Exploring Antioch 