Autobiographical Apologetics

 “Autobiographical Apologetics”

 Message @ Jericho Ridge Community Church – Sunday, Feb 19, 2012

Text: Acts 22:1-22 // Series: “Now Is the Time”

Thank you for reading that Scripture passage.  Eugene Peterson, author of The Message translation, writes autobiographically in his most recent book entitled “The Pastor: A Memoir” that his growing up years were littered with stories of remarkable transformations such as Paul’s on the road to Damascus.  “As an adolescent” Peterson observes, “I envied the people who could tell stories of their dramatic conversions from lives of drink and drugs and assorted debaucheries.  They were so much more interesting.  I grew up in a church culture that made an art form of out Damascus Road stories.  Whenever I heard the stories - and I heard them frequently – I felt so ordinary, so left-out.” (3)  Perhaps you share some of Peterson’s feelings or even some deeper cynicism about dramatic Damascus Road experiences.  Personally, I came to faith when I was in early elementary school so my limited exposure to illicit substances at that young juncture in my life didn’t make for a very dramatic conversion experience story.  And so I resonate with Peterson, to an extent, and his envy of people with interesting stories to share. Perhaps you do too.  And that’s why Paul’s re-telling of his story in Acts 22 is so fascinating to me.  Fascinating for what he includes, what he leaves out, and most intriguingly what he emphasizes as he reflects back on his own conversion experience on that Damascus Road.

We’re almost to the end of our January & February teaching series in the second half of the book of Acts called “Now Is the Time” where we have been exploring how Paul, one of the most prominent thinkers and leaders in the early Christian movement, shares his story and God’s story with people.  Part of the goal of this series is for each of us to learn how to effectively share our stories and God’s story with the people in our lives. 

When we left Paul last week, he was a man towards the end of his life, intent on assessing his mission and purpose as he headed off to Jerusalem.  And you’ll remember that in Acts 20:22 he says “I have an inner compulsion from the Holy Spirit to go to Jerusalem.  I don’t know what awaits me except that in city after city, jail and suffering lie ahead.”  But because he understood his mission in life with such clarity, Paul pushed forward anyway.  And sure enough, as he continues on his travels in Acts 21:4 Paul gets off the boat in Syria and there the local believers meet him and they prophecy and say “Paul, don’t go to Jerusalem!”  But he keeps going.  Next he stops in Ceserea and a prophet by the name of Agabus arrives and does an object lesson on him.  Can I get a youth volunteer?  OK, so Agabus takes off Paul’s belt and ties up his own hands and feet with it and says in 21:10 “So shall the owner of this belt be bound by the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem and turned over to the Gentiles.”  So Paul’s friends beg him NOT to go to Jerusalem.  And Paul’s answer to them is “why are you crying? I am ready not only to be jailed at Jerusalem but even to die for the sake of the Lord Jesus”.  This is one stubborn dude.  But you also have to ask yourself a question that I want you hold in your mind as we keep reading: “was God trying to tell Paul something?”  Or another way of asking this question is “What is the relationship between what Paul wants to do and what God wants Paul to do?” We’ll come back to that question later because it’s one that each of us wrestles with at different times.  “What is the relationship between what I want to do and what God wants me to do?”    

Well, finally Paul gets to Jerusalem, and he meets with James and the elders of the Jerusalem church.  He shares with them the powerful stories of transformation and mission that are happening as the gospel is preached all around the Gentile world and the leaders are excited but they are also concerned.  You see, some negative news has gotten back to HQ in Jerusalem that Paul was trouble.  The Jews in Jerusalem had been told that Paul was teaching people to fully turn their backs on the law of Moses and Jewish customs.  Which he wasn’t but he was challenging tradition.  But the rumours and the perception of Paul as public enemy number one  had become so prominent, that the leaders suggested that Paul take a concrete step to counter this negative image.  They suggest that he should go to the Temple, the centre of Jewish religious observance, and he should do something so Jewish that nobody could argue with his Jewishness.  He was going to go with some Jews to the Temple and get his head ritually shaved.  It would be similar to what we might suggest if someone challenged Pastor Keith’s Canadian-ness and he said “fine, I’ll prove it to you once and for all.  Right here, right now I’ll drink maple syrup and I will put on this Canucks jersey!” 

So Paul does this.  He heads to the Temple and that’s when things get ugly.  So Jews from Asia see Paul and they flip out!  They start a mob scene that is so violent that the Roman army has to come and rescue Paul from the craziness because they are intent on beating him to death.  And as they drag him out of the mob who is hungry for his life, bruised and bloody, Paul makes an unusual request.  He wants to speak to the crowd. Now think of this for a moment.  As we have travelled with him through Acts, we have listened to Paul speaking with highly educated people, with governors and princes, with philosophers and religious educators, with Jews and Gentiles, with small groups and large crowds, with women and men from all backgrounds.  But this crowd is a hot and bothered crowd. They didn’t come to hear a nice lecture on the way of Jesus.  They came to kill him.  And he wants to speak to them?  And the commander of the army garrison, unsure what else to do, says “um, OK”.  So in chapter 22:1 Paul begins to share his story of faith.  I’m going to be reading from the New Living Translation in Acts 22, not all the verses will come up on the side screens so grab your Bible or your smart phone and follow along on youverson.com.  [2 Slides: Acts 22:3; 22:4-5] 

Look at how hard Paul works to identify with his listeners and their story.  Danny taught last Sunday night about 3 story conversations – one story is God’s Story, one story is your story, but the third story is learning to listen and identify deeply with the story of the person you are in conversation with.  This is what Paul is up to here and he is very good at it.  He is emphasizing his connection points with his audience.  He traces his own his own formative years – birth, rearing and education – to convince a crowd who wanted to kill him that he is actually very respectful of their tradition.  He invites them to check his credentials – you wanna know who used to write my T4 slip?  It was the high priest and the whole council of elders here in Jerusalem.  It’s as if he is saying to the crowd “would somebody who grew up in Jerusalem defile the Temple? No!  Would somebody who was dusted by the dust of such an eminent Jewish scholar as Gamaliel speak against the Law? No!  Would was zealous for God bring a non-Jew into the Temple courts to defile them? No!  Paul knows their story.  And he works hard to identify with it.  Which makes me wonder

How well do I know the stories of people around me?

?) How well do you know the stories of the people around you? 

Do you know their religious background? They might be Muslim but what type of Muslim and how much do you know about the differences between Sunnis and Shiites Muslims?  Where did they spend their formative years?  Where did they go to school?  Can we really say we love our neighbours if we don’t them?  Find out their stories – this is just being a good friend.  And then engage in a process of reflection and ask yourself

?)  What are the similarities or possible points of connection between your story and their story?  There might be some elements of shared experiences that you can appeal to as you deepen and develop your skills in listening and loving the people whom God has placed in your path.  Paul certainly did this well as spoke to this crowd.      

But Paul doesn’t simply identify with their story; he emphasizes God’s story and God’s amazing work in his own life.  Follow along in your Bible as I continue to read and I want you to listen for the supernatural elements of Paul’s story.  [Read 22:6-16]  One Slide for 22:14-16  

Paul’s life is a whole series of super-natural events.  From his Damascus road conversion to being healed of blindness to instances where God spoke clearly to him saying “Paul, I want you to go here or not go there”.  To miraculous release from prison, being used of God to do miraculous signs and wonders to point unbelievers to faith…  Paul’s life is one miraculous event after another. Which got me thinking about that intersection between my story and God’s story and asking how well I know my own story…  We live in a day and time where the miraculous, the supernatural is fair game for conversation.  Particularly personal experiences of interaction with God in powerful ways.  So it’s worth asking

?)  Where are the supernatural moments in your own story?

Where are those times in your story that God has revealed Himself  to you in supernatural ways?  Instances of divine guidance or protection.  Instances where you felt very close to God or you heard or felt God whispering into your life in some way.  This plays significantly in my own story in terms of how I came to Langley.  In 1995, I was spending 6 months travelling, came out to visit a friend here at TWU, walked onto the camps of Northwest Baptist College (the big pink building facing the freeway), and as I walked through those doors, deep in my heart I heard God whisper “this is where I want you for the next four years.”  And as much as I tried to ignore it or push that experience aside, I knew that I knew that that was God whispering to me.  So I abandoned my plans and moved to Langley, ended up meeting and marrying my amazing wife Meg, completed all of my education here, have been on staff for a dozen years at two amazing churches here…  All of these things came into my life because of a supernatural experience.  A divine whisper.  Perhaps your story has been powerfully shaped by something like that.  If so,

?)  What is your comfort and skill level in sharing these experiences with others?  Don’t shy away from them or downplay them.  You may not have had a Damascus road conversion experience but you may have had divine encounters with God’s grace and power that as just as worth the telling.  Step up and get comfortable with them!   You may be here today and you may not fell like you’ve have had an encounter with God yet.  I challenge you to pray with boldness and faith: “God, I want to know you. Would you please reveal yourself to me?” And wait and watch and see what He does.  I wouldn’t be at all surprised if God meets you in a supernatural way.

Paul certainly meets God that way.  And not only does he meet him that way, but he continues to have supernatural experiences in his life.  Look with me at Acts 22:17-22 [two slides].  Before we get to the response of the crowd, I want you to go back to that question you held in your mind from earlier.  Why, with all of the warnings about the danger and hardships that would face him, would Paul keep going towards Jerusalem?  Is he an idiot?  Too stubborn for his own good?  What is going on here?  Well, one thing to wrestle with is this vision that Paul has of Jesus giving him his mission.  Paul, the man uniquely trained and equipped, steeped in Jewish law and customs, the man who was employed by the Jewish leadership of his day to persecute Christians has his conversion experience on the road to Damascus and says to himself “This is perfect!  I know what I will do.  I will become a missionary to my own people!  I mean, who better to give witness to God’s story than someone who knows the story of the Jews like I do?  And they know me.  They know how amazingly zealous I was.  I was in every synagogue dragging off to jail those who believed in Jesus.  If I go back to those synagogues and say “I have met Jesus.  I have had a change of heart!” think of how impressed they will be, Lord!  They know me they know that I helped kill Steven and they’ll say “wow – this is amazing!  We want to know more about this! Tell us, Paul, what happened to you?”  Which will be so awesome! 

Except that there was one tincy, wincey problem with this plan…  It wasn’t God’s plan.  It was Paul’s plan.  And there was conflict between God’s Will and Paul’s Will It was Paul’s ambition and his heart and the passion of his early Christian experience.  But it wasn’t what God had called him to do.  In Acts 9, when God speaks to Ananias and tells him to go and lay hands on Paul so that he can receive his sight, God tells Ananias this man is “my chosen instrument to take my message to the Gentiles and to kings, as well as to the people of Israel.” (9:15). Paul’s passion, his history and ambition seems to lead him initially to a ministry to the Jewish people.  But when he heads to Jerusalem, God appears to Paul in a vision and give him specific direction that is just the opposite of his initial personal passion!  So what do you do when there is a conflict between personal ambition and God’s guidance?  God’s Will versus My will?  Well, there’s a lot that could be said about this but perhaps one of the first things I see in Paul’s life is that just because something seems like a natural fit or a good idea or just because I want to do something doesn’t mean it’s God’s will.  In Acts 6, Paul wants to go to Asia but the Spirit of Jesus prevented him from going there. 

I don’t know what your experience is like in these matters, but I know in my life, it’s great to dream and plan, but so often, my human nature clouds and taints my thinking around my ambitions and desires.  Have you found this to be true?  Your ambition in life might be to make a lot of money and you might tell yourself “I want to be able to give more money away!”.  But sometimes that ambition gets clouded and murky and you end up keeping more of it for yourself.  Or, if you are trained in counselling, care giving or peer helping, your ambition in life might be to help people.  But sometimes, that ambition can get cloudy and murky so that I really want to help these people so that I can boost my ego or so that everyone will look at me and say “wow, what a great person you are!  Such wisdom and insight!”.  Your ambition in life might be to raise your kids to be well-balanced, contributing members of society.  But sometimes along the way, that ambition can get clouded so that we want our kids to succeed so that we can make up for deficiencies in our own lives.  We’ve all likely met parents who are living vicariously through their children, sometimes we meet them when we look in the mirror.  But Pal understands that just because he wants to do something doesn’t make it a good idea.   One of the things that you will want to know well about your own story is

Where have your ambitions and plans been reshaped? 

For me, I think about the plans I had in place to go to university, get a degree in communications get a well-paying job, a big house, 2.5 kids and a dog, a white picket fence in suburban Toronto.  Because I thought, well, God seems to have given me some modicum of public speaking capacity so wouldn’t that make sense to do something with it?  But God wanted to reshape my plans and ambitions and redirect them for his purposes and glory.  In Paul’s life, God wanted him to go to the Gentiles, even though he felt he was uniquely suited for ministry amongst the Jews.  And in Acts 9, we see that in addition to this vision Paul had, the community of faith also helped Paul to see and discern what God’s will was for him.  Sometimes our ambitions and plans can be reshaped when we submit them to others around us whom we know and trust.  There’s a lot more that could be said about that but for now, I’ll simply ask you ?)  What roles does community play in your discernment and decision making process?  Do you barrel ahead with your ambitions and plans simply because they seem good to you or have you spent time with others and with God to test and sift them to see where your will aligns with God’s will? 

Paul certainly did. He was used to hearing the voice of God so he knew what God’s guidance sounded like.  But he also had another marker post that his crowd missed out on.  That is the role of tradition.  This is where his audience loses it on Paul because they are blinded to the re-traditioning that God is doing within Paul’s story and their own story.  Jewish tradition before the time of Christ valued the light of God and viewed the people of Israel as its guardian and primary agents.  They were meant to give it to and share it with the Gentiles – when you read Isaiah 42:6 and 49:6, God is clearly saying that Gentiles or non-Jews are to be included in His family.  But the people of Israel held their own tradition and customs and experiences of God above this mandate.  Their traditions had become traditionalism.  Which is not a problem unique to them. 

Dr. Ajith Fernando, who writes the NIV Application commentary on Acts reminds us that “Throughout the history of the Christian movement, transitionalists have persecuted those in their tradition who launch out in a new direction that was permitted by and even informed by their tradition” (570).  Think of Martin Luther who began to proclaim what the Bible clearly taught but “who was branded a heretic by the very church that in theory accepted the Bible as one of its two sources of authority”  I think about 150 years ago, when a small group of believers in Prussia said “just because you grow up in a church doesn’t make you a Christian.  We believe that the Bible teachers personal regeneration and the necessity of transformed living”.  This led to the formation of the Mennonite Brethren church, of which we are a part.  But tradition, which really are simply long rooted actions of weight that help us to answer the question of “why we do what we do” can so easily and quickly become distorted and become traditionalism.  Tradition is healthy and helpful.  Traditionalism is dangerous, particularly when it is used as a weapon in an argument.  The way to prevent this kind of entrenchment is to be a listening and loving person.  To allow yourself to ask hard questions about your own life, about faith in God and about human experience.  So let me ask you:

?)  Have you allowed what you believe to be radically challenged? 

Paul could stand with confidence and faith in front of this crowd because he knew what he was certain of. He had a story that was worth living for and even worth dying for.  His heart had been so radically reshaped by God that he was confident that his faith could stand up to the test of a mob scene who disagreed with his take on tradition. 

Many people accuse the church of being a place where hard questions don’t get asked or answered.  Our heart is that JRCC is not that kind of place.  And so one question for you to think about and discuss in your Life Group this week is ?)  How do we prevent calcification happening around JRCC over time?  How do we make sure that we vibrantly respect and live out our tradition without become traditionalists.  How do you live as a part of a denomination without succumbing to denominationism?  How do we prevent JRCC from being a place where [people say “But we’ve never done it that way here before?”  I want to suggest that two ways we can do this is are the same way that Paul did it in Acts 22: By telling stories about God & about His work in our lives. – this means that you have to have stories to tell.  Stories of God’s supernatural work in your life and in our church family.  And secondly, you need to  By knowing our own stories well enough to share them. My sense is that Now is the time, church, for us to grow in boldness and faith in this area and to see lives transformed as we practice autobiographical apologetics.