John Mulholland
And I wonder how much that's changed your real job, your pastoral.
Kylie Calloway
Just the ability to listen, and to have what would just be the ministry of presence in that moment, instead of trying to be the man with the answers, for me.
Jon Simpson
Yeah, that's really good. I think, probably for me too, some of the times where I've probably grown the most, learned the most, have been times when I wasn't in the professional, you know, pastor role. But I was working a regular job in the regular world and just having to be open to and figure out where people are really coming from. When they say certain things, what do they mean? And what is it? Where do those things come from? It's kind of like just a realness to, like you said, "Be able to listen and kind of turn off whatever agenda," in a sense. And just be able to interact and take in where people are at and where they're coming from without that, maybe that push or that judgment. You know, I'm constantly thinking, "You know, I think Paul, when he got to Athens, he's like, you know, he gets up on Mars hill right? It's like, you know, he had gone around the city, looked at their stuff, he'd taken it in, he listened to them. And then he had an intelligent presentation based on a real, kind of deeper understanding of where they're coming from. And he saw, yes, an opening, you know, you have this, I mean, do you wanna read it? The idol to the unknown?
John Mulholland
Yeah, I love it. "Men of Athens, I noticed you're very religious in every way for as I was walking along, I saw your many shrines. And one of your alters had this inscription on it, To an Unknown God, this whom you worship without knowing, is the one I'm telling you about." I think today, like we would expect Paul to be like, "Men of Athens, I noticed that you are worshiping all of these false idols. You guys are going to hell. And let me tell you about Jesus." And it's so counterintuitive what he does, and just like, how do we help? How do I have this mindset? How do we help the people in our churches have this mindset? Like it's such a cautious way. And like, I love Acts 17. It's one of my favorite texts in scripture. And like, he gives a gospel presentation without mentioning Jesus one time. And I think if the three of us were to get up in front of our church body and do this, we might have people who are angry with us, because we weren't maybe as clear as we could have been, or we didn't condemn the idolatry as much. And we didn't do all these things, but the way he handles this is just so incredibly wise, recognizing, cause he knew who he was dealing with. And we read elsewhere in Acts, we know what Paul's you know, what his background was what his education was. Like, he knew who he was talking about. So I think if there is ever an apologetic or if there is ever an instructive on how we are to interact with people who don't know Jesus, like, Acts 17 says.
Jon Simpson
Well, at the end of 17, he takes this really, you know, he takes an approach that says, "I understand where you're coming from and I get a little bit of who you are." And then, by the end, he gets to the resurrection, and that kind of is the hinge point, where some people think he's crazy and some people are like, I wanna hear more. And then he gathers them after, you know, some join him, some become believers, some don't, but his approach is, I mean it's a missionary approach. And I think that's something that, I feel an importance of today that I'm exposed to kind of the modern thinking on things. What are people thinking right now? What is out there? The people that are influencing other people. So I kind of look to podcasts and things, where they have a huge following, a lot of people are listening to them. Cause I'm like, "Okay, this is influencing a lot of people. They're people turning to this. Why?" You know, and listening to what they think and what they have to say. And yes, at times they're oppositional to Jesus and the gospel. At times they say things, that to me, "Oh man, here's why that's true." You know, I just wanna jump in and go. "Here's why that's true." Cause they do, the world does at times figure things out. I listened to a guy talk about forgiveness and the power of it, the importance of it and how he's learned over time. Like, it's not healthy to hold onto grudges and stay mad at people. And he's just learned this and he's not a believer, man, he's a total pagan, but he's learned the truth and the power behind a biblical principle. I'm like, well, yeah. I mean, yeah. Would you talk to, you know, some of us who are Christian struggle with this. You know, it's like anyway, being exposed to other ideas and other people, to me is important. To really be good at presenting the gospel and speaking to our culture today.
John Mulholland
And there would be some people in the Christian world who would have, from their perspective, a legitimate beef that we would expose ourselves to this kind of thinking. But we want to like, we wanna be exposed to it, to I think celebrate what's true. Like you said, the thing that you heard about forgiveness, I said this a few weeks ago at Westway. Like, isn't it awesome when culture catches up to the Bible?
Jon Simpson
Yeah, exactly. When they figure something out.
John Mulholland
You know, celebrate truth where they see it. Like, that's what Paul does, celebrate truth where they see it. But also, confront false things, and we have to know what that is. And part of our role and our responsibility is teaching our church bodies. Like, how do I do that? How do I become like Paul in Athens? Like, kind of checking our theological comfort zones, understandings at the door. Not ignoring them, not turning our back on them, but recognizing, "Like, maybe this isn't the space for someone to hear, like what I might believe about end times theology." This might not be the space for that.
Jon Simpson
Well Paul, to me that Ephesians four passage that, "You won't be tossed by every wind of teaching." Things that sound so good. I mean, honestly, there's people in our culture, and there's churches going this way. There's Christians going this way where, because of a compassionate. Here's the compassionate, loving approach being presented, whether it's sexual orientation or gender, whatever it is, it's like they're being swayed to move away from scripture in order to, you know, "Well, this is what you have to do if you're compassionate and loving." Well, those are biblical. That's what Jesus would do. But then, you know, so to me, when I engage the stuff in the world and what they're teaching, it doesn't sway me at all. I'm not swayed, but I am educated and I do learn better. What are they thinking? Where do they come from? Where are people at? And how can I speak to that? I think it keeps me equipped and sharp to be able to preach the gospel today.
Kylie Calloway
And that's where our job comes in to equip them to where they will be mature and to where they won't be swayed. And I think we'll be talking about that next time.
