Thursday, October 18: Acts 17 - The art of connection.

Watching Paul, the master of connecting with people, finding practical ways to make the message of God sensible to varied people with whom he spoke. I saw this playing out as Luke describes Paul’s time in Athens. Given an opportunity to state his case for the Lord, Paul connects with the Athenians by mentioning pieces of their own life and culture.

For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. Now what you worship as something unknown I am going to proclaim to you (23). Brilliant, using an altar in their own city as a connection to speak to them about a God they do not know.

'For in him we live and move and have our being.' As some of your own poets have said, 'We are his offspring.' "Therefore since we are God's offspring, we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone--an image made by man's design and skill (28-29). Then a few minutes later he connects again using a well known saying from the city to point to the Lord.

To do this, I thought, Paul has to pay attention to the city and culture he is in. He has to listen and immerse himself in the life of the people he is attempting to reach with the gospel of Jesus. What Paul apparently did so naturally, I (we) must learn to do if I (we), too, want opportunities to  share the Lord with the people we meet.

I found myself thinking, how can I become a better connector with people? What events, cultural trends, poetry can I use to build bridges between where people live and God?

Such is the stirrings of the Holy Spirit in me this morning…

Spirit, help me to be interested enough in people that I look for connections I can use to speak about You and eternal things. May the words of my mouth and the thoughts of my mind be pleasing to you, Oh Lord, my Rock and Redeemer. Amen.