"Anything short of sin." That quote is credited to LifeChurch.tv pastor Craig Groeschel to describe the methods his multisite church uses to spread the Gospel.
That little phrase is a great way to sum up what Paul was saying in the latter part of 1 Corinthians 9. This section of scripture is best remembered for part of verse 22, "I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some."
Do you see the correlation between the two quote's I've posted? Paul understood the importance of spreading the Gospel. He knew his goal was to do what he could short of sinning to bring people into a relationship with Christ.
I'm reminded of Paul's trip to Athens in Acts 17. As Paul journeyed through the Athens region, he continued to preach Christ. The philosophers in the area recognized that Paul was promoting a religion they had never heard of before. What caught their attention most was his talk of Jesus and the resurrection of the dead. These strange concepts had never been heard before, and they brought Paul to the Areopagus to tell the other great thinkers of this new religion.
What's most interesting is that Paul illustrates perfectly what he taught in 1 Corinthians 9. He didn't pound the pulpit, shout and spit, and declare them all sinners in the hands of an angry God. No, Paul met the Athenians on their level. He talked to them in terms their thinking minds could relate. He used the things in their culture to connect to these people.
I'm sure the folks back in Jerusalem, especially the Pharisees, would've thrown a fit at Paul's use of Greek culture to illustrate Jesus. But, if that didn't raise the hair on their necks, what Paul does in verse 28 would've had other preachers blasting him from their pulpits and claim he was selling out the scriptures.
Here's what he said,
...for "'In him we live and move and have our being'; as even some of your own
poets have said, "'For we are indeed his offspring.'
Take special note of these two quotes. They're the only quotes Paul uses in his sermon. AND, THEY WEREN'T A PART OF SCRIPTURE. Honest, they weren't. The first is generally credited to Epimenides of Crete, and the second is from Aratus’s poem “Phainomena.”
Now, if you've been following along at home, I hope you've just realized that Paul didn't use Old Testament scripture a single time in his address. Paul simply told the Gospel story as he knew it, from his heart, and in terms the people could understand.
Try doing that in a church today, and the pastor would get hanged. What's amazing is that a lot of church folk today like to criticize all the different methods used to tell people about Jesus. And, if your church is growing by leaps and bounds, that critical heat gets turned all the hotter.
Recently, Outreach Magazine announced it's annual report of the fastest growing congregations in the United States. Three churches from Missouri made to Top 100 list: (#5) Faith Church of St. Louis in Fenton, (#9) North Point Church in Springfield and (#26) James River Assembly in Ozark.
That's pretty impressive that two from the Springfield-metro area made the list. For those wondering, North Point is a church plant of James River Assembly. JRA shared people with NPC when the younger was founded. Oh, but their similarities don't end there. Both have been accused by critics of watering down the Gospel, and entertaining crowds to get those numbers.
The truth is, these churches are simply duplicating what Paul did...meeting society on it's turf with things familiar to the people in order to share Jesus.
Paul proved that sometimes you just have to explain it in terms the world can understand, even if you never use scripture. Paul never compromised the Gospel, but the methods he used changed all the time.
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