16-1-5 Radical Preaching
And they succeeded, as does that kind of preaching today. Men who began
doubting and cynical were pricked in their heart, they realised their
need, and were baptized within hours (Acts 2:12,37). The men who marvelled
and doubted whether Peter was anything more than a magic man were within
a few hours believing and being baptized (Acts 3:12; 4:4). There is a
speed and power and compulsion that pounds away in the narrative. Luke
has a favourite Greek word, often translated “forthwith…immediately” (Acts
3:7; 5:10; 9:18; 12:23; 13:11; 16:26,33). This is quite some emphasis;
and Luke uses the very same word a lot in his Gospel, as if to show
that the speed and power and achievement of the Lord’s ministry is continued
in that of His ministers now (Lk. 1:64; 4:39; 5:25; 8:44,47,55; 13:13;
18:43; 19:11; 22:60). The word is scarcely used outside Luke’s writing.
And he uses many other words to stress the speed and urgency and fast
moving nature of the Lord’s work. They are worth highlighting in your
Bible; for our ministry is a continuation of that of our early brethren
(Acts 9:18-20,34; 10:33; 11:11; 12:10; 16:10; 17:10,14; 21:30,32; 22:29;
23:30). What does our radical preaching amount to? ‘Come and
study the Bible, you might learn something interesting…’? ‘Archaeology
proves the Bible true…’? All of which is very interesting, but the essential
appeal for conversion, the conviction of desperation within a man’s soul…this
is what we need up front. And it is then that we will prick hearts, that
friends and contacts will look at us with that abashed look of ‘You touched
my heart. OK I know I must do something. What…?’. Now I am not saying
we should stage 5 minute conversions. Most I baptise have stumbled through
a correspondence course and 380 pages of Bible Basics as a bare
minimum, often over several years. But what I am saying is that we will
never succeed in converting others unless we are out to achieve it, and
unless we are up front with the essential message, after the first century
pattern.
The success of the radical preaching of our early brethren was phenomenal.
Even their enemies admitted that they had turned the world upside down.
Twelve men and some women filled Jerusalem with their doctrine (Acts 5:28).
And I don’t think the presence of the Holy Spirit gifts was anywhere near
as significant in this growth as we might imagine. The brethren were largely
uneducated working men, exposing the theology and practice of the professional
religious leaders as wrong, and showing the world the Truth of Christ.
One can imagine them turning up in a town on the Adriatic, perhaps near
where people are being baptized today, and preaching that there was this
man called Jesus who was the Son of God, who lived in Palestine… to simple
folk who had no conception where ‘Palestine’ was, who had never travelled
more than 50 km. from their homes. And this man was perfect, the preachers
went on, He was crucified by the Romans and then He resurrected, all as
predicted in a book called the Old Testament which is viewable at the
local synagogue, and now through baptism you can share in that death and
resurrection and gain forgiveness, just as God promised to a man called
Abraham, who is at the basis of the Jewish and Christian faith…and then
you will be spiritual Jews, even though that race is despised amongst
you… They would of course have preached far more than this, but humanly
speaking the chances of converting anyone to this message were small.
There must have been something about those preachers that convinced men
of the reality of their message. Their truth and sincerity shone out of
them and converted others. Preaching a crucified Saviour was obnoxious
to the Jews and a joke to the Gentiles. But somehow, humanly inexplicable,
it succeeded.
An Exclusive Message
The message they preached had an exclusive nature to it- it was
radical preaching: ‘this is the truth, and nothing, nothing else
on this earth’. Throughout the Roman empire, there was the concept
of ‘religio’- the gods were thought to bless the empire if the empire
worshipped them, and therefore everyone was expected to participate
in the state religion. However, in addition, they were quite free
to practice their own religions as well. But here, Christianity
was intolerant. They preached that there was no other name
apart from Jesus through which we might be saved (Acts 4:12)- a
direct and conscious attack upon the ‘religio’ concept. Christ had
to be accepted as Lord in baptism, in contradistinction to ‘Caesar
is Lord’. A Christian could only serve one of two possible masters.
He had to love one and hate the other. The whole idea of “the Kingdom
of God” was revolutionary- there was to be no other Kingdom spoken
of apart from Caesar’s. But our brethren preached the Gospel of
the Kingdom of God. And those who openly accepted these
principles were inevitably persecuted- expelled from the trade guilds,
not worked with, socially shunned, their children discriminated
against. David Bosch observes (1) :
“Christians confessed Jesus as Lord of all lords- the most revolutionary
political demonstration imaginable in the Roman Empire”. Philip
Yancey likewise (2): “As the church spread throughout
the Roman empire, its followers took up the slogan “Christ is Lord”,
a direct affront to Roman authorities who required all citizens
to take the oath ‘Caesar [the state] is Lord’”. It hurt, it cost,
to recognise Him as Lord. And so it should with us. Men and women
died for this; and we likewise give our lives in response to that
very same knowledge. There is a tendency, which the Lord Himself
brought to our attention, of calling Him Lord but not doing what
He says. To know Him as Lord in truth is axiomatically to be obedient
to Him (Lk. 6:46).
It has even been shown that in Nero’s time it was forbidden for Christians
to use Imperial coinage, with its images of Caesar as Lord
(3). It was in this sense impossible to buy or
sell unless one was willing to accept the mark of the beast- exactly
as in Rev. 13:17. The next verse goes on to identify the number
of the beast / man as being 666. And yet this is the sum of the
Hebrew letters in ‘Neron Caesar’! Whatever other application these
verses may be seen to have to Catholic persecution, there can be
little doubt that their first century context applies to the persecution
of the early converts. Later, Domitian demanded that he be worshipped
as Lord and God, " Dominus et deus noster" (Suetonius,
Domitiani Vita, 13.4). John records how Thomas called the
Lord Jesus “my lord and my God”, in active opposition to this kind
of thinking (although Domitian came after Thomas). One couldn’t
worship Caesar and the Lord Jesus. The Lord Himself had foreseen
this when He warned that His followers couldn’t serve two masters.
Domitian demanded to be called ‘Master’, but this was impossible
for the Christian. Indeed, much of Revelation seems taken up with
this theme of the first century refusal to worship the Caesars and
deified Roman empire on pain of persecution (Rev. 13:4; 14:9,11;
16:2; 19:20). “Following the Neronian persecution, being a Christian
was tantamount to being part of a criminal conspiracy, and Christians
(unlike other religious groups) were punished simply for being Christians
(Tacitus Annals 15.44.5; Pliny Letters 10.96.2-3).
Their crime was an unwillingness to worship any God but their own,
an exclusiveness the Greeks labeled " atheism." The refusal
to sacrifice to pagan gods and on behalf of deified emperors was
perceived as a threat to the harmonious relationship between people
and the gods” (J.L. Mays, Editor, Harper’s Bible Commentary,
(New York: Harper and Row, 1988). Although in many parts of the
21st century world the tension between the believer and the beast
is not articulated so starkly, the essential realities of the conflict
remain, and must be felt by us.
And yet despite all this men and women lined up to be baptized in response
to this radical preaching, and contemporary historians are united in recording
the extraordinary and inexplicable spread of Christianity throughout
the first century. Why? It seems to me it was simply because of the conviction
and insistent power of the preachers; their examples, their very being,
meant that God’s Truth was more caught than taught. There is no evidence
in contemporary nor Biblical history that there was much mass evangelism
/ conversion apart from that of Paul and Peter early on. The majority
of the converts would have been made by the personal witness of believers
themselves. And these are our brethren. We have exactly the same Gospel
as them. Some in our community are converting many, against all odds,
in geographical areas (e.g. Islamic, strongly Capitalist), in life situations
(e.g. single mums with five kids and little money) where humanly speaking
it’s stony ground. But many aren’t converting, anyone. This ought
to worry us. If we reach the end of our race having converted nobody,
I for one would be a worried man. What impact has my witness been on this
world? What salt have I been in this world, what was the point of my being
here? Our light was lit at baptism so that we might give light to others,
not flicker out under a bucket. Note that this figure suggests that if
we don’t witness in some way, our own light will go out. Preaching is
therefore for our benefit. We must ask, Are we a light of Christ in this
dark world, or just faithful members of a religious group? Because, from
the first century pattern, we can’t blame our environment, or hide behind
‘they’re not interested’. Of course they aren’t, until they meet us-
but the brightness of our witness, the startling, conscience pricking
nature of who we are, will make the uninterested desperately
interested. Whether or not their hearers were finally converted, the early
preachers pricked the hearts of men with their message (2:37; 5:33;
7:54). Without intending to, they made men sit up and take notice of
them (4:13).
How often do you and I talk about the cross and resurrection of Christ,
either to each other or to people in the world? And are we radical preachers?
We'd far rather tell the world about archaeology or Russia or someone
invading Israel, than the ugly truth of the cross. We'd far rather tell
each other about the bad weather yesterday than share a few meditations
about the cross. And all that could indicate that we don't think much
ourselves about it. Like the disciples, whenever the subject of the cross
comes up, we prefer to change the subject. The breaking of bread should
not bring us up against the reality of the cross with a jolt. Reflection
upon it should be the basis of our daily thinking. The early brethren
had seen and known Jesus, despised, hated, dropping from exhaustion
in the boat, slumping dehydrated at a well, covered in blood and spittle,
mocked in naked shame. And now they knew that He had risen, that He had
been exalted to God's right hand so as to make the salvation of men possible,
and surely going to return. They spoke this out, because they knew Him.
“With great power gave the apostles their witness of the resurrection
of the Lord Jesus” (Acts 4:33 RV). And yet through the Gospels and with
the eye of faith, we know Him too. And this must be the basis for our
witness.
I am convinced that a major reason for the success of the early church
was that they weren’t paranoid about issues of fellowship and guilt-by-association;
they were simply radical preachers. They preached an exclusive message,
but they wished to be inclusive rather than exclusive. The Lord Himself
taught that the time would come when His followers would be disfellowshipped
from the synagogues. But He doesn’t teach them to leave the synagogues,
even though first century Judaism was both doctrinally and morally corrupt.
Acts 26:11 would seem to imply that there were Christians “in every synagogue”.
Paul was called “brother” even before his baptism, and even after his
baptism, he refers to the Jews as his “brethren” (Acts 22:5,13). Of course,
he knew all about the higher status and meaning of brotherhood in Christ;
but he wasn’t so pedantic as to not call the Jews his ‘brethren’. He clearly
didn’t have any of the guilt-by-association paranoia, and the associated
standoffishness it brings with it, which have so hamstrung our witness
to the world.
Paul’s Positivism
Paul makes an assumption in 1 Tim. 6:1, in warning believing slaves to
act faithfully before their unbelieving masters, lest the doctrines of
God be blasphemed by them. Paul takes it as read that the slave would
have taught the doctrines of the faith to his master, and therefore any
misbehaviour by him would cause those teachings to be mocked. He assumed
that radical preaching would be going on. And again in Tit. 2:5, he writes
that wives should behave orderly so that “the word of God be not blasphemed”.
He assumes that all believing men and women would be preachers of the
word, yet if the wives were disorderly in their behaviour they would bring
mockery upon the message preached. His reasoning in 1 Cor. 3:10-12 is
likewise that “every man” will make a convert, and he should ensure they
are firm in the faith, lest he lose them at judgement day. These assumptions
of Paul reflect his positive way of thought, in a brotherhood that abounded
in weakness and failure to live up to its potential. Likewise he writes
of marriage as if marriage within the faith was and is the only model
of marriage which he knows, even though there must have been many failures
to live up to this ideal, as there are today. And in Rom. 6 he assumes
that all his readers are baptized- he has this way of assuming things.
Luke too was a positivist. He uses the word for ‘Diaspora’ to describe
how the brethren were “scattered abroad” (Acts 8:1,4; 11:19); he saw this
persecution as turning them into the new Israel. He records how the converts
were repeatedly “multiplied” (6:1,7; 9:31; 12:24), using the very word
for the ‘multiplying’ of Abraham’s seed as the stars (7:17; Heb. 6:14;
11:12). Every baptism he saw as the triumphant fulfilment of the promises
to Abraham, even though many of those who ‘multiplied’ later turned away.
Notes
(1) David Bosch, Transforming
Mission(New York: Orbis, 1991)
(2) Philip Yancey, The
Jesus I Never Knew (London: Marshall Pickering, 1995) p. 246
(3) John Stott, The Cross
Of Christ (Downers Grove, IL: I.V.P., 1986).
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