I am writing at a computer in the lobby of my hotel in Nafplio, Greece. For the past week I’ve been leading a dozen members of my church through the sites of this great land—Athens, Thermopylae, Vergina, Delphi, Corinth, Mycenae. The place drips in history. Every time you turn around, there are myths and heroes and monuments and marble. Western civilization was formed here. This is the birthplace of philosophy, science, theater, and literature.

It is also the cradle of the church as we know it. Until Paul traveled to Greece, the church was largely informed by the synagogue. Its worship and practices were Semitic. Its culture and community were extensions of Judaism. Yes, Gentiles came to Christ before Paul ever set foot on Greek soil—in Antioch and Asia Minor. But those Gentiles were minor planets revolving around an essentially Jewish Sun.

Adapting to Culture

In Greece, for the first time, the gospel encountered a completely different culture and had to adapt to new ways of thinking and living. At Philippi, the cross came into contact with the Empire. At Thessaloniki, the ethic of agape encountered the pagan and hardscrabble ethic of the Hellenes. At Athens, the foolishness of Calvary clashed with the wisdom of men. At Corinth, Paul’s preaching of love, deference, and honor was forced to compete with a self-aggrandizing, agonistic, materialistic mindset  rooted in the worship of Aphrodite.

It was in Greece that Paul hammered out the essence of a gospel that was truly universal. It was here that his understanding of the authentic nature of community—egalitarian and compassionate—shook people to the core and demanded a new understanding of self and others. It was here, in the shadow of idols’ temples and the press of the agora and the tramp of Roman soldiers, that Paul tested whether the gospel could survive—thrive—in an atmosphere decidedly different from anything he’d ever known and a challenge to everything the gospel stood for.

Had Paul thought of church and culture as we too often do—oil and water, sacred and profane, serious and trivial—the gospel would have remained a minor sect of a minor religion of a minor people. Had he taken one look at Corinth or Rome and run, appalled, back to the safety of a Torah-shaped society, there would have been no mission to the Gentiles. Had he allowed his own comfort zones and categories to trump his calling, he never would have crossed those daunting thresholds—kosher laws, purity customs, table fellowship—that kept Hebrews segregated from Greeks and minimized contact and contamination.

Influencing Culture

But Paul didn’t think of culture in that way. He didn’t see the church as needing to be protected and sheltered from the influences of a big, bad world. He didn’t view Jewish culture as “godly” and Gentile culture as “demonic.” He didn’t think the gospel would be sullied by intimate contact with Gentiles and their ways. He did not measure the world by his own sensibilities, his own upbringing, his own habits and customs.

Instead, Paul saw teeming, sinful, lost Greece as an opportunity rather than an obstacle. He could peer into the dark, inner recesses of pagan temples and discover introductions to speeches and a pathway leading to the story of Jesus. He welcomed all manner of people from all walks of life. He read Greece’s poets and philosophers. He knew her history. He found things to appreciate and approve. He adopted Greek dress and foods and language. He embraced Greek culture where he could, determined to become all things to all men.

We read of Paul’s ongoing argument with his own countrymen about the Gentile mission, the nature of the gospel, the purposes of God-at-work in Abraham and Torah and Israel. What we too often fail to recognize is that—at its heart—this argument was about God and culture. Could God work in Corinth as in Jerusalem? Could God deal with the sins of the Gentiles? Would God bother with people who weren’t descended from Abraham, who weren’t shaped by Sinai, who were not “people of the promises”?

Paul’s opponents answered, “No.” The Gentiles were too lost. Their culture was too corrupt. The only thing close contact could bring was dilution and corruption.

Paul begged to differ. God loved the Gentiles as well. No sins were too large for the gospel. The power at work in the cross was greater by far than the powers at work in temples or Empire or society. Paul advocated an aggressive strategy for the church vis-à-vis culture—contact, dialogue, influence, competition, redemption, mercy, compassion, confrontation, understanding.

And because Paul’s strategy prevailed, the world heard the gospel . . . the world was changed . . . and you and I can now worship the God of grace in ways never imagined (and never condoned) by Paul’s frightened, provincial, constricted countrymen. |L

Dr. Tim Woodroof is senior minister of Otter Creek Church of Christ in Nashville, Tennessee.

OTHER COLUMNS:
November 8, 2009 - Why I believe in God
October 25, 2009 - Commuting in days of evil
October 11, 2009 - Poets and don’t know it
September 27, 2009 - How Hollywood proves abortion is wrong
September 13, 2009 - Significance
August 30, 2009 - Dance alternatives
August 16, 2009 - Gluttons for gossip
August 2, 2009 - Truth from Twilight
July 19, 2009 - Visitor-friendly churches
July 5, 2009 - The Shack
June 21, 2009 - When forgiveness fails
June 7, 2009 - Re-imagining Education (Part Six)
May 24, 2009 - We are not alone
May 3, 2009 - Re-imagining education (part five)
April 26, 2009 - Conviction
April 12, 2009 - Re-imagining education (part four)
March 29, 2009 - An evangelistic proposal
March 15, 2009 - Re-imagining education (part three)
March 1, 2009 - He makes me sick
February 15, 2009 - Re-imagining education (Part Two)
February 1, 2009 - Spiritual insecurity
January 18, 2009 - Re-imagining education (part one)
January 4, 2009 - Church and politics
December 21, 2008 - Heaven’s music
December 7, 2008 - The church and marriage
November 23, 2008 - God and the president
November 9, 2008 - A time for courage
October 26, 2008 - Likes and dislikes: the Prince Caspian movie
October 12, 2008 - What’s that noise?
September 28, 2008 - Modesty matters (part two)
September 14, 2008 - All it takes is some TLC
August 31, 2008 - Modesty matters (part one)
August 17, 2008 - What would you fight for?
August 3, 2008 - Staying through the credits
July 20, 2008 - Honor to whom honor
July 6, 2008 - Tyler Perry and the movies you’re missing
June 22, 2008 - The peaceable kingdom
May 25, 2008 - Another generation grew up
May 25, 2008 - Technology and the Bible (part two)
May 11, 2008 - Technology and the Bible (part one)
April 27, 2008 - What is truth?
April 13, 2008 - And the geek shall inherit the earth
March 30, 2008 - A charactered God
March 16, 2008 - The college choice (part two)
March 2, 2008 - Good news can be hard to hear
February 17, 2008 - The college choice (part one)
February 5, 2008 - Ten suggestions for a godly standard of living
January 20, 2008 - Expelled: that “Bueller” guy’s pro-God movie
January 6, 2008 - Choosing a lifestyle
December 23, 2007 - Teachable TV?
December 9, 2007 - Owners or stewards?
November 25, 2007 - Christians teaching Christians to change TV and film
November 11, 2007 - My money is God’s business
October 28, 2007 - Navigating under the radar
October 14, 2007 - The things God values
September 30, 2007 - Movie moments
September 16, 2007 - God’s economics
September 2, 2007 - The best books to read
August 19, 2007 - There’s a rat in ‘separate’
August 5, 2007 - The art of reading
July 22, 2007 - Atheist chic
July 8, 2007 - Why books matter: the sequel
June 10, 2007 - Books: why they matter
June 3, 2007 - The non-impact of “The Lost Tomb of Jesus”
May 13, 2007 - Loving Muslims through culture
April 29, 2007 - Hope
April 15, 2007 - God in the dark
April 1, 2007 - The gospel goes to the movies
March 18, 2007 - What the Bible movies can teach us
March 4, 2007 - What will you hurt for?
February 18, 2007 - Why Heroes . . .
February 4, 2007 - Give peace a chance
January 21, 2007 - When fairy tales are true
January 7, 2007 - WYSIWYG lives
December 31, 2006 - What’s coming next?
December 17, 2006 - Mercy, mercy
December 3, 2006 - Proof of evolution!
November 19, 2006 - Hungering for God
November 5, 2006 - Violence and government, war and peace
October 22, 2006 - The mighty meek
October 8, 2006 - The Battlestar and the Bible
September 24, 2006 - Soap for the soul
September 10, 2006 - Right vs. cool
August 27, 2006 - The painful truth
August 13, 2006 - More Lies Hollywood Tells
July 30, 2006 - Christian counter culture
July 16, 2006 - The lies Hollywood tells