How would you go about an Acts 17 sermon for a pre-Christian American culture?

[martincisneros]

I wasn't sure if there'd be a better place to post this.  I could think of reasons why this wouldn't be a good post for some of the other boards, but I couldn't think of a single objection to posting this here, so...


*In the United States, and I guess in all of the Americas because of the failure of pastors and missionaries and the resurgence of some of the tribal deities, santeria, wicca, or wicca-type stuff, and other pagan stuff -- how would you go about sharing UR with a culture that's not convinced that the Bible is a divine revelation at all? 


*How would you share with a culture that would get cross-eyed and hopelessly lost if you started quoting Scripture? 


*How would you share Christ with a culture where if you said 'Jesus loves you,' then their reply would be that Mother Earth does too, or some pagan diety?


*How would you introduce Christ to a new culture that views the Bible on the same level of Greek mythology as Homer's Illyad, Oddessy, or whatever?  A culture less academic to where how many ancient manuscripts of the Bible we're in possession of wouldn't either remotely impress or gain you a further hearing?


*Looking at what St. Paul did for somewhat of an example that wouldn't necessarily have universal application, what are some examples of the modern pagan poets that we'd quote while trying to convey our message?  What are the modern universally applicable myths, whether from television or radio which we could appeal to as an authoritative thought for sharing Christ with someone with ZERO Biblical knowledge and ZERO concern, discernment, and knowledge of it's contents?


*How would you share the EXCLUSIVITY of Christ with others?  Not that you'd wander into eternal torment or eternal annihilation nonsense, but how would you convey that Christ isn't one out of an infinite number of ways to the Father, to the life of the ages, and ultimately, [after the ages are completed] "eternal life?"


*How would you offer at least practical proof or insight [if not "absolute proof"] that Christ isn't just another new creation myth like reincarnation?  -- Again, to a pre-Christian culture that has not yet had it proven to them that the Bible is anything substantially more than another piece of Greek myth.  What would be your modern version of an Acts 17 opportunity?  What would you say??

[AbbasChild]

Hi Martin,
good to see you again. Let me make this as short as possible. I believe the message of UR needs to be much more rooted in the revelation of the Father's Heart, completly dependent on the Power of the Holy Spirit.

In other words, UR as a doctrine-while ignoring all the other major truths of our precious faith- will not be enough. The Unconditional Love of our Abba needs to be demonstrated, not just talked about.

When this message will be backed up by signs and wonders, healings and deliverances, then people will know that there is Only One True God and Lord.

People will only believe in the revelation contained in scripture, if the experience what the scriptures testify about. In other words we need more of the Presence and Power of the Holy Spirit, as well as the Unconditional Love of the Father.

Jesus was dependent on this things. How much more are we. So lets pray for a new outpouring of the Holy Spirit, so that the sons of God might be revealed.

[hopeful]

Hello , Martin!

Rather than having a plan, I would depend on the Spirit of the Lord (who knows each man's heart) to reveal to me what to say.

:HeartThrob:

[martincisneros]

Hi Martin,
good to see you again. Let me make this as short as possible. I believe the message of UR needs to be much more rooted in the revelation of the Father's Heart, completly dependent on the Power of the Holy Spirit.

In other words, UR as a doctrine-while ignoring all the other major truths of our precious faith- will not be enough. The Unconditional Love of our Abba needs to be demonstrated, not just talked about.

When this message will be backed up by signs and wonders, healings and deliverances, then people will know that there is Only One True God and Lord.

People will only believe in the revelation contained in scripture, if the experience what the scriptures testify about. In other words we need more of the Presence and Power of the Holy Spirit, as well as the Unconditional Love of the Father.

Jesus was dependent on this things. How much more are we. So lets pray for a new outpouring of the Holy Spirit, so that the sons of God might be revealed.

That's precisely where I've been at regarding this.  I'm hoping for some really great ideas or at least lines of thought, interesting parable ideas from popculture or whatever for those who'd be shy about yanking someone out of a wheelchair right in the middle of such an outpouring of the Father falling upon prodigals.  The Lord's used me for years in the healing, deliverance, and prophetic areas and I've been having growing pains and have been threatening a bit of a mutiny over my timing, my way, yada, yada, yada!  :icon_jokercolor:

Not sure if someone's been tracking some of my posts and hasn't known how to formulate a question about some of my comments on the High Priestly ministry of Jesus, or what the deal is.  But I feel the strongest urge to toss a nugget out and then to get back to what I was talking about in this post.  I haven't looked at it in a while, but if I remember right [and my memory is improving as the evening/night goes on, so I may wind up editing this post if I'm horribly wrong on this point], in the KJV and the manuscripts that they happen to appeal to, there are between 341 and 347 references to the word "Christ" in the New Testament.  Again, not sure if that's just in Paul's writings or if that's the entire New Testament.  Peter preached on Pentecost "Let all of the House of Israel know that God has made this Jesus, Whom ye crucified both Lord and Christ."  The rest of the New Testament presents Jesus as both Lord and High Priest.  Lord being His dominion ministry, while His High Priestly ministry is His ministry that is baring gifts, reconciling the world, etc.  The word "Christ" draws our attention to Isaiah 10:27 about the yoke being loosed, the burden being removed, and the yoke being destroyed by the anointing.  Kenneth Copeland and others have rightly discerned that the New Testament is drawing more attention to that burden removing, yoke destroying power than upon either an office or just the fact that Jesus is anointed.  The word "Christ" more often means "anointing" in the New Testament than the Anointed.  If that's not proper Greek, then perhaps it was slang or part of the hidden mystery for our day.  I personally believe, and you won't find anyone on Christian television saying this.  You might not even find any books that'll go here.  At least, I haven't read it from anyone and preachers on Christian television are notorious for preaching one another's sermons with or without credit being given.  No inherent harm in that if they were doing their own Bible studies and not just being in the "in crowd" with the "in message," but there's not a lot of studying that goes on by ministers; not much really indepth study at the very least.  While it's infinitely valuable to come along as a second and third witness to a truth and to water the Body of Christ in it, we each need to return to indepth study of even those things that we tend to take for granted.  The word "Christ" in the New Testament is also a reference to Jesus's High Priestly ministry because along with the New Testament conveying to us what became ours through the atonement, it's also telling us the role of Christ in each of our lives today and "to the age" of 1Corinthians 15:28.  So, besides the plain references to Jesus's High Priestly ministry, there's an additional series of hundreds and hundreds of references to it that most Christians have never given very careful attention towards.

The point to me of the aforementioned is:

1.  to see Christ in all of His radiant glory;
2.  to grow more in conformity with His Image by understanding our royal priesthood a little better through understanding His;
3.  to build faith for His provisions;
4.  to enrich understanding;
5.  and the more and more truth that comes out -- "usually" and "inevitably" "ultimately" there will come a sacrificing of sacred cow interpretations that hold people in bondage and excluded from some area of the provisions of Christ.


Anyway, that wasn't entirely unrelated to what I'm wanting to say here because the anointing on each of our lives -- although operated by faith -- grows in our lives and in the direction of however it's going to manifest over the course of our lives through Jesus's High Priestly ministry.  The anointing oil in the Old Testament was handled by the priests and prophets, but not by the kings/lords.  Although I would love to find a reference to David using oil on his sheep in the Old Testament because that would be an 8,000 word article from me on the Hosea 2:18 covenant.  But, alas, I don't think I've left any passage unaccounted for in saying that kings/lords in the Old Testament didn't handle the oil.  Whenever you read in the first chapter of Corinthians that He's anointed us, or when you read 1John chapter 2 about the anointing through which we know all things and walk as He walked, or whether you're talking about the chapters on the gifts of the Spirit in 1Corinthians 12-14, you're inevitably talking about a study in the High Priestly ministry of Jesus.  His High Priestly ministry doesn't begin with His return -- otherwise, He never sat down after the Order of Melchezedec after He'd acheived the removal of all of the sin of the world.  The New Testament says that it's a present reality that He's both Lord and "Christ" after the Order of Melchezedec.

Anyway, too much more and I'm genuinely digressing from what I was wanting to say in response to Floyd's post.  I can safely say that an Outpouring of the Holy Spirit is to reverently request for Jesus to get His rear in gear with the present needs of mankind in general and of His Church in particular because He's our only hope, in the same way as He called us the world's only hope in Colossians 1:27 (Cf. John chapter 17).  And He did say that when it came to requests for material necessities that we should address all such requests to the Father, but when it came to getting things done, He said to lean firmly on Him Personally in John chapters 14 through 16 ("as you'd lean on a friend about something").  An Outpouring of the Holy Spirit is a time of Visitation from the High Priestly ministry of Jesus.  You wouldn't be violating Romans 10 if you asked Jesus in His High Priestly ministry to stand beside you and to place His hands over your hands as you'd lay them on the sick.  An Outpouring of the Holy Spirit is explained to us elsewhere by St. Paul as something flowing out of His resurrection (Philippians 3:7-11).  When you're becoming Christ inside minded in order to stir up the gift of God that's on the inside of you in order to reach the world, it's Him in all of the glory of His High Priestly ministry that you're believing for a Manifestation of.

Sometimes an Outpouring of the Holy Spirit is either going to be a little bit different from what we were anticipating, or it'll have components as parts of the whole that'll be entirely different from what we were anticipating.  At 12:50 this morning, our Lord Jesus spoke to me that as the mantle passed from Moses to Joshua, from Elijah to Elisha, and from St. Paul to Onesimus in the New Testament, that the "mantle" from my biggest UR hero from years ago who's long since gone on to heaven was going to be added to my life.  I just screamed out the Name of Jesus when I heard that.  I wasn't even thinking of him or anything UR related at the time.  I was watching Kim Clement's program on TBN as he was talking about the prophetic anointing, how it works, how to draw from it, how to wage a good warfare with prophecy as Paul advised Timothy to, and other things when right in the middle of my watching Kim Clement the Lord said what He said to me.  That was definitely an Ephesians 3 "beyond what I could ask or think" and I didn't [honestly] think that the Lord would ever come up with one of those for me.  Oh, I'm completely crazy.  I've been asking Him for stuff that most Christians would never believe that I could sincerely ask Him in faith, and I've genuinely had a bit of impatient toe tapping on the floor about each and every bit of it in every area of life.  I even told Him a few months ago that with all that I was asking that I didn't think that Ephesians 3 applied to me, as far as the particular verse towards the close of the chapter of Him being able to do exceedingly abundantly above and beyond all that you could ask or think.  He told me that when He was telling me that, that this evening was the anniversary of when He'd placed a special boldness and clarity about this message on the person whose mantle that He said that He was adding to my teaching ministry.

I'm not strutting.  I'm floored 'cause I'd of never thought of that on my own by any remote stretch.  That just came out of left field when the Lord said that to me.  And I'm not going to say which ministry the Lord referred to because I'm really not looking to draw attention to myself.  I'm saying as much as I'm saying about it to say that He's no respecter of persons, as the KJV would put it.  So, if He's in a season of passing along [throughout the Body of Christ] increased demensions of anointing, grace, usefulness, fruitfulness, etc., then the general Reformation that we've all desperately CRIED OUT FOR for years in organized Christianity is in it's beginning steps.  I was singing in the Spirit a while ago after the Lord had said what He said to me, and a part of the interpretation that came was to come and check out this particular thread that I'd started.  While I was singing in the Spirit, it felt like my mind was being stretched/expanded like a rubber band.  I've been feeling the demension of clarity growing in my thinking for a couple of hours that I'd been asking Him for, for about 15 years.  Independent of Him granting me what He's granted me this morning, I'd dealt for years with feelings of inadequacy of:

1.  [clarity of] speech;
2.  intellect and intelligence;
3.  mental discipline;
4.  natural and spiritual giftings, etc. 


I'd been asking Him for years about a greater clarity and less of the mental fog that I was feeling.  I've always felt totally useless to the Lord, to the Body of Christ, and to the world.  I've had fleeting moments where I've shined with a small flicker, but nothing like the standards that I was holding myself to because of all of the condemnation that I'd lived in for years because of my Assemblies of God background.  Inspite of being in the UR message for 7 years, as of when I'm writing this, I never could shake condemnation off until this year.  Final deliverance of condemnation has been coming to me through Joseph Prince's ministry.  www.josephprince.org  Daystar television has been good about showing his 30 minute program 7 days a week, although at odd hours on the weekends.  Now that I'm seeing light at the end of the tunnel of condemnation (which I'm starting to believe is a deeper root of the curse at work than fear.  Without a feeling of condemnation, fear could never be generated in your mind, emotions, and spirit.  Condemnation is primary in getting people delivered of that.  Condemnation IS death in a different manifestation.), the Lord's been talking to me this morning about accepting a mantle that He really really wanted to give me.

Right now, as I'm thinking of the work of deliverance that the Lord's been doing in my life over the last three and a half months through the ministry of Joseph Prince, I'm genuinely wondering if more precisely than simply interceding for an Outpouring of the Holy Spirit if where we've genuinely been amiss is in not interceding with fasting against condemnation in the Body of Christ.  If the Body of Christ didn't feel condemned, then their fears would ordinarily melt away in the Presence of the Spirit, and then UR would make more sense 'cause everybody would be clearer headed.  Condemnation may perhaps be a "Ruler of Darkness" at work in the Body of Christ, if not a "Wicked spirit (i.e. Angelic) in the heavenlies," as Ephesians 6 would designate them in their ranks.  Condemnation, more than either bad doctrines and fears is what we're genuinely wrestling with and needing to seek the Lord's wisdom for in order to be completely free of it.  The Lord's been pointing out emotions to me that I didn't realize were condemnation at work in my life.  It is what Hebrews in the KJV calls a "root of bitterness."


I started this thread on the premise of simplifying the preaching of the Everlasting Gospel for both the least religious and for the most polyreligious in our society, and this area of condemnation and of the activities of the Lord in the Body is most definitely related to this, if not the most directly.

[AbbasChild]

 :thumbsup:

Wow, some great thoughts in there! Our newborn son keeps us quite busy at the moment, so I try to keep this short.

You are certainly right about the condemnation bit. That's why I think we not only need the empowering Presence of the Holy Spirit but also deep knowledge of the Father's Unconditional Love. Someone refered to them once s the two wings of Grace that lift us up in the spheres of the Spirit.

Until we really knowhe true Nature of our Abba, will never feel secure in His Love and Acceptance. And this we must know by experience.

When we know Who He is and know who we are, the Anointing will be free to flow. That's why the removal of condemnation from the Body of Christ is indeed a urgent need these days.

I can also say 'Amen!' to what you wrote about the Anointing and the term Christ. In fact I believe Jesus left His mantle (Anointing) to us His Body when He left this planet. And in some way we pass it on to each other as well, whenever we minister to another or invest our anointing into their lives. (This can also happen through writing etc.)
There could be much more said about this.

Concerning the anointing of sheep: In Psalm 23, David speaks as a sheep and tells how Father has anointed his head with oil. And a shepherd will tell you that they anoint (at least in the middle-east cultures) their sheep indeed with oil, so they flies would stay away from their eyes (because they don't like the smell) and so the goats won't hurt each other when they fight. (Slippery horns are just no fun if you want to have a go at your wooly buddy.)