‘He’s all things to all
men.’ To be able
to satisfy everyone’s needs. It’s a good thing. Yet so often in our society
it’s taken the other way round. If we try to please everyone, we begin to realize that it is impossible to do
this. In this world, we can’t possibly
keep everyone happy and we’ve just got to realize that we can’t be all things
to all men. So much so that sometimes even the attempt to please all people is
derided.
‘To the weak I became
weak, so that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people, so
that I might by any means save some’ (1 Cor 9:22). If
we were to isolate this passage from the rest of Scripture we might assume that
Paul was willing to do anything to reach the lost, including adopting their
lifestyle and compromising his ethics, morals and beliefs. If we use this logic
then we cannot reach a drug addict unless we become one, we cannot reach a
drunkard unless we drink alcohol in excess and so on. The notion that the church must become like the
world to win the world has taken some areas of American evangelicalism by storm. Virtually
every modern worldly attraction has a ‘Christian’ counterpart. There are Christian motorcycle gangs, Christian bodybuilding teams, Christian dance
clubs, Christian amusement parks, and even Christian nudist colonies.
Paul was no encyclopaedia salesman for the Christian message. His purpose was
evangelism, to catch souls. He wrote, ‘Am I now seeking the favour of men, or of God? Or am I
striving to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a
bond-servant of Christ’ (Gal.1:10). Paul preached the gospel exactly as he had received it directly from the
Lord, and he always delivered that message ‘as of first importance’ (1 Cor. 15:3). He was unwilling to remove the offence from the gospel (Gal. 5:11). If the message was an offence, so be it: ‘We preach Christ crucified, to
Jews a stumbling block, and to Gentiles foolishness’ (1 Cor. 1:23). But
Paul would not make himself a stumbling block to unbelievers: ‘Give no
offence either to Jews or to Greeks or to the church of God’ (10:32).
All
of which carries with it important messages for ministry today as we seek to
engage with non-Churchgoers and the non-Christian world, particularly in our
services of baptism and funeral services. The design of church-growth strategies
is to attract the unchurched. In principle this is good. But how effectively is
this done? There has to be genuine Christian discipleship, and discipleship in depth. Hence the importance of small groups in Church, where all can explore the faith in depth. In Church itself, our priority must be the
straightforward, Christ-centred proclamation of the unadulterated Word of God. Otherwise, as in Isaiah 53:1, the danger is that
we return home crying out, ‘Who hath believed our report, and to whom is the
arm of the Lord revealed?’ (cf. John 12:38).
