PREJUDICE AND RACISM: NOT AN OPTION

Prejudice and racism are not an option for those professing the Lord Jesus Christ. For we are all one in Christ Jesus. How do we put aside our misconceptions of others and learn to interact with those who are very different from us so that we can share the message of salvation?

We are continuing our look at God’s love for us and his plan (his mission) to bridge the gap between us and him. His mission is to bring us back into a loving relationship with him. He wants us to become His disciples and members of his family.

Thus, He calls for us to respond to His love. But our relationship with Him does not end with His call, for a call without action from the one being called has no value. His call is for us to share the good news of salvation with all people. How do we put aside our prejudiced ideologies to do this?

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Sabbath School Daily by Dr. Brenda Ware Davis 

Let Us Inviting God’s Presence:

Holy Father, help us put aside our prejudices and misconceptions of others. Give us a willing mind to interact with those who are very different from us so that they, too, may receive the message of salvation.  In Jesus’ Name, Amen.

God’s Mission, My Mission

(Lesson 10)

Mission to the Unreached

Part 1: Introduction

Paul, a messenger of Jesus, was not prejudiced. This is clear in Dr. Luke’s description of his work in Athens and Greece.

Luke, in Acts 17:17, writes, “Therefore he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and with the Gentile worshipers, and in the marketplace daily with those who happened to be there” (Acts 17:17).

Although a Jew, Paul perhaps would have been most comfortable working and interacting with the Jews.

Yet, God also sent Paul to deliver his message of salvation not only to the Jews but also to those who had no knowledge of Him. 

So, Paul’s duty was to share the message of salvation with everyone: the Jews and non-Jews.

We are told in the book Acts of Apostles that:

“the truth is to be proclaimed to all nations and kindreds and tongues and peoples. Christ desires us to labor in a way that will not arouse prejudice, for when prejudice is aroused, some are cut off from hearing the truth. (The Acts of the Apostles, p. 234.) 

Paul understood this; thus, he refused to just work only with his own people.

He instead chose to work with those who were different from him, who did not know the true and living God.

So, while in Athens, a city known for philosophy, Paul used the opportunity to share the good news about Jesus with the people who lived there.

Now, the philosophers of Athens’ background and worldview were different from the Hebrews.

Rather than believing in God, the creator of the universe, they believed in many gods, and their focus of study was the meaning of life.

Concerned for their salvation, however, Paul wanted to share Jesus with these people. 

How did Paul attempt to do this? And what can we learn from Paul’s approach?

Read Acts 17:1-16. Then continue to the next segment of this video, Part 2: A Hebrew in Athens.

God’s Mission, My Mission

(Lesson 9)

Mission to the Unreached

Part 2: A Hebrew in Athens

Acts 17:1–16 help us understand how Paul ends up in Athens. When he arrived in Athens, he observed the glamor and display of the city. It says in the Book Acts of Apostles that:

As he saw the magnificence of Athens, he realized its seductive power over lovers of art and science, and his mind was deeply impressed with the importance of the work before him. . . . (The Acts of the Apostles, p. 234)

Acts 17:16 says:  

16 Now while Paul waited for them at Athens, his spirit was provoked within him when he saw that the city was given over to idols. (Acts 17:16)

Knowing the history of his people, the Hebrews, he recalled how God had repeatedly warned the Jews to stop worshiping idols.

Thus, Paul was disheartened by what he saw in Athens.

Paul’s heart was filled with love for the people of Athens. Therefore, motivated by compassion and love for the Athenians and knowing they would die in their sins if they did not learn of the true God, Paul desired to help the Athenians learn about Jesus, the one who had died for their sins.

Similarly, today, our cities are filled with “statues” of false gods.

Maybe these false gods are not the same as the ones Paul saw.

For today, we worship gods of entertainment, sports, beauty, money, fashion, and other things.

Sad to say, many believers’ eyes are blinded and are not as disturbed as Paul was when He walked through the city of Athens and saw all the false gods.

We have become desensitized.

Paul knew that it was God’s will to save the Athenians along with everyone else.

Paul understood that God wanted His followers to share the Good News about Jesus dying to save them with people who didn’t know anything about him.

Jesus dying to save humanity included the philosophers of Athens and Athen’s worshippers of the false gods.

Therefore, to share the Gospel with the People in Athens, Paul went to the marketplace where the people gathered.

Paul’s approach to sharing the gospel of Jesus with non-Jews was different from his approach to sharing it with the Jews.

The God of Israel was not the starting point for the People of Athens.

Jewish beliefs about the God of Israel meant nothing to the people in Athens.

Paul needed to start with the familiar and move to the unfamiliar.

Paul knew he needed to start with something they both had in common.

So, Paul needed to take an entirely different approach.

He needed to get out of the box.

 He needed to be innovative.

Today, we often try to share Jesus with people who know nothing about Him, the Bible, or the Christian religion.

So, we, too, will need to take a different approach.

We will need to get out of the box.

We will need to find innovative ways of reaching them.

What approach did Paul use in reaching those who believed differently from him? (Split)

 Read Acts 17:18–21 and continue to the next segment of this video, part 3, Paul in Aeoropagus

God’s Mission, My Mission

(Lesson 9)

Mission to the Unreached

Part 3: Paul in Aeoropagus

Paul was commissioned by God to do the special work of preaching the Gospel.

Therefore, wherever Paul went, he told of the Good News about Jesus.

So that is what He did in Athens.

How did the people in the marketplace respond to Paul’s speaking and questioning?

Paul made a big impression on the people in the marketplace when, in Acts 17:18, he spoke to them about his “foreign god,” Jesus, the one who died and came back to life again.

18 Then certain Epicurean and Stoic philosophers encountered him. And some said, “What does this babbler want to say?” Others said, “He seems to be a proclaimer of foreign gods,” because he preached to them Jesus and the resurrection. (Acts 17:18)

The Athenians were so impressed they took Paul to the Areopagus.

The Areopagus was a part of the city where the leaders judged legal matters and religious questions.

There is no indication that Paul was in any trouble.

It appears that the Athenians, according to Act 17:19, wanted Paul to tell them more about this “new doctrine” he was speaking of.

19 And they took him and brought him to the Areopagus, saying, “May we know what this new doctrine is of which you speak? (Acts 17:19)

Though The Athenian people thought Paul’s doctrines were strange, they respected Paul’s skills as an intellectual thinker and his skills as a passionate and eloquent speaker.

Luke in Acts 17:21 indicates that the Athenians spent all their time doing nothing but talking about and listening to the latest ideas. (Spit)

Luke was not saying that the Athenians were lazy, but that they were experienced thinkers and debaters.

Keep in mind that many of the most important and famous thinkers in history were Greeks. They include great philosophers such as Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle.

The influence of these philosophers continues to impact our world today.

As a matter of fact, for centuries, Greece had been seen as the center of intellectual and philosophical thought.

As we expressed, philosophers are people who study the meaning of life. 

Although they are not necessarily atheists, many of their ideas were very different from the teachings of Christianity.

For instance, it’s hard to find a place in the philosophy of the Epicureans and Stoics for something like a Savior who died and woke up from the dead. 

This idea was very strange to them.

This we see in the case of Paul.

In Athens, Paul expected the Holy Spirit to use his past education, knowledge, and oratorical skills he gained under the teaching of Gamaliel to touch the hearts of the Athenian people.

Instead, the Holy Spirt used what Paul learned on the streets in Athens.

In other words, it was what Paul learned on the Streets of Athens about the people and their city that the Holy Spirit used to help share the Good News About Jesus.

Thus, it says in Acts of Apostles

“The wisest of his hearers were astonished as they listened to his reasoning. He showed himself familiar with their works of art, their literature, and their religion.”(—Ellen G. White, The Acts of the Apostles, p. 237). (S[lit)

After Paul’s experience in Athens with these pagans and philosophers, he wrote to the Corinthians in I Corinthians 2:2 that

“I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified” (I Corinthians 2:2, NKJV).

Paul’s determination is a lesson to us on the importance of making sure that Christ is central to any message we share, regardless of whom we may be speaking to.

Paul found a talking point that would draw the interest of the people in Athens to Christ. What did he use? Watch my upcoming video, Part 4: Paul and the Unknown God

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