Before embarking on a missionary journey to the Hellenized Jews in Syria and Celicia, Paul asked his companion and assistant, Timothy, the son of a Jewish-Christian mother and Greek father, to be circumcised (Acts 16). On a separate occasion, before visiting the church in Jerusalem, "not even Titus, who was with me, was compelled to be circumcised, even though he was a Greek" (Galatians 2: 3). Was Paul contradicting himself? Of course not! True to character, Paul had shrewdly put his first priority - spreading the Gospel message - into action.
In having Timothy circumcised, Paul was honoring the cultural symbols of Jews living in the Syrian mission field. In having Titus, a convert, friend, and helper, not circumcised, Paul demonstrated to the Jerusalem Church that justification comes by faith alone. In the latter instance, Paul refused to bend basic Christian principles simply to accommodate an ancient cultural mooring of the early Jerusalem Church.
To Paul, reaching out to the mission field meant embracing local cultural norms. In contrast, reaching inward to the …show more content…
Today, the false compromises engineered permissive pastors, self-willed congregations, and politicized church administrators are flagrant perversions of Pauline theology. This middle ground is born out of pastoral trepidation and congregational self-interest at the expense of the un-churched. Through word and action, God calls the worshiping church to embrace Christ 's sacrificial character, to stop genuflecting to congregational sensitivity, and to embrace a praxis of worship that is capable of reaching out to the sensitivities of distant un-churched persons. Clearly, the mission constituency of self-loving, culturally static churches is limited, and therefore, easily exhausted. Pastors have a moral duty to ensure that assemblies worship God as Christ Jesus worships God....in Spirit and in
In having Timothy circumcised, Paul was honoring the cultural symbols of Jews living in the Syrian mission field. In having Titus, a convert, friend, and helper, not circumcised, Paul demonstrated to the Jerusalem Church that justification comes by faith alone. In the latter instance, Paul refused to bend basic Christian principles simply to accommodate an ancient cultural mooring of the early Jerusalem Church.
To Paul, reaching out to the mission field meant embracing local cultural norms. In contrast, reaching inward to the …show more content…
Today, the false compromises engineered permissive pastors, self-willed congregations, and politicized church administrators are flagrant perversions of Pauline theology. This middle ground is born out of pastoral trepidation and congregational self-interest at the expense of the un-churched. Through word and action, God calls the worshiping church to embrace Christ 's sacrificial character, to stop genuflecting to congregational sensitivity, and to embrace a praxis of worship that is capable of reaching out to the sensitivities of distant un-churched persons. Clearly, the mission constituency of self-loving, culturally static churches is limited, and therefore, easily exhausted. Pastors have a moral duty to ensure that assemblies worship God as Christ Jesus worships God....in Spirit and in