‘How involved are you in the lives of others?’
The early Christian church was a community of people who were involved in creating new relationships among themselves and in the outside world. They saw their Lord as no private or individual Lord but always as Lord of the church and Lord of the world. They loved the church and they loved the world. The Church was never a closed world to itself.
Paul for example, was aware of the literature of the cultures he moved around in. He could quote Greek poets as well as the Old Testament scriptures (Acts 17:28).
He was the consummate cross-cultural messenger. He did not preach to anonymous faces at evangelistic crusade meetings but was willing to, and entered into other people’s lives. Although he was free he still entered into other people’s worlds.
1 Corinthians 9:19-23 (ESV): For though I am free from all, I have made myself a servant to all, that I might win more of them. To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews. To those under the law I became as one under the law (though not being myself under the law) that I might win those under the law. To those outside the law I became as one outside the law (not being outside the law of God but under the law of Christ) that I might win those outside the law. To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some. I do it all for the sake of the gospel, that I may share with them in its blessings.
There was in this form of incarnational mission identification without loss of identity. The Church was active in its culture and part of it. But where the culture clashed with the Lordship of Christ they were very public in proclaiming what they saw as the fact of God’s reign, even to the point of death.
