One of my favorite times each week this fall has been Monday evenings, when 20 or so of us from Christ Church gather to learn Spanish.

Our patient teacher is Rev. Jim Benfer, a retired Methodist pastor who attends Christ Church. Jim started a Spanish-speaking congregation in Central Arkansas several years ago, and his desire is to teach the language so we can share Christ with those whose first language is Spanish.

Each week, we clumsily add more verbs and nouns, build sentences and practice phrases (it’s pretty funny, really!), all with the goal of eventually speaking the language to some of the people who we interact with in Northwest Arkansas, as well as in other places we serve, like Mexico and the Amazon.  There’s power in speaking a person’s language.

As we have journeyed through the Book of Acts this semester, both in our Community Groups and on Sunday mornings, we’ve seen this play out. The apostles travel outside of Jerusalem, taking the Gospel to the ‘ends of the earth.’ Naturally, they meet people who have a completely different worldview from their own.

But everywhere they go, they find ways to adapt the message of the risen Christ to their audience – speaking the language of the culture in relevant and powerful ways.  

Perhaps the best known example of this is in Acts 17. Paul travels to Athens, which was the cultural and intellectual center of the world at that time. As Paul walks around the city, he sees that it’s full of idols and there are pockets of philosophers everywhere discussing and debating all the newest ideas (sound familiar?).

Among the many idols, Paul finds one inscribed “To an Unknown God.” He uses this idol and this inscription to show how God not only CAN be known, but WANTS to be known, telling them that, “He is not far from any one of us” (Acts 17:27b). Using their own culture and context, he brilliantly shares about the One True God and the hope we have in Him.

The story of Paul and the apostles in the Book of Acts is our story, too, as we are called to share Jesus in an increasingly diverse and post-Christian world and culture. The old language of our faith no longer applies.

For many years, the evangelist’s question was, “If you died tonight, would you go to heaven?” For many people in the past, the answer might have been “I don’t know.” In today’s culture, the answer is more likely, “I don’t care.”

So how do we break through to a culture that no longer has a reference to the things of God? How do we communicate essential truth when the culture rejects even the notion of truth?

Our Community Group has wrestled with this the past couple of weeks, as we have read the stories of Acts and thought about the people in our own workplaces, neighborhoods and families. How do we engage an ever-changing world with the unchanging truth of the Gospel?

The pattern of the early apostles is instructive for us. And although the list below is far from exhaustive, their example is helpful as we seek to share with others the love and hope we have in Christ…

1. Be prayerful. As the apostles did, invite the Holy Spirit to give you wisdom, courage and strength; to open the eyes of your heart, seeing those around you through His eyes and to give you opportunities to share the hope that is within you.
2. Be relational. Be a friend. Invest in personal relationships. Invite others into community with you – whether that be an organized group or supper around a table. People are longing for connection.
3. Be authentic. Be yourself. God has fitted you and will use your unique gifts in the lives of others.
4. Ask questions. Questions can break the ice, be non-threatening and get people thinking about deeper things.
5. Be bold. We must find ways to share the Gospel in relevant ways, but never compromise the truth. The Gospel is the power of God for salvation. We can trust that God is at work when we prayerfully share Him with others.
6. Use stories. As the apostles did, find ways to share the Gospel as a narrative, as The Story of God, not a list of do’s and don’ts. Learn to tell your own story of faith succinctly, humbly and honestly.
7. Live your faith. The way we live (Loving Christ and Loving Like Christ) is a witness to others, and often speaks louder than any words we can use.

There are people God has placed in our lives who need to know the hope, grace and love of God. How can we learn to ‘speak their language’?