When Paul wrote, “To the Jews I became as a Jew … to those who are under the Law, as under the Law” (1 Corinthians 9:20), he was not talking about accommodating the message. He was simply saying he would not jeopardize his ability to preach the message by unnecessarily offending people.
Several illustrations of that principle appear in the New Testament. In our last post, we looked at the example of the Jerusalem Council. Out of love and concern for Jewish unbelievers, the council asked new Gentile converts to abstain from engaging in cultural practices that the Jews found offensive. That was in Acts chapter fifteen.
Acts chapter sixteen includes a similar illustration. It is the first time in Scripture we meet Timothy. Luke records that he was “the son of a Jewish woman who was a believer, but his father was a Greek” (v. 1). Jews would have considered him a Gentile, because his father was a Gentile. Moreover, Timothy’s mother would have been considered a virtual traitor for marrying a Gentile... Read More
G.B. Hardy, a Canadian scientist some time ago, wrote a book. It was a book about destiny, it was a book about life, about philosophy. And it asked two very important questions. This scientist said, "I have only two questions to ask. One, has...[ abbreviated | read entire ]
