WORDS OF WARNING:
Acts 20:17-37
Have you ever gotten a
speeding ticket? Have there
been times when you were
fortunate enough to just
receive a warning? Neither
experience is fun. Those
flashing lights in the
rearview mirror cause our
hearts to race—and
sink—every time, but I think
we’d all gladly take the
latter over the former.
A warning is a generous
device police officers
employ in hopes that the
guilty party might learn a
lesson and not resume the
activity that caused them to
get pulled over in the first
place. A warning advises the
driver to change his or her
ways to avoid getting the
real thing—a speeding
ticket. I think my personal
record is receiving two
warnings within a 24-hour
period. I shared this with
my family a while ago,
thinking I must hold the
family record. Not wanting
to be outdone by their
father, one of my kids
shared that they’d received
two tickets within a 24-hour
period. I’d received two
warnings, and they received
two of the real thing!
Apparently neither the first
warning nor the first ticket
was enough to deter us from
resuming the errant
behavior.
Warnings are interesting.
They remind us of what the
law requires, of what is
right. They are a slap on
the hand, a wakeup call, a
strong suggestion that we
need to change our behavior.
But what’s interesting to me
is how often they don’t
produce change. We just
continue what we’ve been
doing, whether it’s speeding
down the highway or
something else. It’s a sad
commentary on the
willfulness of man. The
question really is, What
kind of warning will it take
to get my attention so that
I actually change course?
Acts 20, particularly verses
17-37, is like a traffic
warning. Here Paul, an old
pastor, addresses the
leaders of a congregation he
helped plant. He expects he
will not see them again, so
he gathers them and rolls
out a warning, speaking
passionately about some
things that are heavy on his
mind. These are his parting
thoughts, the things he
wants them to remember. His
are words of warning—you
can’t read the text any
other way. And the question
behind the text is, “Will
they heed the warning? Will
they learn the lesson? Will
his words make a
difference?”
Miletus, mentioned in v.
17, is a town about 30 miles
from Ephesus. It’s where
ships docked to unload cargo
that would be carried up a
winding and dangerous road
to the city of Ephesus, far
inland. Ephesus, one of the
greatest cities in the Roman
Empire, was known for its
worship of a pagan god, for
its silver and gold, and for
producing a variety of goods
that were distributed near
and far. Ephesus was a great
city, but a very wealthy and
very wicked city.
Paul came to this city
and planted a church there
(which is what Paul seemed
to do wherever he went).
Paul’s immediate concern in
this passage is, “Will this
church remain healthy and
strong?”
We know more about the
church in Ephesus than any
other church in the NT. Paul
spent upwards of three years
there, more time than he
spent with any other church.
And so here we have Paul,
issuing a warning to this
congregation he knew so
well, emphasizing the things
he deemed most important for
this church to remember.
Fast forward about 30 or
40 years beyond Acts 20 and
we discover in Revelation 2
that apparently the church
at Ephesus did not heed
Paul’s warning. The Ephesian
church looked good on the
surface, but underneath it
had forgotten what it was
supposed to be all about. It
had forsaken its first love.
I have to admit that
traffic warnings have never
done much to curb my
tendency to speed. Why is it
that we bristle when someone
corrects or even lovingly
warns us about attitudes,
behaviors, and habits that
are so destructive to our
lives and to those around
us? We are warned, yet we
continue to go our own way,
and then years later we reap
the consequences of our
unwillingness to heed the
warnings that had been
given.
Tomorrow evening I’m
meeting with a young lady
who recently moved in with
her boyfriend. She comes
from a godly family. She
graduated from Wheaton
College with honors. Her
boyfriend, also a Wheaton
grad, is an MK. Tomorrow
night, as I meet with this
young lady over a cup of
coffee, I will speak words
of warning into her life
concerning some of the
choices she’s making. As I
prepare for this encounter,
I find myself asking, “What
kind of warning will it take
for her understand the
importance of the decisions
she is making today? What
will it take to really get
her attention so that she
changes course?”
A close friend asked me
over the weekend, “Why are
you wasting your time
meeting with her? She’s
doing what she wants to do.
I wouldn’t waste my time.”
Maybe I’ve chosen to meet
with her because passages
like Acts 20 have ground
their way into my soul and
made me realize that loving
a person sometimes requires
issuing a warning. Maybe it
has to do with those I’ve
pastored who ignored words
of warning years ago and are
now buried in a pile of pain
and regret. Although I’ve
seen in my life and in the
lives of others the constant
bent towards not hearing,
not listening, and not
acting upon warnings given,
love compels me to sound the
warning anyway.
What kind of warning will
it take to get our
attention? Why don’t we
listen and heed warnings
when they are issued?
Paul issued a warning to
the Ephesians and it looks
like they didn’t heed the
warning. I’ve got to learn
my lesson, both in driving
and in life. I have to be
the kind of person who cares
enough to speak words of
warning to others, and who
receives and acts upon words
of warning spoken into my
own life.
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The
Messenger, The Message & The
Community
by Roland Muller, 2006
CanBooks
Reviewed by David Korb
I recommend this book to
those interested in learning
more about
contextualization, ministry
to Muslims, and
understanding the dynamics
involved when crossing
cultures.
Though overall I commend
this book to you, this book
frustrated me because the
material is not presented in
an orderly manner. This
volume is a compilation of
three of the author’s
earlier books. This results
in redundancy between the
three sections. Some ideas
are introduced but not
discussed in one part of the
book, but are developed
later in another context.
Having said this, once you
finish reading the entire
book, the themes begin to
mesh and a complete picture
of what the author is saying
begins to emerge.
As the title suggests,
this volume address three
major issues concerning
cross-cultural church
planting: the messenger, his
message, and the community
the messenger is inviting
others to join. The author
first discusses how the
messenger must be accepted
as authentic within the host
culture. Second, the message
must be understandable to
the people in the host
culture. And third, the
community into which the
messenger is inviting the
listener must be viable or
attractive to this
individual. As you can see,
the overriding theme is that
of contextualization.
I found Mueller’s
treatment of worldviews to
be most helpful and
interesting. Basically, he
sees worldviews divided into
three different foundational
starting points. The West,
that is, North America and
Europe, generally works off
a guilt/innocence continuum.
The South—South America and
Africa—sees life through a
fear/power continuum. In the
East, including the 10-40
window, the continuum is
between shame and honor.
Muller reminds the reader
over and over again that
these frameworks are to be
understood as generally, but
not exclusively, descriptive
of the worldviews found
within each region.
Muller laces this book
with illustrations that stem
from his many years of work
in the Middle East among
Arab Muslims. Through his
discussions and examples I
found tremendous insights
not only into Arab culture,
but also a growing
understanding of how other
cultures in the world
approach life from a
worldview that is built on a
foundation entirely
different than that which
undergirds my own.
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