Académique Documents
Professionnel Documents
Culture Documents
Reality
By
R. Alan Woods
San Diego: Rhema Rising Press
Copyright 2009
. I'm quite sure our call in the Vineyard to "cultural'" relevancy is predicated upon
Paul's statement implying that we be all things to all men so that we may win some to
Christ. Paul learned quickly through trial and error that men were more likely to be won
to Christ when they had a direct, powerful (dunamis) numinous experience with God. In
other words he failed in Athens when he used just the intellectual theological approach! It
seems to me that regardless of the cultural context in which God makes direct contact
with men, it is of more importance that these men have a framework or worldview as it
were in which to know that it is possible. In Christ, we as Christians become neither Jew
nor Greek nor anything else other than a “new creature” in Christ Jesus that produces or
manifests the complementary new culture of Christian community (I refer you to Robert
Banks work, “Paul’s’ Idea of Community” as a general theoretical orientation to my
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meaning here). Paul was adamant about keeping the Gospel pure as it was delivered to
him by Christ. In so far as it was possible within that framework, Paul became all things
to all men. Once they became "enlightened" or "En-Godded" (a word used often by
Leanne Payne, "Listening Prayer"), they were reoriented to a new reality and a lifestyle
reflected in Christian community as their newly acquired identity as a unique cultural
base.