By what means the Illusionist, David Copperfield, made the Statue of Liberty disappear, only he and his fellow illusionists know. But these two things we do know: Firstly, the statue, despite appearances, was always there, and secondly, from the perspective of all who were looking on…it wasn’t!
Whether knowingly, or otherwise, we all view that which is before us from a particular perspective. This can range from blind disinterest to magnified obsession. It should not surprise us that one person would spend their life savings to visit the Louvre, while another would ask why one would want to do so.
The Christian hunger and thirst for knowledge. Especially knowledge that leads to insight into how and why people think the way they do. Christians who express disinterest in cultural and social perspectives must repent. How can we expect to change the world for Christ if we do not seek to understand those in it?
Being all things to all men isn’t only about honouring their outward customs. We must drill down into their thinking to see why they think as they do. To assume that a man first hears the Gospel according to anything other than his cultural mindset is naïve. However, we do not have to cross oceans to establish that fact, even our fellow countrymen see religion through different eyes than our own.
We must become experts at perspective. The ability to establish how a person is interpreting the message of Christ helps greatly in its spread. I have spent more than a little time talking about Christ to people only to realise that they were listening because, in their culture, it was rude not to.
All this is not to assume that we can automatically convert people by learning how they see life.
After all, it is the Holy Spirit who convicts a person through the Gospel, not us.
“I have become all things to all men, so that I may by all means save some” (1Cor.9:22).
John Staiger