All the right answers-to all the wrong questions.
What's the use of having all the "answers" if no one cares about the questions?..(email subscribers-link for video) I think the reason why we as Christians often seem so "out of touch" is because we haven't "listened" to our community enough to know what their "questions" are... We are saying "Hey wanna know more about the book of Galatians?" when our community wants to know how to deal with money. We are saying, "Hey we've got all the answers about the Hebrew "circumcision" sect in the first century church"-when our community would like to know how to deal with the relationships in their life. We're saying "Hey, we know what will happen when you die"- when in a country with an average lifespan of over nearly eighty years, most people think they can "wait"to deal with eternity.
Are the book of Galatians, circumcision, and heaven "unimportant" issues for the church? Nope, even the principals that related to the circumcision argument in the early church can be valuable if used to answer a "question" that our community has today. Maybe instead of teaching "about" the Apostle Paul, we should actually follow his example and teach "like" Paul. When teaching a community that worshiped natural "gods" like the sun and moon Paul would say that he had "news" from the God that brought the Rain and Sun for their crops. When talking to a hyper religious community that even had shrines to the "unknown god" Paul would say he represented that "unknown God"... He always framed his "answer" in relation to a "question" that his listeners had. I think we should too...otherwise we come off like Dwight on The Office who once asked Jim "Do you know what the best kind of Bear is?" He actually had an answer...I just can't remember it...because it didn't "matter" to me....