Unfashionable, One

In order to properly get in touch with the world, to be in it, to be like it, and to be immersed in it for witness and ministry's sake, the church is NOT to allow the isolated texts of Scripture about Paul's missionary methodology to drive our application. For example, when Paul had Timothy circumcised--Acts 16:3 or when Paul spoke of himself as being like those without the law--1 Cor. 9:21, I am not convinced that these texts ought to be the ones that should chiefly characterize our mimic and likeness unto the world. They may at times be the things that we do--and they might at times be the attitudes that we show forth. But I do not see them as the dominant orbit around which our relating to and our witness to the world spins. I do not see these as the dominant points of mimic from Paul. We, today, for some reason are enamored with these texts; we are given to using them as tell-tale dominant paradigms from which to derive or give shape to our ability to be in the world in a righteous way. I'm not persuaded of their dominant role.

G. Mark Sumpter