There\u2019s a joke that says if you speak two languages, you\u2019re bilingual. If you speak three, you\u2019re trilingual. If you speak one, you\u2019re American.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
During a recent trip to Germany, I saw how American I am. It\u2019s humbling to rely on an app to communicate, to look for signs with translations, or to be stuck in the drive thru trying to order food but you can\u2019t because the person on the other end doesn\u2019t speak English, so you have to hop out of the car to ask a stranger sitting nearby if they speak English and they say yes and help you order your food. Am I right?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There\u2019s also a sense of empowerment when you learn how to say even simple words in someone else\u2019s native tongue, like Danke<\/em> (thank you). Everyone\u2019s eyes light up when they hear their own language.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When it comes to sharing the gospel effectively, Christians are called to be spiritually bilingual. What does that mean? In Acts 17, Paul met some Greek philosophers in Athens who wanted to know about Jesus, so they took Paul to a place called Mars Hill to talk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Christians are called to be spiritually bilingual.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n I got to visit Mars Hill after Germany. Two minutes from the top, I walked past the Theatre of Dionysus, which dates back to the fifth century BC. Here the ancient playwrights shared their dramas, competing for awards. I imagine Paul walked by it on his way, maybe noticing the actors, their poetic lines wafting on the air.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When Paul got to Mars Hill, he could\u2019ve talked about the Israelite prophecies right away. He could have gotten upset when the Athenians gave him blank stares because they didn\u2019t know who Isaiah was and then complained that \u201cpeople don\u2019t want to hear the gospel.\u201d Instead, he spoke of things from their<\/em> world so they could know the God who made the world. He quoted Epimenides and Aratus, Greek poets: \u201c\u2018For in Him we live and move and have our being.\u2019 As some of your own poets have said, \u2018We are His offspring\u2019\u201d (Acts 17:28).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Being spiritually bilingual means we ask ourselves, \u201cWhat would help this person understand the gospel?\u201dIt means when unbelievers visit church, we don\u2019t creep them out by saying things like, \u201cWe\u2019re all covered by the blood\u201d without context. We might hold a vegan cooking class instead of a prophecy seminar if we\u2019re in a west coast liberal city. Or when we meet a PhD student, instead of handing out beast-covered pamphlets, we talk about how science and Scripture align. It means we try to speak their language, so their hearts and minds can light up with God\u2019s love.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" There\u2019s a joke that says if you speak two languages, you\u2019re bilingual. If you speak three, you\u2019re trilingual. If you speak one,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":13994,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13993","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-article"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lightbearers.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/MU2307-Devotional.jpg?fit=2560%2C1440&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paAh8r-3DH","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lightbearers.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13993","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lightbearers.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lightbearers.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lightbearers.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lightbearers.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13993"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/lightbearers.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13993\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15454,"href":"https:\/\/lightbearers.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13993\/revisions\/15454"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lightbearers.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13994"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lightbearers.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13993"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lightbearers.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13993"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lightbearers.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13993"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n