Contextualization - 1 Corinthians 9:19-23

1 Corinthians 9:22-23 (ESV)

[22] To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some. [23] I do it all for the sake of the gospel, that I may share with them in its blessings.

My generation is the “I gotta be me” generation. For the younger ones, that is a song from about 1968 by Sammy Davis Jr. But the concept at the center of that song has infected three generations. The current mentality is that we must be true to who we are. Not being true to who we are, we insist, leads to depression, despair, mental illness, and even suicide. We must be true to who we are. But is that true, and is it really any different from the conclusion of the book of Judges where “everyone did what was right in his own eyes” (Jdg 21:25)? That statement was not a commendation, but a condemnation. That is exactly what Moses had warned not to do.

Paul the Apostle, on the other hand, says that everything he did was driven not by “I gotta be me,” but by an entrusted stewardship of the gospel. His live was molded by the compelling need to share the Good News of Jesus to a broken world. To do that he didn’t stand on a street corner and yell the gospel at people. He didn’t go door to door with a survey intended to surreptitiously share the gospel. He didn’t market himself. He connected with people. For those under the Law, he lived as under the law. For those outside the Jewish Law he lived as one outside the Jewish Law. He qualifies that he did not live lawlessly, but lived under the Law of Christ. Defining the Law of Christ is a blog for another day, but suffice it to say that he did not live immorally. He connected with people and lived in such a way that people would say, “He is one of us.”

In the name of “I’ve gotta be me” we have failed to embrace the truth that we are entrusted with the stewardship of the gospel which supersedes culture and personality. There is something more important than being me. Pursuing “me” has only resulted in three generations of selfish, self-centered, angry, depressed, disillusioned, and disappointed individuals without hope and without purpose. It is when we get our eyes off of being me, and set them on connecting with people in order to share the Good News with them that we find wholeness, freedom, purpose, and joy. Maybe Paul knew what he was talking about.