If we would see the Gospel have the kind of world-transforming impact it had in Paul’s day, we’re going to have to break out of the confines of our churches and look for ways to establish platforms for the Gospel in neighborhoods, coffee shops, bookstores, even classrooms and office conference rooms. There we need to engage in conversations, share testimonies, seek out discussions, offer to teach, and entertain the questions of any and all, just as Paul did wherever he went. The Gospel is like light, leaven, and salt. It needs to go everywhere, penetrate everything, makes its presence known everywhere in order to do the transforming work it is truly capable of doing.

Precisely targeted. The thing that really got Demetrius’ attention was when he heard Paul say that gods made with hands are not gods at all. Paul did not preach the Gospel in the abstract. Wherever he went he proclaimed the truth of God into the culture of his surroundings, exposing the lies and half-truths of unbelief and insisting that the Gospel alone can meet the needs and satisfy the concerns of all men. Our panicked pagan understood clearly the implications of Paul’s preaching: If he’s right, or, at least, if he’s believed, then we’re out of a job!

If we want the Gospel to have transforming power today we need to speak it directly to the issues and concerns of the people in our communities. We need to tell them that everything they’re trusting in apart from God will fail them; only Jesus can give them real hope and a full and abundant life. Not their wealth, their work, or their well-being will endure; Jesus alone is the eternal, unchanging God and Savior.

Pointing out a better way. Demetrius complained (as the Greek has it) that Paul was “misleading” people away from the worship of Artemis. That assumes that he was leading them somewhere else, somewhere more appealing to them, somewhere that, evidently, Paul had described in such highly desirable terms that people felt free to leave their ancestral goddess and launch out in an entirely new spiritual direction.

We need to hold out the glory of God’s salvation to people, in all its polychromatic grandeur. The Gospel is not just about being forgiven and feeling peaceful and hopeful about heaven. It’s about that, to be sure, but there is more. The Gospel of the Kingdom is about a glorious rule of righteousness, peace, and joy that is advancing over all the earth, the Light of God driving the darkness of ignorance, despair, and destitution back over the horizon, as it increases over all the earth (Isaiah 9:7; Daniel 2:44,45; 1 John 2:8). All things are being made new, and joy and rejoicing are the order of the new order, as men and women enter into the grace and truth of God, where they discover fullness of joy and pleasures forevermore (Psalm 16:11).

The power of persuasion. Finally, Demetrius was especially concerned because he realized Paul had managed to accomplish this by the power of persuasion. He could not have understood about the work of the Holy Spirit in bringing people to new life. But he understood there were no gimmicks, trickery, theatricality, or other tomfoolery deceiving all those who were coming to Christ. They were being persuaded to believe, pure and simple, and, thus, persuaded not to believe in Artemis any longer.

We need to learn the art of persuasion better. Persuasion involves conversation, listening with understanding, developing relationships of mutual enjoyment and trust, and earning the right to ask hard questions and discuss personal views and concerns. Paul didn’t just preach, and neither should we. He shared testimonies with people. He asked questions and was questioned. He dialogued and discussed matters at length. He urged people to consider their own worldview and just how coherent and reasonable it was in the light of the glorious Gospel of Jesus Christ. This is what we need to do as well.

The concerned pagans of our day have been given a bit of a respite lately, what with the heroic efforts of Daniel Dennett, Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and Christopher Hitchens assuring them there’s nothing to worry about and nothing to fear from these purveyors of religion. But, as Michael Novak argued so eloquently recently in First Things, these screeds are the cries of desperate men. The Demetriuses of our day are gathering the troops together to warn about the spread of the Gospel into all of life. Rather than be cowed by their bravado, let us turn up the heat and devote ourselves to advancing the Good News of Jesus broadly, precisely, with a clear and compelling vision, and by all the powers of persuasion available to us.

For Reflection

Whom are you seeking to persuade concerning the Gospel? How can the people around you see that there really is transforming power in this Good News?