Paul contra Paul
June 11, 2009 – 4:01 pmBack in April Mark Dever interviewed Aaron Messner, chaplain of Covenant College, as part of their 9 Marks Audio Interviews.
In it, Dever and Messner discuss the culture of college students today (including social media and relationships), pastoring college students, ministering the gospel to college students, and training college students to live biblically counter-cultural.
Under the last category, developing a biblical counter-cultural mindset, Dever insightfully states that those ministering to college students need to understand that ‘being like the pop cultural to reach people in it’ is akin to 1 Cor. 1 and 2 (a pagan rhetoric; not the gospel), not 1 Cor. 9 (”being all things to all men”).
Dave Doran adds commentary to Dever’s statement:
My sense of things is that much of what is being called contextualization and defended on the basis of 1 Corinthians 9:19-23 is really a violation of 1 Corinthians 1:18-2:5.
In other words, rather than simply eliminate unnecessary offenses by the messenger it attempts to eliminate the offense of the message. It is more Corinthian, than Pauline.
Listen to or download the entire interview. [Dever's brief comment found at the 42 min. mark]
