The Kerygmatic Spirit

Apostolic Preaching in the 21st Century

Yong, Samuel

• Publisher: Cascade Books
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781532656972
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Ministry

This collection of fifteen sermons by one of the leading pentecostal theologians today provides insight into the form, style, and content of preaching in the pentecostal tradition while also being suggestive of normative homiletical theory and practice. The Kergymatic Spirit argues that Spirit-empowered preaching is apostolic not only with regard to being rooted in the scriptural traditions but also with regard to connecting the that of the early Christian message with the this of contemporary experience and discipleship. Hence, rather than only reflecting pentecostal preaching of the sort that happens in the pulpits of churches connected to the modern movement by that name, these sermons are presented as the participating in the form of gospel proclamation inspired and empowered by the divine Spirit poured out on all flesh on the Day of Pentecost by the risen Christ from the right hand of the Father. Whether read or heard (there are links to video and audio archives throughout), these homilies are illustrative of exegetical and expositional practice that connects the biblical text with Spirit-filled faithfulness in the twenty-first-century ecumenical church and world at large.

1

Hitchhiking Hellenist 2

Acts 7:58—8:1

West Ridge Community Church, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 1 March 2009*61

[Host pastor introduces the preacher, sharing their common background at Bible College, his father’s missionary work, and the influence of missions on Yong.]

Are you ready to receive from the Lord this morning [interjects during host pastor’s introduction]? Praise the Lord! It’s good to be with you here this morning. This is my first visit to Pittsburgh. We’ve driven by Pittsburgh before on the freeway, right? But that’s not really experiencing Pittsburgh. Hallelujah!

Well, as we were collecting the offering early this morning, your pastor was expressing the glory of the Lord! Amen? I was reminded of a story of a pastor who had been a couple years with the congregation. He had been brought in to pastor this church from out of town. Been there a couple years, and getting ready to launch a capital campaign drive. So, he got up before the congregation one morning, and said, “Church, the Lord’s been speaking to us, we need to learn, been going now for a couple years, and we need to learn how to sit and crawl as a church.” The church said, “Make us crawl, Rev, make us crawl.” “And after we learn how to crawl, church, then we’re going to have to learn how to stand.” “Make us stand, Rev, make us stand!” “And after we learn how to stand, we’ll have to learn how to walk.” Somebody said, “Make us walk, Rev, make us walk!” “And after we learn how to walk, we’ll have to learn how to run!” “Make us run, Rev, make us run!” “And in order for us to run, we need money!” “Make us crawl, Rev, make us crawl!” [laughter among congregation].

I know a lot of you have your Bibles with you this morning. If you do, I’d like you to turn with me to the book of Acts, chapter 7. Your pastor has got his sermons up on the church website, or his own website. And I was waiting on the Lord last night, or yesterday afternoon, . . . thinking about what the Lord would have me share. Hellenist Hitchhiker.62 What a marvelous image. And the sequel is what you’re gonna hear this morning. Hellenist Hitchhiker 2. Now if you’ve watched the Star Wars series . . . Remember that Star Wars series? Where, you know, each successive movie, it doesn’t quite go in chronological, right? You know, you make a few different twists and turns, you catch up, fill in the gaps a little bit. Well folks, Hellenist Hitchhiker 2 is like one of those plots this morning, right? I know you have sort of been introduced to Hellenist Hitchhiker 2. But today we’re going to go back and pick up a little bit about the early moments, the emergence, the introduction of Hellenist Hitchhiker 2.

We’re going to start in verse number 57, in the seventh chapter of Acts:

57At this they covered their ears and, yelling at the top of their voices, they all rushed at him, 58dragged him out of the city and began to stone him. Meanwhile, the witnesses laid their clothes at the feet of a young man named Saul. 59While they were stoning him, Stephen prayed, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” 60Then he fell on his knees and cried out, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.” [As Yong spoke Stephen’s declaration in verse 60 loudly, he says as an aside:]—Probably wasn’t that loud. I imagine that he may have barely breathed that out.—When he had said this, he fell asleep. 8:1And Saul was there, giving approval to his death. On that day a great persecution broke out against the church at Jerusalem, and all except the apostles were scattered throughout Judea and Samaria (NIV).

Bow with me in prayer this morning. Spirit of the living God, you who enabled Stephen to cry out, you who enabled Stephen to call out, you who enabled Stephen to forgive, and you who was on the shoulder of Saul: abide in our time. Abide in our moments this morning. Be here with us this morning, and transform our hearts, in Jesus’ name. And all God’s people said, Amen. And Amen.

Well, you know a little bit about Hellenist hitchhikers, don’t you? I think in your pastor’s sermon, which I, . . . now, you’ve got to understand, right: I wasn’t here for the original Hellenist Hitchhiker 1. How many of you were here for the original Hellenist Hitchhiker 1? Now I see some of you weren’t here for the original Hellenist Hitchhiker 1 either, right? So, what I’ve got was a sort of the script, without the fancy lights, without the amazing stunts that go along with the movie. Isn’t that what happens in church? Somebody say Amen! Alright!

So, I’ve got the bare script of Hellenist Hitchhiker 1, but we know from the movie, the original release, that of course Hellenist Hitchhiker 1 concerns these people: Stephen and Philip, who were Hellenists, right? And what are Hellenists, as you know from Hellenist Hitchhiker 1? They are folks that grew up in what’s called the Jewish diaspora around the Mediterranean world. Jews, who for one reason or another, over perhaps even a few hundred years had been [sent through] exile around the world, around the Mediterranean world. And they’ve grown up in these other cultures, they’ve grown up learning how to speak in probably two or three or four languages, just to survive. And they were certainly fluent in Greek.

And of course, a lot of these Hellenist Jews would come back periodically to the homeland, Amen? Come back to visit their long-lost—or maybe not lost, because if they were lost I supposed they would not be visiting, right?—but they would come back to visit their relatives. And in fact, we know that Acts chapter 2 was precisely one of those occasions. One of these wonderful feast days in which diaspora Jews from around the Mediterranean would make their way back to Jerusalem to celebrate the Feast of Pentecost. And of course, we know what happened on that day, when the Lord poured out his Spirit upon all of those Jews who gathered from all around the Mediterranean world. But Hellenist Jews were Jews that were conflicted. On the one hand, they belonged to the wider world. On the one hand, they had learned how to plant gardens and grow crops. They had learned how to be successful, they were fluent in the language of the Empire. They had sort of accommodated themselves to some degree, and made it in the big world. But yet they were Jews, weren’t they? Hellenistic Jews were conflicted. They came back to Jerusalem. Why? Because of the promise of the temple. They came back to Jerusalem because it was the promise of the Lord to one day restore the land to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and their descendants. Somebody say Amen! They longed for that time. They yearned for God’s bringing about the fulfillment of the covenant promises. The land, the temple, and the blessings. So, they bided their time. They kept their ear to the ground, waiting for news of the Messiah. Why? Because the Messiah would be one who would deliver Israel from its enemies, Amen? The Messiah would be one who would not only deliver Israel, but would vindicate Israel from its enemies. Now delivering is just this one thing. Casting out the foreign rule from land is one thing. To vindicate, however, means to justify. It’s to say “My promises are not in vain.” To vindicate is to demonstrate to one’s enemies, that this is still my chosen people. So, it’s not only a matter of eliminating the Romans from the land, but it’s a matter of vindicating the law, the promises of God. Hellenists were a conflicted people. On the one hand, successful in the wider world. On the other hand, still perhaps hoping, longing: “Maybe if not me, it will be my grandkids that will get back to the land at some point.”

Hellenist Hitchhiker 1 involved the ending of the life of one of these Hellenist Jews, as you know. His name was Stephen. Our passage this morning starts with, or picks up sort of in the middle of Hellenist Hitchhiker 0, which you never heard that sermon, I suppose. Picks up right in the middle of the sermon of Stephen’s. And it said they dragged him out of the city. They stoned him: “These witnesses,” verse 58. How many of you here are witnesses this morning? Amen? “These witnesses laid their clothes at the feet of a young man named Saul.” Now, who were these witnesses? Well, they’re actually other Hellenist Hitchhikers. If you turn the page, and go back to the first part of chapter 6, the middle of chapter 6, it introduces Stephen’s ministry. Now of course, there [is an] irony about these Hellenists like Stephen, right? The apostles had anointed and prayed upon them, blessed them with the Holy Spirit to go out and to serve tables, so that they, the apostles, could focus on the preaching and the praying and the ministry of the word. But instead, the Holy Spirit empowers this Hellenist Jew, Stephen, the preacher who proclaims the gospel. Verse 9 says this, “an opposition arose, however, from members of the Synagogue of the Freedmen, . . . Jews from Cyrene and Alexandria as well as the provinces of Cilicia and Asia.” But what [or who] were these Hellenistic Jews? Hellenistic Jews, that in this case, were specifically Jews that had been slaves but also had received their freedom? The Empire had a number of different policies for dealing with what’s called expatriate slaves, slaves that had been in one part of the Empire, and were allowed to return to their homes.

Some of you might be familiar with the history of the African Americans in North America. The country of Liberia was set up precisely as that kind of a program, in order to allow Africans, who had been brought as slaves to America, to go back to Africa. These freedmen represented a kind of policy, like what happened with the Liberian experiment.

And of course, these freedmen came back to their homeland. Why did they come back to their homeland? Well it’s the promised land. It’s the land of the covenant. It’s the land given to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And maybe, just maybe, in our lifetime we will see, and hear, and experience the deliverance of the Messiah. Somebody say Amen! They were there. They had replanted themselves in the community. But they began to argue with Stephen. In fact, verse 11, they persuaded some men, saying “we’ve heard this Stephen speak words of blasphemy against Moses and against God.” They stirred up the people, and elders, and teachers of the law. They seized Stephen and brought him before the Sanhedrin. They produced these witnesses, that we saw in verse 58, who testified: “This fellow never stops speaking against this holy place and against the law. For we have heard him say that this Jesus of Nazareth will destroy this place and change the customs that Moses has handed down to us.” Here were zealous, Hellenistic Jews. They were zealous because they had been enslaved, but they had sensed the hand of Yahweh upon their lives, who had got their freedom for them. And now had allowed them to return to the land of promise. They were optimistic. Cautiously so. They were looking for the deliverance of the Lord.

But now here was one of their own members, another Hellenist Jew, who represented not this conservative Jewish posture toward the tradition. But he represented what was a threatening Jewish approach. And in fact, people like Stephen represented those Jews who had appeared to have gotten too comfortable in the Diaspora. Why? Because they were willing to sort of minimize the importance of the law. Why were they willing to do that? Well, they were being adapted to the wider culture. They had become successful in the wider world. And now they were willing to sort of compromise, just a little bit, the distinctive Jewish commitments and values and culture. In fact, these Hellenistic Jews, like Stephen, they were even saying that the temple wasn’t even all that important after all.

Now if we’re going to really preach the gospel that was handed down to us, from the prophets and from Moses, should we be minimizing the role of the temple? Should we be minimizing the laws that were handed down to us? Because that threatens what? The covenant promises of God. We would be very cautious to do that, wouldn’t we? Well, this is an intra-Hellenist debate, as you can see, right? How many of you know what I’m talking about, right?

You know it’s kind of like, I’m called a 1.5 generation Asian American. You know what that means? It means I was born . . . here’s what it is. First generation folks are those who move to the [new] country when they are sort of older. That’s what my folks are: first generation Asian Americans. Second generation Asian Americans are kids who were born in America to Asian parents. I’m not a second generation Asian American, I came here when I was ten. So, that makes me a 1.5’er. I didn’t come when I was old, but I wasn’t born here either, right? So, they gave us a label: I’m a fraction. And you know how this goes, right, if you’re taking about communities, in what’s called a diasporic situation, right? The first generation is real concerned with what . . . ? Preserving the way in which we used to do things. You better start speaking Chinese, “excuse me mom what did you just say?” Right? And of course, by the time you get to the 1.5’ers and the second generation, what are we all about, right? Give me my iPod! Somebody say Amen, right? Okay? I mean, it’s about, I worked hard when I was a teenager, to do what? To get rid of the accent my parents gave me. Hello! Right? Why? Because it’s about what? It’s about fitting in, isn’t it? It’s about not sticking out like an . . . Asian American.

Now, how many of you know, unless there’s some Native Americans in here, Amen? We’re all diasporic. I mean, and we got some folks from some really strange countries, like California. And strange folks in California, we’ll see how the second generation, right, adapts to this country called Pittsburgh. Okay? Now diasporic experiences are filled with these kinds of tensions. We’re learning how to adapt to a new environment. And of course, the more we become like the new environment, the less we lay hold of the way we used to be, before we got to the ne...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction: Situating Amos Yong’s Preaching
• Prologue
• Chapter 1: Hitchhiking Hellenist 2
• Chapter 2: Through You, All the Peoples of the Earth Will Be Blessed!
• Chapter 3: The Lukan Commission
• Chapter 4: In the Days of Caesar
• Chapter 5: Saved from Shame and Stigma
• Chapter 6: From Holy Ghost to Holy Spirit
• Chapter 7: Who Are the Christians?
• Chapter 8: Praying with the Apostles
• Chapter 9: God’s Servant among the Nations
• Chapter 10: Radical Ruach
• Chapter 11: Mission in Translation
• Chapter 12: The Life in the Spirit and the Life of the Mind
• Chapter 13: Following Jesus in the Power of the Spirit
• Chapter 14: Life After a Knockout
• Chapter 15: The Powers at Home and Within, and the Powerful Reign of the Holy Spirit
• Epilogue
• Afterword
• Appendix: Yong Sermons 1999–2018
• Bibliography