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2011
[TAPS GAME] In 1990, Elizabeth Newton decided to use this game in her psychology doctoral studies at Stanford. What was fascinating about her work was not the game itselfthe game is pretty fun, isnt it?but the predictions of those who participated in the study. Tappers were asked to predict the odds that a listener would correctly guess the song that was being tapped out. And these tappers were confident in their communication abilities: they predicted that the listeners would guess the correct song fifty percent of the time. They were way off: Out of 120 songs played, only three were guessed correctly, or 2.5%. Those of you who were tappers, how did you feel when your listener couldnt guess your song correctly? If you were like the tappers in Newtons study, you were absolutely amazed that your listener could not receive your message. How could they not get it? How could they be so dense? So unreceptive? Honestly, if we had kept this up much longer, tappers might have vented their frustrations and made the listeners feel stupid for not grasping such a simple message. But heres what Newtons research shows: the problem wasnt with the listeners. The problem was with the tappers. When tappers send their messages, they are hearing the song in their heads. They know how it goes. They have it playing on an endless loop in their heads, and this makes it virtually impossible to imagine what it is like to not have that knowledge. What happens when you interact with people who arent Christians? What happens when you try to share your story? What happens when you try to show them the goodness of God? Many times, nothing. They might smile politely and feel a little uncomfortable that youre sharing the gospel message of salvation with the lost, but overwhelmingly, nothing happens. Its frustrating. How could they be so dense? So unreceptive? Why cant they just learn how to listen? Whats their problem? Us. Their problem is us. Because we bear the curse of knowledgewe cant imagine what its like to not have that knowledge. We cant imagine what its like to be a listener on the other side of our Jesus talk. So we do everything we can to get people to hear our message. We go through evangelism training. We read books. We have seeker-sensitive churches. We have high attendance Sundays. We bribe people to come to church. We have Vacation Bible School. We show up on a persons doorstep to share the good news of Jesus Christ when the only good news they need at that Darryl J. Schafer 2011

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moment is time to sit down to supper with their family after a long day at work to talk about the straight As their kids got on their report cards. And for all our efforts and good intentions, for all of our hopes that people who hear our message will get it, not many people seem to be interested in following Jesus. (By the way, Im talking about non-Christians. There are also plenty of Christians who are not interested in following Jesus, but thats for another day). Again, we tend to attribute this to the fact that they are horrible listeners. Lost people want nothing to do with God, so we shouldnt be surprised that they dont receive our message. We shouldnt be surprised that they dont get it. We shouldnt be surprised that theyre so dense. So unreceptive. But, like we asked ourselves last time, what if were wrong? What if the problem isnt them? What if we are the problem? What if the reason listeners are so dense and unreceptive is the fact that we really dont know how to address them in a way that theyll understand? Theyre dead where they stand the second we say, Hello, brother! Have ya heard the good nyooz of Jay-zess-HAH? I used to go up to random people and say, Are you going to heaven or hell when you die? No one would listen to me. And I would walk off, confident that I had done my duty to God and that their spiritual blood was on their own hands. Because they were so dense. So unreceptive. I was a horrible tapper. In Acts, Paul decides to tap out the message of God to a crowd that just happened to include philosophers. These guys are thinkers. Idea people. Creative people. Argumentative people. But they were also listeners. The author of Acts wrote that people in Athens used to spend their time talking about and listening to new ideas. They had set up idols to their gods throughout the entire city. One idol in particular caught Pauls attention. It was dedicated agnost the. To an unknown god. The Athenians didnt want to offend any gods that they might be unaware of, so they set up this idol to cover their bases. But what if the unknown could become known? Heres Pauls moment. Paul becomes a tapper. Lets listen to him. Lets see how good a job he does getting his message across. [ACTS 17:2231] Darryl J. Schafer 2011

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How did he do? Did you hear what Paul didnt say? You heard me right. What did Paul not say here? He left out some things that we have been taught are essential when we talk about our faith. Like Jesus. Paul never mentions Jesus name. He never says that Jesus died for our sins. According to our standards, Paul clearly doesnt know the gospel. But listen to what he does say. First, Paul talks about how God, though he created the world, is not bound to it. The Stoic philosophers that Paul addresses believed that the gods were one with the world, that the gods could be found in the trees, the rivers, the rocks, and so on. Paul may indeed be speaking from his own Jewish convictions concerning creation, but he doesnt emphasize that. Instead, Paul, as he addresses the Stoics in the crowd, decides to play on their turf, to play by their rules. Paul decides to speak their language. Then, he mentions Abraham (what does that guy have to do with the gospel?) and tell the crowd that God is not far from each of us. The Epicurean philosophers would have picked up on this subtle phrase. They believed that pleasure was the goal of life. That existence should be as painless and as peaceful as possible. They believed that gods existed, but these gods werent that interested in the affairs of this world. The gods were far away. But now, says Paul, God is near. He then goes on to quote not the Scriptures but Greek poetry. But he doesnt quote just any piece of poetry. He quotes from the Phainomena, a poem that is dedicated to explaining the constellations, the path of the sun, and the zodiac (astrology, anyone?). The introduction of the poem focuses upon the cosmos dependence upon Zeus, the king of the Greek pantheon. Let us begin with Zeus, whom we mortals never leave unspoken. For every street, every market-place is full of Zeus. Even the sea and the harbour are full of this deity. Everywhere everyone is indebted to Zeus. For we are indeed his offspring...

Darryl J. Schafer 2011

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Heres the point: when Paul talks to people about God, he doesnt see things as a one-way street. He doesnt think that non-Christians have nothing to offer. He doesnt believe that God is confined only to what Christians have to say about him. Instead, Paul looks at the truths that God has revealed in things other than Jesus and says, Thats very interesting. Can I tell

you where I think that comes from? Paul, instead of thinking that the problem lies with his listeners, does everything he can to tap out a message that they will understand. He draws from their world, their poets, their philosophy, and their religion to show that God is near to each of us. He uses their language to open a window into the gospel of God. What if we could do the same thing? What if we could look into the things that captivate our culture today and find God? What if we could find God in pop music, the poetry of our day? What if we could find God in the musings of Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, the philosophers of our day? What if we could find God in the pointed critiques of an atheist and say, Thats very interesting. Can I tell you where I think that comes from? Of course, maybe the gospel would be better served if we listened more than we tapped.

Darryl J. Schafer 2011