What if the Apostle Paul had the social web and all the web 2.0 tools for his Mars Hill sermon?
April 22, 2008
What comes to mind when you hear the word lectionary?
For most of my life, I've seen it as something that pastors use to plan their Sunday worship services. In my faith tradition, each worship service has a series of Bible reading, one each for the Old Testament, one for an Epistle and for the Gospel.
After I reached substantial adulthood, I learned that these readings came from an ancient list and that each one was designated for a certain Sunday. Even though I've attended church all my life nobody ever explained its purpose and its usefulness.
That brings me to today and a before work Bible study I attend in downtown Lansing with a couple of pastors and a group of laypeople. We review the readings for the upcoming Sunday. Sometimes our discussion has made its way to a Sunday sermon and sometimes it has just been good, thought-provoking discussion.
Today, we never made it beyond the first reading from Acts 17:22-31 which is the Apostle Paul's Mars Hill discourse. People living back then faced a choice of gods. Paul was saying be sure you make the right choice. He then explains.
What if he had web 2.0 back then? His words had and have power, both back then and now. What if one of Paul's people had a Flip video camera back then and put the Mars Hill discourse on YouTube? Would he have blogged it? Would he have gotten comments on his blog post?
I will read Paul's words again. There's truth there that applied then and now. We are faced with a whole series of gods. My god, is three persons in one, God-the father, God-the son and God-the Holy Spirit.
Tags: MarsHill, Acts 17, lectionary, Apostle Paul, web 2.0, youtube