Ephesians 3:1
“For this reason I, Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus for the sake of you Gentiles”.
Whenever Paul entered a new town he would preach at a synagogue. If it wasn't received he would then go to the gentiles. He speaks of this order in Romans 1:16, "I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, first to the Jew, then to the Greek."
However, on balance most of his time was focused on the gentiles. With the exception of the book of Hebrews all of the letters he wrote were to the gentiles. These were amazing writings. The most earth shattering was the book of Romans. While nature speaks of God and his power it doesn't communicate His grace. Romans masterfully informs us of justification by grace through faith. We would have never stumbled on this ourselves. With our fallen nature and our tendency towards works we try to reach God on our own.
As we look at the world religions we see man's attempts to reach God. Very few have a loving God. Some have god's of war, power and/or vengeance. The places that have god's of nature attempt to placate his wrath by sacrifices of which some of them used to sacrifice humans. This is very far from our God.
In Acts 17:23 speaks of Paul's time in Athens. Here is the beginning of his message, "For as I walked around and examined your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. Therefore what you worship as something unknown, I now proclaim to you." How cool. The Athenians placed that altar fearing they missed one. It just happened to be the real one. Paul uses that as the basis for His sermon. This would have interested that audience. Some accepted, many didn't.
The jews saw the gentile culture as godless and lost. Our present culture is hostile to faith. Some are seeking to divorce religion from our culture. It's been removed from our schools, council meetings, city and state logos and so on. Romans 1:28 speaks of what happens to one or a government that rejects God, "Furthermore, since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, He gave them up to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done." Our culture strongly encourages things that used to be considered psychological disorders not so long ago. While our culture has it's unique emphases, it's not that different from Athens and other cultures without God. Paul would have longed to preach to those in our present day.
The message in the Old Testament was to the jews. It spoke of going to the gentiles in the future. Jesus spoke of going to the gentiles and occasionally ministered to some. The birth of the church in Acts 2 brought the message to all, including the gentiles. John 4:20-24 has Jesus referring to that time. '"Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, and yet you Jews say that in Jerusalem is the place where one must worship.” Jesus said to her, “Believe Me, woman, that a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, because salvationis from the Jews. But a time is coming, and even now has arrived, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for such people the Father seeks to be His worshipers."'
I love Jesus' description of worship and how it's to be done in spirit and truth. Our culture encourages people to connect to the spiritual in a way that works for them. Meaning that all sincere attempts to reach God work. That's not worshipping God in truth. The Old Testament gave a partial description of God, showed His holiness as well as the sinfulness of man. In that context Jesus came and sacrificed Himself to make a way for us. The price was His life. It was very costly. Not any old way gets one to God. It has to be through Jesus. That's the truth. The time of the book of Acts also contained many ways to God. The truth of the gospel attracted some and repelled others, just like today.
We are to continue the job to bring the message to all. Help us to be open to do so. Please help our youth as our culture leads them in ways that are contrary to You and Your ways. Help us to be salt and light.
This was Paul's mission, to reach the gentiles. Lord, thank You for Paul; the great work he did in spreading the gospel as well as the great contributions that he made to the New Testament. We've gained such freedom in You as well as growing close to You. Help us to share Your good news.