If you’re a football fan you have heard of Kurt Warner. If you’re an evangelical Christian, there’s a good chance you have heard of Kurt Warner … if you don’t fall in any of those categories, but you are a pop culture fan, there’s still a good chance you have heard of Kurt Warner as “that big football player now on Dancing with the Stars.”

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I've been living overseas for a year and two months now.  One of the unique aspects of being abroad is being outside of the din of American life.  This perspective, in a way, is like one of those Wordle maps.  You start to hear how often and in how many places a concept or word is being used.  If I could say that there was one concept that I've noticed being constantly pounded upon in Christian podcasts, blogs, books, and articles, the largest phrase in the 2008-2009 Christian vocabulary Wordle would be "The Kingdom of God".  Somewhere in the midrange frequency font size would be some form of "cultural renewal" or "redeeming culture".

The book Acts (which I'm presently teaching at our church) is filled with moments where the tables are turned. It's best to understand a little background regarding Jewish conceptions of Messiah, and how their religious establishment thought. However, lacking that kind of background, simply reading through the book will reveal numerous times when the people are supposed to 'get it' don't, and those who aren't, do. The Holy Spirit is poured out, not in the temple, but in some obscure upper room. It's poured out, not on the religious establishment, but on some obscure devotees of a recently crucified, so called "messiah". Wisdom and power are poured out through the uneducated and impoverished. The weak are strong, and the strong are revealed to actually be, not only weak, but withered and fearful souls who have become such by virtue of their resistance to the good news.