Taken Out of [Worldview] Context

Acts 14:11-13

And when the crowds saw what Paul had done, they lifted up their voices, saying in Lycaonian, “The gods have come down to us in the likeness of men!” Barnabas they called Zeus, and Paul, Hermes, because he was the chief speaker. And the priest of Zeus, whose temple was at the entrance to the city, brought oxen and garlands to the gates and wanted to offer sacrifice with the crowds.

N. T. Wright, Acts for Everyone (Part Two)

It is remarkable what can happen to a message when the hearers insist on inserting it firmly into their own worldview (29).

One of the things this passage highlights is the almost bottomless pit of potential misunderstandings that await anyone who tries to speak, and live out, the essentially Jewish message of the gospel, with its remarkable news of the one true creator God. . . . But the point of this whole narrative, in its larger framework, is precisely to show the explosive, if deeply confusing, effects of taking the message of Jesus out into the wider world. The journey of the gospel from Jerusalem “to the ends of the earth” (1.18) is unstoppable, but uncomfortable. That comes with the territory (31).