Paul was offered a chance to speak in the synagogue. He was a Rabbi: he took it. And note what he did. He did not confront as he did with Bar-Jesus. He began a reasoned argument, by setting out his facts: the axioms on which he was going to argue. He was teaching salvation to the Jews, so he started with the exodus, then the judges, then the prophets, then David… and then John the Baptizer.

He was using reason. He did not need to quote, but merely allude, for these things were well-known. He was talking to men, not the ignorant, so he could move the argument quickly, using agreed shorthand.

It was his custom to begin in any city to preach to his own, the Jews. To use reason. Only when rejected would he go to the Gentiles. His heart, correctly, was for his people. Who rejected the gospel, too frequently, and damned themselves.

Acts 13:13-25

¹³Then Paul and his companions set sail from Paphos and came to Perga in Pamphylia. John, however, left them and returned to Jerusalem; ¹⁴but they went on from Perga and came to Antioch in Pisidia. And on the sabbath day they went into the synagogue and sat down. ¹⁵After the reading of the law and the prophets, the officials of the synagogue sent them a message, saying, “Brothers, if you have any word of exhortation for the people, give it.” ¹⁶So Paul stood up and with a gesture began to speak:

“You Israelites, and others who fear God, listen. ¹⁷The God of this people Israel chose our ancestors and made the people great during their stay in the land of Egypt, and with uplifted arm he led them out of it. ¹⁸For about forty years he put up with them in the wilderness. ¹⁹After he had destroyed seven nations in the land of Canaan, he gave them their land as an inheritance ²⁰for about four hundred and fifty years. After that he gave them judges until the time of the prophet Samuel. ²¹Then they asked for a king; and God gave them Saul son of Kish, a man of the tribe of Benjamin, who reigned for forty years. ²²When he had removed him, he made David their king. In his testimony about him he said, ‘I have found David, son of Jesse, to be a man after my heart, who will carry out all my wishes.’ ²³Of this man’s posterity God has brought to Israel a Savior, Jesus, as he promised; ²⁴before his coming John had already proclaimed a baptism of repentance to all the people of Israel. ²⁵And as John was finishing his work, he said, ‘What do you suppose that I am? I am not he. No, but one is coming after me; I am not worthy to untie the thong of the sandals on his feet.’”

When you are working within your culture, or in New Zealand, the biculture, you learn to use the customs and procedures of the locals. You are in their place, there is no moral issues about language or acknowledgement. it means as much as taking your shoes off when you enter — common in Rural New Zealand, Maori and Pakeha, universal on Marae — or choosing the acceptable language to use.

But the message does not change. It is tailored. For each race and place and time: this is politeness. Only fools do not enjoy Pippi Longstocking, Tolkien, Kipling, Solzhenitsyn, Bach, Mozart, Vaughan Williams, Gorecki, Peart and Dahl, Daleks… we can appreciate the myths and poems of other nations and their novels. The attitude of this time is provincial. Go to the past, it is another country, you may learn.

This is what Paul meant when he said he was a Jew to the Jews and a Greek to the Greeks.

We need to be normal around those who are normal, geeky with the nerds and autists, and be skilled with the memes. For the ShitLibs, do not understand dialectic. For them remains just this: the rhetorical cluebat.

Use reason for those who can think. Twitter is for the rest.