“For though I am free from all, I have made myself a servant to all, that I might win more of them.  To the Jews I became as a Jews, in order to win Jews.  To those under the law I became as one under the law (though not being myself under the law) that I might win those under the law.  To those outside the law I became as one outside the law (not being outside the law of God but under the law of Christ) that I might win those outside the law.  To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak.  I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some.  I do it all for the sake of the gospel, that I may share with them in its blessings.”  (ESV – Read the chapter)

The lengths to which Paul was willing to go in order to see someone connect with Christ were vast.  If someone had asked him to stand on his head and shout the alphabet backwards and then they would do it, he probably would have done it then and there.  Nothing was as important as this and so everything was worthwhile to do to help advance someone in that direction.  

More than just expressing His willingness to go to great lengths to advance the Gospel, though, Paul is making a statement here about how we should behave in the church and of what the loving unity he has been calling us to this entire letter looks like when it is put into practice.

In the context set by chapter 8, while we may have the right to many things as a follower of Jesus, seeing someone connect with Him is more important than our being able to claim any of them.  We must be willing to set aside our rights and our desires and our preferences and our habits and our customs and just about anything else if it will help bring someone into the kingdom of God.

And this doesn’t mean we lose ourselves or somehow dilute our identity either.  We certainly don’t set aside our commitment to historic, Christian orthodoxy.  In fact, it means we have an even tighter grip on who we are in Christ than the average bear.  This kind of putting on different hats with such focused intentionality can only happen from the place of a well-grounded center.  The stronger our own identity in Christ is in place, the more committed we can be to meeting other people wherever they are in order to lead them back to Jesus.  We can do this because we know where we’re going.

When the whole church is able to put this into practice it becomes marked by a gracious hospitality that quickly and warmly welcomes every single person who walks in the door.  This is what the church was always intended to be.  As the bride of Christ, we should carry out His mission in the same way He did.  From the place of our solid center that remains unchanged we become all things to all people that by all means we might save some.  We are the ultimate multi-tool.  To borrow a phrase from Andy Stanley, we marry the mission and date the model.  We are committed to the advancement of the kingdom of God from out of the character of Christ.  How we do that is totally up in the air and should change according to the circumstances we are in and the audience we are trying to reach.  There is no “how it’s been done” that matters in the expansion of the kingdom.  With orthodoxy and the love of Christ as our guides, there is only how it works.