Cosmopolitan

I’m always amazed at how subtle Satan can be. As I taught in Starting Point class this week, this approach goes all the way back to Satan’s temptation of Adam and Eve in the Garden. Satan’s attack was not a direct frontal assault, but instead, sneaky and in many ways, underhanded. The original temptation to sin featured tactics like sowing seeds of doubt, telling half-truths, and playing to hidden desires.

This weekend we’re going to see Satan use a similar approach that involves taking something good and twisting it into something bad. The title of our message is “Cosmopolitan.” The word "cosmopolitan" comes from the Greek terms "kosmos" (world) and "polite" (citizen), literally meaning "citizen of the world.” 

In modern usage, it describes someone characterized by familiarity with and openness to diverse cultures, ideas, and experiences, often associated with sophistication and a global perspective. A cosmopolitan person, for instance, might feel at home in multiple countries, embrace varied customs, and reject narrow provincialism. As a former missionary, these sound like positive traits to me.

But cosmopolitan, when twisted by our sinful nature, can also mean “worldly,” that is, having a focus on the material, temporal, or secular aspects of life—sometimes with a connotation of being overly concerned with status, pleasure, or human achievement at the expense of spiritual depth. 

We’ll study the account of the Tower of Babel this weekend. And we’ll explore what it can mean for us as Christ-followers to be cosmopolitan—and whether or not we can, with God’s help, turn away from the negative character traits of this description, while embracing the positive traits for the sake of the gospel.