How?

In Acts 24-26 Paul goes to trial for stirring up trouble in Jerusalem as a member of the Way.  Eugene Peterson has this to say:

The trials in Acts 24-26 force us, if we're to stay true to the story we're reading, to give up the notion that the Christian community can catch the admiring eye of the world if we just live rightly and obediently.  We have ample documentation by now to disabuse us of such thinking.  God's revelation is rejected far more often than it is accepted, is dismissed by far more people than embrace it, and has been either attacked or ignored by every major culture or civilization in which it has given witness: magnificent Egypt, fierce Assyria, beautiful Babylon, artistic Greece, political Rome, Enlightenment France, Nazi Germany, Renaissance Italy, Marxist Russia, Maoist China, and pursuit-of-happiness America.  The community of God's people has survived in all of these cultures and civilizations, but always as a minority, always marginal to the mainstream, never statistically significant. 

This gives us pause. If we, as the continuing company of Jesus, have achieved an easy accomodation with our society and culture, how did we manage to pull off what Jesus and his community of followers failed to accomplish?  How has it come to pass that after twenty centuries of rejection, we assume that human acclaim is tantamount to divine approval?  

...Our Piety Forgets About Us...

The first thing to remember is that we must never separate the benefits (regeneration, justification, sanctification) from the Benefactor (Jesus Christ). The Christians who are most focused on their own spirituality may give the impression of being the most spiritual … but from the New Testament’s point of view, those who have almost forgotten about their own spirituality because their focus is so exclusively on their union with Jesus Christ and what He has accomplished are those who are growing and exhibiting fruitfulness. Historically speaking, whenever the piety of a particular group is focused on our spirituality that piety will eventually exhaust itself on its own resources. Only where our piety forgets about us and focuses on Jesus Christ will our piety nourished by the ongoing resources the Spirit brings to us from the source of all true piety, our Lord Jesus Christ.

~ Sinclair Ferguson

It's Not Like This Is A New Idea...

But we might as well say it again, and Mike Leake does just that at Borrowed Light:

If our view of Scripture is akin to Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth then I doubt very seriously that we will be compelled to open its pages.  At least not until something goes wrong...Do you realize how hard it is to convince people to find Life in the Scriptures when this is our view?  It’s like trying to convince people that if they want to really enjoy food they should become acquainted with their refrigerator’s manual of operation. That is just silly. 

What if instead we started viewing it as a compelling story told by the Creator of the universe or as a drama that is acted out and then explained by God about God?

Rather than reading it to discover Jesus, says Mike, we're looking for "an answer." To a problem, like "what qualities should I look for in a wife?" Or, dare I say it "how should I go about my relationship with God?" Which is fine, as long as you're willing to admit that crack-cocaine gives people "an answer" too.  And often a more satisfying one, depending on where you're at.