SIX
DEGREES OF SEPARATION

Topics: Acceptance; Grace; Knowing God; Presence of God

Reference: Isaiah 43:18–25

Everyone on the planet can be connected to everyone else on the planet by no more than six steps. So says Pulitzer prize-winning playwright John Guare in his play Six Degrees of Separation.

Recently a leading news magazine in Germany, Die Zeit, tested this theory. It asked Salah Ben Ghaly, an Iraqi immigrant who owns a local falafel stand, to whom he would most like be linked. Ghaly chose Marlon Brando. It took some months, but Die Zeit managed to find the connection. A friend of Ghaly who lives in California works in the same company as Ken Carson, boyfriend of Michelle Bevin, sorority sister to Christina Kutzer, daughter of Patrick Palmer, producer of Don Juan de Marco, in which Brando starred.

The idea of six degrees of separation suggests two encouraging things for Christians. First, we can be thankful that knowing God is a personal experience, so there are no degrees of separation between us and God when we are willing to repent and receive his grace. Second, if there is any truth to six degrees of separation, no person on the planet is beyond the range of hearing the gospel.

—Rich Tatum, “Six Degrees of Separation,” PreachingToday.com