Walking Through Acts
Today we will find ourselves in the midst of a city called Athens. And no, I am not
talking about Athens, Ohio. Ironically, there are some stark parallels I could draw
between Athens, Ohio and first century Athens, Greece. Ohio University is located
in Athens, Ohio. And if you know anything about Ohio University, you will know
that it is one of the top party schools in the country. Niche.com gives them an A+
rating for their party scene. In my estimation, to be known for your party scene is
not something I would deem meritorious. It’s not something that ought to be
boasted about or worthy of praise. Yet, there are some who wear it as a badge of
honor. They’re proud, and not necessarily that they’re proud of their party scene,
but that their school is at least known for something. My question I want to ask all
of you is this. What do you want to be known for? The right things, or the wrong
things?
The city of Athens in the first century was known for its idol worship. Some secular
writers of that day describe Athens like this.
Pausanius said, “Athenians greatly surpassed others in their zeal for religion.”
Lucian wrote, “on every side there were altars, victims, temples, and festivals.”
Petronius said, “It is easier to find a god than a man there.” All of these
statements point to the fact that first century Athens was preoccupied and
obsessed with idol worship. Here’s the thing that I want us all to know or at least
be reminded of. We’re not the city of Athens geographically. That’s on the other
side of the world. But we are, in a lot of ways Athens in our obsessions and
preoccupations right here in the United States. And just as the secular writers
were careful not to use the word idol worship in their descriptions of Athens, so
too do we tend to downplay idolatry in our own cities. We begin to say and hear
the same things. Oh, I know some people that aren’t Christians, but they’re
religious. They don’t follow Jesus, but they love God. They’re not Christians, but
they’re good people. (None of us are good). And so, what ends up happening, is
that people end up condemned to hell for all eternity because of our political
correctness. What the world needs to be reminded of is that you can be religious,yet not be saved. That’s one of the nasty tricks Satan has utilized throughout all of
history. To make someone think they are following the right path, when in reality,
they’re walking straight into eternal damnation.
C.S. Lewis says writes,
“It does not matter how small the sins are provided that their cumulative effect is
to edge the man away from the Light and out into the Nothing. Murder is no
better than cards if cards can do the trick. Indeed the safest road to Hell is the
gradual one--the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without
milestones, without signposts.”
“Murder is no better than cards if cards can do the trick.” In light of today’s
message, I’d like to alter this a bit to drive the point home. “Murder is no better
than religion, if religion can do the trick.”
And I can just imagine Paul walking through Athens, just being blown away by the
sheer amount of idol worship that was happening there. Everywhere he turned,
there was an idol to be worshiped.
Acts 17:16
16 Now while Paul was waiting for them at Athens, his spirit was provoked within
him as he saw that the city was full of idols.
This phrase “his spirit was provoked within him”, the same Greek word translated
as a “sharp disagreement” carries the connotation of burning with anger and it
was a continual burning. The more he saw idolatry, the more irritated and angry
he became. And this is of course a righteous anger. The way any mature Christian
ought to reflect God’s repulsion to sin in the world. Do you feel the same way
about sin? Do we feel that way about our own sin?
Now, it’s one thing to sit and ruminate over sin. It’s quite another to reflect on it
and do something about it. So what does Paul do?Acts 17:17
17 So he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the devout persons, and in
the marketplace every day with those who happened to be there.
Paul is just utterly devastated by the spiritual depravity of the city and probably
lied awake at night thinking, what can I do about this? Paul takes action. He gets
up, straps on his sandals, probably eats some Cheerios and heads to the
marketplace. Here’s one takeaway I want you all know. Conviction ought to result
in corresponding action.
Acts 17:18
18 Some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers also conversed with him. And
some said, “What does this babbler wish to say?” Others said, “He seems to be a
preacher of foreign divinities”—because he was preaching Jesus and the
resurrection.
Who are these Epicurean and Stoic philosophers? Let’s begin with the Epicureans.
What do they believe? I want to let you all know now, that these things are
important to know. These aren’t just ancient philosophies that died sometime in
the past as history moved on. No, as you will soon see, these two different
philosophies are deeply seated in today’s world. So, what do Epicureans believe?
They follow the teachings of a man named Epicurus. Here are the core tenets of
Epicureanism.
1. Pleasure is the highest end in living. “Eat drink and be merry” has come to
be a popular summary of this philosophy. Epicurus, no doubt probably
meant the noble pleasures in life such as generosity and kindness and
patriotism. However, in practice epicureans took this to mean, pleasures of
the flesh. I had a philosophy teacher in high school and I remember her
saying that the primary ends or goals in life is sex.
2. Matter is eternal, and therefore the world was not created by anyone or
anything.3. The soul is not immortal.
4. There is no future retribution, after death, for deeds done in this life.
5. Deny that the gods exercised any providential control over human affairs. In
other words, any supreme deity or deities to them were distant.
Yes, I believe that Epicureanism is alive and well to this very day.
How about Stoicism?
There was a man named Zeno who regularly taught in the marketplace on a
porch. The Greek word for porch is stoa and that’s how the term stoic came
about.
Stoics believed…
1. The world was created by Zeus.
2. All things were governed by the Fates. This comes from Greek Mythology.
We as Christians are not subject to or governed by the Fates. Instead of
putting our hope in some false deities that would guide us and lead us in
life, we place our hope in God who is over all things, including life and
death.
3. Self-denial was thought to contribute to the highest end in life. Passions and
affections were to be suppressed and restrained. A stoic will be apathetic to
pleasure and pain.
4. Didn’t believe in the immortality of the soul.
Yes, I believe we still see Stoicism alive and well to this day.
And so, these two schools of thought aimed to answer the great questions of life.
What is the highest good? What’s our purpose? Each of these views can be
summed up this way. The Epicurean will say the purpose of life is to “enjoy allthings.” The Stoic will say, “Endure all things.” And many if not all non-Christians
today ascribe to one of these two philosophies about life. Any attempt to answer
the great questions of life apart from God and his plan of redemption for all
mankind through his Son Jesus will utterly fall short. And the Apostle Paul knew
this. And he didn’t just say, “Well best of luck to you!” “I hope things work out for
you!” Of course not. Because the compassion of Christ that dwells in every
Christian out of a broken heart for the lost compels us to show another way. To
share Jesus. To bring hope wherever we go. Even if it means looking like a fool and
having insults thrown at you, we preach Jesus. His life, death and resurrection.
And why he needed to die, and why his resurrection matters. We’re sinful, but we
are not without hope.
Acts 17:19-20
19 And they took him and brought him to the Areopagus, saying, “May we know
what this new teaching is that you are presenting? 20 For you bring some strange
things to our ears. We wish to know therefore what these things mean.” 21 Now
all the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there would spend their time in
nothing except telling or hearing something new.
The Areopagus is where court trials were held as well as important meetings. It’s
essentially the Supreme court of Athens. And it was located on top of a hill and
you may have heard reference to a place called Mars Hill and this is that location.
Now the city of Athens was a center of education. Many students from around the
world would come to finish out their studies there. So you can picture the people
who are listening to Paul speak may have been trying to accuse him of doing
something unlawful, but there may have been many others who were curious. My
personal belief is that a flaw in the higher education sphere is this desire to always
bring something new to the table. And in different areas of study, this may be
beneficial. But when it comes to the timeless truths that do not change, one
ought not to try to add or take anything away.
I had a professor at a Bible college who believed there was no such thing as
absolute truth. There was another one who didn’t believe there was a hell. One
does not simply come to those conclusions by simply reading their Bibles. And it
comes from this idea that anything worthy of scholarly progress is to present a
new idea derived from and older one that somehow makes the older ideaobsolete. That may work for engineering, medicine, or business, but it has no
place in Christianity. God does not change like the seasons, nor does His revealed
truth change. And so when I am reading what Scripture says here in Acts, we find
ourselves in the midst of a group of people who are eager to hear these new
teachings. And it was a marvelous thing to behold to see God use this curiosity as
a way for the gospel message to be received.
Let’s take a look at Paul’s sermon that he gives.
Acts 17:22-23
22 So Paul, standing in the midst of the Areopagus, said: “Men of Athens, I
perceive that in every way you are very religious. 23 For as I passed along and
observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription:
‘To the unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to
you.
Did Paul just brow beat his audience into believing? No. He finds a way to meet
them where they’re at. And if you ask me, this is just one example that points us
to Jesus and how he came to this earth where we were, broken and lost in our
mess and sin piling up, Jesus came and died for us. And so Paul recalls seeing an
altar with the inscription “to an unknown god.” Now this was most likely not
referring to the God of the Bible in the Athenian’s eyes, but Paul seizes the
opportunity to point them to the one True God through something that was
already familiar with them. And so begins Paul’s description about God and in
your minds, start to compare how his description differs from the Stoic’s and
Epicurean’s worldview.
Acts 17:24-26
24 The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and
earth, does not live in temples made by man, 25 nor is he served by human hands,
as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and
breath and everything. 26 And he made from one man every nation of mankind to
live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the
boundaries of their dwelling place,Gareth Reece, says in his commentary,
“As Paul spoke about temples made with hands, he could have pointed to the
Parthenon just to the east, and also to the temples of Apollo, Vulcan, Theseus,
and Ares. God does not live in buildings like these, Paul affirms.”
And so what the Athenians are beginning to see perhaps for the very first time, is
that this God that Paul is speaking about is bigger and grander and more
magnificent than anything they have ever seen or heard about. We do not leave
food on altars so that God can be sustained. He’s the one who sustains us. In
contrast to Greek Mythology where different deities created different human
beings, Paul affirms that we were all made by the same God through one man,
Adam. When it comes to the settling of lands in different parts of the world, I love
how Reece puts it,
“The different continents and islands have not, therefore, been settled by chance.
Nations have risen and waned – not because of chance, or because of survival of
the fittest – but because God’s hand was in it!”
And then Paul addresses what the greatest good in life is. It is not pleasure as the
Epicureans believed or apathy as the Stoics believed.
Acts 17:27
27 that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find
him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us,
Paul answers the very question that all of mankind has asked throughout its
history. What is our purpose, our aim, our goal? It is to seek God. And it is only in
God that we find our true meaning in life. And Paul makes it a point to include in
his sermon that God is not far off. And this would have been shocking to the
Epicureans who believed that any Supreme being or beings were far off. Every
single man made religion has man reaching up to God. Christianity is unique in
that it is the only one where God came down to us. He is not far from us.
And then Paul continues to preach and finds a way to meet the Athenians where
they were. I’m sure many of them thought at first, who is this guy? What gives himthe credentials to speak with such authority? And then Paul starts quoting
literature that many of them would be familiar with and so would dispel any kind
of doubt they had in their minds about him.
Acts 17:28
28 for
“‘In him we live and move and have our being’;
as even some of your own poets have said,
“‘For we are indeed his offspring.’
Paul is pulling quotes from poems written by secular sources, namely Epimenides
of Crete and Aratus. And thus we get a glimpse of the scope of Paul’s education.
And instead of this education pulling him away from God, Paul uses it to point
others to God.
Acts 17:29
29 Being then God's offspring, we ought not to think that the divine being is like
gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of man.
Paul’s argument goes like this. “Children resemble their parents. Since we are
God’s children, it is absurd to think that God is a stick or stone. You are not a stick
or stone, or gold, are you?”
Acts 17:30-31
30 The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people
everywhere to repent, 31 because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the
world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given
assurance to all by raising him from the dead.”
Repentance is not something the Epicurean or Stoic really spent time considering.
Afterall, they didn’t believe in an afterlife. They didn’t see how turning from theirsins had any real bearing on their present lives, at least beyond the scope of how
it affected others around them. In both schools of philosophy, each person was
their own master and there was no need to truly repent. And I will continue to
argue the point that Epicureanism and Stoicism is still alive and well to this day.
Today, I want to spend some time on this topic of repentance. I believe we live in a
time where Churches spend far too much time on grace and not enough time on
repentance. A Church being rooted in the Bible will always display a balance of
both. To repent, is to turn away from sin. It’s not just feeling sorry for your sin, but
one that results in action. One may have been subject to an alcohol addiction.
Repentance is turning from that addiction. It could be a drug addiction or a
pornography addiction. It doesn’t matter what it is, it is saying that these things
do not have a place in my life as I’m striving to live for God. And it doesn’t have to
be addiction. It can be gossip, or lying or stealing or cheating. Repentance is the
corresponding action out of a deep sorrow for the sins committed. Unfortunately,
a lot of Churches nowadays shy away from preaching anything that may result in
someone experiencing negative feelings or emotions about themselves. And what
ends up happening is we get shallow sermons and shallow converts which results
in shallow Christianity. Jesus didn’t die on a cross so I could continue to live in my
sin. He died so that my sin could die with him.
I was at a conference a couple years ago and I had the chance to hear Bob Russell
speak and he said something that will forever stay with me as I strive to be
obedient in God’s calling on my life to preach. He said this,
“We do not shout grace whisper repentance.”
Piano to play here.
There will be a day of judgment for every single one of us and that day is coming.
There’s not one thing that we could do to ever earn our salvation. But there is
salvation in Jesus through faith, repentance and baptism. Don’t wait until
tomorrow to give your life to Jesus. I don’t want for anyone to have waited too
long and reach hell only to then realize their mistake and they start begging,
“please, give me another chance,” because there will not be another one. Woe to
the person who had every chance in their short time on earth to give their life to
Jesus and didn’t take it.Paul is making this point really clear to the Athenians. Let’s look at the kind of
response he gets.
Acts 17:32-34
32 Now when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked. But
others said, “We will hear you again about this.” 33 So Paul went out from their
midst. 34 But some men joined him and believed, among whom also were
Dionysius the Areopagite and a woman named Damaris and others with them.
As I mentioned last week, the messenger of the gospel will always be a target for
ridicule. But, if just one person comes to faith in Jesus, anything that we will have
suffered at our own expense will be worth it. So whenever we find ourselves out
and about, have the kingdom on your mind. We will bump into other believers
and that’s great. We will also find those who do not know Jesus. While they are
still living and breathing, their eternity hangs in the balance. Will you say
something?