Now while Paul waited for them at Athens, his spirit was provoked within him when he saw that the city was given over to idols. Therefore he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and with the Gentile worshipers, and in the marketplace daily with those who happened to be there. (Acts 17:16-18)
In the previous lesson, we learned that ...when the Jews from Thessalonica learned that the word of God was preached by Paul at Berea, they came there also and stirred up the crowds. Then immediately the brethren sent Paul away, to go to the sea; but both Silas and Timothy remained there. So those who conducted Paul brought him to Athens; and receiving a command for Silas and Timothy to come to him with all speed, they departed. (Acts 17:13-15; see ACTS: Witness to Christ Jesus; the Scripture Supports the Message) So while Paul's waiting on Silas and Timothy to come to Athens, he's doing what he always does wherever he goes, preaching Christ Jesus.
No matter where we go or who we're around, God will give us opportunities to witness for Christ Jesus. We just have to care more about what God thinks and less about what the people around us may think. We've mentioned this before, but everyone everywhere is searching for something; they just need to hear the message of Christ Jesus, because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them. (Romans 1:19) Do we respond like Paul when we see our society given over to idols? Does our spirit become provoked within us? Or do we have the mind set that "It doesn't matter what other people believe"; "I believe the Truth and I'm fine, so I don't bother other people about what they believe"? Well, thank God His Holy Spirit didn't have the apostles feel that way, or we may not have heard and believed the Word of God either, which lead to our salvation.
Paul didn't just stay in the four walls of the synagogue, but he also went out in the marketplace daily with those who happened to be there. We can't always wait for the "world" to come to us, inside our safe worship buildings. We have to take the gospel message to them. Then certain Epicurean and Stoic philosophers encountered him. And some said, “What does this babbler want to say?” Others said, “He seems to be a proclaimer of foreign gods,” because he preached to them Jesus and the resurrection. And they took him and brought him to the Areopagus, saying, “May we know what this new doctrine is of which you speak? For you are bringing some strange things to our ears. Therefore we want to know what these things mean.” For all the Athenians and the foreigners who were there spent their time in nothing else but either to tell or to hear some new thing. (Acts 17:19-21)
Every society had and has their own group of "secular humanism's scientific empiricism and the New Age pantheistic type of postmodernism", like we have in our "post-Christian era". (read "Witness at Athens") In Athens, they were the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers. "Epicureans, atomic materialists, viewed reality as an endless chance combining and dispersion of atoms. They would find the concept of bodily resurrection laughable. The Stoics, materialist pantheists, identified the divine as the principle of reason pervading all and, in the form of fate, governing all. Because of either their cyclic eschatology (belief that there were periodic conflagrations of the universe after which history simply repeated itself) or their later adoption of the Platonic concept of the soul's immortality, they could not conceive of resurrection."
No matter where we go or who we're around, God will give us opportunities to witness for Christ Jesus. We just have to care more about what God thinks and less about what the people around us may think. We've mentioned this before, but everyone everywhere is searching for something; they just need to hear the message of Christ Jesus, because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them. (Romans 1:19) Do we respond like Paul when we see our society given over to idols? Does our spirit become provoked within us? Or do we have the mind set that "It doesn't matter what other people believe"; "I believe the Truth and I'm fine, so I don't bother other people about what they believe"? Well, thank God His Holy Spirit didn't have the apostles feel that way, or we may not have heard and believed the Word of God either, which lead to our salvation.
Paul didn't just stay in the four walls of the synagogue, but he also went out in the marketplace daily with those who happened to be there. We can't always wait for the "world" to come to us, inside our safe worship buildings. We have to take the gospel message to them. Then certain Epicurean and Stoic philosophers encountered him. And some said, “What does this babbler want to say?” Others said, “He seems to be a proclaimer of foreign gods,” because he preached to them Jesus and the resurrection. And they took him and brought him to the Areopagus, saying, “May we know what this new doctrine is of which you speak? For you are bringing some strange things to our ears. Therefore we want to know what these things mean.” For all the Athenians and the foreigners who were there spent their time in nothing else but either to tell or to hear some new thing. (Acts 17:19-21)
Every society had and has their own group of "secular humanism's scientific empiricism and the New Age pantheistic type of postmodernism", like we have in our "post-Christian era". (read "Witness at Athens") In Athens, they were the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers. "Epicureans, atomic materialists, viewed reality as an endless chance combining and dispersion of atoms. They would find the concept of bodily resurrection laughable. The Stoics, materialist pantheists, identified the divine as the principle of reason pervading all and, in the form of fate, governing all. Because of either their cyclic eschatology (belief that there were periodic conflagrations of the universe after which history simply repeated itself) or their later adoption of the Platonic concept of the soul's immortality, they could not conceive of resurrection."
They took Paul to the "Areopagus, Athens's chief legislative and judicial council. This body licensed traveling lecturers, and Paul's hearers want to see whether he should be given freedom to continue to teach. They want to understand this new teaching, for some strange (rather, "surprising, astounding") ideas are coming to their ears." It's always encouraging when people are willing to hear what we have to say, even if they don't quite understand or agree with our message. When we have these opportunities, we need to make sure we can take full advantage of them, by knowing how to communicate clearly to whomever we're witnessing to the gospel message, Christ Jesus.
As Paul will explain in a future lesson about his teaching style, "And I, brethren, when I came to you, did not come with excellence of speech or of wisdom declaring to you the testimony of God. For I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. I was with you in weakness, in fear, and in much trembling. And my speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith should not be in the wisdom of men but in the power of God." (I Corinthians 2:1-5)
So, now Paul was at the Areopagus, among all the "thinkers" of Athens, and how did he address them? Then Paul stood in the midst of the Areopagus and said, “Men of Athens, I perceive that in all things you are very religious; for as I was passing through and considering the objects of your worship, I even found an altar with this inscription:
TO THE UNKNOWN GOD.
Therefore, the One whom you worship without knowing, Him I proclaim to you: “God, who made the world and everything in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands. Nor is He worshiped with men’s hands, as though He needed anything, since He gives to all life, breath, and all things. (Acts 17:22-25)
"And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings, so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; for in Him we live and move and have our being, as also some of your own poets have said, ‘For we are also His offspring.’ (Acts 17:26-28)
"Therefore, since we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold or silver or stone, something shaped by art and man’s devising. Truly, these times of ignorance God overlooked, but now commands all men everywhere to repent, because He has appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by the Man whom He has ordained. He has given assurance of this to all by raising Him from the dead.” (Acts 17:29-31)
And that's the gospel message, given in a different form, based on the hearers, but the message is the same, and always concludes with Christ Jesus, who God raised from the dead. Of all the religions in the world past and present, none had or have a god or prophet that has ever claimed to be perfect, without sin, died for the sins of all people, and risen from the dead. Christianity is the only belief or faith that serves a Living God! People need to hear the Truth, Seeing then that we have a great High Priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. (Hebrews 4:14-15)
And when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked, while others said, “We will hear you again on this matter.” So Paul departed from among them. However, some men joined him and believed, among them Dionysius the Areopagite, a woman named Damaris, and others with them. (Acts 17:32-34) All hear the same message, but only a few believe. That's how it's always been and that's how it always will be. Jesus said, “Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it." (Matthew 7:13-14) Let's be sure we're one of the few who believe in Christ Jesus and receive eternal life, and that we lead a few others to life everlasting also!
"And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings, so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; for in Him we live and move and have our being, as also some of your own poets have said, ‘For we are also His offspring.’ (Acts 17:26-28)
"Therefore, since we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold or silver or stone, something shaped by art and man’s devising. Truly, these times of ignorance God overlooked, but now commands all men everywhere to repent, because He has appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by the Man whom He has ordained. He has given assurance of this to all by raising Him from the dead.” (Acts 17:29-31)
And that's the gospel message, given in a different form, based on the hearers, but the message is the same, and always concludes with Christ Jesus, who God raised from the dead. Of all the religions in the world past and present, none had or have a god or prophet that has ever claimed to be perfect, without sin, died for the sins of all people, and risen from the dead. Christianity is the only belief or faith that serves a Living God! People need to hear the Truth, Seeing then that we have a great High Priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. (Hebrews 4:14-15)
And when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked, while others said, “We will hear you again on this matter.” So Paul departed from among them. However, some men joined him and believed, among them Dionysius the Areopagite, a woman named Damaris, and others with them. (Acts 17:32-34) All hear the same message, but only a few believe. That's how it's always been and that's how it always will be. Jesus said, “Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it." (Matthew 7:13-14) Let's be sure we're one of the few who believe in Christ Jesus and receive eternal life, and that we lead a few others to life everlasting also!
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