32When they heard about the resurrection of the dead, some of them sneered, but others said, “We want to hear you again on this subject.” 33At that, Paul left the Council. 34A few men became followers of Paul and believed. Among them was Dionysius, a member of the Areopagus, also a woman named Damaris, and a number of others. (Acts 17:16-34)
Now let me review the events that led up to today’s passage: Paul had been with Timothy and Silas and had been preaching the gospel in Thessalonica. When some of the Jews there became jealous and stirred up trouble, the brothers (the ones who had accepted the gospel) sent them away to Berea where Paul again was preaching the gospel. Many believed. (You remember that the Bereans were of more noble character and received the message with great eagerness. They searched the scriptures to verify that what Paul was preaching was so.) But when the Jews who had made trouble in Thessalonica heard that Paul was preaching in Berea, they came there, too, and began stirring up trouble again. (It seems that trouble makers never want to give up. It was about 50 miles from Thessalonica to Berea. Why weren’t they happy just to have Paul out of Thessalonica? The devil doesn’t give up. But, praise the Lord who limits what he can do. It must be frustrating for him.) In any case, the brothers in Berea decided to send Paul on to Athens alone. Timothy and Silas stayed behind in Berea. And that brings us up to today’s passage.
When Paul arrived at Athens (according to verse 16), he was greatly distressed to find that the place was full of idols. (This must have been quite a bit worse than other places he had been to to preach. There was idol worship in all of those places, too.) I have a question: Why is there idolatry. Why do people worship idols? What do you think?
Well, one answer is the classic, “There’s a God shaped hole in everybody and everybody is trying to fill it.” And I think that may be a good way of putting it. But really, people (we, that is) realize deep down inside (in spite of what we may express outwardly) that we are ultimately powerless when it comes to controlling our own lives. We want some outside power that we can appeal to to get things to go the way we want them to go. The people in Athens made idols in the hope that they could have access to some supernatural power, some spirit being or lesser god represented by the idol. They hoped that they could manipulate that power into making what they wanted to happen, happen. Do we do that? What do you think?
Well, most of us around here haven’t actually made idols and bowed down and worshipped them, brought our requests to them and tried to manipulate them into doing what we wanted (although it’s certainly done extensively in other parts of the world). But people in this country do seek help from spirit guides and try to manipulate spiritual powers by performing certain rituals—witchcraft, for example. It really is done in this country. (And, by the way, these spiritual powers really exist...and they would definitely like you to think that they can be controlled and manipulated. But they can’t be. They just want us to believe that we can control them. But there is someone who can control them. That someone is God! And he can and does give authority over them to those who trust him.)
(You know, I said we don’t make idols or bow down to them around—we referring to people in the United States. But back in the ‘80’s when we used to go to campus and witness to people and invite them to Bible study, I saw a bunch of people standing before trees and bowing to them. I thought it was kid of strange. I asked one of them, a girl, what she was doing. I can’t remember what she said, but an older woman came over and questioned me about what I wanted. Apparently it was some kind of class. Apparently they were being taught to worship trees.)
Anyway, there is a broader meaning to idolatry than simply making a statue and worshipping it. Covetousness is idolatry. Paul (or, actually, God’s Holy Spirit speaking through Paul) says so. Covetousness is idolatry. (Colossians 3:5, Ephesians 5:5 –the NIV says greed but all the other translations I looked at say covet.) Covetousness is wanting something that someone else has and God is not letting you have it (although you are probably not thinking that it’s God that’s not letting you have it). It’s all around us isn’t it—covetousness? Ads on TV and other places appeal to it. We have it in our own hearts, too. But we need to get rid of it and trust God. Covetousness is idolatry...and, in fact, anything that you put ahead of God is idolatry!
I’ll tell you another thing that I think is idolatry. The biggest percentage of our population is treating the government as a god. We can manipulate the government into giving us what we want by campaigning, by voting, by demonstrating, by making campaign contributions and in various other ways. We want the government to give us money, security and freedom to sin, among other things. (I won’t go into more detail, but you can probably make a long list of the other things in your mind.) What do you suppose the people who were worshipping idols in Athens were trying to get from the idols? The same thing we try to get from our ‘idols’.
Verse 17 (to go on) says that Paul did his usual thing. He went to the synagogue where the people would have known about God. It says that he reasoned with them. I’m sure he proclaimed the message of the gospel. But I wonder if he didn’t also rebuke them because they were not distressed about all the idolatry that was going on around them. How concerned are we about what is going on all around us?
Verse 17 and verse 18 go on to say that Paul also preached in the market place day by day and that a group of Epicurean and Stoic philosophers began to argue with him. I thought I had an idea what Epicureans and Stoics believed. But I looked them up and found that I didn’t have it quite right.
We talk about food as being ‘an Epicureans delight’. It makes it sound like Epicureans were gourmets—maybe hedonists who sought after sensual pleasures—eat drink and be merry, and so forth. But that’s not quite right.
The Epicureans, first of all were materialists. They didn’t believe in anything supernatural. They also taught that the greatest good was freedom from pain and from fear—that those were the things that should be sought after. But they believed in moderation. If you indulged in something too much, what if it were to be taken away? ...or what if you became tired of it?
And for stoicism, I had believed that it meant suffering greatly without complaining or something like that—enduring something stoically. That’s the way we use it today. But that wasn’t quite right either. (The word Stoic, by the way come from the Greek word stoa which means porch or colonnade. Zeno, the founder of stoicism taught from the ‘painted porch’ which was a colonnade painted with murals.)
The Stoics, unlike the Epicureans, did believe in the super natural. They were pantheistic monotheists. What does that mean (anyone)? It means that they believed that there was one god and that that god was the universe—that is, that all of what we call creation was not created by God but was itself God. The Stoics taught that people have free will and that the greatest virtue was to have a will that was in agreement with Nature—that is, in agreement with god. If you were to do this, you would be happy in every situation, whether good or bad. (My idea had been that if you were stoical, you would not complain whether you were happy or not.)
Now I want to quote something the apostle Paul said. This is from Philippians 4:12. Here’s what he said: “I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want.” Sounds a lot like the stoics, doesn’t it? But now let me quote from Philippians 4:13. Paul goes on to say, “I can do everything through him who gives me strength.” The Stoics had the wrong god. Their god was the impersonal god which was the universe itself. Paul’s God was the God who made the universe and everything in it—who made us and who loves us and who sent his one and only Son to suffer and die for us. Big difference!
Now let me read verses 18 through 21:
18A group of Epicurean and Stoic philosophers began to dispute with him. Some of them asked, “What is this babbler trying to say?” Others remarked, “He seems to be advocating foreign gods.” They said this because Paul was preaching the good news about Jesus and the resurrection. 19Then they took him and brought him to a meeting of the Areopagus, where they said to him, “May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? 20You are bringing some strange ideas to our ears, and we want to know what they mean.” 21(All the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there spent their time doing nothing but talking about and listening to the latest ideas.) (Acts 17:18-21)
The Epicureans and Stoics loved to argue and they loved to have discussions. All the people of Athens loved to, too. Whenever they heard of some new idea, they wanted to find out about it and to talk about it. The Areopagus was a council that had the responsibility for judging moral questions and the rights of teachers to proclaim various teachings. (The Areopagus was named after ‘Mars Hill’ which was the place where the coucil met.) Paul appeared to be proclaiming some new god, so they took him to a meeting of the Areopagus.
Now let’s look at verses 22 and 23:
22Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: “Men of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. 23For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: to an unknown god. Now what you worship as something unknown I am going to proclaim to you. (Acts 17:22, 23)
Paul started out by noting that they were very ‘religious’. I’m not sure what he meant by that, but I looked up the word that’s translated religious. (Verse 22 is the only place it occurs in the Bible.) It said that in the good sense it meant very pious or very religious. But in the bad sense it meant superstitious. (The King James translates it as too superstitious.) After Paul noted that they were ‘very religious’, he went on to say that he had come across an altar to the unknown God. He said that he was going to tell them about what they were worshipping in ignorance. (How many of them do you suppose actually made sacrifices to the unknown god or prayed to him?)
You know, when I was young—early teenage years—one of my favorite things was to go out into the woods at night and build a fire and sit around it with my friends and speculate about philosophical things. (We probably also talked about sex.)
And when I was in collage, it was a known fact that when a bunch of guys got together, the topic of the conversation was always religion (and also sex). But, you know what, it was all speculation. I don’t remember that anyone actually knew or brought up what God had to say about religion (or about sex either, for that matter). We never checked the Bible.
Well, you can speculate until you are blue in the face. You can make up your own religion. (L. Ron Hubbard did it and got rich.) You can say this is what I believe. (I hear the Oprah does it all the time.) One person can say, “I believe this,” and someone else can say, “I believe something different.” They can’t all be right. There can be only one truth. There can’t be conflicting truths! We need to check and see what the One who made all things has to say about his own creation. We need absolute truth. Read your Bible!
Well these Epicureans and Stoics had speculated plenty about the nature of God and of the universe. They may have had some things right. Remember how close what the Stoics taught was to what Paul had said in Philippians. But no matter how much they speculated, the God of creation was an unknown God to them and they were miles from the truth. Paul was going to make known to them the ‘Unknown God’.
Let’s look at verses 24 and 25:
24 “The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands. 25And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else. (Acts 17:24, 25)
Who is God? He is the maker of everything! Does he need anything? Does he need to be served? No! He is the one who gives everything—including our lives! We exist by his will! We continue to exist by his will. We are not here by random chance! Think about it! We are really dependent upon God’s mercy moment by moment and in every way!
Now let’s look at verses 26, 27 and 28:
26From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. 27God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. 28 ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’ (Acts 17:26-28)
God planned things in advance. He determined what nations would exist (including his nation of Israel and this nation, United States. He set boundaries for each of the nations. (The NIV says he “determined the exact placed where they should live”, but it’s literally “he set boundaries for them”. That’s what the other translations say.) But I believe that God not only planned the nations, but also, at least in some cases, individual people. There’s evidence for that elsewhere in the Bible.
Why did God plan these things? So that people would seek him and reach out for him.
I want you to first of all think about God’s creation. This is supposed to be a fallen creation. God cursed the ground and death came into the world. But, nevertheless, think about how intricately and perfectly everything fits together even now.
I’m a scientist. God’s creation probably looks even more spectacular to me than to most people. There are atoms and molecules and sub-atomic particles all fitting together perfectly and governed in minute detail by physical laws that God put into place. Life is encoded into DNA molecules that are too tiny to see with the naked eye—the blueprint, so to speak, for our physical bodies. It’s unbelievable. And in spite of the fact that evolutionists say that it came about by random chance, real scientists say that it’s in fact impossible, for these things to have come about by random chance. It was God who made the heavens and the earth—and it was he who made life.
Let me ask you something. Have you ever created anything yourself—something that turned out pretty much just the way you wanted it to be—maybe a garden—maybe some work of art. (For me, a garden wouldn’t be a very good example.) Would you want your creation to be harmed or destroyed? Would you not protect it?
Well, God created the heavens and the earth and all the living things—and he created us. Everything turned out just the way he wanted it to. He declared it all to be very good. Don’t you think he loves us? He doesn’t want any of us to perish, but all to come to repentance. (2 Peter 3:9) He wants us to seek him and to reach out for him although we don’t have to reach very much. He’s not far away. (That means he’s very near.) In fact, we are God’s offspring—his children. Do you want you children to perish? God doesn’t want any of us to perish either. (I know that we have to believe to really be God’s children. Offspring is a different word. It means descended from or of the same family. But Paul is using this analogy to show that God loves all that he has created.)
Verse 29 says, “Therefore since we are God’s offspring, we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone—an image made by man’s design and skill.” Well, do you want to think that you are descended from something that someone else made out of stone? I don’t either!
Now let’s look at verses 30 and 31:
30In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. 31For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to all men by raising him from the dead.” (Acts 17:30, 31)
This is the end of Paul’s message to the Areopagus. God made us. We are absolutely dependent upon him from moment to moment. He loves us and doesn’t want any of us to perish. But there is a judgment. The entire world will be judged. Those who don’t repent will perish. And, by the way, what does the word repent mean? (I’m talking about the Greek word that’s translated repent.) It means to change the way you think—to change your mindset. Sometime we speak of our worldview. You have to change your worldview. Think about the Epicureans and Stoics. The Epicureans thought (or at least taught) that there was no God or anything supernatural—only the physical universe. How could they reach out for something that didn’t exist? The Stoics taught that the universe itself was an impersonal god. How could they reach out for the living God if they thought that? They needed to repent—to change their thinking—to change their worldview! (By the way, there’s a worldview that says God overlooks sin. We need to repent of that, too. He doesn’t!)
Paul ended his message with a warning of judgment. He said that the judge had been appointed and the proof that he was the judge was that he rose from the dead. That’s all he said to them. Apparently that’s all the Holy Spirit had for him to say. (No altar call!)
Now let’s look at the rest of the passage. I’ll read it:
32When they heard about the resurrection of the dead, some of them sneered, but others said, “We want to hear you again on this subject.” 33At that, Paul left the Council. 34A few men became followers of Paul and believed. Among them was Dionysius, a member of the Areopagus, also a woman named Damaris, and a number of others. (Acts 17:16-34)
Some of them sneered when Paul spoke of the resurrection of the dead. Those were most likely the Epicureans, the materialists. (But maybe some of them repented.) Anyway, the ones who weren’t reaching out for God were weeded out. Others said they wanted to hear more. The fact that some rejected what Paul said gave him the opportunity of talking to the others alone. Paul had talked about judgment, but said nothing about the good news. He had given the bad news. Now he had the opportunity to give the good news to those who were interested. A few believed. One was a member of the Areopagus. And again Luke (the human author of Acts) thought it was important to mention that one of the believers was a woman. He gave her name, Damaris.
Well, do you think it was worthwhile for Paul to spend days preaching and debating when only a few believed? After all, 3,000 believed when Peter preached on the Day of Pentecost. What do you think? Here’s what I think. God is not willing for any to perish, but wants all to come to repentance. We need to not be willing for any to perish either. Praise the Lord! Amen!
[Prayer]