Paul in Athens :: A Case Study in Winsome Witness
Morning. So good to worship with you and to be here. And particularly this passage of scripture that Josh assigned me to is first time Josh ever assigned me to a passage of scripture. Somebody died in it. Acts chapter five, 13 years ago. Something like that, and anyway nobody dies in this one as far as we know.
So I, it, we're on an upward trajectory here. We've been following Paul along on his missionary journeys, and as he is driven by the power of a greater affection. Paul is driven by the power of a greater affection and that love. Has driven out fear for him. So Paul is faithful and fear less he confronts his culture head on.
And whether that culture is his kind of community that he grew up in. Hellenistic Judaism or Rabbinic Judaism. Or whether increasingly as an Orthodox Jew, he has been exposed to a Gentile and pagan worldview, and Paul just goes for it. He has no anxiety, no fear. He drives hard after the heart of God because he himself any day after having gotten knocked off your horse.
you wake up on the top side of the grass, that's a good day for you. And Paul is just driven by that awareness that he is on borrowed time. He has literally nothing better to do. , then follow the love of God as it bleeds out for the world into whom he and to which he is sent. So he just goes and he pulls no punches.
He is not deliberately offensive, but no surprise there are people who are offended by the gospel. Paul is not interested in just ticking people off, but he doesn't mind ticking people. . He finds himself in the crosshairs regularly of people who are animated, not by love, but by fear. Let's be clear.
They don't hate Paul. They're terrified of him. And often, like love drives out fear sometimes fear drives out love, and we misread it as. It's not hate, it's terror. People are afraid of what might be the case if Paul's theology of love is ac. By the way, we've faced the same thing today, do we not? So this passage of scripture is really germane.
It's a turn. He has spent three weeks. in Nikka and planted a far as we can tell, a thriving church that has minor theological concerns about eschatology, which it's just like really three weeks and a vibrant church plant occurs. How long you guys been working on Canopy? Here longer than three weeks, I'm thinking.
But here, Paul, three weeks in, and then the first Thessalonians is the first letter we have of the, in the New Testament, probably written shortly after this period, maybe right around this time is they have some questions. That bubble up in their theology, he goes to Bura he leaves Fessel, Nikka under cover of darkness because people are threatening him.
He goes to Bura and rather than keeping silent, he speaks and there finds a more welcoming environment. But some of the folks from Fessel and Nikica are so exercise that they chase him down to Beria and. Spreading rumors about him, and they get a little bit of traction on the local d TMZ zone and a way he has to leave undercover of darkness again.
A couple of his friends, Timothy and Silas are left in Beretta, manage things, and Paul is supposed to go to Athens and just wait for. But Paul is not good at waiting. So here we are. We pick up the story in Acts chapter 17, verse 16. While Paul was waiting for them at Athens, his spirit was being provoked within him as he was observing the city full of idols.
He was reasoning in the synagogue with the Jews and the God-fearing gentiles, and then in the marketplace every day with those who happened to be present. Now, some of the epi, curion, and stoic philosophers were conversing with him. Some were saying, What would this idol, Babbler wish to say? Others? He seems to be a proclaimer of strange deities because he was preaching about Jesus and the resu.
and they took him and brought him into the areopagus saying, May we know what this new teaching is, which you are proclaiming for. You are bringing some strange things to our ears. We wanna know what these things mean because all the Athenians and the strangers visiting there used to spend their time in nothing other than telling or hearing something new.
Paul stood in the midst of the Areopagus and said, Men of Athens. I observed that you are very religious in all respects. For while I was passing through and examining the objects of your worship, I found an altar with this inscription to an unknown God. Therefore, what you worship in ignorance, this I proclaimed to you, the God who made the world.
And all things in it. Since he is the Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands, he's not served by human hands as though he needed anything. Since he himself gives to all people life and breath and all things. He made from one man every nation of mankind to live on the face of the earth, having determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their habitation that they would seek.
God if perhaps they might grope for him and find him. Though he is not really far off from any one of us in him, we live and move and exist even as some of your own prophets have said, We are his children. Then, Because we are the children of God, we ought not think that the divine nature is like gold or silver or stone.
An image formed by the art and thought of man. Now having overlooked the times of ignorance, God is now declaring to men that all people everywhere should repent because he has fixed a. in which he will judge the world in righteousness through a man whom he is appointed and has proved his right to adjudicate by raising him from the dead.
I love this passage and I love the preacher of this passage. I grew up not liking Paul very. Anybody else. I love Jesus, but Paul just annoys me. He just seems so arrogant and assertive when he writes those letters, and the longer I've studied him, the more I realize here's a guy who has just fall fallen so deeply in love with Jesus that he can't understand why everybody doesn't love him the way he does.
And so he just goes after it. And this passage, I love the, He's supposed to be waiting for them in a. Athens is a city that has been largely inhabited for close to 5,000 years As of this state, it's been, it's an ancient city and it rose to prominence about 150, 200 years prior to this.
Encounter and has now as a result of the Roman occupation and the decline of hellenism has fallen into a bit of disrepair and disregard. But nobody thought to tell the Athenians that they thought they were still all that in a bag of chips. They thought that they, because they, this is, you want to talk whatever Western democracy might look like.
This is where it. Philosophy, if you've ever studied Plato Aristotle, this is Athens. This is no slouch in terms of its 5,000 plus year influence on the history of the world, and they are riding that wave of their positional power and are fairly proud of. Position as such. So when Paul goes to this city, he is.
He is entranced with the multiplicity. You can go and see many of the sites that Paul saw. You can see them today. The areopagus the marketplace, the temples of varying kinds. And Paul is just overwhelmed with how many bets they have placed, hoping that one of them will land. How many balls can you put in a roulette wheel and hope that something will land on a number that will pay you off?
This is how they don't wanna offend any God, so they build temples to all of them. And. Consider themselves to be wise in that, just in case. So Paul is walking this city and he is disturbed in his spirit. It's a strong word that the Greek text uses here. He's not angry, he's heartbroken that here, these brilliant people PhDs in anything you can possibly.
Are so ignorant of the one thing that would make sense of the rest of their learning. He is not fearful. He believes that his truth that is relational in Jesus can take on all comers without apology. Christianity does not need to apologize in the marketplace of. We are not ignorant, we are not uninformed, we are differently informed.
We are not irrational, we are trans rational. And so Paul takes this idea, takes this language, takes this passion that he has experienced. By the way, this is so critical cuz we, when we face our culture today, and you could, we could go down a list of cultural things that we think, what's the word I'm.
What do you think when you step on it? It blows up landmine. Anybody know that represents our culture today? There are tons of things we could talk about, especially over the last three years. We have invented stuff to blow ourselves up with. Would that be fair to say? It's Come on.
Is there any other way we could possibly divide ourselves from. And Paul is just wandering into this minefield with his big old CLA hopper stepping on anything, and he is not at all worried that he's gonna get blown out of the water. He's just not, because the power of love, not fear, not anger, not I demand my rights.
None of that motivates him. He just doesn't care. About so many of the things that these people care about because he cares about the one who cares for him and knows that same one cares for them equally and with his much passion and fervor. So he is stirred in his. And does what he can do.
He goes into the synagogues as a visiting rabbi and earns the right to speak, and he speaks and he goes into the marketplace. Athens was famous, as you read in here for people. You could just set up a soapbox anywhere you wanted. If you've ever been to Britain, you've maybe gone to Hyde Park and there's a Hyde Park corner.
Multiply that by a hundred, and you have. Anybody could just stand up and see if they could gather a crowd. And Paul was a brilliant orator. He was well trained by his Rabbi Gaal. And we're gonna see a side of Paul in his speech here that some people think is so different from the Paul we see in other places.
Corinth, for example, that it couldn't possibly be Pauline. It doesn't occur to. Perhaps that Paul was smart enough to speak two different kinds of language, but I think he is, because this is so true to the message that he brings in varying other places, even though the way he phrases it is different. I'm sorry.
I'm really excited about this. Are you guys okay? All right. Sorry, I'm watching. I'm watching. It's. So I'll try and calm down. But anyway so here he is and he's dealing with two primary groups. The Epicurious and the stoic philosophers are the leading, and these are two opposing camps.
The stoics are, as you can imagine, rigidly, self-controlled, highly disciplined. Honor is of the highest value. The Epicurus is, Hey, let's have fun. It's party. Life is meant to be lived. Pleasure is meant to be pursued. So on the Epicurious and the stoics, Republicans, Democrat, as far as you can go, apart that and everybody in between.
You with me? So by the way, I wasn't intending to equate one party with Aurion and the other, with stoicism. So work with me here. The these guys are curious by his passion, by the words that he speaks. Because Jesus is preaching Christ crucified and raised from the dead.
That'll get you airtime race from the. What? There's a curiosity. Paul is not stupid. He is gonna put out the breadcrumbs and invite them into a deeper conversation. In his public speaking, he's not standing on his soapbox saying, Y'all are going to hell. Why? Because that's not likely to attract many people.
Paul is interested in love, not fear being drawing people to Jesus. With me, this is really important because his strategy is to invite them into the same love affair that He's not very interested in getting them to believe certain things. He wants them to fall in love first. Love will straighten out Belief.
As you pursue, do you see what he's after? And so there's this curiosity. We you're saying stuff now. Some of them are thinking he's a nutcase. I love this picker of scraps. It's a technical terms, meaning people who have just cobbled together a philosophy to get them airtime. We're just saying stuff.
And you'll notice that Paul has no interest at all in defending himself. He doesn. Pull out his CV and show them how smart he is. He doesn't try and annihilate them with the brilliance of his arguments. He doesn't care really what people think of him. As long as they are willing to engage and he knows he's not gonna get everybody, that's not his concern.
But when they say, Will you come to us in the Areopagus? Okay, now here we have a more formal exploration of the. Of Athens, they bring him into this formal place still exists today. Both the marketplace, the ara, in which Paul would have these conversations in the Areopagus, in which there is now a kind of a formal approach where a single speaker would stand and deliver his message and then be at, questioned by the sitting philosoph.
Wouldn't it be nice to have an entire city devoted to nothing but the pursuit of ideas with nothing better to do? Paul is not interested in that. Paul knows that truth means action, not discussion. And here is a people who have been trained by their arrogant intelligence. The reason I can say that is because I see myself in that mirror.
It is much easier to talk about ideas than to start to walk them out. Paul is not interested in that. That's why by the way, he doesn't push back against their ridicule of his ideas. It's James all over again. You show me your faith. You show me what you believe. What you say, and I'll show you what I believe by what I do.
Christianity, the truth of Christianity is not first ideas, it's first lifestyle. Jesus is the way, the truth. Please notice the connection. He's the way to a life that is shaped around. Truth is, it's not some objective set of data points. Truth is a relational category. So you'll notice where he goes with this.
He stands up in the areopagus, not responding to their ridicule and says, I observed that you guys are very religious in all kinds of ways. This isn't a compliment, it's just an observation. You people have, you have idols to cover all the ex eig. You've got your bases covered.
And so he leans in here and leverages that connection to his jumping on. I see you even have a God to a, an idol, to a, an altar, to an unknown God, just in case you missed one. Now in all likelihood, What had happened was that this was an idol or an altar to a known God, but over the last three or 400 years with the Romans and with the warfare and whatnot, it had gotten knocked off its pedestal, and they lost the ascription inscription.
They didn't know who this God was, so they just covered their bases. We don't want to offend any. By allowing him or her to remain anonymous. So we're gonna rebuild the altar and we'll just hope fingers cross to an unknown. God covers it. Paul knows this, but he decides to leverage it for a point of entry into the conversation.
I hope you're listening cuz this is how Apologetics works. When you're in a conversation with somebody at Starbucks, it's not, Here's my elevator speech. It's what concerns you. It's what questions are you asking? It's what's happening in your life. Not here's my one size fits all. It's a gospel tailor made.
to the life that you are currently struggling to live. You see what he's doing. You got this altered to an unknown God. I want tell you about him, if that's all right with y'all. Paul's from Southern Damascus, so sorry. Anyway so here he is and he's leading in here and I just love this understanding that Paul.
We'll put Jesus up against Aristotle. He'll put Jesus up against Plato. He'll put Jesus up against any and all of the philosophers of the age. He will put Jesus up against anyone, anytime, anywhere. He has nothing to prove. There is not an ounce of defensiveness in him. There is no anger motivating. It's just compass.
That is driving his conversation with these people, and he wants them to know what they worship in ignorance. I proclaim to you, I'm inviting you into this love affair. And then he goes on the God who made us, who made the world and all things in it. He just goes. He's standing on the foundation of his rabbinic training.
He's standing on his awareness. And by the way, this was not unknown throughout the Hellenistic world. So Athens would he is leveraging knowledge that they would have had some awareness of, How did you think we got here? You people have all kinds of gods. to whom you have assigned varying responsibilities.
This has always been from the exodus of Chapters 5 67, the Book of Exodus. Always God has been taking on the pretender gods that people have manufactured to manage their insecurities and fears always that by the way, we still manufacture gods to manage our insecurities and fears. Do. Jesus gonna take them on too.
Just a word of warning. Our favorite God is mammon. We don't call it that. We call it security. Okay. So he's leaning in with these things and he says, The God who made the world and everything in it, Do you really think he needs your beautiful temples with all of the marble arch?
He doesn't live anywhere. You're the point God tried to make through the prophets to Israel. You really think If I were hungry, I would ask you for a cheeseburger. You really think I eat the bulls that you sacrifice. That's not for me. That's for you. That's what's cuz. Cuz what ends up happening is he gives us a way in and then we find a way to idolize the way that he's given us.
He's given us a sign and then we find a way to worship the sign. We don't get beyond the sign, we get stuck on it. Does this speak to some of our church practices? The things that are supposed to be foundational? Do we be defended all costs? It's come on. Do you really think God is as small as your worship of him?
Say that again. Yeah. Do you really think God is as small as your worship of him? Really? That's why we need to. Blowing up worship on a regular basis, chasing after the God who is bigger than our imagination of him. So Paul is just inviting them to a grander imagine cuz. Cuz what happens when you get your god's all on the line, then you think you've got life nailed until something happens. And then what do you. What did I do wrong? What do I need to do, right? So that bad thing that happened to me doesn't happen anymore. How can I manage life so nothing occurs? And so the, all of ducks are in a row, but yeah, it's not big enough for my life.
Cuz here's the problem. If you have a life that you can control with, the gods you have made in your own. Your life is tiny and will get smaller. Here's the problem. You're created to be part of the image of God who is currently expanding on 186,282 miles per second. If your life isn't expanding that fast, you're not gonna keep up.
you're following the math. Let there be. Light is not a one and done. It's an ongoing act of creation. Currently expanding out from the center at 186,200 and something odd miles per second. As the universe expands. Anybody else just gotten blown away by the web telescope images? Hello, And my heart just sings with a God who can speak that into being the sun, the moon, the stars, the works of his fingers.
What if he put his back into it? . He's not like trying really hard here and Paul is just saying, Your tiny little gods, aren't they cute? Don't they just give you this warm fuzzy feeling like Linus is blanket and are actually useless to deal with the power of the life that you are called to?
They're useless for the magnificence that God is speaking into you and calling you into your life is built for eternity, and you think he can be contained and visited on the weekends and pat you on the set and say, Have a nice week. You don't need a God like that. Good news. You don't have a God So he invites them into this awareness because he says, Here's what happens.
You build all these signposts and then you still grope as if you're in the dark. Here's the problem, the reason you can't see God, the reason you can't feel God is cuz it's your eyes through which he is looking. It's your. With which he is beating. He's not far from you. He is so close to you that if you turn around fast, you're gonna bump into him.
He is near you. Here's how this works, boys and girls. You live and move and have your existence in him.
Oh. We ought to walk out of this place today. Heads held high with an awareness of in whom we live and move and have our being with a love that enables us to look at the brokenness of our world, not with fear or anger, but with. It sends us into this world. We don't think Paul says that the human nature, the divine nature is represented by gold and silver.
You're it. You're the image of God. That's why the second word is don't have any graven images. That's not to protect God's reputation. That's about you. Grave images are useless cuz you are the image. And so he sends us into this world and says, Now look, he has been really patient with y'all, but now with Jesus validated by resurrection, the clock is ticking.
It's time to get your act together. Paul's technical term for that is repent. That's what it means. Repent isn't about feeling bad about something for long enough until you can feel okay about feeling okay. Again. Repentance is you've been given new information. Don't live as if it weren't true the truth.
You are precious, beloved chosen sons and daughters of the most high God. You live and move and have your very existence in him. Don't live as if it weren't.
And the deep and powerful truth for me in this passage is the awareness that this is how we engage our world. This is how we engage our world. What would happen if this community, which currently by my rough count numbers, four or five times the size of the original, Went viral with the love of God for Costa Mesa.
Do you think that might make a difference? Now, if God is our nice little box that we visit on Sunday mornings and we sing his favorite songs, you're a good father. Yes you are. Hope you feel better about yourself. That's not gonna make any difference. Will we become angry and afraid, but if we recognize our worship intends us to align with a reality that reshapes how we parent, how we manage our singleness or our marriage, how we handle our sexuality, that drives how we manage our money.
Cuz here's the problem with the God you can't visit in his nice little box, but rather one in whom you live and move and have your exist. He gets to control everything. He gets to have say over everything. And this is Paul's passion. He's just and I love how this ends now, when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some ridiculed, Paul is not bothered.
He knows he's paid attention to Jesus. When the seed is sewn, some are gonna respond and some. He's not concerned if you will, with those who don't respond. He's concerned with those who do, and this will happen to you too. Not everybody in your community will get it. That's okay. It's not your business.
You don't have to get angry. You just keep loving. Remember, Jesus told us this is how we're supposed to do it. I want you to go wherever it is you're going, and I want you to soak people. In the nature and character of the father, son, and spirit so that they can help but falling in love with the same God that you have fallen in love with.
Jesus captured it by saying, Make disciples, but that's the long, short version, just you, so here's Paul. He sewing doesn't guarantee outcome, but not sewing guarantees outcome.
Let's pray. Oh Lord, we sit with this passage of scripture in just feel the invitation to let our souls be shaped our imaginations. Set on fire by by this re-stated reimagined statement of the gospel. I'm so grateful for our brother Paul, for the way in which the Holy Spirit inspired him, but I don't want to stand at distance and admire, Oh Lord, I want to follow closely.
You and imitate him as he imitates Jesus. In my conversations with people in my workplace and at home, my roommates, my neighbors all up and down my street I want that, that greater reflection to drive my interaction with people. And I pray for courage. Oh, Lord. That can only provided by falling in love.
Brothers and sisters, can we just sit for just a moment and let the word soak and dwell richly in our hearts?
What is Jesus calling you to in this passage today? I think the formal response time is tomorrow.
But some of you may need to cross a line of some kind today to recognize I've been driven by fear as I look at what's happening in the world rather than by love,
and a fearful response is different than a love response.
Maybe some of you have recognized that your Gods have been called out today. The ways that you have managed your life, keep them safe, have been called out and it's time to repent.
Oh Lord, I pray that you would help us as we move into worship, as we move into this moment of response. Give us courage, oh Lord, to step in
because you have drawn us with love. , would you stand with me? I don't know your culture here. The last time I was here, we were in a parking lot and there weren't many places to come and kneel, but there's room now, and if you're feeling the tug of the spirit, whether it was something that I addressed in my prayer or just the work of the spirit don't ignore.