Sermon Tone Analysis

...

A WORLD THAT THINKS EVERYTHING

IS RELATIVE

 

Vaughan Roberts in his excellent little book, */Distinctives/* quotes the lyrics from a Boyzone song - /No matter what they tell you; no matter what they say; no matter what they teach you, what *you believe* is true/.

That’s the spirit of our age.

It doesn’t matter what your personal beliefs are, as long as you hold them sincerely, no one else has the right to question them.

And anyone who tries to tell you that what you believe isn’t true, and that you should believe something else instead is an arrogant bigot.

So, everything must be tolerated.

There’s only one thing that must not be tolerated and that’s the person who says that they have knowledge of the true truth against which all other opinions must be measured.

It’s called *relativism* because everything is relative.

One of our congregation could tell you about *the standard kilogramme*.

There are, I think, two lumps of metal that are kept in very special conditions, which weigh a kilogramme.

All other kilograms are set by these standard ones.

It’s no good the United Kingdom’s government saying, "Sorry but we don’t like that French thing, we’re going to make our kilogramme a little heavier but we’re going to do it sincerely".

It would cause mayhem.

However would we do trade with France.

Imagine if there wasn’t such a single standard.

You could go shopping in town tomorrow and every trader would have his own personal opinion of what a kilogramme was.

One gets it from the weight of his wife’s handbag; another from weight of his trainers after a run on a wet day.

There would be no fixed standard everything would be relative.

You might go to one trader and ask for a kilo of spuds and hardly be able to carry them, and to another and find that you could carry them in a small sock.

In that realm you’re not interested in personal opinion - you want the true kilogramme, and nothing else.

Imagine this in another realm.

You’re on a long-haul flight in a Jumbo jet and it’s getting stuffy.

You’re in the seat by one of those emergency exits.

A passenger approaches the door and puts his hand on the handle as if about to open it.

It’s his first flight; he’s from a village in Mongolia and has no appreciation of decompression; of planes falling out of the sky from 35,000 feet.

You ask what he’s doing and he says he’s about to let some air into the plane, because it’s stuffy.

No matter how sincerely he holds this belief, you will do everything in your power to stop him.

You’ll stop at nothing to impose your understanding of truth on him.

You’re so convinced of your version of reality that you might smite him on the head with your laptop computer.

A bit intolerant in an age of relativism, don’t you think?

After all, you’ve never actually seen decompression apart from a couple of Hollywood films.

So, how does all this work in the realm of philosophies and religion?

Is there a God? What’s he or she or it like.

Is the Christian God of three in one worth considering?

What about the Star Wars god - may the force be with you?

How about Hinduism, Islam and Buddhism?

May be there are no gods, just matter.

Well, maybe because no one can be certain or prove their point, perhaps there’s no truth in any of these religious claims, or perhaps there’s truth in all of them.

And if you say, “My opinion is that there’s a bit of truth in all of them and we should just respect everyone’s opinion” how do I know that there’s some truth in your opinion?

These are vexing questions.

But this much we can say, that Christian people are under great pressure in our society to stop making truth claims.

By all means tell us your personal opinion, but don’t tell us it’s true truth.

Vaughan Roberts tells of one philosophy student whose university professor wrote this on the bottom of a piece of work, “Remove the parts of this essay that contain absolute values and you will receive a much higher mark”.

That’s pressure.

And from the top of our society to the bottom, this subtle and not so subtle pressure is being exerted all the time.

So, we need to be sure of our ground.

*1.

the preacher who got provoked*

 

In *Acts 17* the apostle Paul arrived in the Greek city of Athens.

It had had a glorious history, but was now a small part of the very big Roman Empire.

But it was still the Oxford and Cambridge of the ancient world.

It was still the centre for learning, philosophy and the world of intellectual ideas.

It had been the city of Aristotle, Plato, Socrates and Epicurus.

You name it and you could find it in Athens.

It says in *Acts 17:16* that the city was *FULL* if idols.

Every kind of religious philosophy was represented by a temple or a statue or both.

Down in the market place (the Agora) there were discussions about religion all the time.

The people couldn’t get enough of the latest fashion in religious and philosophical ideas.

See *verse 21*.

Just take in the extent of this.

The language is quite strong - they ALL took part in this, they did it ALL the time.

This was the atmosphere of their culture; this was the air they breathed; nothing is absolutely true, everything has something good in it.

You could believe what you wanted; you could pick and choose from the buffet bar of religion.

A bit of this, a spoonful of that, a handful of the other.

They were all there, the Epicureans, the Stoics, the Jews.

“*/Oh do come and tell us your ideas, we’d love to discuss them with you/*”.

If you look at *verse 16* you’ll see that Paul wasn’t at all relaxed about this.

His inward spirit went into a paroxysm.

It’s a strong Greek word from which we get our word paroxysm.

The NIV has "greatly distressed”.

It’s the same word used in the Greek version of the old Testament to describe God’s reaction to the children of Israel when they fell into idolatry - */they PROVOKED the Holy one of Israel to jealousy/*.

It’s doesn’t necessarily mean a loss of temper or a fit of passion; it means  the reaction of a godly heart to a state of affairs in which the glory of God is being diminished by that which isn’t true to His character and word.

Paul was passionately stirred in heart and mind by all the untruth he could see represented in this culture.

He was so stirred that he got himself down to the place of debate and vocalised his evangelicalism.

That’s what Christians are supposed to feel when they see the minds of men and women coming under the influence of ideas that aren’t true.

You’re not supposed to think, */well they have a right to their opinion/*, you’re supposed to feel pain and heartache and passion that people are being blinded by error; that the ideas they’re listening to and sharing are dishonouring to the true and living God.

That’s what God wants you to do as far as your gifts allow; to look at your society, at what people are believing, to feel the impact of the folly and danger of it; and then seek to bring people under the power of the true truth.

*2.

the witness who wouldn’t budge*

 

In *verse 18* we find that it wasn’t long before some followers of the Epicurean beliefs, and others of the Stoics, picked up that there was something different about the way this stranger was speaking and what he was saying.

Their initial reaction was unfavourable - they called him a */seedpicker/*.

The word was originally used of birds, but then was used to refer to men who collected scraps.

When I was a boy we had a man come down our back lane once a week offering a dolly stone for colouring the front step in return for unwanted household stuff.

He was called a rag and bone man.

He called out from his cart and out would come the housewives with their stuff.

So, their first impression of Paul was that he was a bit of a scrapyard merchant when it came to philosophy.

It was along the lines of */Goodness me, where did you pick that lot up?/*

They perhaps thought he was bringing news of two new gods, Jesus and Anastasis ( resurrection).

Anyway, they took him up to the meeting of the town council where these new ideas were discussed and either allowed to enter into the life of the city, or be censored and forbidden.

They had the reputation of the University to safeguard, and they didn’t want any old rubbish being introduced by any old rag and bone merchant.

So, the apostle stood before the Areopagus.

And this is so helpful to us because it shows us a man of God facing up to a culture in which many different kinds of religious ideas were tolerated; there was truth in so many of them; no one could say that there was one supreme standard, one body of truth against which all others could be measured.

Everything was relative.

And here we have a Christian witness facing up to such a culture.

It’s got to be relevant to us as we face life in our culture as Christian witnesses.

How did the witness behave?

And as we look at a few points from this famous sermon you have to bear in mind that it’s more of a sermon outline than the full text of the message.

*i. he showed them his interest*

 

In *verses 22-23* he shows that he’s walked around the city and tried to understand their culture and way of life.

There were more idols in Athens than in the whole of the rest of the nation put together.

But Paul had looked at them and read the inscriptions.