Evangelism In A Pluralistic Culture

[SLIDE 1] Introduction

If you have your Bible, then please turn to Acts 17:16-21. (READ)

Illustration

Let me ask you some questions: “How often do you engage in a debate? When was the last time you had a good old fashion debate with someone or a friend during mealtime (instead of looking at your phone until the food comes)?”

‌When I have been a Christian for about five years, I had a fair share of engaging in theological debates and discussion.

I think during that time, as a younger man, I was quite fierce about defending certain doctrines of the faith, such as the doctrine of predestination, unconditional election, and perseverance of the saints.

When debates are done well in a friendly manner, it can be healthy for your mind because you learn different things.

Debate should not be so much of a heated argument or trying to win a debate, but rather it should be a place to exchange ideas and arguments...

And be opened to having your ideas challenged by your opponents or friends or enemies, and learning how to defend and articulate your ideas to someone in a logical manner.

Biblical Theology

Context

We come to the passage in Acts where the Apostle Paul evangelizes to the Athenians and Greek philosophers.

Earlier in the chapter, Paul was kicked out of the city from Thessalonica and Berea. So, after being in Berea, the Christians sent him over by sea to Athens.

Silas and Timothy remained at Berea, but they’re about to depart and go to Paul as soon as possible.

While Paul was waiting for his ministry partners, he was strolling in the city of Athens.

[SLIDE 2] Athens is located at the southern part of Greece. It is still around until this day.

Paul arrived in a city he had probably never visited before, and like any tourist, he was expecting to be impressed by this famous and historic city, which had been one of the most glorious and important cities in the world hundreds of years before the 1st century AD.

It was known as the Golden Age of Athens in the 5th century BC.

Why was it called the Golden Age? During that time, the arts, philosophy, and politics flourished, and Athens became a centre of learning and culture. Plato founded “the Academy” which was a famous school at that time. Many people would have wanted to travel to Athens to be educated.

It was not until the 2nd century BC when Athens was conquered by the Romans, but it still remained an intellectual and cultural center, with two predominant rival schools of philosphy, the Epicureans and the Stoics.

[SLIDE 3] So, when Paul visited the great city, he may have expected some beauty to remain in Athens, but he was provoked by the magnitude of the idolatry he witnessed.

Apparently, there were about 30,000 idols, but only 10,000 people living in that city when Paul visited.

You had the Athena’s temple, shrines....and the city streets were lined with statues of men and gods....and you had the pillars mounted with heads of Hermes.

So, the Apostle Paul was provoked probably by anger, grief, or even a desire to see the Athenians come to know Jesus because he had a deep concern for them as they worshipped false idols and unknown gods instead of the true and known God.

Idolatry is worship of anything other than the Lord God and remains a problem today.

We often think of idolatry as bowing down to idols such as the Buddhist statues, Hindu gods, or Mother Nature or other pagan worship. Or even at the annual Grammys Award where there was Satanic worship happening.

But the core of idolatry means seeking satisfaction and desire from anything other than God, making something or someone else more important than Him.

Money, for example, is not inherently an idol, but it can become one if it is worshipped in the heart as a source of happiness and satisfaction.

Idolatry can easily take hold and be close to us.

Now, going back to the text, Paul then reasoned and dialogued with many different folks from different places.

He reasoned with the Jews and the Gentile God-fearers in the synagogue.

Furthermore, he also reasoned with many different people every day in the marketplace. It’s quite possible he’s doing what we would call street evangelism or open-air preaching, trying to tell as many people possible about Jesus in the city full of idols.

[SLIDE 4] When Paul was reasoning with people at the marketplace, some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers conversed and debated with him. They’re the intellectuals of Athens. They’re like the philosophy students on the university campus.

Now, I don’t want to dive too deep into the background of these two schools of philosophy (because this is not an introduction to Greek philosophy) but it is important to know some of the beliefs of their worldview because their philosophies still have some influence on our modern world.

The Epicureans believed that the pursuit of happiness through physical and mental pleasure and a peaceful life was the chief purpose of life.

They avoided things that caused pain or fear, including the fear of death.

They believed in a God who created the world, but He did not involve himself in human affairs, so they saw no need to seek him or worry about His judgment.

The Stoics believed in a strong moral duty to cultivate reason and independence and saw life as a mixture of good and bad.

They strived to live a virtuous life and fulfill their duty, but accepted that pain and suffering were unavoidable.

They held a pantheistic belief that God is present in all things.

After hearing the description of the two schools of thoughts, aren’t they quite common in our pluralistic culture like Canada?

People try to find meaning in life through materialism, individualism, secularism, humanism, and eastern religions.

Similar to the marketplace in Athens, Vancouver is quite diverse with different beliefs, ideologies, and worldviews.

So, as Christians, we are challenged to learn how to evangelize in a pluralistic culture.

As Paul was conversing and debating with them, these philosophers did not seem to understand what Paul was saying because Paul was preaching Jesus and the resurrection.

However, the philosophers may have understood him to be talking about two different gods. There’s Jesus, who’s a male deity. And then there’s the Resurrection, which in Greek is pronounced as Anastatis, in reference to a female deity.

Hence, in their view, Jesus and Anastasis were considered foreign divinities, and they dismissed Paul for being a babbler and speaking nonsense.

[SLIDE 5] So, the philosophers brought Paul to the place called Areopagus.

Areopagus was a court. It was situated on the hill (often known as Mars Hill). Mars Hill remained an important meeting place to discuss civil, criminal, philosophical, and religious matters.

And Paul was invited to speak before the court regarding “his” new ideas. It was not a trial, but a general inquiry from the judges and those in the council because they want to learn more about this new teaching and understand the meaning behind it.

[SLIDE 6] As Luke comments in verse 21, they love new ideas.

It’s also been said that in Athens, many people go to the city to talk all day and half a night about new ideas.

Ironically, Paul’s message about God is nothing new because he would borrow ideas from their poet and inscription that they are aware of the idea of God, except he’s unknown to them.

Exposition

Since Paul was invited to speak before the intellectuals at Areopagus, he seized that moment to tell them about the good news. So, let’s read verses 22-34. (READ)

Paul’s goal was to make this unknown God known to them. Ultimately, Paul wanted to point them to Jesus Christ.

[SLIDE 7] Paul began his message by establishing some sort common ground in verses 22-23.

He observed and pereceived that they’re very religious.

As Paul was walking around Athens, he used an illustration to draw their attention to the message. The illustration was the altar with this inscription: “To the unknown god.”

The Athenians should be aware of that inscription. They worshipped this god who’s unknown. They didn’t have a personal relationship with this god. To these philosophers, this god was impersonal and far away; hence, this god was unknown to them.

And it’s a similar thing in our culture.

You have the agnostics who don’t know or uncertain if there’s a god or not. Having interacted with some, they may say that even if there’s an existence of God, they don’t think He can be known.

For other skeptics who want nothing to do with religion or Christianity, they may say that even if there’s an existence of God or a higher power/being, they don’t think this God wants anything to do with them.

But Paul actually leverages that opportunity by saying to the philosophers: “You acknowledge that you don’t know this God, but let me tell you about Him.”

If you want to talk to non-believers about Jesus, find a common point where you can tell them about God.

You may not know philosophy and science, but you can still tell them what you know about Jesus because you know something that they don’t.

[SLIDE 8] In verses 24-25, Paul proclaims that God is the Sovereign Creator.

God created the universe. He created both heaven and earth.

Furthermore, God created the world and humanity as a witness and testimony to His existence. When you look at the beauty of nature and creation, and even the complexity of our biology, there should be no denial that Someone designed everything.

[SLIDE 9]

Psalm 19:1 (ESV)

1 The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.

Isaiah 45:18 (ESV)

18 For thus says the Lord, who created the heavens (he is God!), who formed the earth and made it (he established it; he did not create it empty, he formed it to be inhabited!): “I am the Lord, and there is no other.

Furthermore, since God created the world, He is not bound by man or a building, like the temple. And He doesn’t need to be served by us as if He needs anything from us.

God is perfectly sufficient and independent apart from us.

[SLIDE 10]

1 Kings 8:27 (ESV)

27 “But will God indeed dwell on the earth? Behold, heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you; how much less this house that I have built!

[SLIDE 11] If you’re trying to reach skeptics that don’t believe in the existence of God, you could utilize the Cosmological Argument. The argument can be described in three simple and short premises:

Everything that begins to exist has a cause. For example:

A paint exists because a painter drew it.

A content on YouTube exists because a content creator made it.

It would make no logical sense whatsoever to assume that a paint and content came out of nowhere.

The universe that we are currently living in began to exist.

Therefore, the universe has a cause. It would make no logical sense to think that the universe popped out of nowhere.

This cause must be a necessary being that exists outside of the universe and is not dependent on anything else for its existence.

Hopefully, with that kind of reasoning, you have shift your atheist and agnostic friends to at least being a theist: that they believe in the possibility that God does exist

And appeal to them that the God who created the world is the One that Paul is speaking about.

While Paul doesn’t directly quote from the Bible to make his case for the known God since his audience would not know the OT, he does allude and summarize the teachings and ideas of the OT to make God knowable in a language that is accessble.

[SLIDE 12] In verses 26-29, Paul proclaims that God is The Sovereign Ruler.

Paul alludes to Genesis 1-2 whereby from one man He created every nation of mankind to live on earth.

I think Paul might have wanted them to understand that every human being came from the same family. Ultimately, from Adam and Eve.

All men and women are made by God, with equal value and dignity. This might have been a shocking statement to the Athenians because they would regard non-Greeks as “barbarians.”

And that God in His mysterious sovereignty determined mankind’s dwelling place by placing them in allotted period and boundaries (v.26)

This seems to suggest that God determined the period of time when people and nation would live and die.

This might be saying that God is ultimately the One who determined where you live and which family you are born into.

You’re not the One who made that choice. It’s objectively stamped onto your birth certificate and that would not change.

So, God determined that Greeks would be Greeks; the Americans, Americans...Canadians, Canadians. God determined that you would be Asian, African, European.

None of these things are accidents by design. God is actively involve.

This idea from Paul counteracts the Epicurean’s philosophy of deism. God is not distant from humanity, but actively involved in this world in a way that is mysterious to our finite minds.

...but for what PURPOSE?

What’s the purpose of God’s placement of every nation of mankind?

In verses 27-28, God has revealed Himself so that we might seek him out. According to Paul, there is a sense in which mankind has the responsibility to know and seek after God because of God’s revelation in the natural world.

The phrase in verse 27, “feel their way toward him,” is an odd one. I must admit that this is a difficult verse. This was word was used by the Greek poet that may have been well known to the Athenians.

It carries a negative connotation of a blind person walking in the dark and trying to look for something in an uncertain way.

So, Paul seems to be describing humans seeking God in their own imperfect way in the hope that they might “get a hold” of God, if only that were possible.

That’s because God is actually not far from each one of us. God is omnipotent.

Psalm 145:18 ESV

18 The Lord is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth.

And by drawing the quotes from the poets, Paul was critiquing them of the absurdity of idolatry. How is it possible for us to live and move and have our being in an inanimate object?

Since we came from God and are made in His image, we should not think of God as an idol created by the art and imagination of man.

Instead, it is our moral obligation to seek after God because He is our Creator.

If you don’t Christ, know God created you so that you can know Him personally.

You must come to Jesus by faith because without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.

[SLIDE 13] Lastly, in verses 30-31, Paul proclaims that God is The Sovereign Judge.

So, knowing that God is the Sovereign Creator and Ruler of this universe, Paul exhorts the Athenians to respond to the message. How? By repentance. Why are they to repent?

Three reasons:

First, they are to repent because of God’s patience.

Paul talks about the times of ignorance God overlooked.

This doesn’t mean that God overlooked human sins who were not exposed to the Bible. This doesn’t mean that sinners aren’t guilty of their sins because they had natural revelation and conscience to know right and wrong (Rom 2.)

There was a sense that complete Gentiles - non Jews - were ignorant and did not know God’s special revelation that He gave to the Israelites.

After the Flood, God in His patience did not judge the world as it truly deserves. Instead, God judged nations surrounding Israel, and He also judged His people for their sins.

But now that the gospel is going forth, there will be a day when God will judge the whole world.

That time of ignorance will pass. Why is that? Because the Christian message has spread to the ends of the earth.

This is especially true as you are living in Canada whereby there are churches, Christians, and Bibles available.

And know that as you heard the message of God’s word many times on this pulpit, you have no excuse for not knowing who God is.

Second, they are to repent because of God’s commandments. God commands all people everywhere to repent.

Repentance is a good message.

For the Athenians, they are to turn away from their false understanding of this unknown god, and seek and believe in this known God.

Third, they are to repent because of God’s appointed day of judgement.

How about that? The Apostle Paul is preaching repentance before the Athenians, and also preaching the day of judgment.

On that judgment day, God has appointed a man to judge the world in righteousness.

Paul says that we can know for certain this is true because God raised him from the dead.

Who is that man? Paul didn’t say, but I’m sure he’s going to tell them about Jesus!

After 2000 years, we are still living in a world like Athens in need of the same message of repentance and judgment

Now, I strongly believe that Paul would have wanted to say more about Jesus. Paul was just getting warmed up!

It would not make sense for Paul to end at verse 31 and not continue! However...

[SLIDE 14] In verses 32-34, it seems like Paul did not get the opportunity to continue his message and introduce the person and work of Jesus before some started to interrupt and mock the message.

What did they mock about and why?

They mocked at the idea of the resurrection from the dead. This idea was foreign to Greek thoughts, even though they seemed open to new ideas.

For the Greeks, they believed that the soul was immortal, but they did not believe in the resurrection of the body. They thought that anything physical was evil, so they did not believe that the body could be glorified.

That’s why when Paul wrote 1 Corinthians 15, he had to teach and explain the doctrine of the resurrection because some in the church of Corinth denied the resurrection of the dead!

Plus, Corinth was a Greek city and was influenced by the Greek thoughts.

To deny the resurrection was a serious heresy because it’s an attack on the gospel whereby Christ was raised from the dead.

Brothers and sisters, know that some parts of the gospel message will become a stumbling block for those you’re trying to reach.

For the Athenians, it would have been the resurrection.

For the proud, they don’t want to know that they’re sinners.

For those with other religious beliefs, they don’t want to hear that Jesus is exclusively the only way to the Father.

For the moralists, they don’t want to believe that they cannot contribute to their salvation by their good deeds and works. They don’t want to believe that salvation is all of grace and none of our works.

1 Corinthians 1:18 ESV

18 For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.

So, know that some will jeer at and object the Christian message.

And perhaps there might be some of you in this sanctuary that mock and ridicule what I say. You may not say it out loud, but that may be your response in your heart. And you will be held accountable before God for how you respond to this message.

However, others seemed more charitable and said to Paul, “we will hear you again about this.”

They might be opened-minded, and not fully persuaded yet.

It may be another way to saying, “I’ll decide later.”

However, they’ll never get to hear from Paul again as he leaves the Athens and goes to Corinth.

So, Paul left Areopagus.

But, by the grace of God, he was able to convince some of the philosophers and intellects of the court to believe.

Dionysius and Damaris were named. There were others (at least two). However, they’re unknown for the rest of Scripture.

Application

Now, it’s uncertain if a church was established at Athens after this event, but a church was planted right after Paul’s day.

Furthermore, some have suggested that Paul’s ministry at Athens was a failure. They criticized Paul’s message for being too philosophical, and it did not contain the message of the atonement of Jesus; therefore, he did not win people for Christ because the gospel is the power of God for salvation.

It seems like there is a case to be made here as Paul wrote this in 1 Corinthians 2 perhaps reflecting upon his evangelistic effort at Athens.

[SLIDE 15]

1 Corinthians 2:1–5 ESV

1 And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. 2 For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. 3 And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, 4 and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, 5 so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.

So, when Paul arrives at Corinth in the next chapter, he abandoned philosophy, changed his approach, and continued preaching Christ.

Perhaps those who critiqued Paul might be onto something.

However, I think the criticism might be unwarranted. We must keep in mind that Paul did not abandon his duty in preaching Christ and the gospel.

He was reasoning from the Scriptures and preaching the gospel in the Jewish synagogue and in the marketplace.

When Paul was speaking to philosophers, he was alluding to the Scripture without the need to quote it. He spoke and summarized the message of Scripture in a way that they could understand. And being put in a situation before the intellectuals, I’m certain that Paul did his best, and God still used it to save a few.

[SLIDE 16] Conclusion

Like Paul, it’s a challenge to evangelize to the intellectuals and even to people from all walks of life in a pluralistic culture.

We can do our best to find that common ground with people as a way to lead into a spiritual conversation, and be faithful in sharing the gospel with lost sinners. And we shouldn’t be disheartened when people don’t believe.

There will also be some who mock Christianity, Jesus, and the Bible.

There will also be some who would be openminded to hear about Jesus again in the future. Sometimes, they’ll never get the chance to do so.

But, God in His mercy would still save some. It’s not based on our eloquence and how smart we are. It’s based on how powerful and mighty God is willing save, including the smartest people of our day.

Prayer

Benediction