Point to the Gospel

We need to be prepared to create conversations on common ground

In the context of friends and family, little to no introductions are necessary. People know each other, or at least we are pretty sure that we know each other.

In some cases, friends and family have developed their own language or terminology, or they’ve built traditions over time.

In the verses immediately before our text today, Paul was expelled from Berea and right before his departure, he called for his friends - his colleagues - Silas and Timothy. In most of the Acts narrative we’ve seen, there is a context of teamwork. In the text today, it’s Paul. We know he was accompanied by companions, but their role in the next 18 verses appear very limited. The ministry team is split up for security purposes, but this split allows them to diversify their ministry.

Three pieces: before the conversation, during the conversation, after the conversation

Instead of the beauty of the city, he sees idols.

Acts 17:16 HCSB

While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, his spirit was troubled within him when he saw that the city was full of idols.

Paul saw the idols because he saw the world in light of God’s revelation, the gospel. They were everywhere, and his spirit is provoked or troubled. This is an important phrase for us to consider.

The most important preparation for any conversation about God begins in our hearts.

Provoked - used in the OT to describe God’s feeling about Israel’s idolatry

While he’s provoked because of idols, his deeper level of provocation is because he knows the result for the people who worship those idols.

But Paul’s anger, like God’s, is rooted in his love for them, in his desire that each person would come to know Jesus as Lord and Savior.

Paul’s heart was broken for the idolatrous hearts of the Athenians. Our worship flows from who or whatever sits on the throne of our hearts. Paul saw in the idols who and what sat on the throne of the Athenians hearts.

We’re all going to brush up against people who don’t know Jesus as Lord and Savior, and this includes our friends and our families. There are those in our innermost circles who are headed toward a cliff and we’d do anything to stop them if there was a physical cliff ahead of them. Are we ready to do the same on the spiritual cliff, as Paul is going to illustrate for us in our passage today?

While Paul’s heart may have been provoked or troubled, Paul’s anger isn’t unleashed like a sledgehammer to the idols, but with compassion and patience and grace.

Scripture tells us the result of Paul’s heart preparation:

Acts 17:17 HCSB

So he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and with those who worshiped God and in the marketplace every day with those who happened to be there.

Paul demonstrated that a prepared heart engages in dialogue not debate.

Our conversations should point to a God who is personal, knowable, and commands our steps.

In verses 18 and 19, the conversation begins. Paul never shies away from the knowledge and beliefs of the Epicureans and Stoics. But you’ll notice that he doesn’t start a riot. He starts a conversation. The Epicureans believed that the gods were distant and disinterested in humanity and it was only chance that humanity existed at all. The Stoics believed in a personal deity, but they saw god as nature - in and through everything. They knew god as nature.

Stoicism is very popular today - harmony with nature and self-sufficiency, finding or creating one’s own purpose.

Paul had obviously stated the main thing near the start of the conversation:

The good news of Jesus and the Resurrection.

Because of this, they bring Paul to a place called the Aeropagus, where they seek to learn about his new teaching. This is so amazing.

I mean, they’re even nice about it.

Acts 17:20 HCSB

For what you say sounds strange to us, and we want to know what these ideas mean.”

Using a culture’s means of communication does not affirm the ideas of the culture. this is called contextualization.

This also affirms why our hearts have to be prepared for conversations.

In Athens, using questions was a common cultural method applied by Socrates and his followers much earlier then Jesus or Paul’s time. But, we see Jesus use questions throughout the Gospels. Having all the answers is not a requirement for asking questions. Be armed with good questions, have some answers ready, but be willing to use “I don’t know but let’s find out.” Let’s provoke them to thought about Christ.

Paul perfectly blends the understanding of the culture, where people are at with the truth of the Gospel.

Paul notes in verse 22 more common ground - that the people are very religious. Let’s stay on common ground. Don’t be led astray onto other ground. The entirety of Paul’s message in 23-31 is connected to various pieces of Greco-Roman culture, which means the listeners are going to connect to what he is saying.

But, at some point, there’s going to be conflicts, and that is what Paul testifies about in verses 23-31.

Paul gives a little intro in verses 22-23a, but then brings the heat:

Acts 17:23 HCSB

For as I was passing through and observing the objects of your worship, I even found an altar on which was inscribed: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. Therefore, what you worship in ignorance, this I proclaim to you.

Paul was described by the Epicureans and Stoics as a seed-picker, a rather derogatory term used to imply that Paul was like a bird who simply picked up some piece of truth here and there and then dropped it off as an expert.

There were altars all throughout ancient Greek and Roman cities. So as not to offend a god that they might have missed or didn’t know about, they have this altar at the Aeropagus titled .

agnosto (ἄγνωστος) theos (θεός)

It’s so weird. The altar was right - there is a God that they didn’t know and Paul’s about is to introduce them to Him.

Paul is so well-versed in the culture he’s speaking to, he actually quotes in verse 28 from two Greek philosophers, Epimenides and Aratus.

Acts 17:28 HCSB

For in Him we live and move and exist, as even some of your own poets have said, ‘For we are also His offspring.’

But he’s like, you’ve got the idea right, but you’ve never met the One you’re talking about.

Paul connects with the Athenians, but then he brings the conflict. All people are God’s offspring in the sense that we all receive life and breath from Him. But, there is also the sense that there are those who have been redeemed by the blood of Jesus as sons and daughters.

Paul placed His God in the cultural context of the people and their gods, and by doing so, he showed them He was not merely another god, but the unique One, the ultimate fulfillment of their philosophy and purpose.

this is why Paul’s call to repentance in his conclusion is not a judgment.

Repentance is not a word of condemnation, but ultimately it is a turn towards hope.

Paul says you don’t have to hold on to the self-destructive tendencies. God’s transforming power can work in your life. It’s not just that you can know God, but that He knows you and calls you by name, as a member of his family.

We must maintain confidence in God’s power following our conversations.

It’s interesting that Paul doesn’t mention his hallmarks in this message - grace and faith. Why? I don’t know.

His message of repentance would have been strange, even stranger was the idea of God’s coming judgment.

But the strangest of all was the resurrection, which is what draws the sneers in verse 32, almost hinting at the limit of what the listeners would tolerate.

See, the idea of resurrection was totally incompatible with Greek philosophy. Right here Paul struck at the center of the Athenians’s ultimate needs. Paul wasn’t in Athens to combat religious and political systems. He was there to deliver a message of transformation.

The ultimate transformation in the Christian worldview isn’t found in transforming culture, it’s in the transformation of hearts.

Recall, that it was Paul’s evaluation of the city’s apparent glory and idolatry that troubled him.

Acts 17:34 HCSB

However, some men joined him and believed, including Dionysius the Areopagite, a woman named Damaris, and others with them.

A small number of men and women followed as a result of Paul’s message according to verse 34.

Could it have been more? Should he have preached something different? Why not more mention of the cross? Why not a bolder proclamation of Jesus? Why be so resolute with the resurrection at the end?

The minute that we the church judge the power of preaching merely by the number of those saved in the moment is when we have become the Athenians worshipping an idol. Instant results have become an all too familiar phenomenon in Western culture and stand outside of God’s standard of what is means to be His servants.

Paul recognized that it would take more than one go at it for these people to proclaim Jesus as Lord and Savior.

Never give up having conversations about Jesus.

Prepare your heart.

Engage in conversations.

Allow God space to follow-up and be obedient when He calls you to do so.

What needs can you meet in someone’s life by engaging in a conversation about Jesus?