Athens

[ 000 ] If you’re new to River City, we are with Paul and Silas on their missionary journey that started at the end of Acts 15, with them checking in on the churches Paul and Barnabas had planted in Galatia.

Then in Chapter 16, they headed West from there, and ended up in Philippi where Paul and Silas were thrown into prison for casting a demon out of a slave girl. It ended up that the jailer and his whole family heard the gospel, were baptized, and introduced to Lydia and the others as Paul and Silas were being asked to leave the town.

Then, two weeks ago, Andrew took us into chapter 17 where we followed Paul and Silas 100 miles from Philippi to the capital city of Thessalonica. [ 001 ]

As Paul always does when he arrives in a new place – he looks for any Jews he can preach to first. Sure enough, they find a synagogue here, he spends a couple weeks reasoning, explaining, and proving that Jesus is the Messiah – some joined the team, believed, and came to faith.

Others got angry and attacked the AirBnB where Paul and Silas were staying. That night, under the cover of darkness, the new believers sent Paul and Silas away to Berea, which was about 50 miles away. And just like they did when they arrived in Thessalonica, they found a synagogue there, and once again went on proclaiming Jesus as the Messiah. Again, many came to faith in Jesus.

But the Jews who had attacked the AirBnB had followed Paul and Silas all 50 miles to Berea, and made things dangerous here too, so the new believers sent [ 002 ] Paul off to Athens, and that’s where we find him in our story today.

Paul is sitting in Athens, a long way from home, waiting for Silas and Timothy to catch up. It’s going to be a few days. So he’s going to have a look around the city while he waits.

And this would probably have been a fun city to walk around. Remember, Paul is very educated. He’s intelligent, he’s had some excellent schooling, so no doubt he’s heard a lot about Athens. So Paul having a couple extra days here isn’t really something he’s annoyed by. But, as Paul walked through the city, something really started to bother him.

16 While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he was deeply distressed (the word here literally means Paul was “made sharp.” We would say he became edgy or agitated) when he saw that the city was full of idols.

Athens had been the philosophical capital of the world for the better part of 500 years at this point. Athens then had more that was splendid in architecture, more that was brilliant in science, and more that was beautiful in the arts, than any other city of the world; perhaps more than all the rest of the world combined (Barnes, 256). There were innumerable temples, shrines, statues and altars. The whole Greek pantheon was there, all the gods of Olympus. And they were beautiful. They were made not only of stone and brass, but of gold, silver, ivory and marble, and they had been elegantly fashioned by the finest Greek sculptors (Stott, 277). One ancient writer jokingly said, it was easier to find an idol in Athens than a person.

As Paul surveys the city, he is not impressed by its beauty. The art and architecture do not amaze him; instead, he feels a deep sadness. He sees the people's guilt for being unaware of the true God. They have filled their city with idols meant to honor false gods. Even with all the splendor and luxury surrounding them, they are heading towards destruction. (Barnes 256).

So what does Paul do? The same thing he always did. [ 004 ] Find a Jewish synagogue and start there. You may be starting to wonder, why does Paul always look for the Jews first? Why is it always the synagogue where he starts?

Well, in Romans 3 Paul writes that it’s because the Jews were given the words of God. That’s what’s so special about them. They have been chosen by God, back in Genesis 12, as God starts this family with Abraham, then to his son Isaac, and his son Jacob who had 12 sons who became the 12 tribes which became the people nation of Israel. God brought them out of Egypt, and set them up as his own people with the marriage covenant at Mt Sinai. The Jews have been entrusted with the promises of God, the blessings and curses of God, and have seen firsthand the covenant faithfulness of God.

Paul starts with them because they are so close already. They are already looking for a Messiah. Already familiar with Yahweh, and the scriptures with all of God’s promises. So it should be an easy place to start to build momentum. On top of that, Paul was a hyper-religious Jew himself. He knows what it is to be so close, yet so far away. He also knows that once a hyper-religious Jew finds Jesus and all of their scripture knowledge now points to Christ, they can take over as teachers and leaders to everyone else and Paul's efforts are multiplied.

So once again, Paul heads for the synagogue and like he did back in Thessalonica 17 …reasoned… with the Jews and with those who worshiped God, as well as in the marketplace every day with those who happened to be there.

The Holy Spirit has enabled Paul to see Athens with spiritual eyes. Paul no doubt notices and appreciates the beauty of the place, but what moves him most is the spiritual depravity of the city. He sees people. Have you ever experienced that? Have you ever noticed the emptiness in someone’s eyes? Have you ever been to a beautiful place, and thought I should be enjoying the scenery or the architecture or the sun and the pool – but all I can think about is how everyone here is looking for something they’re not going to find. Have you ever had that?

Paul does, and he starts talking to people about it. As you might expect, some people just want to argue. [ 005-1 ] 18 Some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers also debated with him. Some said, “What is this ignorant show-off trying to say?”

The Epicureans taught that pleasure was the chief end of human existence (Stott, 280). These are the kind of people who say if it feels good it must be good, and the better it feels, the better it must be. Since they believed there was no afterlife and when we die we just go in the ground, they wondered why deny myself something that feels good while I’m alive? On top of that, there is no God who has righteous standards for my life and there’s no accountability for whether I do or don’t follow those standards. Throw off all restraint – I am my own.

The Stoics on the other hand were the Hindus and Buddhists and New Agers of our day where the goal is to connect with and become one with the “universe.” There is no one particular being that is God – everything is god. Achieving a higher plane of enlightenment is what they sought, believing the physical world is holding us back. So, deny yourself pleasure in order to gain mastery over your body, and then you will achieve a higher plane of righteousness.

No doubt the Epicureans and Stoics had plenty to argue about on their own, and then Paul shows up and starts chatting with them, and a debate begins. Some of these deep thinkers just laugh at Paul and call him an ignorant show-Off. The literal translation from the original language is “What is this seed picker trying to say?” A seed picker refers to a foreigner who would come to town armed with a couple of little tidbits they picked up by overhearing conversations at Target or Home Depot, and now they are here trying to add their two cents in an intellectual setting to try and sound intelligent. Or in our day, maybe it’s a person who just reads news headlines and then throws them around in conversation without ever reading the article or watching the clips. That’s a seed picker, and that’s their first impression of Paul.

[ 005-2 ] Others, however, apparently thought what he was saying actually did sound intelligent, so they replied, “He seems to be a preacher of foreign deities” ​— ​because he was telling the good news about Jesus and the resurrection. This is how swamped in idolatry they were. The Greek word for resurrection is “Anastasis.” So when Paul spoke of Jesus and the resurrection, they assumed that these were the names of two gods they hadn’t heard about yet (Barnes, 258).

[ 006-1 ] 19 They took him and brought him to the Areopagus, which was the official debate hall where people exchanged ideas, and said, “May we learn about this new teaching you are presenting? [ 006-2 ] 20 Because what you say sounds strange to us, and we want to know what these things mean.” And this is interesting – [ 006-3 ] 21 Now all the Athenians and the foreigners residing there spent their time on nothing else but telling or hearing something new.

That would be quite a place, wouldn’t it? Kindof the ancient version of Ted talks or YouTube, where you go to learn new things. Luke is sort of poking fun at the Athenians here, by saying they waste their time on telling or hearing some new news to pick up – literally, they are the ones who are seed pickers.

But this is so common in the human heart, right? We’re all eager for new things. God designed us in his image to be creative, to be builders, to be cultivators, to be adventurers and discoverers. We like learning new things, going to new places, and seeing things we’ve never seen. God hid resources all over his creation – iron ore, minerals, coffee beans, medicinal plants, fish under the water – because we were meant to explore and subdue and find and learn and invent. It’s one of the ways we image God and carry out his work in the world.

But just like it did for the Athenians, sin has corrupted that desire in us. We are so hungry for new things that we spend 8-12 hours a day consuming media to hear or watch something we haven’t seen before. You’ve never seen someone flick their thumb so fast as when a reel or short video comes up that they’ve seen before. Get that out of here!

This corruption of the desire for something new isn’t something we can blame on social media. This has been one of the main deceptions of the enemy ever since the Garden of Eden, where Eve was presented with the promise of new revelation – If you would just eat the fruit, your eyes will be opened to something new! The fruit unlocks all that God has been hiding from you.

And I think sometimes the church of today still can get caught up in that same deception of always looking for something new to give our spiritual lives a spark. Maybe it’s that we’ve become bored with the Bible, bored with prayer, and so we start looking for some new approach that’s going to be the 7 keys to unlock spiritual health, or ways to release the Spiritual gifts, or unlock intimacy with God. Or we start to put more emphasis on dreams, feelings, and personal experiences because they are exciting and unpredictable.

But Revelation 22, Jude 1, and John 14 all tell us God isn’t adding to his word, it was delivered once and for all, and the Spirit’s job is to teach us and remind us of everything Jesus already said. So, every word from the Lord, every dream, every video, every book, every experience or feeling we have is subject to the word of God. Even if you’re engaging Christian media or books or podcasts that quote a lot of scripture – look them up. Read them in context. Is that really what the author of scripture meant by that, or is this author of this book or podcast or video just using it to support their own idea?

Let’s be aware that we have this innate desire for new and bigger and farther and higher, which God designed us for as part of his purposes in the world, let’s keep learning about what it means to step into all that God has for us, but let’s be diligent, like the Bereans back in verse 11, to let scripture inform what is true. That’s what Paul is about to do.

[ 007-1 ] 22 Paul stood in the middle of the Areopagus and said, “People of Athens! I see that you are extremely religious in every respect. 23 For as I was passing through [ 007-2 ] and observing the objects of your worship, I even found an altar on which was inscribed, ‘To an Unknown God.’

Some historians believe that a plague had swept through Athens centuries earlier. The leader of the city released a bunch of sheep into the city, and told people to use the sheep to make sacrifices to whatever god comes to mind and then they would know which one of the gods could stop this plague.

And apparently, no prayers were answered. It was later, when everyone stopped the sacrifices and prayers, that the plague ended. So they weren’t sure which god to thank for ending the plague. So they built this altar, “to the unknown god who stopped the plague.”

So Paul begins by honoring them, not condemning them. Remember - he has been deeply distressed by the amount of idols in the city. He could come out guns blazing, empty both barrels, “YOU BUNCH OF SINNERS!” But instead, he starts with a compliment. I’ve spent time with you, and I’ve noticed this about you: You are obviously extremely religious – and to make sure you covered all your bases, you even have an altar over here that says, in effect, “there is another God we haven’t learned about yet.” That shows humility and I’m impressed!

So Paul says, I’m going to tell you about this God you admit you don’t know. He is … [ 008-1 ] 24 The God who made the world and everything in it ​— ​he is Lord of heaven and earth ​— ​and, unlike the gods of Greek mythology, the statues you have around here, he does not live in shrines made by hands. [ 008-2 ] 25 Neither is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives everyone life and breath and all things.

‌[ 008-3 ] 26 From one man he has made every nationality to live over the whole earth and has determined their appointed times and the boundaries of where they live. [ 008-4 ] 27 He did this so that they might seek God, and perhaps they might reach out and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. ‌[ 008-5 ] 28 For in him we live and move and have our being, as even some of your own poets have said, ‘For we are also his offspring.’

Now I know Paul was speaking to the people in Athens, but how does that land with you today? There’s a reason you weren’t born in the middle ages. [ 009 blank ] There’s a reason you won’t be here when Captain Kirk is born in Riverside in 2233. It’s not random happenstance. You were born when and where you were born, into the family you were born into, into the political and religious and social and educational and technological and economic climate you were born into 100% on purpose by a loving God who wants you to find him. Psalm 139 says God knit you together in your mother’s womb; that he was and is intimately involved with all of your ways.

‌Isaiah 64:8 says God is the master potter, and we are the clay. Romans 9 says as the potter, the designer, the artist – God is free to create us in whatever way he likes, whatever fits his vision for the world. And Paul would add here in Acts that God designs us for certain times and places in history, so that we have the best possible opportunity to reach out and find him. It takes effort to find him, but he’s not that far away. Your altar says “the unknown god”, but he’s not unknowable.

‌It’s as if Paul is saying, all of these attempts of yours to set up altars and shrines and statues is just your way of trying to find the unknown God! You didn’t know! You knew all along that something was missing out of your stash of gods, and you didn’t know. But now you do! And I’m excited to tell you that this God is also compassionate and merciful… and he is ready and willing to be merciful to YOU, the people of Athens! This God who is bigger than your shrines, your idols, your stories of how things came to be – This God has overlooked your centuries and centuries of ignorance, verse 30. And… now commands all people everywhere to repent, 31 because he has set a day when he is going to judge the world in righteousness by the man he has appointed.

‌What Paul is presenting here is God’s mercy; he’s presenting God’s grace. Exactly who God said he is back in Exodus 34 when he introduced himself to [ 011-1 ] Moses as, “The Lord—the Lord...a compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger and abounding in faithful love and truth, 7 maintaining faithful love to a thousand generations, [ 011-2 ] forgiving iniquity, rebellion, and sin. ‌“But he will not leave the guilty unpunished, bringing the consequences of the fathers’ iniquity on the children and grandchildren to the third and fourth generation.”

Paul doesn’t skip over that last part. He is clear that judgment for sin is looming. When he says God has overlooked your ignorance, that doesn’t mean he’s excusing it. There’s a day already set on the calendar when God is going to judge the world, and he’s going to do it in righteousness. Fairness. Justice.

But Paul is also clear when he implies this judgment won’t be based on God playing favorites – it’s based on a standard of righteousness. There is measuring tape. You know the signs at the amusement park – I assume they still have these – must be this tall to ride. Yeah, just like that, you must be this righteous in order to enter the kingdom – and God has set up one man as the standard for what is righteous. Only one man meets that requirement, and it’s only through faith in HIM that we enter the kingdom. He’s the ticket in. And, [ 012 ] look at the rest of the verse, God has made it obvious who that man is by raising him from the dead.”

‌And verse 32 says that’s where Paul lost them. Some of them burst out laughing and started to ridicule him. It’s no wonder in 1 Corinthians 15, Paul would say the resurrection is what everything rides on. He knows, when he gets to that part of the gospel presentation, that’s where people fall off or step forward in faith. Everything hinges on the resurrection of Jesus – that he’s alive and present right how, that he is actively ruling and reigning over everything he made – good and evil. Everything hinges on the resurrection.

The Epicureans don’t believe in an afterlife, so this was nonsensical to them, and in verse 33, the meeting was called and Paul left the Areopagus.

The Stoics may have been the ones who said in verse 32 “We’d like to hear from you again about this.” They may have followed Paul outside and continued the conversation in the street. At any rate, [ 013 ] there were a few who believed, including Dionysius the Areopagite, a woman named Damaris, and others with them. And that’s the end. Next week, Paul is on to a new city and as far as we know, he never made a return trip to Athens, never wrote them a letter, never planted a church here.

[ 014 ] It seems like there are two ditches we can fall into when it comes to things like this in our own cities, in our own country. On one side of the road, one ditch is that we can be so angry and frustrated with the sad state of our society, our culture, that we forget we have neighbors who are in need. We’re so angry at the state of the world, that we forget to love and serve the people who are right in front of us. The ditch on the other side of the road is that we just want to love everyone, and make everyone feel good. We don’t want to offend anyone, so we overlook the fact that people are swimming in idolatry.

‌I don’t know how that lands with you, but I’m guilty of both ditches. But Paul somehow avoids both of these extremes. He confronts people with their sin, not overlooking their idolatry, but he does so in such an honest and gracious and gentle way (Bock 573).

‌And I say somehow, but we know how Paul does it. Right? He’s is simply following in the footsteps of Jesus, right? The same way Paul walked into Athens, Jesus came into this world, and many times over was grieved, cut to the heart, frustrated, even agitated by how the religious leaders abused their power, how the poor were treated; he was upset with the effects of sin on people, even weeping at the death of a friend, saddened by the disciples lack of faith. Jesus came to this world, because it wasn’t just Athens that was swamped with idolatry. It's in every human heart. The reformer John Calvin said the human heart is a perpetual idol factory. Jeremiah 17 says the heart is deceitful and desperately wicked.

‌Jesus was grieved by all of this and yet didn’t show up on earth guns blazing – I know you're a sinner, I know what you do, I heard what you said – No. He was compassionate and merciful. He didn’t just preach the truth, he healed the sick, healed the demon-possessed, opened blind eyes, and honored children and women and lepers that the culture had pushed aside. John 1:14 says Jesus came full of grace and full of truth.

‌What do you think would happen in our city if all of us started to ask God to help us see our workplace as our Athens? Our neighborhood as our Athens. That God has appointed the places we live, the places we work, the places we eat, the places we shop, and that God has determined before you were born that you would live in southeastern, small town Iowa in 2024 because that is exactly what he designed and created and gifted you for. There’s nothing random about your story. Remember – you’re not just a physical body. You are a living being. A soul that is uniquely designed by God for eternity, and in his sovereignty God chose when and where to have you come to being, and Ephesians 2 says there are good works in those times and places that he has prepared in advance for us to do.

What if we started to ask God to open our spiritual eyes so we could see every man, woman, and child in Riverside the way God sees them? Or Lone Tree or Hills or Kalona? How would we speak to them? How would we interact with them? As we go to prayer today, let’s ask him to open our spiritual eyes today.

We’re going to do something we haven’t done in a long time at River City. Normally when we pray together, you just sit quietly and pray by yourself. But today I’m going to ask you to circle your chairs together with 2-3-4 people sitting next to you. I know that this could be really uncomfortable for some of you, especially if you’re new to faith or a guest with us this morning. Don’t feel like you have to pray, there’s no judgment.

[ 015 ] But I’m just going to throw this on the screen and let you take it from there.

Acknowledge Jesus as our resurrected king. Thank him for whatever comes to mind. Our “when and where” are gifts from God for our good and for his glory Open our spiritual eyes to see people like you see them.

Let’s have at least 2 different people in your group pray out loud, and the other two – your job is to agree with them. Say uh huh, amen, grunt from time to time – just something to let them know I’m with you. So choose your two real quick, who's going to pray, and the other two

SOURCES

John R. W. Stott, The Message of Acts: The Spirit, the Church & the World, The Bible Speaks Today, (Leicester, England; Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1994)

Albert Barnes, Notes on the New Testament: Acts, ed. Robert Frew, (London: Blackie & Son, 1884–1885)

Bock, Darrell L., Acts, Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2007)