Giving Vent to the Provoked spirit

Acts 17:16-21 ESV

16 Now while Paul was waiting for them at Athens, his spirit was provoked within him as he saw that the city was full of idols. 17 So he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the devout persons, and in the marketplace every day with those who happened to be there. 18 Some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers also conversed with him. And some said, “What does this babbler wish to say?” Others said, “He seems to be a preacher of foreign divinities”—because he was preaching Jesus and the resurrection. 19 And they took him and brought him to the Areopagus, saying, “May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? 20 For you bring some strange things to our ears. We wish to know therefore what these things mean.” 21 Now all the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there would spend their time in nothing except telling or hearing something new.

We’ve all heard of the saying, “one step forward, two steps back”. In fact, there was a country music song by that same name back in the eighties, and the chorus simply went, “One step forward and two steps back, nobody gets too far like that. One step forward and two steps back, this kind of dance can never last”.

The message that is being relayed to us there is that there are times when we make a little bit of progress, only to face twice as much opposition so that it seems as though you end up further behind than where you were when you started.

Today, we begin a series of sermons highlighting Paul the Apostle’s time spent in Athens, at a famous placed in the city called the Areopagus, or Mars Hill.

This hill was called “Mars Hill” because, according to Greek mythology, it was believed that the Greek god of war, “Mars” was tried on this hill by other “gods” on the charge of murder. And thus, it was on this same hill in Paul’s day that a noted council would meet to determine criminal cases. Also, this body being made up of very educated men, they would also meet here to take questions concerning education, politics, and especially religion.

Now, by the time that Paul had arrived at Mars Hill, his recent experiences had kind of been like the old “one step forward and two steps back” saying.

In the narrative right before the one that we are looking at this month, we read of Paul’s time spent in Berea. There we see how Paul and Silas and Timothy had gone to the synagogue in Berea, proclaiming the Gospel. The Jews in Berea responded by studying the scriptures to see if what Paul and his companions preached squared up with what the Old Testament scriptures had said concerning the Christ. As a result of this, many of them believed and became Christians.

But though this was the case, we read of how Jews from Thessalonica, the city that Paul and his companions were ministering in before, came to Berea and started agitating many of the Jews in that city and stirring them up against the missionary team. As a result of this, Paul was sent off to Athens, while Silas and Timothy remained in Berea.

And so, there was the great step forward as many in Berea believed, but there were a couple of steps back as the Thessalonian Jews came and caused problems, drove him out of the city, and now, Paul finds himself all alone in the premier Greek city of Athens.

And if that wasn’t bad enough, Paul found himself struggling with all of the religious perversity that was in the city. We see this in verse sixteen of our reading, which says:

Acts 17:16 ESV

16 Now while Paul was waiting for them at Athens, his spirit was provoked within him as he saw that the city was full of idols.

So, again, as we look to the beginning of our reading here, we are reminded of the fact that Paul had found himself quite alone as we read that what follows happened “while Paul was waiting for” Silas and Timothy to follow him to Athens. And so, Paul finds himself in a strange city that he has never been to before and without any friends.

Now, Athens is a city known for its magnificent architecture and for being the cultural center of the ancient world. From Athens came some of the greatest contributors to art, science, political theory, and of course, philosophy. It was the city of men like Plato, Aristotle, Socrates.

And while a great many would be impressed, overwhelmed, in awe of all the beauty and resources that the city offered, that was not the reaction of Paul the Apostle. In fact, we read that as he was there, Paul’s spirit “was provoked within him”. This doesn’t mean that Paul was just a little irritated or annoyed with what he saw in Athens, but rather, it means that his heart was in the greatest turmoil as he looked across a city that was noted for its brilliance, but yet was drowning in evil.

Indeed, the text says that his “spirit was provoked within him as he saw that the city was full of idols.” Athens, a city known for its great contributions to societies all around the world was a city that was steeped in pagan filth. In fact, it had been sarcastically said that it was easier to find a god in the city of Athens that it was to find another man. And recognizing that such an influential city produced such wicked religion disturbed Paul greatly.

Beloved, this should be our own reaction when we see, as we do today, that the leading influences in the world and in our very own society are influences that lead toward eternal damnation. They are celebrated, encouraged, thought highly of, viewed as most intellectual, yet they are blasphemous, damning! This should cause us great disturbance, this should provoke our spirits, just like it did Paul’s.

But we should also react as Paul reacted to this great provocation of spirit that he experienced which we read of in verse seventeen, which says,

Acts 17:17 ESV

17 So he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the devout persons, and in the marketplace every day with those who happened to be there.

“So”, because Paul had seen what he had seen, because his spirit had been provoked, we read that “he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the devout persons”. That Paul is said to have “reasoned” means that he practiced the discipline of apologetics, he preached, and he systematically and philosophically revealed to the Jews in the city and those Gentiles who were being converted to the Jewish faith that Jesus is the Christ.

But it is written that he reasoned also, that he systematically and philosophically reasoned with, explained the faith to “those in the marketplace”.

The marketplace was like the public square; as its name suggests, it was a place for buying and selling goods. But it was also a cultural center. Children would play there, people would go there to look for work, public events would take place there, some people would just go and hang around there, philosophers would gather there to debate, it was the center of public life. And so, it was there, the busiest place in the city that Paul would go to every single day that he was in Athens and he would reason, explain the Christian faith to anyone who happened to be there.

In other words, Paul didn’t just look out at the perversity in the city and say, “This place is spiritually sick!” and then sit around and brood about it and say nothing to anyone, no, he set out to right the many wrongs in the city.

And while we don’t know how everyone whom he spoke to and reasoned with received the message, when we look to verse eighteen, we do see the reaction of some, where it says that,

Acts 17:18 ESV

18 Some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers also conversed with him. And some said, “What does this babbler wish to say?” Others said, “He seems to be a preacher of foreign divinities”—because he was preaching Jesus and the resurrection.

So, we read here of how Paul had reasoned with some Epicurean and Stoic philosophers. The Epicureans were what you would call “hedonistic” philosophers. In other words, they believed that pleasure was the ultimate goal in life, pleasure at all costs. So, their approach to man’s purpose in life was “if it feels good, if it brings you pleasure, do it!”.

The Stoics, though, were what you may say are the polar opposite of the Epicureans. The Stoics believed that there was no real purpose in life, that everything is controlled by fate and that the best that people can do is just react as positively as possible to what fate determines for you.

And among the responses that Paul received to his reasoning was that some called him a “babbler”. In ancient Greek culture, if someone was called a “babbler” it meant that they were kind of like a ragtag type of person, someone who was looked down on by the intellectual elite. So, several of them kind of turned their noses down on Paul.

Others concluded that because Paul had spoken of the resurrection of Jesus, that he was likely preaching about some kind of foreign, inferior god. They said, “Your God is a Man?! Doesn’t sound like much of a god to me!”. But of course, they obviously failed to comprehend and accept the fact that Jesus is fully man and fully God simultaneously.

Yet Paul’s reasoning in both the synagogues and the marketplace had caused a bit of a stir throughout the city, and so, these Epicurean and Stoic philosophers spoken of, compelled Paul to come amongst the more “intellectually elite” of the city to speak with them in a more private, personal setting, versus the boisterous atmosphere in the marketplace.

We see this as verses nineteen and twenty tell us,

Acts 17:19-20 ESV

19 And they took him and brought him to the Areopagus, saying, “May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? 20 For you bring some strange things to our ears. We wish to know therefore what these things mean.”

So, we see that these had taken Paul, they had convinced and encouraged Paul to go with them to “the Areopagus” or, “Mars Hill”, that place that we spoke of at the beginning of this message where there was a noted council made up of leading philosophers and some of the world’s most educated men who met to determine cases, answer questions, and just debate in general.

Once there, they asked Paul to tell them more about the “new teaching” that he had been presenting in the synagogues and marketplace. But though it was identified by them as a “new teaching” it was only new to them, for salvation by the grace of God has always been the way in which God saves sinner from eternal damnation.

They said that the words of Paul, the teaching that he brought, that is, the Gospel was strange to them, they had never heard anything like it before and so they wanted him to explain it better not only to they who brought him to Mars Hill, but also to those who regularly met there, the renowned council of intellectuals and philosophers.

And while this may indeed seem hopeful and in a sense it was, Paul was receiving a great opportunity here to reach people that he had not been able to reach before, but as the last verse in our reading tells us, the curiosity of those at Mars Hill may have been more of an attempt to find something new to talk and debate about.

Verse twenty-one reads:

Acts 17:21 ESV

21 Now all the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there would spend their time in nothing except telling or hearing something new.

Indeed, the culture was what we might call a “progressive culture”. They were always seeking to latch on to what is new and innovative, maybe even lump it in with all of the other beliefs that they held to.

But if one rightly understands the orthodox faith, they see that it holds no room for any other faith. The orthodox faith affords one God, one way, one faith, and if one truly embraces the orthodox faith, they abandon their hope in any and everything else, they place their hope in the Triune God and the grace that He extends to them.

But the society and the culture that we live in today is actually very much like the society and the culture that was present in the city of Athens two thousand years ago. We live in what is described as a “Post-Christian society”. What this means is that our culture, our society today as it currently exists has drifted away from the values that exist within the Christian faith and now depend on and look to secular sources to define their value system and determine what truth is.

Indeed, it has gone beyond agnosticism, the position that there may or may not be a God that cannot be known to what you might call apatheism, which could be described as not really caring if there is a God or not. Not caring if there is a God that determines what is right, not caring if there is a God Who commands worship from even them.

Now, knowing this, seeing this, should provoke our spirits just like the situation in Athens provoked the spirit of Paul. And because it provokes our spirit, we shouldn’t just sit idly by and say, “Well, that’s their problem! As for me, I know that I’m saved, I know where I’m going when I die!”.

John Calvin said that “A dog barks when his master is attacked” and in the same way, he said that he “would be a coward if” he “saw that God’s truth is attacked and yet” “remain silent”.

So many times, when we see the orthodox faith being attacked, we think that the best thing to do, the wisest, most Christlike thing to do is just sit back and keep our mouths shut. Sure, our spirits may be provoked to no end, but we better just be quiet and not say anything lest we are accused by this Godless society of “shoving our religion down their throats”.

No, no, no. You see, when your spirit is provoked at the recognition of this Godless society, the way that it becomes “unprovoked” is when you stand up and say, “No! That is wrong! This is wrong! There is something terribly wrong here! And I can’t just sit back and watch it without saying something any longer!”.

Beloved, regardless of what the world says, this Gospel is the only Gospel that saves. So why would we, why should we be ashamed of that Gospel? Give full vent to the provocation of your spirit and testify the everlasting truth!

Amen?

*Communion