Acts 17:16-34

For good reason, Paul is often revered as a model of faithfulness and effectiveness. He was able to minister to a wide variety of people—Jews and Gentiles, religious and irreligious alike. Paul earned the reputation as one of the greatest to ever do it.

Here we have yet another account of his ministry efforts. Paul visits Athens in Acts 17. This section in Acts is one of the most popular in the book. I’d be surprised if you hadn’t heard at least part of the story.

Paul left for Athens after some jealous Jews agitating the crowd, stirring them up against Paul in the cities of Thessalonica and Berea.

Athens was a major city in the ancient world. Important people in almost every category were there. Herodotus and Thucydides, great historians. Hippocrates—the father of Western Medicine. Of course, Socrates and Plato and Aristotle (philosophers). Many important men and women spent considerable time in Athens.

Athens is a significant and important city; and it’s about to be upending with the gospel.

In every ancient Greek city, the highest point of elevation housed a temple to some god or goddess, usually the patron god of the city.

Any guesses as to the patron god/goddess of Athens?

Athens was, at the moment Paul was there waiting for his buddies to join him, an incredible city, socially speaking. But it had its issues, to be sure. We see its main issue in verse 16:

Acts 17:16 NIV

16 While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he was greatly distressed to see that the city was full of idols.

Paul found himself in one of the great cities of his time, and what struck him wasn’t the art or the culture or the beauty or the buildings or the philosophical discussions.

What struck Paul about Athens was the idolatry. It was rampant!

Idolatry is what stood out to Paul. Why? Because he was viewing the city from a Christian perspective. The way Paul saw everything was affected by his faith; his worldview interpreted all the Athenian cultural markers as idols.

As Christians, we enjoy many of the same things that non-Christians enjoy, but we look at them through a different set of lenses.

We listen to music differently. We think about sports differently. We view business differently. We consider the poor and the orphan/widow differently. We approach money and marriage and death differently.

WHY? Because we filter EVERYTHING we encounter through the lens of God’s self-revelation in Jesus.

What became clear to Paul after only a little bit of time in Athens was their issue with idols.

“Underneath sin problems, relational problems, and emotional problems is a profound worship problem.” Our hearts are idol factories, churning out idols, finding various nouns (people, places, things, and ideas) to worship.

An idol is anything to which we turn when we need something only Jesus can provide.

We, as Christians, Christ-followers, bear the responsibility of destroying any idol in our lives. And then pointing out idols to those around us, making clear that worship of anyone or anything but the LORD is misplaced.

In Athens, the city streets were just smothered with idols (our modern world is similarly smothered).

Paul sees all these people in Athens exchanging the glory of the Creator in order to worship created things, and it bothers him. Deeply. He can’t take it.

How did Paul respond to the idolatry he discovered in Athens? The same way he responded and reacted to everything:

Acts 17:17–18 NIV

17 So he reasoned in the synagogue with both Jews and God-fearing Greeks, as well as in the marketplace day by day with those who happened to be there. 18 A group of Epicurean and Stoic philosophers began to debate with him. Some of them asked, “What is this babbler trying to say?” Others remarked, “He seems to be advocating foreign gods.” They said this because Paul was preaching the good news about Jesus and the resurrection.

Reasoning with the people, engaging with them, gently and compassionately—this is Paul’s tac. And it’s wise. Paul preaches the good news about Jesus and His resurrection in three different locations:

The synagogue (as usual)

The marketplace

The Areopagus

At the synagogue, with those familiar with the OT, Paul could reason from the Scriptures, explaining and proving that Jesus was the Messiah (verses 12-13 from last week).

Many, many religious people—then and now—are not Christians. It’s possible to know all the religious jargon and tradition and not have any relationship with the LORD.

Doubtless people there in the Athenian synagogue were just going through the motions, like so many people today.

The marketplace was the hub of all activity and culture. The place of commerce and public dialogue. Paul reasoned in the marketplace day-by-day.

We today don’t have a good equivalent for the agora (marketplace). The marketplace had everything, but not like a mall (though you probably could do some shopping and enjoy an Auntie Ems pretzel at the same time).

The marketplace/agora was the city center—business and art and media and thinkers all doing their thing, all at the same time and place. It was the space for everything.

Paul is living his faith, taking his faith for a walk, communicating it every day. And he’s doing so where the people were.

We, too, should take our faith public by the way we live and talk and orient our lives. This can happen as we go to work or the gas station or grocery store or school events.

Beyond the synagogue and marketplace, Paul finds himself in deep with the deep-thinkers of Athens. They gathered at what is referred to as the Areopagus or Mars Hill. The Athenians would assemble here to debate and to make decisions (kind of like a courtroom).

The philosophers there refer to Paul as a babbler, mostly because they don’t have categories for the stuff Paul is speaking about.

Acts 17:19–21 NIV

19 Then they took him and brought him to a meeting of the Areopagus, where they said to him, “May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? 20 You are bringing some strange ideas to our ears, and we would like to know what they mean.” 21 (All the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there spent their time doing nothing but talking about and listening to the latest ideas.)

We’re told that some people started to debate with Paul were philosophers of different schools of thought.

The Epicurean and Stoic philosophers held vastly different worldviews, one from the other. One group said, “If it feels good, do it; there are no consequences. The other group said, “Grin and bear it; there’s nothing you can do about it anyway.”

So when Paul came with the Good News about Jesus, they were all baffled by the babbler. Strange ideas Paul had.

But these people were at least curious. And Paul was willing to speak with them, to share with them about Jesus.

Today, we deal with skeptics—people who question and are suspicious of anything and everything.

We encounter people who are done with church and religion; they’ve had enough of it and don’t want any more.

There is also a rising number of “nones”—those who have no religious affiliation or interest.

Our task, like Paul’s, is to be willing to interact with any and all of these. Whatever the objection, whatever the stance, whatever the moment brings—we must be willing to engage.

Acts 17:22–31 NIV

22 Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: “People of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. 23 For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: to an unknown god. So you are ignorant of the very thing you worship—and this is what I am going to proclaim to you. 24 “The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands. 25 And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else. 26 From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. 27 God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us. 28 ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’ 29 “Therefore since we are God’s offspring, we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone—an image made by human design and skill. 30 In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. 31 For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to everyone by raising him from the dead.”

Paul responds here to the question about what his ideas meant. They asked Paul, “May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting?” Talk about an opening! He has the opportunity to share with the Athenians the unchanging message about Jesus

“Oh, you want me to tell you more about Jesus?! Sure!”

Paul begins with their obvious interest in religion. Humanity is incurably religious. Wherever you go, there is some sort of religion present. People are, I promise, worshipping something; we’re never not worshipping something.

In Athens, one of the altars to one of the gods they worshipped had an inscription. Paul picks up on this as he’s looking around and uses it as a springboard for his discussion with them.

The inscription simply said: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD.

Paul, like us, know the Living God has revealed Himself over and over, most notably through Jesus. The One, True, and Only God is not unknown or unknowable.

What comes next—the proclamation to the Areopagus—is a well-rounded argument of several core beliefs about God.

Paul tells everyone gathered there that GOD is:

Creator

God made the world and everything in it. God was not created; He has always been. Neither, though, is God distant; The Creator God is involved with His creation. He is Creator and One who cares for His creation.

God is not cared for by His creation; it’s the other way around.

Everything in the world is stamped with the undeniable truth that God, the Creator, formed it. The One, True, and Only God created EVERYTHING. The Greek pantheon of gods and goddesses each only had one realm of creation and power. NOT SO with our God.

Sustainer

God is the One who gives life and breath and everything else to everyone and everything. If Jesus weren’t holding the world together, everything would fall apart.

Despite what we may think or hear, God does not need us; we need Him. We are dependent upon Him for, well, everything.

Ruler

God made all the nations and appointed their times and boundaries. That is, God is sovereign over history and geography and everything else about your life and mine.

Knowable

God—the One, True, and Only God— wants to be known. Wants people to seek Him and find Him, blind as we are. He is not far from any of us. Through Jesus and His work, we can know God and be made right with God.

Father

Paul quotes a couple of their own poets, and though they’re pagans, they understood through common grace the intimate relationship between God and man.

It’s beautiful and true what these poets write: In Him we live and move and have our being...we are His offspring.

These unbelieving poets got this much right. We are not God. We do, however, belong to Him, and reflect Him. We are an expression of God’s creation. We are made in God’s likeness. We are made to know Him and worship Him.

Thus, Paul argues in verse 29, it’s absolutely whackadoodle to think that God is some gold or silver or stone trinket or anything at all made by man. That’s an absurd thought!

Judge and Rescuer

God has not leveled humanity with the judgment we deserve. Rather with the coming of Jesus (His first advent we celebrate this time of year), a decisive turning point has come. Judgment is coming, but there is a way—one way—to escape the wrath of God.

It’s just as Jesus preached: Repent, for the kingdom of Heaven is at hand.

Jesus will judge with perfect justice and righteousness on a day that is coming soon. If people will repent and turn to Jesus, they will find, not judgment but salvation.

Judgment is in the offing. But so, too is rescue.

Salvation is found in Jesus, the One who lived the life we—fallen and sinful—could not. He died the death we should have died. And Jesus rose again on third day.

We must turn from our sin and put our faith in Jesus.

Repent and live!

At the end of the chapter, we see how the Athenians responded to Paul’s message:

Acts 17:32–34 NIV

32 When they heard about the resurrection of the dead, some of them sneered, but others said, “We want to hear you again on this subject.” 33 At that, Paul left the Council. 34 Some of the people became followers of Paul and believed. Among them was Dionysius, a member of the Areopagus, also a woman named Damaris, and a number of others.

No doubt several of the truths Paul proclaim would be perceived as outrageous by many people listening to Paul.

The exclusivity of salvation in Jesus (ONE way to be saved would fly right in the face of people who believed in many gods).

The bodily resurrection of Jesus

The trajectory of history toward a day of judgment

It’s no wonder we don’t read of an immediate positive response by thousands of people. Just some of the people believed. But there were some, and the message about Jesus was out there among the people.

That’s never a bad thing.

It’s always a mixed bag, isn’t it? Evangelism, sharing the Good News, is always met with various responses. Some believe repent and believe, and some go on their way.

What this account helps us do is think through a couple of things for ourselves and the people we encounter.

What are the idols of our day? What are the things commonly worshipped? What are the idols in my life?

Don’t just point the finger at other people and tell them about their idols. Destroy the idols in your life, and worship Christ alone.

How can we point people to the One, True, and Only God?

Think about the truths Paul pointed out to the people:

Our God is Creator and Sustainer. He is the Ruler over all things. He is our Father, our Judge, our Rescuer.

Our God is knowable—supremely knowable because God Himself came to us, took on flesh, moved into the neighborhood and lived among us.

In the person of Jesus, we have unfettered access to God and undeniable proof that God loves us.

As we, like Paul, learn to pay attention to the people and culture around us, the LORD will place people in our paths and open opportunity for conversation.

There’s almost always a way to pivot to what God has done, who God is, how good God is, and what God has done for us in the person of Jesus.

Take those opportunities. Have those conversations.

Point people to Jesus and away from worthless idols.

Hold Jesus out as the answer to every question people have, every problem we face, and to our absolute deepest need.