Light to the World
Notes
Transcript
Reasoning Faith: Engaging the Intellectual Skeptic with the Truth
Reasoning Faith: Engaging the Intellectual Skeptic with the Truth
Bible Passage: Acts 17:16–34d
Bible Passage: Acts 17:16–34d
Recap Week 1: Light to the Religious Acts 13:14-43
Know your audience.
Merely religious people practice outward rituals without inner substance. They know Scripture but miss its meaning, reject Jesus as God and Messiah, and live against the faith they profess. Examples include Judaism, Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Oneness sects, and the new kids on the block, HBI.
Meet on common ground. Communicate the Gospel in a relatable way, using Scripture as our best reasoning tool.
Stay grounded in the Word. Use God’s Word to point people toward our hope in Christ as God and Savior.
Clearly show where our beliefs differ, or we risk affirming false ideologies that contradict Scripture.
Make a clear offer of repentance, like Jesus and the apostles.
Recap of Week 2: Light to the Pagan Acts Acts 14:8-20
Know your audience.
A pagan worships created things or false gods instead of the one true God.
Remember that God is already working to open doors and hearts for the Gospel. He creates opportunities, prepares the soil, and causes the seed to grow.
Preach the exclusivity of Christ. Jesus alone saves. He is the way, the truth, and the life.
Meet on common ground. Paul used creation to communicate Scripture’s truth without directly quoting Scripture.
There is no opportunity to be light without darkness nearby. Satan will attempt to stop your light, but he is not strong enough.
God preserves, protects, and gives endurance to His people. His message will prevail in life and death.
One of the Weightier Points: The Exclusivity of Christ
People are saved through hearts changed by the Gospel. For them to receive the Gospel, it must be preached. For it to be preached, God must send us as light to those who are far off.
This is Paul’s train of thought:when he says,
13 For, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.”
14 But how are they to call on one in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in one of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone to proclaim him? 15 And how are they to proclaim him unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!”
The light must be shared with all humanity: the religious, pagans, the occult, and intellectual skeptics, including atheists, agnostics, and deists.
Isaac Newton wrote:
“This most beautiful system of the sun, planets and comets, could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful Being.”
A father of modern science believed creation pointed toward the one true God.
4. Background
Paul heads to Athens. After Paul and Barnabas separate over a dispute, Paul partners with Silas and Timothy. Their pattern is simple: enter the religious center, preach the Gospel, see fruit, work outward, make people angry, get driven out of town, and then get followed to the next town.
After being chased from Thessalonica, Paul and Silas are received well in Berea. Eventually, Jews from Thessalonica follow them there and stir up trouble. The team decides Paul should leave, so he heads to Athens, where our story picks up.
5. Exposition
16 While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he was deeply distressed to see that the city was full of idols. 17 So he argued in the synagogue with the Jews and the devout persons, and also in the marketplace every day with those who happened to be there. 18 Also some Epicurean and Stoic philosophers debated with him. Some said, “What does this babbler want to say?” Others said, “He seems to be a proclaimer of foreign divinities.” (This was because he was telling the good news about Jesus and the resurrection.) 19 So they took him and brought him to the Areopagus and asked him, “May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? 20 It sounds rather strange to us, so we would like to know what it means.” 21 Now all the Athenians and the foreigners living there would spend their time in nothing but telling or hearing something new.
16 While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he was deeply distressed to see that the city was full of idols.
I first want to draw your attention to verse 16. Here we learn two key elements of being a guiding light to the lost.
Luke says Paul’s spirit was “provoked.” The word carries deep irritation and disgust, like sour grapes or bad wine. It even gave us a medical term associated with seizures.
Second, Athens was “full of idols.” This Greek term appears nowhere else in ancient literature. It means more than simply having many idols; some scholars understand it as being submerged. The city was drowning in idolatry. Paul was disturbed not only by what he saw, but by what it represented: people drowning in sin.
I had the privilege of seeing some of these statues in person. My phone is full of pictures because they were beautiful. The scale and magnitude of the artwork, marble, stone, ivory, and gold were incredible. Yet Paul visited one of the most beautiful places in human history, and instead of admiring the art, he was disgusted by the idolatry. Two things emerged: awareness and motivation. He was aware of the lost world around him and motivated to be light.
It reminded me of Vancouver, a beautiful city filled with artwork, sculptures, buildings, exotic cars, and mountains. Yet it was one of the darkest places I’ve visited. Drug needles covered street corners. Financially rich people walked like zombies, searching for their next fix. One of the only bright lights was the Gospel Mission: stable housing, recovery, and church. Light among the darkness.
I. Like Paul: To be light we must be disgusted with Darkness.
Psalm 97:10 NRSV
10 The Lord loves those who hate evil; he guards the lives of his faithful; he rescues them from the hand of the wicked.
The passage says Paul was provoked in “the Spirit.” The Holy Spirit stirred in him a disgust for idol worship, awareness of evil, and motivation to preach the Gospel. I recently felt this while seeing the pain of people I love, and another believer shared the same burden.
Here is a purity test for your faith in Christ: How comfortable are you with unbelief, sin, and spiritual unhealthiness? It says A LOT about your closeness with Jesus.
For those whose Spidey senses tingle at sin and idolatry. This awareness should spark our motivation.
14 For the love of Christ urges us on, because we are convinced that one has died for all; therefore all have died. 15 And he died for all, so that those who live might live no longer for themselves, but for him who died and was raised for them.
Being light is rooted in love and faith: love for people and God, and faith in God’s truth and His ability to save the unsavable. In verse 17, the Spirit’s stirring leads Paul into the synagogues, town squares, and marketplaces every day to share the Gospel. He did not pack his bags and go home in frustration. He turned on the light and began shining.
Next, we see a familiar point: know your audience. However, this audience is different.
II. Know your audience
• Paul first witnessed to Jews and God-fearers in the religious center.
• Then he entered the Agora, a marketplace where business, politics, philosophy, and religion collided, made famous by the Greek philosopher Socrates. For everyday Americans, social media is our Agora: Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter.
• Here Paul met the intellectual skeptic.
• The Epicureans were like modern-day agnostic scientists. They believed humanity and the universe came from chance and that the gods had nothing to do with human life.
• The universe created itself
• Their worldview could resemble atheism, meaning no God; agnosticism, meaning unconvinced; or pantheism. Pan means “all,” and theos means “God.” Pantheism teaches that God and the universe are essentially one.
• If God does exist, he has nothing to do with our human affairs.
• Chance, escape, and pleasure were paramount.
• The Stoics believed truth came through experience and that happiness came from accepting what the gods determined without letting their emotions take over.
• Everything that happens is designed by the gods/the universe.
• There modern counterparts may be atheistic, agnostic, or pantheistic
or pantheist.
• There is nothing spiritual, only the world we live in. No hell, heaven or anything to be accountable to.
• Because it’s all determined there is no evil. Everything Is just is.
• Submission, Endurance of Suffering, and a view of power-lessness are paramount.
• Both groups called Paul a “babbler,” a scavenger bird picking up scraps: someone talking about many things but knowing nothing. Verse 21 says they spent their time telling or hearing something new. This means they loved knowledge.
• For the Intellectual Skeptic, their intellect and knowledge are an idol.
III. As Light Bearers, We Cannot Be Afraid of Any Arena
There is two ways this can be accomplished. God can use the unlearned, like the disciples, who were mostly uneducated and theologically untrained, but mighty through truth and the Holy Spirit’s power.
The second, God can also take someone educated, like Paul, and redirect their intellect toward sharing Gospel truth.
The implication is the same: whether theologically trained or not, it takes the Holy Spirit’s power.
7 For God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power, love, and self-discipline.
Courage does not come from trusting ourselves, but from faith in God, the Spirit dwelling in us, and the calling He placed on our lives.
8 Do not be ashamed, then, of the testimony about our Lord or of me his prisoner, but join with me in suffering for the gospel, relying on the power of God,
11 And God chose me to be a preacher, an apostle, and a teacher of this Good News. 12 That is why I am suffering here in prison. But I am not ashamed of it, for I know the one in whom I trust, and I am sure that he is able to guard what I have entrusted to him until the day of his return.
Don’t be scurred. Remember your faith in God, the Spirit of God dwelling in you, and the good work He has called you to.
22 Then Paul stood in front of the Areopagus and said, “Athenians, I see how extremely religious you are in every way. 23 For as I went through the city and looked carefully at the objects of your worship, I found among them an altar with the inscription, ‘To an unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. 24 The God who made the world and everything in it, he who is Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in shrines made by human hands, 25 nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mortals life and breath and all things.
26 From one ancestor he made all nations to inhabit the whole earth, and he allotted the times of their existence and the boundaries of the places where they would live, 27 so that they would search for God and perhaps grope for him and find him—though indeed he is not far from each one of us. 28 For ‘In him we live and move and have our being’; as even some of your own poets have said, ‘For we too are his offspring.’ 29 Since we are God’s offspring, we ought not to think that the deity is like gold, or silver, or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of mortals. 30 While God has overlooked the times of human ignorance, now he commands all people everywhere to repent,
Behind the Text:
Paul is taken to the Areopagus, something like the Ohio Supreme Court.
We learned in Paris that people are so serious about bread that they have laws governing how it is made. Similarly, the Athenians were so serious about idol worship that they had laws against introducing new gods or beliefs. Paul’s evangelism required him to answer questions about the Gospel.
His response is a masterclass in responding to the skeptic: he meets them on common ground, then explains where they differ.
• God created all things but is separate from creation (verse 24).
• God is involved in and sustains all life. He is not distant or detached (verse 25).
• All humanity comes from a common source (verse 26).
Paul establishes our common points of relation, then shows where we differ.
• God is near and knowable. He is not some faceless universe or distant entity (verse 27).
• God is our Father, not a created being. We were not created by the universe. God is personal and gives life purpose and meaning. As fathers know, a son often finds confidence, dignity, and worth in his father (verse 28).
• God is ruler and authority. We are accountable to Him, so we must repent, turning from our sins and toward Him (verses 29–30).
Throughout this series, we have seen:
• The religious change the God of the Bible into the god they want to worship. This is idolatry.
• Pagans make gods from creation and follow them however they see fit. This is idolatry.
• Intellectual skeptics make themselves gods, determining who and what they are accountable to. This is idolatry.
One of my favorite scientists is Neil deGrasse Tyson. He describes himself as agnostic, claiming God has not provided enough evidence for His existence. Yet he has entertained the idea that extraterrestrial life started human life. I find that interesting because he is also a huge skeptic of extraterrestrial life.
At the heart of this, humanity is okay with a creator who creates and leaves us alone. Our nature does not want a Creator who governs, guides, and determines whether our actions are right or wrong
I know personally that dealing with myself is difficult. Growing, changing, and confronting my ugly, sinful side is tough. It is easy to ignore what is festering until it becomes too big to ignore.
John Stott says:
“All idolatry tries to minimize the gulf between the Creator and his creatures, in order to bring him under our control.”
IV. We must step into people’s lives, reach the heart, and expose their idols.
IV. We must step into people’s lives, reach the heart, and expose their idols.
As light bearers, we should evangelize on a logical, reasonable, and intellectual level. But our efforts should also draw out the idols within a person’s heart.
Collin Hansen from The Keller Center for Cultural Apologetics said:
“We want to help them see the emptiness of the idols themselves, that they are led by the hand to perceive they have been worshiping false gods.”
The intellectual skeptic makes a god of the universe or, ultimately, himself. Beyond all the philosophies, we still have to deal with us.
10 For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.
The gospel speaks to the heart, then the head responds.
31 because he has fixed a day on which he will have the world judged in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed, and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.”
32 When they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some scoffed; but others said, “We will hear you again about this.” 33 At that point Paul left them. 34 But some of them joined him and became believers, including Dionysius the Areopagite and a woman named Damaris, and others with them.
Explanation: The topic that caused rejection, an outburst of laughter, curiosity, and ultimately belief was the resurrection.
Paul anchored his entire argument on Christ’s resurrection. The word translated “assurance” or “proof”in verse 31 is usually translated as belief, trust, or faith. Paul hinges his Gospel presentation on the resurrection as evidence for the faith. So should we.
The resurrection of Christ means:
• God has the power to raise the dead.
• God has the authority to appoint a judge over the living.
• The One raised from the dead has authority over the living and the dead.
This sounded foolish because the Stoics & Epicureans believed death led to nothingness, and believed souls lived forever in a sleep-like state.
The resurrection was, and still is, everything. If it is false, go about your day; nothing changes. Because it is true, Jesus’ life, death, burial, and resurrection serve as a warning of judgment to unbelievers and a promise of salvation to the church.
Our entire faith hinges on the resurrection.
14 and if Christ has not been raised, then our proclamation has been in vain and your faith has been in vain.
17 If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins.
My final point is this: To be the light God called us to be, we must preach the resurrection of Christ.
My final point is this: To be the light God called us to be, we must preach the resurrection of Christ.
This remains one of the most debated Christian beliefs. Here are three major cases for the resurrection that lead toward one logical conclusion:
The Empty Tomb
The Bible makes this claim. Ancient writers Josephus and Tacitus also affirm that Jesus was executed under Pontius Pilate; Josephus adds, “He appeared alive on the third day.”
The empty tomb demands an explanation. Either Jesus’ disciples removed His body and lied, or He physically rose from the dead.
Early Church Writings and Eyewitness Testimony
Paul wrote that “Jesus appeared to more than 500 believers.” The church boldly circulated this claim while eyewitnesses were still alive.
These believers faced persecution from Jewish leaders and eventually Rome. This information was deadly. Either they were tortured, died, and forsook everything for a lie they created, or they truly believed Jesus rose from the dead.
Transformed Skeptics and Enemies
If no body could be produced and eyewitnesses were willing to die for their testimony, we must ask why skeptics and opponents became followers.
Paul went from bringing charges against Christians to get them killed, to making more Christians and risking his own life. What could compel someone toward something this radical?
Paul said:
8 Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me.
Be a light to the world: the religious, the pagan, and the skeptic alike.
Be disgusted with darkness.
Know who you are speaking with.
Don’t be scared of any arena.
Be willing to expose idols in people’s hearts.
Preach the resurrection of Christ.
