The Ready, The Reasoned, and the Rational pt. 3

Provocation

Paul was ran out of Berea after the Jews pursued him there and goes to Athens

Silas and Timothy were left at Berea to continue some of the work that was started there with the Bereans.

Paul sent for them to come to him in Athens and while there we see that he started to engage with the Athenians.

The text says that Paul was “provoked”…literally the picture is of being stirred or irritated to the point of response.

Now Athens was considered by many to be the intellectual center of the world and literally they had a place for every god they could honor. Throughout the city there would be temples, shrines, and places of worship to various deities.

It is not entirely unlike our modern day although the shrines look different. They’re called by fashion labels, car models, political parties, net worths…things like I’m an entrepreneur, I have a degree, etc.

We still have our shrines. We even have, much like the Athenians, more acceptable gods and less acceptable ones.

I know often times church planters seek out neighborhoods that are dealing with poverty, drugs, homelessness, etc. and I don’t think that’s wrong but I haven’t ever heard a church planter say “we’re planting in the suburbs because there’s materialism, classism, and racism running rampant and we have to do something about it.

What do these gods, idols, demi-gods, and heroes that we worship here do for you?

Do they provoke you to action? To reason with people?

One of my prayers is that we will be a people that are stirred by the idols around us to engage.

And mind you, it was this idolatry that presented itself as “intellect”. There wasn’t a separation between religion and state like we would think of today....this was their culture…these were IDOLS THAT SHAPED CULTURE.

Paul was stirred to action and engaged with both the Jews there and in the general marketplace.

TR: So some of them invited Paul to present at the aeropagus and speak his ideas...

Presentation

This invitation is an interesting one.

Two groups he engaged primarily were the Epicureans and the Stoics

Epicureans believed that the point of life was pleasure and Stoics believed the point of life was detachment and to be unmoved.

They mocked Paul as a “babbler”…the literally term is “seed-picker”. Basically saying that he had piecemealed his beliefs together from other beliefs

I find this interesting in its recognition of a truth…they heard in the Gospel elements of various beliefs

Paul believed in pleasure but ultimate pleasure is in God

Paul believed in being detached but from sinful desires with a focus on eternity.

See there is a common tactic that the enemy uses and if we meditated we’d see it clear enough in not only other’s lives but also our own.

He takes that which is good and redefines it to place mankind at the center.

However, if you are not meditating on these things you will begin to only interact with God as one thing or another.

For example is God and God of order and lawfulness…yes…but he also will overthrow an oppressive system.

Is God a compassionate God....yes…but he will not allow feelings to override what is righteous and distort truth for personal comfort.

One of the primary issues with us today is that we don’t really engage with people that we need to and therefore only see God in a limited scope.

We see him as a republican, democrat, American, wealthy, either always agreeing with us or forever punishing us....long story short we see God how we see ourselves....we in fact see God as ourselves…lo and behold we have been worshipping an idol all along...

A god of our imagination...

consumed with the newest and latest they sought to have Paul engage in their marketplace of idols

One such man who is being called to engage the marketplace of idols and whom we look forward to supporting and praying for is our brother David McCorn.

For those that don’t know this will be David’s last Sunday with us officially, although he isn’t going too far. We have the chance support him and even more so partner with him in a work that God has called him and Rebecca to.

The rest of the time this morning I want to yield to him so that we can hear how he’s accepting this Pauline like call to engage this city with the hope of the Gospel