Opening to Our Need for God

Acts 17:22–34 NIV

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. 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. “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. And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else. 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. 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. ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’ “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. In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. 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.” 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.” At that, Paul left the Council. 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.

Introduction: How do we share the Gospel with people who do not think like us? Or do not have the Bible as their basis, or even know much about the Bible?

19-People are looking for God in all the wrong places.

“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. 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.”

Lookin' for love in all the wrong places. - song lyrics

I was lookin' for love in all the wrong places Lookin' for love in too many faces Searchin' their eyes Lookin' for traces of what I'm dreaming of Hoping to find a friend and a lover I'll bless the day I discover another heart Lookin' for love

Richard Mouw - Distorted Truth Concept - both in terms of people reaching for God and understanding a little something about God.

Paul here draws on his knowledge of Greek culture to build a bridge to them. He wants them to see how things they have been reading and writing in their everyday life are actually bits and pieces of truth, propelling them toward that unknown God. As John Calvin would later write, “All truth is from God; and consequently, if wicked men have said anything that is true and just, we ought not to reject it; for it has come from God” (quoted in Keith Mathison, “All Truth Is God’s Truth: A Reformed Approach to Science and Scripture,” Ligonier Ministries, May 11, 2012, https://www.ligonier.org/blog/all-truth-gods-truth-reformed-approach-science-and-scripture/).

Stoicism – An Ethical Approach of aligning to nature, subduing emotions under logic and reason, Deterministic, so no matter what be happy which is about not desiring, but letting fate happen, monistic in that Nature is God, when we die we get swallowed up into the divine knowledge/reason that is God. Nature is passive, reason is the active forces.

Epicureanism – The goal of life is pleasure (meaning absence of fear and pain), Atomist materialism everything including gods are tied to the material, forces holding human material and soul together do not last forever, God does not intervene in the world, there is nothing but human free will, God, or gods are indifferent towards humans.

Ancient literature contains references that references to altars to unknown gods. Gempf points to a writing by Diogenes Laertius that presents the practice of anonymous worship as a “safety precaution…The thinking was that if the gods were not properly venerated they would strike the city. Hence, lest they inadvertently invoke the wrath of some god in their ignorance of him or her, the city set up these alters to unknown gods.” Paul, then, is highlighting an acknowledged need of the Athenians, and he presents the God whom he proclaims as the answer to that need. - Ajith Fernando.

20 - Application Point:

Find Truth Bridges or Common interests/needs that can be a bridge to sharing the Gospel.

And So Paul says, what you do not Know, I will make known to you.

21 - The Gospel Makes God Known.

A young new pastor to a small country parish had a visit from an elder one day. The elder seemed uncomfortable but went ahead and delivered the message: “You quote too many different authors and need to focus on just quoting Scripture. Let the Bible speak for itself.” The pastor was taken aback but promised to think and pray on what was said. Upon some reflection, he remembered that the New Testament was filled with quotations from non-Christian authors. In each instance, these authors were quoted to illustrate a point about the Christian life or about Jesus. So the pastor compiled the list and shared it with the elder board; he would continue to quote other sources just as Paul and the first church had done. We reach the world by interacting with their sources and showing how elements already found in the culture point back to Jesus. We see Paul doing that in his speech to the Areopagus. While speaking to Greek scholars in Athens, Paul draws on two sources they would be familiar with: Epimenides of Crete and Aratus’s poem “Phainomena” (Acts 17:28).

Make note that Paul is alluding to the O.T. the whole time without quoting it, but quotes their authors to illustrate the already Biblical story he is sharing. - He adapts the message to their sensitivity.

Story of Missionary who learned that the hero in the Gospel story was Judas, because betrayel was a value in the culture. The presented the Gospel as God's peace child.

As Don Richardson learned the language and lived with the people, he became more aware of the gulf that separated his Christian worldview from the worldview of the Sawi: "In their eyes, Judas, not Jesus, was the hero of the Gospels, Jesus was just the dupe to be laughed at." Eventually Richardson discovered what he referred to as a Redemptive Analogy that pointed to the Incarnate Christ far more clearly than any biblical passage alone could have done. What he discovered was the Sawi concept of the Peace Child.[4]

Three tribal villages were in constant battle at this time. The Richardsons were considering leaving the area, so to keep them there, the Sawi people in the embattled villages came together and decided that they would make peace with their hated enemies. Ceremonies commenced in which young children were exchanged between opposing villages. One man in particular ran toward his enemy's camp and literally gave his son to his hated foe. Observing this, Richardson wrote: "if a man would actually give his own son to his enemies, that man could be trusted!"

1. In 1972, Neil and Carol Anderson left Spokane, Washington, for Papua New Guinea. They were headed there to be missionaries to the Folopa, an isolated sociolinguistic community. These people didn’t have a written language, so the Andersons helped them create an alphabet, then written words, then a dictionary and then taught the Folopa how to read. Then came the task of translating the Bible. When they got to John 6, where Jesus says, “I am the Bread of Life,” they encountered a problem: the Folopa people did not eat bread. The staple of their diet was sweet potato, and so they ended up translating the verse as Jesus saying, “I am the sweet potato of life” (Virginia de Leon, “Spreading the Word,” Spokesman Review, February 4, 2007, https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2007/feb/04/spreading-the-word/). When the Andersons decided to translate Jesus’s words differently, they were not corrupting God’s Word but rather were making it accessible to a culture foreign to the Jewish culture of the Bible. When we share the good news, it’s important to remember that the good news is Jesus, not our culture. This type of evangelism is what we see Paul doing in the last proclamation we’ll look at in this series, found in Acts 17.

Talking to Jason who did not believe in God. He was sharing that he felt that everyone abondoned him during a difficult time in his life except for his uncle who showed him unconditional love. I said this is an anology to Christ.

22 - The Gospel embedded in the Whole Story of Scripture....

Dollar Store Appeal to the creation/image of God. Why idolatry is unnecessary, and how God holds all people accountable. The Athenians have reversed their idea of God.

23 - Application Point:

You have permission to share the Bible without quoting the Bible.

24 - The Gospel alerts people to God’s judgement.

25 - Paul helped the Athenians Enter through the Judgement Door. The Resurrection of Jesus was confirmation that He was the man approved by God to judge the world.

H.C. - Q&A 52

Q. How does Christ's return "to judge the living and the dead" comfort you?

A. In all distress and persecution, with uplifted head I confidently await the very judge who has already offered himself to the judgment of God in my place and removed the whole curse from me.1 Christ will cast all his enemies and mine into everlasting condemnation, but will take me and all his chosen ones to himself into the joy and glory of heaven.2

26 - Application Point:

-Be Confident in helping people to see their need to avoid judgement.

-Be Confident in sharing the restoration we find in Jesus.

27 - The Gospel provides salvation from judgement.

Paul both alerts them that their deepest fears of out of ignorance will insight the unknown God to judge them, but also is offering the salvation from that Judgement.

What the greeks are constently fighting against is ignorance, and Paul offers them the knowledge they need to be saved.

The Result: Among them was Dionysius, a member of the Areopagus, also a woman named Damaris, and a number of others.

Conclusion:

Reference the Reformed Confessions: The Reformed Confessions are statements of faith written to clarify the Gospel at times when the Church was in crisis. Heidelberg Catechism: Q&A 5-14, 26-28, 52, 94-95 Belgic Confession: Articles 1, 12-15, 37 Canons of Dort: Head I: Articles 1; Head II: 1-2; Head III & IV: Articles 1-4