Chapter Seventeen part III: Athens

Thessolonica: (this Jesus who has flipped the world upside down) The world is lying to you

Berea: (They examined the Scriptures) There is truth in Scripture

Athens: (stoics and epicureanism) A world view without Christ in the center is a failing world view

Acts 17:16 CSB

16 While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he was deeply distressed when he saw that the city was full of idols.

Are you distressed by the lostness of the people around you?

Acts 17:17–18 CSB

17 So he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and with those who worshiped God, as well as in the marketplace every day with those who happened to be there. 18 Some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers also debated with him. Some said, “What is this ignorant show-off trying to say?” Others replied, “He seems to be a preacher of foreign deities”—because he was telling the good news about Jesus and the resurrection.

Paul reasoned with anyone who would listen to him. He spent his time in the synagogue but also in the agora. The agora was the shopping center of ancient Athens. It was a place to buy stuff obviously but it was also a place where people would go to worship, to debate, and to socialize. You can imagine Paul as he walks from shop to shop he is bombarded by people selling him every kind of idol they can. He would walk out into the center and see the temple to Hephaestus: the god of the forge on his right and on his left would be the acropolis and the temple to Nike and the temple to Athena. He would have seen a giant statue of Athena and a temple to Rome and Augustus. Paul understood the context he was in and it broke his heart. He saw the crowds turning to sexual immorality, bogus philosophies, and idol worship. He knew that he had the solution to all their wandering and he was determined to do something about it.

Think about your own context. When you look around what do you see? Pornography blasted on every commercial, weed shops on every corner, idolatry rampant, immorality rampant. We live in a broken world that is becoming more and more proud of its rebellion. People chasing broken world views, trying desperately to find meaning, purpose, happiness.

Like Paul we have the answer to the world’s problems. The solution is Jesus. His grace is sufficient for all our needs, His love covers all our sins. He asks nothing from us in return simply that we believe in faith. It is a truth so simple that Paul says the world sees it as foolish. And yet, Paul boasts in it. He is happy to look the fool for the sake of proclaiming the Gospel. His reasoning? Romans 1:16 “16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.”

Lets not be ashamed of the Gospel that has changed our lives.

Who was it that Paul would have been preaching to?

Pagans

Paganism: polytheistic worship of a pantheon. Many worshipped the Greek gods and participated in worship through temple prostitutes, idol worship, animal sacrifice and wine offerings. Because there was no formal text there were no formal practices. Each temple decided what they were going to do as worship. Some temples would have an oracle that would “predict the future” in return for an offering of equal value. There was no core religious text but instead had several mythologies that were accepted in explaining the origin and role of their deities.

Philosophers

Epicureanism: an ancient school of philosophy founded in Athens by Epicurus. The school rejected determinism and advocated hedonism (pleasure as the highest good), but of a restrained kind: mental pleasure was regarded more highly than physical, and the ultimate pleasure was held to be freedom from anxiety and mental pain, especially that arising from needless fear of death and of the gods.

The most important thing you can do in life is make yourself happy.

Stoicism: an ancient Greek school of philosophy founded at Athens by Zeno of Citium. The school taught that virtue, the highest good, is based on knowledge; the wise live in harmony with the divine Reason (also identified with Fate and Providence) that governs nature, and are indifferent to the vicissitudes of fortune and to pleasure and pain.

Doesn’t focus on ideal society but instead on how to live in the world as it is.

Virtue is a habit of the mind, consistent with nature, and moderation, and reason. … It has then four divisions — prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance. Prudence [Wisdom] is the knowledge of things which are good, or bad, or neither good nor bad. … Justice is a habit of the mind which attributes its proper dignity to everything, preserving a due regard to the general welfare. … Fortitude [Courage] is a deliberate encountering of danger and enduring of labour. … [And] temperance is the form and well-regulated dominion of reason over lust and other improper affections of the mind.

Acts 17:19–21 CSB

19 They took him and brought him to the Areopagus, and said, “May we learn about this new teaching you are presenting? 20 Because what you say sounds strange to us, and we want to know what these things mean.” 21 Now all the Athenians and the foreigners residing there spent their time on nothing else but telling or hearing something new.

Athens has been one of the most important cities in all of western history. It is the father of democracy, it survived the Grecco-Persian wars and the Peloponnesian wars against Sparta. It was known for its philosophers like Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. They were the strongest and most independent city state in Greece all the way up until the days of Alexander the Great. Even then Alexander was so impressed by Athens and Greek culture he would be trained under Aristotle and would Hellenize the entire known world. Yet with all their success, all their wealth, all their wisdom, they were still lost in their sin. Unlike the Bereans, they had no absolute truth. The academia of Athens and their draw to new philosophies left them grasping at straws looking for something they could grasp onto. They prided themselves on their knowledge and their culture and God was using that to open a door for Paul to share the Gospel with them.

Acts 17:22–31 CSB

22 Paul stood in the middle of the Areopagus and said, “People of Athens! I see that you are extremely religious in every respect. 23 For as I was passing through and observing the objects of your worship, I even found an altar on which was inscribed, ‘To an Unknown God.’ Therefore, what you worship in ignorance, this I proclaim to you. 24 The God who made the world and everything in it—he is Lord of heaven and earth—does not live in shrines made by hands. 25 Neither is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives everyone life and breath and all things. 26 From one man he has made every nationality to live over the whole earth and has determined their appointed times and the boundaries of where they live. 27 He did this so that they might seek God, and perhaps they might reach out and find him, though 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 are also his offspring.’ 29 Since, then, we are God’s offspring, we shouldn’t think that the divine nature is like gold or silver or stone, an image fashioned by human art and imagination. 30 “Therefore, having overlooked the times of ignorance, God now commands all people everywhere to repent, 31 because he has set a day when he is going to judge the world in righteousness by the man he has appointed. He has provided proof of this to everyone by raising him from the dead.”

Rhetoric

Ethos: Paul enforces his credibility as the speaker as claiming to be the one with the solution to their problem. He knows the unknown God that they worship, in fact Paul is an expert being one of Christ’s Apostles. Paul also argues for God’s credibility as a deity. He is not like the pathetic manlike gods the Greeks worshipped. He is almighty and holy.

Pathos: Paul understood his audience. He knew what they were searching for. He knew that what he was telling them was important for them, not just because it was going to be new information or new wisdom for them to boast in, but because if they were to believe, it would change their lives forever.

Logos: Paul is very logical in his teaching. He is a well trained and competent speaker. He is not emotional although he is passionate about what he is saying. He appeals to the people with reason even quoting one of their own poets in his argument.

Paul reveals to the people who it is they should worship

Paul is specific in naming who exactly it is that the Greeks should worship. He is not an unknown God but one that has made Himself known

The unknown God has made Himself known to us first through His prophets but now through His Logos: Jesus

This God is named YHWH.

Our God has made the world and everything in it

Of the Greek pantheon (Zeus, Poseidon, Hades, Athena) none of them had a role in creation. Already the God Paul is preaching has more power than the gods of the Greeks

Our God is ruler over everything. This would have resonated with the stoics who were searching for a divine providence.

Our God is not contained to an image or idol nor is He contained to a temple.

Our God is not in need of anything. He is all powerful, all knowing, and ever present. He is sufficient in and of Himself and has needs nothing from us.

Our God is sovereign. There is nothing that has happened without His allowing it. He has known all things from the beginning and He is in control of all things because He has made all things.

Our God uses creation and circumstances to call all people to Himself. To the lost this world is like searching for something in the dark, but God is not far away, instead He stands ready to change hearts and redeem souls.

Our God is our Father. He created us in His image and we find our purpose in serving Him. This would have resonated with the epicureans who found their purpose in their own happiness. They no longer needed to find identity in fading things but could find it in something eternal.

Our God has made us in His image not vice versa. God is not an image or an idol. He is the one true living God.

Our God does not hold our sins against us but instead He overlooks our ignorance and offers us grace and freedom through Jesus.

Our God is a holy and righteous judge and is calling us to repent

Our God is rich in mercy and abounding in steadfast love and offers us forgiveness of every sin

Acts 17:32–34 CSB

32 When they heard about the resurrection of the dead, some began to ridicule him, but others said, “We’d like to hear from you again about this.” 33 So Paul left their presence. 34 However, some people joined him and believed, including Dionysius the Areopagite, a woman named Damaris, and others with them.

How will you respond to the character of God? Will you scoff? Will you worship?

Do you have idols in your life that God is calling you to repent of?

Have you made God into an image or do you worship the God for who He says He is?

How has God called you to follow Him?

Think about your context again. You are surrounded by broken people with broken hearts and broken relationships. They are desperately searching for a solution to the world they see around them.

How can you share what you know to be true about Jesus and the Gospel with them in the way Paul did with the Athenians?