Sermon Tone Analysis

Intro me

Before we get going this morning, I have to say how excited I am to see our 2023 goal turning into concrete practical action.

I’ve loved getting to spend more time with Pat over the past months as we’ve begun this process and I’m really looking forward to this next phase.

I’m increasingly optimistic we’re realistic in imagining becoming a church planting church just next year - a stretch for sure, but possible.

So if you’re feeling like the room’s a bit of a squeeze, that we’re pretty full, that’s good!

We have a plan!

But onto the Bible.

And at first glance the passage we’re going to look at this morning may seem pretty remote and uninteresting.

We’ve been following the story of a mission team from one of the very first churches with a key leader, Paul, at the helm these past weeks.

They’ve travelled huge distances, seen some amazing breakthroughs and also had their fair share of troubles too.

At the close of last week’s episode, trouble caught up with them in Berea and this Paul was rushed away to safety, across the sea to Athens.

Paul might have been hoping for a bit of a break as he arrived since even back then, it was a tourist hotspot.

Speaking of which, I was actually in Athens with my family for a short break just before Easter - and I have to say it was lovely.

Particularly having come from a wet and dreary Scotland!

I promised some holiday snaps in the teaser so here you go: athens

Athens is famous for its thinkers, for its democracy - but also for its temples.

Bang in the middle of the city is this huge temple dedicated to the goddess Athena - you just can’t miss it.

Planning regulations to keep the buildings around it low.

Lit up like a Christmas tree at night.

It’s why the city is called Athens - from Athena.

But the crazy thing is just how old it is.

That exact same temple would have been at the centre of the city Paul visited two thousand years ago, already hundreds of years old - a few less broken and borrowed pieces to be fair (sorry about those marbles, Greece).

For all that’s the same, it’d be reasonable to expect Athens 2000 years back to be a totally different world.

One of the big surprises for us this week, though, is just how similar it really is once you look under the covers.

Sure, you wouldn’t find many in the modern Western world making offerings at temples to the gods - but one layer behind that, our world has a lot in common with theirs.

The basic idea that - just like with those ancient Greek gods - there are things in our world that will make life work for us if we pursue them; things that can crush us if we don’t - well that’s not very foreign at all.

Think about being popular - when people exclude and unfriend me, I’m crushed - because inside I think being popular was what would finally have made life work, finally made me happy.

So I chase after it, make sacrifices for it.

I’ll be whoever I need to be in order for people to like me.

To do whatever people approve of and applaud.

Think about being rich or successful: that will surely make life work for me, we can think: without it I’m crushed.

So I must pursue it; I’ll sacrifice whatever I need to - my ethics, my family, my health.

The things we sacrifice for - or to.

The temples we worship at.

The gods of this age.

Can you see how that’s similar underneath?

And that means here we’re going to have perhaps the best opportunity in the whole of Acts to see what Paul would do if he was here in our world today.

So it’s a massively relevant passage.

Jennifer is reading for us this morning and we’re in the book of Acts, chapter 17, starting at verse 16.

Page 1113.

Acts chapter 17 - that’s the big 17 - verse 16 - tiny 16.

Page 1113.

It’d be worth having a bible open so we can refer back to it as we think about what we’ve heard in a moment.

Let’s read together.

Thanks Jennifer.

There’s obviously lots going on, lots to think and talk about.

We’re going to focus in on two big points this morning: First, we’re going to look at Paul’s method - we’re going to see what we can learn from the way he goes about engaging with this new audience.

And the short answer is “a lot”.

Second, we’re going to look at Paul’s message - we’re going to dig into the what he has to say, to see how it’s still relevant and significant for us today.

So, method then message.

M and M. Two m’s.

Mmmm.

tasty.

What’s his method?

First, he gets to know the world he’s trying to reach.

1. know who you are trying to reach

In our first verse he sees the city is full of idols - but he’s looked closer than that: he’s walked around and looked carefully at what it is that they worship.

He seems to have done a full tour and even read all those little information signs - you know, the ones you find in museums - because he spots and calls out this particular altar and its inscription.

He studies the people he is trying to reach.

If we wanted to do something similar today, how would we go about it?

Well the altars we worship at aren’t on display around our city in exactly the same way - but you get a glimpse of them in adverts, in the life we’re being sold as the good life.

We get a sense for what our culture worships through the media, in films, in who they make heroes; in the mouths of our celebrities.

But even as I’m saying that, it’s really important we remember we’re trying to reach individuals, not the average Edinburgh-dweller if there were such a thing.

Even Athens wasn’t just one flavour - see in verse 18 there are Epicureans and Stoics - well, those two groups think about the world completely differently:

Epicureans’ watch-word would be enjoy: the gods are so remote they have no interest in our world - or influence in it; we live and then we die so do what pleases you.

Diogenes, one of these Epicureans, sums it up this way: “Nothing to fear in God; Nothing to feel in death; Pleasure can be attained; Pain can be endured.”

- how’s that for a thoroughly modern-sounding worldview?!

Stoics’ watch-word, on the other hand, would be endure: There’s no god above, only god within, within us all; our world is ruled by fate - we just have to endure it and do our duty.

Just two of the radically different views people had of life in that ancient city - so if we have to know the world we’re trying to reach, that means knowing the people, the individuals we’d love to reach.

We use a handy acronym, BLESS, to remind us of some of the small steps we can take to share our faith with the world around us and this is why that letter L is so important.

L stands for Listen with care.

What do the people around you believe?

How do they think life works?

You’ll never know simply through the labels they wear - you’ll need to ask good questions and then listen with care, be interested in and alert to what they’re willing to share with you.

And you’d be surprised how often people are willing to share - most people would love to have someone care enough to listen to them and their views for a while.

So, first, know the world, know the individuals you are trying to reach.

Second?

2. navigate their world.

Notice here that Paul uses their language, their symbols, their culture as he tries to help them towards God.

Rather than starting from Abraham or David or the Jewish idea of Messiah, he starts from the common ground of creation.

Rather than quoting Jewish Scriptures as his authority, he quotes their poets.

He’s navigating on their map, using their language, their symbols.

What could that mean for us?

Maybe there is common ground we can agree on and start from - like the value of each and every diverse human, or that human brokenness is the root of so much of the pain in our world.

For many people, the bible will carry no more weight than Harry Potter - so quoting it might not help - it might not even make sense to them at all.

But maybe there are storylines in films which mirror parts of the bible that we can draw on.

Or lyrics from songs which get across some of what we want to say.

Or reflections from their philosophers which point towards the truth of God.

So know who you’re trying to reach, and navigate their world.

That’s some of what we learn from Paul’s method, here, as he engages with the people of Athens - but what about his message?

That’s what I want to spend the rest of our time together looking at.

What’s his message?

As I’ve been reflecting on Paul’s speech to the Areopagus, I think he wants them to see their idols have failed them.

They offer sacrifices to all these gods at all these shrines - Athens is full to the brim with this stuff - one commentator says “there were more gods in Athens than in all the rest of the country … it was easier to find a god there than a man.”

But it’s all in vain.

It’s completely failed them.

The truth is that God alone is creator, and that he is the one and only sovereign over his world.

That’s verse 24: Acts 17:24

and get this - Acts 17:26 he has marked out the nations’ appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands, he tells them.

It is God who is in control of the extent of empires, of the rise and fall of nations.