-ism’s
As I thought about today’s lesson all kinds of words came to mind.
( intellectualism, activism, materialism, communism, feminism, hedonism, modernism, terrorism ) I was surprised to learn that there are 887 words that end with ISM in the english dictionary.
Definitions of ism
n. - A belief (or system of beliefs) accepted as authoritative by some group or school OR n. - A doctrine or theory.
Our culture is filled with people that fall into all kinds of Belief systems…and may directly conflict with the Christian belief system. The question is how do we communicate with people that believe differently than we do?
How would you describe God to people in our culture?
It’s been said that GOD is like Coke...He’s the real thing.
GOD is like General Electric...He brings things to life.
GOD is like Bayer Aspirin...He works wonders.
GOD is like Hallmark Cards...He cares enough to send the very best.
GOD is like Tide...He gets the stains out that others leave behind.
GOD is like Dial Soap...Aren’t you glad you know him? Don’t you wish everyone did?
GOD is like Sears...He has everything.
Finally, GOD is like Scotch Tape... You can’t see him, but you know he’s there.
All those examples call on advertising themes of the past. Maybe they are more than just a quick laugh for us. For some people those statements might actually help them to connect to a better understanding of God.
At first that seems sort of sad to me. But, as I consider it more carefully it is more like finding a better way of communicating with someone that speaks a different language. Or that have different views and backgrounds.
When we are willing to find a way of sharing our understanding about God and salvation with anyone that we interact with it is a special form of evangelism.
Now don’t get all knotted up inside because I used the E word.
You need to understand that as a Christian you are expected to live a life that shares your faith.
I am not saying that any of us in necessarily called to be as bold as the Apostle Paul. However, you are not exempt from sharing your faith, especially if the opportunity presents itself.
This morning we are picking up with the last several verses of Chapter 17 of Acts where Paul has a special opportunity to share his faith.
We are looking at the middle of what is called Paul’s second missionary journey. Last week we talked about the culture of the city of Athens when Paul was there. Historians note that there were over 30,000 “gods” worshiped in the city at the time. There were the celebrated 12 main deities and untold number of lesser deities.
We have from last weeks description that Paul was a bit upset with what he saw. That discomfort would have come from his Jewish background and was reinforced with his more recent understanding of God as a convert to what we call Christianity.
Paul is technically on the run and has traveled some 200 miles by sea or 250 or so by land to get to Athens. He is alone in the city until his companions arrive and he has spent some time in the synagogue but, Luke does not record what happens there. However, it appears that he does not get thrown out from the synagogue nor does he seem to have any converts there either.
Today’s scripture picks up after Paul has some interaction with Epicurean and stoic philosophers. He is invited to the Areopagus to speak. The Areopagus is the meeting place of the Athens leadership.
Paul begins to speak,
Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: "Men 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. Now what you worship as something unknown I am going to proclaim to you.
This message is the only full sermon of Paul’s recorded in scripture given to gentiles. This event is special because he had been invited to speak to the prominent gathering of Gentiles in the city. He has the ear of the leadership of the city.
That is not something that happens to Paul every day. In the synagogue he has the opportunity to speak because it is normal for people to be asked to speak in worship. To read scripture and explain what has been read.
In the past when he teaches that Jesus was the messiah he is rejected he goes out and teaches in the public places, the market or where people get their water, anyplace that people gather.
On the event in today’s scripture he is speaking not in the market to the common folks, he is speaking to the intellectuals in this college town. He is talking to people in this town that according to last weeks scripture listen to all the newest ideas. These people are open minded and will accept concepts, ideas and even gods from different cultures.
When Paul gets up to speak we really don’t know the conditions of his presence.
Is he defending himself in some kind of trial for his teaching in the Market? Or maybe his ideas were provoking enough that they were considered to be worth listening too.
In general Paul was going to speak to the group as sort of a high brow show. This foreign hillbilly has come to “teach US something” So they might have come to learn or they might be there to heckle and get a laugh.
What ever the situation, I doubt that Paul cared. Either way he was given an opportunity to teach the Gospel to a formal body.
He starts his presentation speaking to the Men of Athens! He does not introduce himself or give any list of qualifications; we might guess that someone would have made a formal introduction before he starts. His name, where he is from maybe something about his education
He is going to speak to them in Greek, he knows their language. It was common for people all around the Mediterranean Sea to speak some Greek because of the control that the Grecian empire had before the advent of Roman control that is now in place.
He goes on to say, “I see that you are very religious.”
With 30,000 idols and alters all around the city that may have seemed obvious.
However, he is stating a fact that would be easy for all in attendance to agree wit him on. Of course we are religious.
They would have though it ignorant to not have a belief in some kind of God.
It was obvious that something beyond human ability and understanding made the world.
In fact they were open minded enough to understand that they did not know it all. They were open to new ideas including new gods because the world is a big place.
Our culture is pretty open minded. Most depend on educated people to warn us of problems and right and wrong. It seems that every agenda is open to presentation in the public square and public schools except Christian views. Even though it was the Christian world view that brought the ability to share views and beliefs publicly.
Our culture is very much like what we read about Athens in Paul’s day.
When Paul speaks of their religious nature he is getting them to agree with his logic. He moves on, and basically says, I could tell this by examining all the different objects of worship.
He mentions finding one special alter….It has an inscription, ‘TO AN UNKNOWN GOD.”
In my studied of this event I found out that in Athens today they have preserved at least one alter with a similar inscription. (to unknown gods) I guess there is nothing like covering your bases, if you have 30,000 gods you would really hate to miss one and have to explain yourself.
There is a story that comes from sometime in the sixth century (before Christ), the city of Athens was being devastated by a plague. When no explanation for the plague could be found, and no cure was in sight, the approach was to assume that one of the city’s many gods had been offended.
The leaders of the city sought to determine which of the gods it was and then determine a way of appeasing that god. This was no easy task, since the city of Athens was said to have so many gods.
When all efforts failed to discern which god had been offended, , an outside “consultant” was brought in from the Island of Cyprus, whose name was Epimenides. Epimenides concluded that it was none of the known gods of Athens which had been offended, but some, as yet, unknown god.
He proposed a plan. He had a various flock of sheep, of colors, kept from food until they were hungry. On the given day, he had these sheep turned loose on Mars Hill, on what was a pasture. For any sheep not to have eaten his fill would have been unexplainable. He had the sheep turned loose and watched carefully, to see if any sheep would lie down and not eat. Several sheep, to the amazement of those watching, did lie down.
Altars were erected at each spot where a sheep lay down, dedicated to an “unknown god.” On those altars, the sheep which lay in that spot was sacrificed.
When Paul opens his remarks with a reference to this particular alter he is keeping the communication lines open.
He is appealing to a since of mystery which existed long before most of these people were born. He is getting a foot hold into the people’s curiosity.
When I look at the discovery channel I see all kinds of shows appealing to the mysteries of the bible. Books like the Divnci Code claims to be able to tell you secrets about Jesus. Humans like mysteries and secrets, we are willing to listen to anyone that claims to be able to explain and often debunk things that hold divine qualities.
Paul uses his opening connection to the Unknown God to catch the imagination of the listeners.
Do you think that if he pulled out a Hebrew Bible and put it on the table and said, If you don’t believe in this book and if you keep worshiping useless idols you area all going to Hell….would have helped theses intellectuals to listen to him.
He has started his talk with acknowledgement of their culture toward religion and he has selected a point of discussion which is a part of their belief system.
How should we talk to our culture today?
Is it going to have any affect if we open our conversation by pointing out that the personal choice of a person in lie at the Dollar Store or the grocery store will send them to Hell?
What if we were to hear that a person has some new age beliefs in quartz stones or the special power of angels and just bypass their beliefs and insist that they are wrong?
Will they listen to anything you have to say or will they just shut you and your opinions down and ignore you?
Paul demonstrates how you can go to a foreign culture and at least start a dialogue. State some of the facts; you are religions, our have some amazing worship places. He demonstrates starting a dialog.
Next he begins to talk about this mysterious God. (24-26)
"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 hands. And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else. From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live.
This God that you have wondered about all of your lives, made everything around us. He does not live in temples made by people. He is bigger that.
Paul is sharing some mind blowing stuff. The Unknown God, is bigger that any of the other god’s they think they know about. This God does not need them to do anything for Him because he has provided everything. He has made his actions obvious in the world around them.
Basically he says in a very nice way, all your worship is a bit silly.
Notice that he is not quoting the Hebrew Bible, the Old Testament, he starts with creation and brings the idea of a God that is all around them and the world.
He is not regional and he is not limited to particular interest and abilities. He is a Big God and exceeds the abilities of even the highest deities that they already worship.
He goes on, (27-29)
God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each 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 man’s design and skill.
God has done all this so that you would want to know him. So that you would notice and search to know him better. Eventually, you should notice that he was never far away.
In fact some of your own poets gave a perfect description. “We are his offspring.” If we are his offspring, children then we should never think of God as being made of gold or silver so stone or any image made by man.
Paul is offering a lot of new ideas, and it seems that the leaders and other listeners are listening quietly, taking it in.
No one has stormed out declaring that what Paul is saying is nonsense. He uses a line from a known poet to connect what he is saying to their culture and beliefs.
Paul is demonstrating a knowledge of their underlying culture and showing them that what he is saying is not that foreign.
Paul adds,
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.
It sounded like Paul just said that these people were ignorant because of their current beliefs. Their failure to know the “unknown God” has put them at risk of judgment. .
Paul has moved to being very direct. This is the kind of moment when the leaders in the synagogue would start to shout and run Paul out of the synagogue and even threaten his life. But his is not the synagogue it is a secular environment.
He has approached the people on an intellectual level; he has demonstrated a knowledge of their current beliefs. He explains that they have been ignorant of the God that he is speaking about and has started challenging them and informing them that a day of judgment is coming.
He is not pulling any punches.
Folks, when the people around us have bought into the ISMs of the day, the only way to get them to consider another point of view, another belief system is to have a relationship.
People today don’t care what you know and believe until they know that you care.
We live is an educated culture where it is easy to discount a specific idea of God and the relationship we are offered because many just believe like the Epicurean philosophers that all we have is this life.
Or like the stoic Philosophers that life will be what it is and then we are absorbed back into god.
As a Christian it is expected that you will share what you believe with the people you interact with. It is never up to you to change anyone.
How do you share what you know, you have to get to know people and what they believe. You have to have a real relationship with another person so that you can share your faith.
You will never reach anyone by simply telling them that they are wrong, or offering your judgment, why should they listen?
Paul is coming to a close and he adds,
He has given proof of this to all men by raising him from the dead."
Paul is going to receive three responses to this last couple of statements.
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. A few men 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.
So what could happen to Paul by challenging these people? His Roman citizenship has little or no value here. The Jewish population does not seem to care one way or another about him. In other places he was whipped or beaten when he crossed ways with the culture.
In Athens they are civilized, they are educated, they live and let people live.
In general they enjoy a comfortable existence.
Here in Athens the first reaction is that of a sneer from those that reject his teaching. Basically, people thought that this Paul guy was a nut. They just wrote off his ideas as a wasting of their time. So, simple rejection of Paul’s message is the first intellectual response. Many people around us have rejected the news of Jesus Christ because they are comfortable and educated and have no need for a crutch, as they see it.
Another group says that they want to here him again. This group is not convinced but they still have an open mind. They are procrastinating, putting off making a decision. There are some people in our lives that put off a decision for all kinds of reason. I have to be good so I can approach God or they don’t believe and probably never will, their passive open minds will never let them make any real decisions. They are always searching for answers and never fully accepting any.
The third group believe what Paul has said. They go with him to hear more.
One was a member of the Areopagus, the other is a woman who may be a resident but not a Greek, and then others.
The third response is a personal choice to learn more.
I doubt that Paul would say that he had anything to do with these people believing. He would most likely say that he just did what he was called to do and God did the rest.
As a Christian you are called to make friends and share ideas and let God do the rest.
All Glory be to God!
