“Being Positive in a Negative World”
Apostle Paul
-A bridge builder not a builder of walls-
Acts 17:16-34
When the Apostle Paul preached on Mars Hill in Athens Greece he demonstrated how to be positive in a negative world. When we look at all that is happening around the world, in our cities and neighborhoods what are we to do? For many years a wall stood between East and West Berlin. Finally the wall came down. Today there are commentators and politicians saying that the only answer to the crisis in Israel is to build a wall between Israel and Palestine. Some families are building higher and higher walls to keep their families safe.
Paul’s goal in life should also be our goal. Not to build walls between people but to build bridges to people of all cultures.
Acts 17 Paul finds himself in Athens, Greece waiting for Silas and Timothy. What Paul saw in Athens stirred his heart. He saw a city without faith in God the creator of heaven and earth. The city was given over to the worship of idols and statues of Greek gods. Paul didn’t hole up in a hotel for private prayer and meditation. He practiced what he did all his life, when faced with challenges he would take a situation like a sour lemon and turn it into lemonade.
Paul made it clear that he wasn’t impressed with what the world could offer. His citizenship was in heaven. Everything this world could offer was nothing compared to life with Christ in the Kingdom of God. In the hardest and darkest of situations Paul would try to build a bridge and not a wall.
If anyone had reason to complain or ask for people to join in a pity party, surely Paul had reason. Paul could stand up and declare his problems that would qualify him.
· After his conversion on the Damascus road the Jerusalem Church continued to fear and shun him. Saul renamed Paul was a terrorist and not a Christian. They believed that God is merciful but to a well know terrorist, no way.
· Paul was put in prison in Philippi for preaching and casting out an evil spirit in a young girl that Satan had given the gift of prophecy and fortune telling. Acts 16
· In Jerusalem Paul was falsely accused of desecrating the temped and was arrested and put on trial and eventually ended up in Rome under house arrest.
· 2 Corinthians 11:23-28 Paul give a litany of hardships he faced during his short life:
o in prison many times
o beaten severely with whips and rods
o exposed to death time and time again
o stoned with rocks
o shipwrecked spent a night and day in the open sea
o in danger from Jews and Gentiles
o gone without sleep
o gone without food and water
o everyday lived with his life in danger
· Yet with all his hardships the theme of Paul’s writing was “JOY”. Philippians 4:4, “Rejoice in the Lord always. I say it again: Rejoice.” Paul’s life mission was to preach the good news of the Gospel and build up people.
When Paul arrived in Athens he found himself in one of the most famous centers of philosophy, religion, art and architecture the ancient world had ever known.
In Athens Paul preached and taught in two places, in the synagogue and in the marketplace. (17:16-17) Paul spoke to the Jews in the synagogue and to Gentiles in the marketplace. We can learn a lot from the way Paul spoke to the people in Athens. Paul understood their culture and spoke to their needs.
Paul observed that the city was given to idolatry. The Greek historian Pausanias says that there were more idols in Athens than in all the rest of Greece combined. Paul would see them wherever he turned his eyes. He tried to reason and teach to Jews in the synagogue and Gentiles in the market place. There was in Athens one great "market place," or public square. The porches around it were favorite places for discussion.
In former years Athens had been famous for four schools of philosophy.
· The Academy of Plato
· The Lyceum of Aristotle
· The Porch of Zeno and
· The Garden of Epicures
In the time of Paul only two schools survived: Epicureans and Stoics. The Epicureans held that the gods were careless about human affairs, and that a man’s best course was to get as much pleasure out of life as possible. With them pleasure was the chief good. They held an anti-god outlook on life. Since there was no life after death your goal in life is to indulge in all the please you can get in what life you do have. The Stoics were fatalists, believers in a sort of pantheism, and insisted on self-righteousness. They goal was to talk and debate about natural law and the things of life. Epicurus was the founder of the first sect; Zeno, of the second. To the Epicureans the individual was supreme. To the Stoics universal law was supreme.
The Stoics and Epicureans considered Paul a babbler-a fellow with scraps of learning. They understood Paul’s teaching must have been about a new strange female diety call the resurrection the wife of Jesus. They mistook Anastasis, the Greek for resurrection, for the name of a goddess. The doctrine of the resurrection was a foreign topic to the philosophers. It was unlawful for Romans and Athenians to worship unauthorized gods. Acts 16:21
From the point of view of the people of Athens Paul was teaching about a false god not authorized by the state. For Paul to teach about Jesus and the resurrection was to put him in danger of being arrested like he was in Philippi.
Paul was taken to the Areopagus to have him present his views to the council and prevent another mob violence that happened in Philippi and Thessalonica. Areopagus is the Greek term for Mars’ hill (verse 22). The hill was a place of assembly. There the supreme court of Athens met. The court was made up of 30 city officials. There the courts that sat concerning religious matters convened. The associations had something to do, probably, with Paul being taken here to speak, though the meeting was informal and not official. The hill is about fifty feet high, and was then surrounded by the most glorious works of art in Athens with the historic Parthenon in the background. It was in harmony with the spirit of the city that he should be called on to speak to gratify the curiosity of people seeing new thoughts.
Paul was presenting the good news of the Gospel to the literary capital of the ancient world, the most cultured city of the earth. In this city many Romans sought to finish their education. Athens was the home of philosophers, orators, sculptors, painters and poets, and the great university where many thousands of strangers were gathered for study. This ancient city of so glorious history was the modern capital of Greece, and had a population of about 100,000 people.
Acts 22-31 Paul stood in the midst of Mars’ hill in the Areopagus. He spoke to them in a positive way. He didn’t attack them for their false philosophies. Men of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious (superstitious). 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. (The Greek word used here is “Agnosto”) where we get the word Agnostic. An Agnostic is a person that worships gods but not the one true God. Paul says, “Now what you worship as something unknown I am going to proclaim to you.” The introduction of Paul has always been regarded as a masterpiece of skill. He does not say, "In all things ye are too superstitious" or ye are "more religious than others." His remark is a compliment, and he confirms it by a statement that he had found an altar to the unknown God. Besides thousands of altars and statues of deities whom they named, this altar was dedicated to the "Unknown," as if to some deity whose presence they felt, but whom they did not comprehend. This Unknown, he announces, I declare unto you. Ancient writers speak of altars at Athens to the unknown God, or gods. Such an introduction was well calculated to fix the attention of his critical audience.
Under the allowed law of Athens Paul was going to speak to them about their “Unknown God,” a god they legally worshipped. If Paul could prove that his preaching concerning Jesus and the resurrection was an exposition of the UNKNOWN GOD then he was not breaking their law of teaching a false religion. Paul used the opportunity to proclaim the Good News of about Jesus Christ to people that were hearing for the first time that Jesus was their Messiah and Savior.
Paul preached that God that made the world. He now declares the attributes of that unknown God: (1) The God that made the world; (2) Lord of heaven and earth; (3) dwells not in temples; (4) not worshiped by human hands; (5) gives life to all that lives; (6) made of one blood all nations; (7) appointed that men should seek the Lord; (8) we are his offspring; (9) hence, the Godhead is not like any idol made by human hands. It dishonors so glorious a being to liken him to man’s device. Then comes the application. The times when there was no revelation in to those in darkness. The gospel is world-embracing: (1) All men, (2) everywhere, are command to repent. This call to repentance is urged because God hath appointed a day; the day of coming judgment, when the world will be judged through Christ. Of this the resurrection of Christ is an assurance. Athens had had her day. She was once the mistress of the seas. The same fact is true of every nation. If Jesus was raised, all men will be raised, then we have the assurance of a general judgment after death.
Acts 32-34. When they heard of the resurrection of the dead some of them sneered and other mocked. The Epicureans were materialists like the Sadducees. They no doubt mocked at the idea of a resurrection. The Stoics probably wished to hear again of this matter. There was a division of sentiment. So Paul departed. He regarded the field less fruitful than others. Certain men . . . believed. His labors were not without results. Dionysius, one of the judges of the court of the Areopagus, the judges that were chosen from the noblest men of the city, was converted, along with others. Dionysius was a highly intelligent leader. He had a good reputation in the city with high social standing.
Paul didn’t build a wall. He built a bridge. He didn’t debate; he simply shared the truth about Jesus Christ. God is available to all that seek Him.
The life of Paul illustrates how to be positive in a world that has forgotten God. He chose to be a builder of bridges of truth and love rather than build walks that separate.
Paul learned form the life of Christ to build bridges to people. Jesus didn’t come to condemn people but to love them and offer them the gift of salvation.
In the Gospel of John chapter 4, Jesus built a bridge of compassion to the Samaritan woman. The Samaritan woman was an outcast in her own community because she was living with one man after another. In fact she was with her fifth live in. She came to draw water at the well when no one else was around. Jesus talked to her and broke customs of his day. Jesus a Jew talked to a Samaritan and he also initiated talk to a woman and a strange woman at that. At the end of their conversation Jesus revealed to her that He was the Messiah.
On another occasion Jesus confronted the sinful pride of Scribes and Pharisees. The Scribes and Pharisees brought a woman caught in adultery to Jesus and the crowd asked Jesus if they should obey the Law of Moses and stone the woman to death.
Jesus looked at the woman who was and knelt down on the ground by the woman and wrote on the ground. Maybe he wrote various sins of the people holding stones. Jesus said, “If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.” (John 8:7) One by one the accusers quietly slipped away. After they were all gone, Jesus turned to her and asked: “Where are your accusers?” The woman answered that they were all gone.” Jesus said, neither do I accuse or condemn you. Go and sin no more.” John 8:10-12
You live in a negative world, a world that delights in bad news, a world that is filled with heart ach and a world with people that hurt you and get angry with you. What will be your response? What will you do? Will you be a bridge builder or build a wall? With God’s help you can build a bridge of love and forgiveness and encouragement. You can bring healing and look for the good and speak the truth in love.
We are called to live in the world but not be conformed to the ways of this world.
#There is a water spider I read about in the National Geographic that lives in the water but is not a part of the water. The Spider lives in a bubble house under water with a air tube that runs to the surface. Your shield to live in the world but not of the world is a Prayer Shield.
The Builder
Once upon a time two brothers who lived on adjoining farms fell into conflict. It was the first serious rift in 40 years of farming side by side, sharing machinery, and trading labor
and goods as needed without a hitch.
Then the long collaboration fell apart. It began with
a small misunderstanding and it grew into a major difference,
and finally it exploded into an exchange of bitter words followed by weeks of silence.
One morning there was a knock on John’s door. He
opened it to find a man with a carpenter’s toolbox. "I’m looking for a few days’ work", he said. "Perhaps you would have a few small jobs here and there I could help with? Could I help you?"
"Yes," said the older brother. "I do have a job for you. Look across the creek at that farm. That’s my neighbor; in fact,
it’s my younger brother.
Last week there was a meadow between us and he took
his bulldozer to the river levee and now there is a creek between us.
Well, he may have done this to spite me, but I’ll go him one
better. See that pile of lumber by the barn? I want you to build me a fence - - an 8-foot fence --so I won’t need to see his place or his face anymore."
The carpenter said, "I think I understand the situation. Show me the nails and the post-hole digger and I’ll be able to do
a job that pleases you."
The older brother had to go to town, so he helped the
carpenter get the materials ready and then he was off for the day. The carpenter worked hard all that day measuring, sawing, nailing.
About sunset when the farmer returned, the carpenter
had just finished his job.
The farmer’s eyes opened wide, his jaw dropped. There
was no fence there at all. It was a bridge -- a bridge stretching from one side of the creek to the other! A fine piece of work handrails and all – and the neighbor, his younger brother, was coming across, his hand outstretched. "You are quite a fellow to build this bridge after all I’ve said and done."
The two brothers stood at each end of the bridge, and
then they met in the middle, taking each other’s hand. They turned to see the carpenter hoist his toolbox on his shoulder.
"No, wait! Stay a few days. I’ve a lot of other projects for you," said the older brother.
"I’d love to stay on," the carpenter said, "but, I have many more bridges to build."
REMEMBER THIS:
God won’t ask what kind of car you drove, but He’ll ask how many people you drove who didn’t have transportation.
God won’t ask the square footage of your house, but He’ll ask how many people you welcomed into your home. God won’t ask about the clothes you had in your closet, but He’ll ask how many you helped to clothe.
God won’t ask about your social status; He will ask what kind of class you displayed.
God won’t ask how many material possessions you had, but He’ll ask if they dictated your life.
God won’t ask what your highest salary was, but He’ll ask if you compromised your character to obtain it. God won’t ask how much overtime you worked, but He’ll ask if your overtime work was for yourself or for your family.
God won’t ask how many promotions you received, but He’ll ask how you promoted others.
God won’t ask what your job title was, but He’ll ask if you performed your job to the best of your ability.
God won’t ask what you did to help yourself, but He’ll ask what you did to help others.
God won’t ask how many friends you had, but He’ll ask how many people to whom you were a friend.
God won’t ask what you did to protect your rights, but He’ll ask what you did to protect the rights of others.
God won’t ask in what neighborhood you lived, but He’ll ask how you treated your neighbors.
God won’t ask about the color of your skin, but He’ll ask about the content of your character.
God won’t ask why it took you so long to seek Salvation, but He’ll lovingly take you to your mansion in heaven, and not to the gates of Hell.
This week be a bridge builder and not a wall builder. See how you can find creative ways to work on building bridges by adding even just one brick or plank. See how you can take even one plank or brick out of a wall.
Prayer:
“Lord Jesus, I live in a world that still worships ‘an unknown God.’ This is sad, because it’s only through you that we can thrive spiritually. Rather than being critical, let me talk about matters of the soul in a gentle and respectful manner. Like Paul, may I learn to reference the culture to share your message of love. Amen.”
