I. PRAYER
II. Introduction
a. 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.
b. We laugh this morning, but as I read that I thought about Paul, who was trying to explain God to a group of people who had no idea who He was, what He did, or what He was going to do. Paul had to try to find a way to present the gospel to the people of Athens in a format that they would ultimately understand.
III. Background
a. The citizens gathered on Mars Hill to listen to Paul had little to look forward to from religion. The Greek and Roman system of worship had been dying for several hundred years, and there was a definite rising tide of secularism and self-indulgence in the Roman Empire.
b. Many people had put their faith in the Caesars, the mighty Roman Empire, but more and more rumors spread of debauchery and lawlessness among the highest Roman officials.
c. America 2003 AD is very much like the Roman Empire in 50 AD. People have grown farther and farther away from God and His Word. We are witnessing the increasing secularization of society, a weakening sense of individual responsibility and duty, and a loss of faith in our social institutions. Even observers with no particular attachment to religion are alarmed. The noted socialist Michael Harrington wrote an entire book, The Politics at God’s Funeral, to ask the question of how society will hold itself together in the absence of a dominant religion.
d. The Stoic and Epicurean Philosophers, these great thinkers have been replaced by Professors and Political Pundits, but what shook the foundations of the Roman Empire in the early church is just as powerful to shake the foundations of the United States today.
e. That’s what we are going to look at today, in depth, as we continue our study through the Book of Acts. Today, we are going to finish up chapter 17, and I have entitled today’s message – Proclaiming the Unknown God.
f. There’s a place to take notes in your handout if you would like, and if you need a Bible, just raise your hand, and we will get you one. Let’s read, starting at verse 16 of Acts chapter 17.
IV. Study
a. Intro
i. 16 Now while Paul waited for them at Athens, his spirit was provoked within him when he saw that the city was given over to idols. 17 Therefore he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and with the Gentile worshipers, and in the marketplace daily with those who happened to be there. 18 Then certain Epicurean and Stoic philosophers encountered him. And some said, "What does this babbler want to say?" Others said, "He seems to be a proclaimer of foreign gods," because he preached to them Jesus and the resurrection. 19 And they took him and brought him to the Areopagus, saying, "May we know what this new doctrine is of which you speak? 20 For you are bringing some strange things to our ears. Therefore we want to know what these things mean." 21 For all the Athenians and the foreigners who were there spent their time in nothing else but either to tell or to hear some new thing. 22 Then Paul stood in the midst of the Areopagus and said, "Men of Athens, I perceive that in all things you are very religious; 23 for as I was passing through and considering the objects of your worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO THE UNKNOWN GOD. Therefore, the One whom you worship without knowing, Him I proclaim to you: 24 God, who made the world and everything in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands. 25 Nor is He worshiped with men’s hands, as though He needed anything, since He gives to all life, breath, and all things. 26 And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings, 27 so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him 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 also some of your own poets have said, ’For we are also His offspring.’ 29 Therefore, since we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold or silver or stone, something shaped by art and man’s devising. 30 Truly, these times of ignorance God overlooked, but now commands all men everywhere to repent, 31 because He has appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by the Man whom He has ordained. He has given assurance of this to all by raising Him from the dead."
ii. 32 And when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked, while others said, "We will hear you again on this matter." 33 So Paul departed from among them. 34 However, some men joined him and believed, among them Dionysius the Areopagite, a woman named Damaris, and others with them.
iii. Wow. We see that a lot of stuff went on during Paul’s trip to Athens. It is very insightful to me to think about why God sent Paul to Athens in the first place.
iv. If you weren’t here last week, we touched on the city of Athens and how it was the intellectual and cultural center of the ancient world. It was the city of Plato, Aristotle, and Socrates.
v. Athens had known lofty heights in the past, but was now a city that was in decline. They were resting on their past achievements. The famous thinkers were all in the past at this point, and Greek thought was in a decline, but they didn’t know it. They thought that they knew most everything, and that Paul was out of his mind.
vi. But still, what Paul was saying intrigued them. You see, as a center of thought and learning, the people of Athens’ favorite pastime was sitting around hearing about the latest thing or ideas.
vii. Before this day was over though, Paul would share some radical new ideas with them. We will look at this in-depth today. Our first point comes from verses 16 and 17, and we get some insight into what kind of city Athens was.
b. The City of Idols (Acts 17:16 – 17)
i. 16 Now while Paul waited for them at Athens, his spirit was provoked within him when he saw that the city was given over to idols. 17 Therefore he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and with the Gentile worshipers, and in the marketplace daily with those who happened to be there.
ii. The first thing that I notice was that Paul’s spirit was provoked while he was waiting for Timothy and Silas there at Athens. The idea is that Paul would have rather waited for Timothy and Silas before beginning his ministry there.
iii. But, as Paul walked around this ancient city, his heart grew more and more broken for the people of Athens. He saw the temple of Aphrodite, with its temple prostitutes, and saw people’s need to gratify themselves sexually. He saw the temple of Zeus, and the followers that were into violence and savagery. He saw the temple of Bacchus, and those who enjoyed alcohol worshipping there.
iv. There were over 3,000 altars and temples in Athens, so you get a sense of a city with a lot of culture and learning, but also one with a lot of superstition and religion.
v. Paul felt compelled to speak out against all of this, because it burdened his heart. As the Word says here, the entire city was given over to idols.
vi. So, as his usual practice, Paul goes in to teach at the local Jewish synagogue. He reasoned with them. The word there is again the Greek word dialegomai, and it meant that Paul had a dialog with these folks. He had some back and forth discussion.
vii. As I read this passage it struck me that awesome responsibility that I have as a pastor, as a father, as a Christian to reason with people about the Lord. People I meet on the street, or people that come to our church, my kids, to teach them about the Lord.
viii. So, how did Paul do that? He did it with the Bible, just like we are doing here this morning. The Bible is insightful and powerful enough to work in our lives today, just like it did for the apostle Paul.
ix. In 2nd Kings chapter 4, we read a story about a bunch of guys that were studying under Elisha. One of those guys had the responsibility of making a meal for the others.
x. When the other students started eating the meal, they said, “Hey! This stuff is bad! There’s poison in the pot!” They were about to dump out the pot of soup, but Elisha stopped them. He told them to take out some meal, some good stuff, and pour it in the pot. Then the miracle occurred, and the poison was removed.
xi. Paul wasn’t teaching the Word in Athens to point out the poison, and make people feel bad about worshipping idols. Paul was all about pouring in the good stuff, the gospel, and watching the results.
xii. He was doing this in the local marketplace one day, and he caught the attention of some of the local philosophers. These guys were the celebrities of Athens, we see what happens in the next four verses.
c. The Cerebral Celebrities (Acts 17:18 – 21)
i. 18 Then certain Epicurean and Stoic philosophers encountered him. And some said, "What does this babbler want to say?" Others said, "He seems to be a proclaimer of foreign gods," because he preached to them Jesus and the resurrection. 19 And they took him and brought him to the Areopagus, saying, "May we know what this new doctrine is of which you speak? 20 For you are bringing some strange things to our ears. Therefore we want to know what these things mean." 21 For all the Athenians and the foreigners who were there spent their time in nothing else but either to tell or to hear some new thing.
ii. Paul’s marketplace message to the working crowd of Athens was witnesses by some of the local thinkers. Theses guys were the intellectual elite of Athens, the most learned thinkers in the city, and perhaps the world at that point.
iii. The Epicureans were a school of thought that derived it’s name from it’s founder Epicurus, who died in 270 BC. They tended to be very materialistic in their general outlook on life, not too much unlike many people today.
iv. For them, the gods either did not exist, or were so far removed from the world, as to have no influence. The stressed the importance of personal pleasure, and tranquility.
v. The Stoics were a group that was founded by Zeno, who died about 265 BC, and they stressed the importance of reason, and they had a pantheistic view of the world. They believed in many gods, and put a high value on morals, and personal sacrifice.
vi. Their initial impression of Paul was not good. They called him a babbler. The word is associated with a bird pecking around, as if Paul only had scraps of learning. These were probably the Epicureans.
vii. Others said that Paul was a proclaimer of foreign Gods, since he was talking about Jesus and the Resurrection. These were most likely the Stoics, because they believed in all the gods, and this would be a new god for them to examine.
viii. Paul was then taken to the Areopagus, to address the people gathered there. They were curious about what Paul was teaching, and they wanted to learn more about it.
ix. The Areopagus, which is also known as Mars Hill was a hill in the city on which legal trials took place, but Paul was not on trial here. They just wanted to hear what Paul had to say, and it was a convenient place for a large group of people to meet.
x. Verse 21 is an aside, which is rare in the writings of Luke. We get a little more insight into the people of Athens from Luke here, that they were moved by curiosity to hear what Paul had to say.
xi. Apparently, it was a pastime, of both the locals, and the visitors alike to want to hear the latest tidbit of some other kind of ideas. They didn’t know that they didn’t need the latest idea to make their life better, they needed the giver of the ideas, and that is what they got.
d. The Course – God 101 (Acts 17:22 - 23)
i. 22 Then Paul stood in the midst of the Areopagus and said, "Men of Athens, I perceive that in all things you are very religious; 23 for as I was passing through and considering the objects of your worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO THE UNKNOWN GOD. Therefore, the One whom you worship without knowing, Him I proclaim to you:
ii. The first thing that strikes me as I read Paul’s introduction is that he doesn’t start with scripture. Paul would normally start with a Bible passage, and then exposit or expound upon that text. His audience here though, was much different than his usual audience. These Greek philosophers and foreign thinkers would not know the Bible as Paul did, so he makes some general comments about religion to set the tone for his address.
iii. I called this point God 101 because what Paul is doing here is teaching all of these gentile thinkers about the gospel. They really have no familiar jumping off point as the Jews and God-fearing gentiles did.
iv. He begins by commending the Athenians for being very religious. This was an observation made by many other foreigners who walked the streets of Athens. Many considered the people of Athens to be the most religious in the ancient world.
v. In reality though, the Athenians were thoroughly superstitious and tossed around by this new fad and this new way of thinking. Paul would later write to the Ephesian church in Ephesians chapter 4 verse 14 - 14 that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting
vi. The Athenians in all of their searching for divine truth had sadly never found it. It is ironic that with all of their thinking and reasoning, they had been ignorant as to who the true God was.
vii. Paul uses his own observations that he had made walking the streets of Athens as a proof statement. He had seen all of the temples and shrines, and altars. One of these altars had caught Paul’s attention though. It was a small altar, probably in an older corner of Athens that had a simple inscription on it – To the unknown god.
viii. The story was that six hundred years before Paul, a terrible plague had come upon the city and a man name Epimenides had an idea. He let loose a flock of sheep through the town and wherever they lay down, they would sacrifice that sheep to god which had the nearest shrine or temple. If a sheep lay down near no shrine or temple, they would sacrifice the sheep "to the unknown god." So, they built an altar to this “unknown god”
ix. There was no real connection between the true God and this small altar, but what Paul was trying to do here was to draw their attention to the true God.
x. In our last point we saw that there were Epicurean and Stoic philosophers listening to Paul as he spoke. One group the Epicureans said, “Enjoy life!” The Stoics said, “Endure life!”, but neither knew anything about eternal life, and that is precisely where Paul was going next. We see him communicate the gospel in the next 5 verses.
e. Communicating the Gospel (Acts 17:24 – 28)
i. 24 God, who made the world and everything in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands. 25 Nor is He worshiped with men’s hands, as though He needed anything, since He gives to all life, breath, and all things. 26 And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings, 27 so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him 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 also some of your own poets have said, ’For we are also His offspring.’.
ii. Many scholars have read this passage and concluded that it is by far the best presentation of the gospel that we see being made by Paul in the entire Bible.
iii. It is no doubt a very polished presentation of the gospel message, and he has really five points he is laying out to the Athenians. In verse 24, Paul talks about the greatness of God.
iv. God made the whole world and everything in it. The Greek word used here is the word kosmos, and it is an all encompassing term. Paul is telling these men that the God of whom he is speaking created everything. Paul was likely thinking back to the story of creation in the book of Genesis.
v. The God who created the universe would be too big to fit in any temple on earth. Paul was trying to get these philosophers to realize this.
vi. Solomon realized this. In 1st Kings chapter 8 he is dedicating the temple of the Lord, and he says this - 27 But will God indeed dwell on the earth? Behold, heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain You. How much less this temple which I have built!
vii. Next, in verse 25, Paul talks about the goodness of God. God can’t fit into a temple, and likewise, He can’t be represented by any idol. People made their living in ancient Greece by being idol makers.
viii. God is the giver of all life, and all things. He doesn’t need us to do anything for him, like make little statues of him. In Exodus chapter 20, verses 23 through 25 we read that God said this - 23 You shall not make anything to be with Me--gods of silver or gods of gold you shall not make for yourselves. 24 An altar of earth you shall make for Me, and you shall sacrifice on it your burnt offerings and your peace offerings, your sheep and your oxen. In every place where I record My name I will come to you, and I will bless you. 25 And if you make Me an altar of stone, you shall not build it of hewn stone; for if you use your tool on it, you have profaned it.
ix. God is God, and He doesn’t need any representation. He wants us to worship Him and Him alone. So much so that the altars had to be made out of earth, or an unfinished stone, because God didn’t want people to get pre-occupied with the ornateness of the altar and forget about him.
x. I think that there are some in the church today that could learn a thing or two about this. Our church buildings should be functional and glorify God, not some ornate monstrosity that takes away from the greatness of God.
xi. The third point that Paul makes is that we are to be governed by God. We see this in verses 26 and 27. Paul makes the point that all of us as humans are alike. We all are created by Him.
xii. We all descended from Adam, and as such, we are all of the same family tree. Scientists experimenting with DNA that took random samples from the population have come to the conclusion that Paul came to on Mars Hill that day in 51 AD.
xiii. We see in the Bible that before God separated the peoples of the earth in Genesis, we all had the same language, and we all were one big group of people.
xiv. But, God chose to separate the nations, to confuse the languages of the earth. We see this in the story of the Tower of Babel in Genesis chapter 11, that He scattered people over the face of the whole of the earth, and confused the languages.
xv. God set the boundaries of their countries and determined which would be more powerful here and there. God’s hope was that men all over the world would grope around in the darkness of their own existence and find Him, but many did not, even though He is very close. This was God’s plan for the world in the fallen state.
xvi. If you look at history you see this to be true. Whenever one nation rises up against another, cruelty, pain and suffering result. So, while we are all the same, we are different in a sense.
xvii. The current thought of the Stoic philosophers was that God was close, and Paul is trying to show them the path to reach out and grab Him.
xviii. In verse 28 though, Paul begins to shift gears, he begins to speak about the glory of God. Paul says that it is in God that we live and move and have our being.
xix. It is interesting to me that Paul would quote a Greek poet in talking about God, quoting Epimenides of Crete in saying that we are also His offspring.
xx. Paul even uses bits of truth in pagan writing to explain the gospel message to his hearers. Remember I said that some of the philosophers described Paul as a guy who had only scraps of learning. It comes down to a matter of perspective. Paul was indeed a very learned and intelligent man, but there were only scraps that he could use in their pagan system of worship to relate God to them through.
xxi. So, Paul talked about the greatness of God, the goodness of God, the government of God, the glory of God, and he finishes up by talking about the grace of God. We see this in the next 4 verses.
f. The Conclusion (Acts 17:29 - 31)
i. 29 Therefore, since we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold or silver or stone, something shaped by art and man’s devising. 30 Truly, these times of ignorance God overlooked, but now commands all men everywhere to repent, 31 because He has appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by the Man whom He has ordained. He has given assurance of this to all by raising Him from the dead."
ii. Paul begins his conclusion by using the word therefore. It means in light of. So, in light of all these things, that God is great, God is good, God is our ruler, and God is glorious, this is the conclusion you can draw.
iii. We truly are His children, and idolatry is forbidden. The glory and divinity of God cannot be captures in little statues of God or silver. The nature of God can’t be captured in huge marble temples with gigantic statues, either.
iv. If we are his offspring, and we are like Him, an inanimate object cannot capture the essence of God. This was clearly a Jewish or Christian line of thought which was clearly in opposition to Greek thought.
v. Paul continues in verse 30. Before the coming of Jesus Christ to the earth, God had overlooked man’s ignorance concerning Him. They just didn’t know any better.
vi. But now, times had changed. God commanded all people everywhere to repent of their sins and believe. The spread of the gospel made it impossible for men to live in ignorance. AT this point, these Greek listeners had a choice to make, and this was being spelled out to them very clearly.
vii. The choice was for them to accept the gospel message and believe. If they chose not to accept the message and believe, they would be rejecting Jesus Christ.
viii. Paul underlines his appeal for them to repent in verse 31. He tells them that surely a day is coming when He will judge them for their actions on the earth.
ix. Paul tells them that this will be a righteous judgment. Psalm 9, verses 7 and 8 tells us this about that day - 7 But the Lord shall endure forever; He has prepared His throne for judgment. 8 He shall judge the world in righteousness, And He shall administer judgment for the peoples in uprightness.
x. This judgment will be carried out by the Man whom God ordained to carry it out – Jesus Christ.
xi. Paul concludes his remarks in verse 31 by returning to his starting point, making the argument that all of this was proven by the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. We see the reactions of his hearers in the next three verses.
g. The Converts (Acts 17:32 - 34)
i. 32 And when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked, while others said, "We will hear you again on this matter." 33 So Paul departed from among them. 34 However, some men joined him and believed, among them Dionysius the Areopagite, a woman named Damaris, and others with them.
ii. The resurrection of the dead was not a popular concept among Greek philosophers; some thought that Paul was foolish for even believing such a thing. It so flew in the face of everything that they believed. The Greeks believed that the body was earthy and evil, and that the soul was the seat of divinity within man.
iii. Others that were there wanted to hear more about this new teaching from Paul later. Now, some scholars think that this was just a polite way of brushing Paul off, but others think that there may have been some interest.
iv. Either way, putting off a decision about the gospel can be a very dangerous one. D.L. Moody was famous for his pleading altar calls, but it wasn’t always so. While he was conducting a meeting in October, 1871, he drew a large crowd in Chicago.
v. After teaching the message on the passage “what shall I do with this Jesus, which is called Christ?” The soloist got up and sang a hymn of invitation to the crowd gathered there.
vi. Moody adjourned the meeting by telling the people to think it over, and to come back in a week and make their decision. That night a great fire swept through the city and most of the people who listened to that invitation were killed.
vii. On the twenty-fifth anniversary of the fire, Moody said “What a mistake I made that night! I want to tell you I learned one lesson that night which I have never forgotten: that is, when preach, to present Christ to the people, and then try to bring them to a decision on the spot. I would rather have my right hand cut off than give another audience a week in which to decide what to do with Jesus.
viii. Paul didn’t hesitate here. He didn’t give them a week to decide, and we see some fruit from that. Some have criticized the sermon because there is no direct reference to the cross or specific quotes from the Old Testament; many consider that Paul was compromising his message for an intellectual audience, and few conversions resulted.
ix. I think though, if Paul taught about the resurrection, then surely he taught about the cross. We aren’t given Paul’s whole message here, just a short synopsis of it. The people there had hardened hearts, and they just weren’t ready to receive the message.
x. We do see two though, a man named Dionysus, who was a member of the court there, and a woman named Damaris. We aren’t told about them any more in scripture, but they did inherit eternal life. They got it, and that’s the most important thing.
xi. Next week, we are going to see Paul carrying the gospel to the Greek city of Corinth, but I’d like to leave you with a few parting thoughts. A couple of things that I want us to remember. First, is that the gospel is for everyone. The gospel is for everyone. Like Paul said, we are all alike, and it doesn’t matter about our culture, or nationality, or education level, the gospel applies to you.
xii. Second is that God transcends our human thinking. God transcends out human thinking. These philosophers thought that they had it all figured out. But, if the god that you worship fits in your head, or into a temple, he isn’t a very big god. The God the Paul presented, the true God, was bigger than all of that.
xiii. Maybe you’re here today, and you haven’t made a decision in your life yet to follow Jesus. In a minute we’re going to pray, and give you that opportunity.
xiv. First though, I‘d like to close with a short story.
h. Conclusion
i. Imagine a family of mice who lived all their lives in a large piano. To them in their piano-world came the music of the instrument, filling all the dark spaces with sound and harmony. At first the mice were impressed by it. They drew comfort and wonder from the thought that there was Someone who made the mice—though invisible to them—above, yet close to them. They loved to think of the Great Player whom they could not see.
ii. Then one day a daring mouse climbed up part of the piano and returned very thoughtful. He had found out how the music was made. Wires were the secret; tightly stretched wires of graduated lengths which trembled and vibrated. They must revise all their old beliefs: none but the most conservative could any longer believe in the Unseen Player.
iii. Later, another explorer carried the explanation further. Hammers were now the secret, numbers of hammers dancing and leaping on the wires. This was a more complicated theory, but it all went to show that they lived in a purely mechanical and mathematical world. The Unseen Player came to be thought of as a myth. But yet, the pianist continued to play.
