Acts 17:16-34 Making the Unknown Known
Good morning! Turn with me, if you would, in your Bibles to Acts 17:16-34, page 926 in the pew Bibles.
We are now joining the Apostle Paul in Athens, that beautiful city known for academia and philosophy, the Olympics, and idolatry.
The pantheon of Greek gods has been the subject of books and poetry and plays and movies for millennia, and Athens was the center of it all. Athens was a city loaded with art and idols and temples given to the worship of these false gods. The Greek writer, Petronius wrote, “It was easier to find a god than a man in Athens.”
Looking back over the course of time, the worship of these false deities has faded into myth, but when Paul visited this famous city it was very real, and for him it was very troubling.
This is another example where a quick reading of this account may limit our thinking to a “that was a then issue,” but there are still plenty of thoughts like these folks had alive and well in the world today.
Colossians 2:8 says, “See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ.”
So let’s read this account and consider the philosophies at work and make sure our own philosophies are captive to Christ.
Acts 17:16-34
16 Now while Paul was waiting for them at Athens, his spirit was provoked within him as he saw that the city was full of idols. 17 So he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the devout persons, and in the marketplace every day with those who happened to be there. 18 Some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers also conversed with him. And some said, “What does this babbler wish to say?” Others said, “He seems to be a preacher of foreign divinities”—because he was preaching Jesus and the resurrection. 19 And they took him and brought him to the Areopagus, saying, “May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? 20 For you bring some strange things to our ears. We wish to know therefore what these things mean.” 21 Now all the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there would spend their time in nothing except telling or hearing something new.
22 So Paul, standing in the midst of the Areopagus, said: “Men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious. 23 For as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription: ‘To the unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. 24 The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, 25 nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. 26 And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, 27 that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually 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 indeed his offspring.’
29 Being then God’s offspring, we ought not to think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of man. 30 The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, 31 because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.”
32 Now when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked. But others said, “We will hear you again about this.” 33 So Paul went out from their midst. 34 But some men joined him and believed, among whom also were Dionysius the Areopagite and a woman named Damaris and others with them.
Let’s pray.
So Paul begins his gospel work in the city of Athens as he usually did, with the synagogue of the Jews, reasoning with the Jews and the proselytes that Jesus is the Messiah. And, as he often did, after speaking to the Jews he brought the message of the gospel to the Gentiles. In this case he went to the marketplace in the city.
Verse 21 captures the unique nature of the city of Athens when Luke records, “Now all the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there would spend their time in nothing except telling or hearing something new.”
Sitting around and discussing and debating ideas was central to the identity of this city and these people. This was obviously a great opportunity for the apostle because he had new ideas to share.
18 Some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers also conversed with him. And some said, “What does this babbler wish to say?” Others said, “He seems to be a preacher of foreign divinities”—because he was preaching Jesus and the resurrection. 19 And they took him and brought him to the Areopagus, saying, “May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? 20 For you bring some strange things to our ears. We wish to know therefore what these things mean.”
Sixteenth Century Anglican Bishop, John Howson, wrote, “The two enemies [the gospel] has ever had to contend with are the two ruling principles of the Epicureans and the Stoics – pleasure and pride.”
The Epicureans were almost atheists. They believed that the gods were above and far removed from human events and that the chief end of man was his own pleasure and happiness. Obviously, there’s no one around that still thinks like that!
The Stoics on the other hand were pantheists, they believed in all kinds of gods, but mostly their view was of human perfection through their own effort to align themselves with the grand purpose of the cosmos and to be unmoved or unaffected by external circumstances. Self-sufficiency was their deal, otherwise known as pride. Again, a long dead philosophy…
So some of these people who were interacting with Paul and hearing what he said, despite calling him a chicken, that’s what the word “babbler” literally translates to, someone who pecks at seeds like a bird, These guys bring Paul to the Areopagus to hear more fully what he had to say.
The Areopagus was both a place and a group of people.
Areopagus means, “Mars Hill,” and it is a rocky hilltop just west of the Acropolis in the middle of the city. I’ve been there, it’s beautiful. But the Areopagus was also a group of people. It was a well-respected tribunal of judges in charge of the affairs of religion and academia that may or may not have by this time still met on Mars Hill to hear cases and make decisions.
What’s interesting to me is that though was upset about all the idols in the city, Paul doesn’t go on the attack and start condemning all these heathens for all their idolatry. Instead, he meets them right where they are at and starts to explain things from there.
22 So Paul, standing in the midst of the Areopagus, said: “Men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious. 23 For as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription: ‘To the unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you.
The Athenians had somewhere near 30,000 different gods, different deities that they had assigned different aspects of reality and just in case they missed some, they also had altars dedicated to “an unknown god.”
And there certainly was a God that they didn’t know, the One True Living God. What they worshipped as unknown, as abstract and indefinite, Paul introduces as concrete and personal.
Paul goes on to proclaim that the true God is the only God. This was true then and it’s true now, they hated Christianity’s exclusive claim then just as they hate it now.
24 The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, 25 nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. 26 And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, 27 that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually 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 indeed his offspring.’
I love how Paul looks at their culture, their philosophies and directly applies the truth of the gospel right to it.
To their religiousness he says: The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man…
All of those temples, all of those pieces of art and sculptures dedicated to the pantheon of Greek gods were empty and worthless, and Paul very politely points that out.
To the Epicureans who thought they were serving the gods through their own pleasure and happiness he said, 25 he is not served by human hands, as though he needed anything…He is self-sufficient.
To the Stoics who were looking to align themselves with the grand purpose of the cosmos through their own effort he said, he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything.
To all the Athenians who thought themselves privileged because they were from Athens he said, 26 And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place…
Jew, Gentile, black, white, brown, purple, we are all descended from one man, and we are put where we are by God on purpose. And that purpose, according to verse 27 is, 27 that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him.
To the Epicureans who saw the gods as far off and uninvolved he said, Yet he is actually not far from each one of us,
To the Stoics who saw virtue in their own efforts he said quoting their own poets Epimendes and Arastus, 28 for “ ‘In him we live and move and have our being’; as even some of your own poets have said, “ ‘For we are indeed his offspring.’
If we were without God, independent, and merely isolated, we would not live, we would not move, we would not even exist!
29 Being then God’s offspring, we ought not to think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of man. 30 The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, 31 because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.”
The truth about God is, that God is the Maker, not the made. He is not the mere projection of ourselves and our values onto eternity, that’s making another god in our own image. God is the giver not the taker, and He is not distant and hiding from people, He draws us to Himself.
The truth about mankind is, that we are made in the image of God, but we have fallen away and we are responsible to repent. The times of ignorance are over, the time to turn to Him in faith is now!
Paul wrote in Romans 3:21-26,
21 But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it— 22 the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 25 whom God put forward as a propitiation [as a sacrifice] by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. 26 It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.
The loftiest aim of man is not pleasure nor pride, it is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever through trusting in Jesus Christ.
And we don’t have to look far for Him, for He is find-able, and He is near. Near as our next prayer.
Amen.
