Acts 16:25-17:34 - Part C

Welcome to Connect with Skip Heitzig. We're glad you've received Skip's weekly devotional email to instruct and inspire you in God's Word each week. So sign up today at connectwithskip.com. That's connectwithskip.com. Now let's get into today's teaching from Pastor Skip Heitzig.

Skip Heitzig is a group of Bereans you hear but then you want to look up yourself to make sure that's really what he quoted, what he said. Is that right? Is that right with the rest of the Scripture? I don't discourage that.

I encourage that. It'll make you a stronger believer. It'll help you reason through the Scriptures. So they were more noble, more fair-minded in that they received the Word with all readiness of mind and searched the Scriptures daily to find out whether these things were so. Therefore, many of them believed and also not a few of the Greeks. In other words, a whole bunch of Greeks.

Prominent women as well as men. But when the Jews from Thessalonica, see that's not far from Berea I told you. So word gets back to Thessalonica, what happened in Berea that people are hearing Paul and responding.

When the Jews from Thessalonica learned that the Word of God was preached by Paul at Berea, they came there also and stirred up the crowds. Then immediately their brethren sent Paul away. Seems to be another pattern with Paul. He's there for a while, then get out of town Paul. They sent Paul away to go to see both Paul and Silas, both Silas and Timothy remain there. So Paul goes, Silas and Timothy remain. So those who conducted Paul brought him to Athens and receiving a command for Silas and Timothy to come to him with all speed, they departed.

Now Paul is at Athens and the rest of this chapter Paul shows his ministry at Athens, the next chapter will be Corinth. Athens was the heart of the Greek Empire. Athens had been conquered by the Romans in 146 B.C. It was technically a Roman colony, however it was given free status. It was regarded as a free city even though it was technically under Roman occupation.

Because of its story past, its incredible background, it was given the status as a free city. All the way back, many years before this, Alexander the Great, the head of the Greco-Macedonian Empire had a dream, as I mentioned before, to unite the West and the East together. Effectively, to turn the East into the West. That is, he wanted to spread Greek thinking, Greek language, Greek customs around the world. Making it all the way as far as Babylon. And by the way, Alexander at age 32 died in Babylon weeping, he said, because there were no more worlds to conquer. So he conquered from West to East, conquered the world, but he sought to impose a Greco-Macedonian culture around the world.

And largely he succeeded. He succeeded in bringing Greek art, Greek drama, Greek politics, Greek architecture into the Roman world and even into our world. The Greek political system of democracy, of a nation ruled by the people comes to us from the Greek culture.

The idea of personal freedoms within a society comes to us from the Greek culture. The very heart of this was Athens. Paul finds himself at Athens, he's there for a few days, he's waiting for his friends.

It says now, verse 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. I've been to Athens and when I was at Athens, I was looking around going, wow, wow, wow. I mean, it's just amazing to step into modern Athens and you can, you can from the harbor, you can look into Athens and you can see the Acropolis in the distance and the Parthenon gleaming like a jewel. Then you go to the Parthenon and the Odeon and the theater and the Agora and the Areopagus, Mars Hill, which is all mentioned here and it's just amazing what they did. But when Paul went to Athens, he didn't go, wow, like I did.

He went, whoa. Because Paul looked at Athens, not as a sight seer, but as a soul winner and what he saw bothered him. He just said, look at all those cool statues, look at those cool temples. He said, this is a shame, those statues in these temples. Because it shows me, said Paul, the failure of these religious systems to satisfy the heart of mankind. These systems can't take away their sin.

These systems are false religious systems. His heart was stirred. He was provoked. He saw a city that had been wholly given over to idols. When you go to modern cities like Hollywood or you go to Las Vegas, I wonder what your response, your reaction inwardly is.

I mean, it's pretty amazing. You see all the screens that are shining on the strip in Las Vegas and the lights and the hotels and the fountains and it's easy to go, wow. But you just look a little deeper. Or you look at Hollywood. You don't have to look very far. These are places that are looked over by millions of visitors but overlooked by millions of believers.

I might have overlooked Athens. I might have just looked over it and gone, wow. Paul went, whoa. He was troubled. It's sort of like Jesus. You know, he stood on the Mount of Olives, a place that some of us stood a few weeks ago. We were going, wow, look at this place. We're in Jerusalem. There's the holy city. That's where the temple stood. Jesus looked at Jerusalem and he wept over it. He said, oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how often I wanted to gather you as a mother hen gathers her chicks but you are not willing.

See, your house is left to you desolate and there will not be one stone left upon another till all is thrown down. He wept because he was after souls, not sites. Paul was after souls, not sites. It's okay to be sites here. It's okay to take tours to Athens or tours to Israel. But at some point, we need to get past the whoa, the wow and go to the whoa. This culture needs something more than just the accoutrements of festivity. So because he was grieved over at verse 17, therefore, he reasoned.

There it is again. He reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and with the Gentile worshipers in the agora. That's the Greek word, the marketplace daily with those who happen to be there. When Paul goes to Athens, he confronts the religious culture. He confronts the civic culture and in a few verses, you will see that he confronts the political culture. First of all, the religious culture goes, preaches to the Jews in the synagogue.

That's his pattern. They're religious people. They believe in the scripture. They didn't know the scripture was fulfilled in Jesus.

They needed to know. I believe the gospel needs to be preached not only in the marketplace, and it does, it also needs to be preached in churches. And some people say, why do you need to preach the gospel in churches?

They don't like it. They go, you shouldn't preach to the choir. If the choir is singing the wrong song, you should preach to the choir. And many churches just don't know the gospel.

They need to hear it afresh. So Paul began in the religious culture, confronted the religious culture. Then in the marketplace, he confronted the civic culture. This was the center of free speech, the agora. People would come and go with different ideas, Paul thought.

This is ideal, man. I'm coming and I'm going and I've got ideas and I'm going to share them with whoever, I love this, happens to be there. Who would happen to be in the marketplace that day when Paul showed up?

It'd be exciting. Then verse 18, then certain Epicurean and Stoic philosophers encountered him and some of them said, what does this babbler want to say? Others said, well, he seems to be a proclaimer of foreign gods because he preached to them Jesus and the resurrection. And they took him and brought him to the Areopagus. That's Mars Hill. It's an outcropping of rock. I've been there on a few different occasions with groups.

You can look over the marketplace below you. You can look back and see the higher raised hill behind you, the Acropolis of Athens and the temples that are on it. They took him up on Mars Hill saying, these philosophers, may we know what this new doctrine is of which you speak? For you are bringing some strange things to our ears.

Therefore, we want to know what these things mean. For all the Athenians and the foreigners who were there spent their time in nothing else but to either tell or hear some new thing. Sounds like a college campus. But what he was doing here actually is confronting the political culture. Because Mars Hill, the Areopagus, was sort of like the ancient oval office in Athens. It's the place where the leading politicians, the leading thinkers would get together and talk about life, the meaning of life, talk about laws, adjudicate laws. It was all there that was the center of the political world. And like politicians, they were there to hear and tell some new thing. Sort of a lot like politicians.

They like to talk about things but not really do anything. And Paul was right in the middle of it, man, from the synagogue to the marketplace to Congress to oval office to the political epicenter. And he preached Jesus to them. You're listening to Connect with Skip Heitzig. Before we get back to Skip's teaching, we want to help you understand what real peace looks like so you can experience it in your own life. That's why we want to send you a copy of Unleashing Peace, Experiencing God's Shalom in Your Pursuit of Happiness by Jeremiah J. Johnston. This resource is our thanks for your gift of at least $50 today to help share solid biblical teaching with more people around the world through Connect with Skip Heitzig. Go to connectwithskip.com slash offer or call 800-922-1888 and request your copy when you give at least $50 today to reach people around the world through Connect with Skip Heitzig.

Let's continue with today's teaching with Pastor Skip. Now there's two groups of philosophers that are mentioned, the Epicureans and the Stoics. The Epicureans was a school of philosophic thought started by a guy named Epicurus, hence Epicurean. Epicurus, about 300 years before Christ, he came up with this philosophy. In short, they believed in randomness. On one hand, they said that there is a pantheon of gods, there are many different gods and goddesses, but they really have nothing to do with the real world. Their activity has nothing to do with humanity on earth. That life on earth came about as a random collision of particles. Sound familiar? And because when you die, nothing happens after death, they believed in no afterlife, they believed the chief end of man was the absence of pain and the pursuit of pleasure.

Have a lot of good times, have a lot of pleasure because this is all you get, when you die, you're done. That was Epicureanism in a nutshell. The Stoic philosophers were a bit different. The Stoics were started, it was a school started by Zeno, Z-E-N-O, a philosopher, also a Grecian philosopher. Zeno was sort of like a New Ager, sort of like a New Age philosophy. As far as pantheistic, they believed in a pantheistic worldview, that everything in nature, everything is god, the trees are, you know, like modern day pantheism. Everything around you is essentially god, mother nature, mother earth. And the Stoics philosophically were different than the Epicureans.

The Stoics believed that you need to endure all things, the Epicureans believed you need to enjoy all things. So without going too much into depth beyond that because I have a few minutes left, these were the two schools that were speaking with Paul in the Areopagus. Now Paul is bringing not only the Messiah, the Jewish Messiah, but he is bringing the resurrection from the dead, something that they thought was bizarre.

They never heard of such nonsense. Then Paul stood, verse 22, in the midst of the Areopagus and said, Men of Athens, I perceive that in all things you are very religious. I love his approach. He's polite. This is a nice way, a polite way of saying, I notice you guys have a lot of temples and you worship a lot of false gods and goddesses, but he doesn't say, I notice that you guys are a bunch of pagans, hellbound heathens. He says, you know, since I've been in your town, you guys are very devout.

You're very religious. One of the Roman satirists used to say that it's easier to find a god in Athens than it was to find a man in Athens because there were 30,000 statues in that city that represented different deities. Paul says, I perceive that you're very religious. For as I was passing through and considering the objects of your worship, I even noticed an altar with this inscription, Agnosto Theo, to the unknown god. Therefore, the one whom you worship without knowing, him, I proclaim to you. He said, you guys are so religious, 30,000 statues on the streets and in temples, you even have a statue, or not a statue, but you have an altar with an inscription that says, to the unknown god.

Just in case we left someone out who might be a god or a goddess, we don't want to offend them, so this is the unknown god. And Paul saw that and he thought, perfect place to start a sermon. I'll use that as my illustration. I'll begin at their level, I'll begin in their culture. They know this altar, that's my opening illustration.

I'll be nice to them, you're very religious, you worship so much stuff, you even have an altar to an unknown god. The god you don't know is the god you need to know. I'm going to tell you about him. That's where he begins. He begins with their culture. And he said, verse 24, and notice what he does, he begins with God and works his way down to man.

Now I want you to watch this. He begins with God and works his way down toward man. Greek philosophy did the exact opposite. They began with man and worked their way up to the gods.

That was their world view. The Greek philosopher named Protagoras, it's summed up in his little saying, man is the measure of all things. So if there were a slogan of Athens, it would be this, it's all about mankind. Paul's slogan is, it's all about God. He begins with God and works his way down to man. He begins by telling them, God who made the world and everything that is in it.

He begins saying God is the creator. He is the Lord of heaven and earth. He does not dwell in temples made with hands. Verse 25, nor is he worshiped with men's hands as though he needed anything since he gives to all life, breath, and all things. So he begins, verse 24, God is the creator. Verse 25, God is the sustainer of all life. Verse 26, and he has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth and has determined the pre-appointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings.

Mark that. Why was I born in this podunk town? Because God wanted you to be born in this podunk town. He's determined the boundaries of your habitation. And so they should seek the Lord in the hope that they might grope for him or walk toward him or look for him, search for him, and find him though he is not far from each one of us. Now he says God is the ruler. God is the creator.

He's the sustainer. He's the ruler of all things. For in him, verse 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. Now verse 28 shows to us how well read and how well rounded a person Paul was. I don't think Paul had an iPad when he was preaching.

I don't think he had notes when he was preaching. But he has a working knowledge, it's in his head, it's in his heart, a working knowledge of Greek philosophy and Greek poetry. And in verse 28 he quotes two Greek poets.

For in him we live and move and have our being. That's what Epimeneids from the island of Crete, a Greek poet, once wrote. And then second one, verse 28, for we also are his offspring. That was written by another Greek poet named Aretas of Solly in Cilicia. So he's able to stand up there in Athens at the Areabicus and quote two Greek poets off the top of his head, just working knowledge. Pagan Greek ideology, in fact, when it says in verse 28, we also are his offspring. You know who Aretas was speaking of? You know who his was? Zeus, a pagan god.

We also are Zeus' offspring. Paul is quoting him. It would be like a preacher in a sermon quoting Bob Dylan or Coldplay or Time or Newsweek. He was using secular sources to bring a point home to a secular audience. He wouldn't do this in a synagogue, he would be quoting Old Testament.

But here he's quoting them. He's reaching them on their level, quoting to them their own poets. It's a good strategy for us in sharing with the unbelieving world. We ought to know what the unbelieving world is thinking, is reading, is listening to, understands to some degree. Therefore, verse 19, since we are the offspring of God, speaking of the unknown God that he's speaking to them about, we ought not to think of the divine nature as like gold or silver or stone or something shaped by art or man's devising. Truly these times of ignorance God has overlooked, but now commands all men everywhere to repent. Because he has appointed a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness by the man, the man, whom he has ordained. He has given assurance of this to all by raising him from the dead. So now he's speaking about God as the judge. And when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked, while others said, We will hear you again on this matter.

So Paul departed from among them. However, some men joined him and believed, among them Dionysius the Areopagite and a woman called Damaris and others with him. One day you're going to meet Dionysius the Areopagite. So you might want to just say his name a few times so when you're in heaven and they say, I want to introduce to you Dionysius the Areopagite, you go, Oh, I know all about you. I read your conversion story. You're the guy that believed when Paul was in Athens that day.

So Paul preached in Athens and notice the response. There were three responses. Rejection, reflection. Well, let's think about that.

We'll hear you some more later on. And reception. Some received, some rejected, some thought about it. That doesn't mean they out and out reject it.

Maybe later on they'll come to saving knowledge. But I would say, some don't agree, but I would say it was a success in Athens. And it shows to me, I marvel at Paul the Apostle, a well-rounded man suited not just for Jerusalem, not just for Galatia, not just for Rome, but also for Athens, the cultural epicenter of the world. Thanks for listening to Connect with Skip Heitzig. We hope you've been strengthened in your walk with Jesus by today's program. Before we let you go, we want to remind you about this month's resource that will help you experience God's Shalom in life's busiest seasons.

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