Divine Appointments

I would have loved to have listened in as the greatest Christian apologist is in an intellectual argument with the Epicureans and the Stoics.

These are the descendants of Socrates and Plato and they hang out at the painted porch. Paul is following them. You know, the proclaimer of these new strange deities, he's going to stand before the Supreme Court of Athens.

But you need to know, I think from Paul's perspective, he's probably saying this is the ultimate divine appointment. In Acts 17, we read how Paul would go to the public market every day to preach the gospel and try to engage people in conversation regarding Jesus. Paul didn't walk into Athens with a picket sign. He didn't walk from statue to statue, proclaiming the idolatries of the Greek pantheon.

He didn't hide behind a corner and drop tracks into purses of onrushing tourists. He simply started discussions and reasoned with anyone who would listen. Truly, Acts 17 provides a timeless model of evangelism that we need to follow. This is wisdom for the heart. And Steven Davies' message for you today is called Divine Appointments. I was at the store not too long ago and saw a woman in one of the aisles wearing a sweatshirt and it had a message and big letters across it and I saw it and then I stopped and did the double take to make sure I read it right and sure enough I had and it said without any embarrassment at all the words, I want it all.

I want it all. She evidently had no idea that even if she had it all, all the things in her life could change and everything she had would have its value reversed. For every human being on the planet, there is a coming day when all of the values are going to change. In fact, in light of who God is that reconstructs for us in our own minds and in our own lives, what we place value upon, right? And the reverse is true, of course, things that the world considers worthless are one day going to be very valuable, priceless. By the time the Apostle Paul arrives in Athens, it's a city that we could say had it all.

They had had it all and they still had a lot of it, literally. In fact, 500 years before Paul arrived in Athens and we're back in Acts chapter 17, Athens had birthed democracy. Athens had birthed the concepts of parliament and individual rights and freedoms and law that is still used today by much of the Western world. Athens was the home of the world's most famous university prior to the arrival of Paul where Socrates and Plato had walked the hallways as faculty members. In fact, Plato's most famous student, Aristotle, also taught in this university and in the city streets with his disciples tagging along. Athens had been at one point the religious center of this region with all of its white marbled temples to the gods of the pantheon.

The streets were lined with statues of the gods. Fifty years before Paul arrives here in Acts chapter 17 to the city of Athens, Caesar Augustus had rebuilt many of the temples and public buildings that had been destroyed in battles and previous wars, sort of returning Athens to some of its golden days. And now Paul arrives. In the timing of God and the declaration of the gospel, it was time in the providence of God for Athens to hear of this God who alone had the attributes that they claimed belong in some form or fashion to their many gods. And Luke gives us an account here of this scene where Paul arrives. And as Luke is writing it, he describes Athens in at least two different ways.

One of them is this. We're going to see that Athens was intuitively religious. Intuitively religious. Look at what he records for us in verse 16 of Acts chapter 17. Now while Paul was waiting for them at Athens, this is Timothy and Silas, his spirit was being provoked within him as he was beholding the city full of idols. The word translated observing here in verse 16 is the word theoretical, which gives us our word theater.

And I think Luke is probably writing a little tongue in cheek. He's using a play on words simply because Athens would have been absolutely famous in that world for her theaters. Many of them were dedicated to many of their gods. Just to give you an idea, we know that the city state of Ephesus nearby had a theater. And in the theater were 29 golden statues of Artemis. There were 60 statues of Nike, the god of victory. And still in that one theater, there were 60 statues dedicated to Eros, the god of eroticism. So imagine in one theater, you have 150 statues giving honor and glory to these three gods. Imagine what it would have been like in Athens.

Well, the truth is we don't have to imagine. Pliny, the Roman author who lived during the days of Paul wrote that Athens had not 150 statues, but 73,000 statues to their gods. Pausanias, a Greek geographer who visited Athens a few decades after Paul was the one who wrote that now rather famous statement that in Athens it was easier to meet a god than a man. They were literally everywhere. They lined the streets, they were in every public building, their temples filled the hills, filled the valleys in this region.

It reminded me of my tour through India some time ago. The religious fervor is literally everywhere. Everything revolves around their gods and their goddesses. The nation is given to it.

They have, by the way, 300,000 from which you can choose. Temples are everywhere. Gurus are everywhere with their followers of any particular god. One day, in fact, I was walking down a street and I heard singing. And I looked over and in a building that was several stories high, but the bottom floor was open, just support columns. There on that cement slab were at least 100 people sitting, singing. They were singing and clapping. And I could tell at least musically that they were singing the same thing and they were singing the same tone or notes over and over again. And I asked my host, who they were, it was actually very beautiful music. And he said, well, they are followers of that guru.

You'll see him. He's sort of sitting up in front of them, facing them, and he's leading them in singing praise to their god. And I said, which god?

And he said, you know, I really don't know. I can't tell which god. The Athenians, frankly, every nation on the planet is convinced that the world is filled with an unseen spirit world. And in that respect, they are absolutely correct. They're correct. They're right. Mankind knows intuitively that there's something more out there.

The world, the cosmos, the universe, we're told in scripture reveals some of the attributes of God and his power and creative ability. And then Romans 2 tells us that the conscience has been stamped, imprinted with the law of God so that they know there's truth. They know when they're doing something wrong. They know stealing a chicken is wrong. They know killing someone is wrong or whatever. So the citizens of Athens though are just like that.

Frankly, they can't get enough gods to satisfy their religious hunger. And you read here in verse 16 that Paul's spirit was provoked. Now typically you'll hear that sort of translated or expounded as negative.

It may not be negative. It doesn't mean he was angry. It doesn't mean he's ready for a fight.

You could actually take that word and turn it positively to speak of being absolutely filled with anticipation and excitement. I think that's probably more how he was feeling than angry. He's like that proverbial shoe salesman. Remember he arrived in a city where no one owned any shoes. He packed up and the next day went home telling his employer no one in this city wears shoes. Another salesman arrived the next day and immediately wired his employer saying send all of the shoes you can.

Nobody here wears any yet. See that's the attitude Paul has. I think Paul is the kind of person who would say not I can't believe it. I got to get out of sledgehammer.

I got to do whatever I can do and end this. I think he's saying, oh look, they worship gods. I can't wait to tell them about the true God. Athens was intuitively religious. That's first.

Second, Athens was intellectually curious. Notice verse 17. So he was reasoning in the synagogue with the Jews and the God-fearing Gentiles.

That word reasoning, we've already encountered that. Dialegomai means to dialogue. That is he's not preaching a sermon like I am uninterrupted, at least that's the plan. He's asking and answering questions. He's dialoguing with them.

He's bringing up texts and asking them questions about them. What do you think about that? What do you think that means? Well if that means that, what do you think about this text over here? That was the kind of approach that he was using in the synagogue and he evidently kept at it because we read nothing of unrest. We read nothing of them kicking him out. We don't read anything of a riot as in the previous cities we've studied so far in this series.

Not in Athens. They want to know more. These Gentiles who are pandering toward Judaism and the Jewish community, they're deeply intellectually curious. I think it's tragic, however, the implication here from Luke's silence indicates that there wasn't any response to the Q&A.

There isn't a riot, but there isn't a revival either, so to speak. They're just curious. I was on a plane a few days ago and I asked the man sitting next to me eventually as we chatted away what he would say to God if God asked him why he ought to be allowed into heaven. And he gave me a brief answer that was all about himself and all about his works and all about what he had given to the community and what he was doing in his church. And then he said, but you know, you said earlier in our conversation that you pastored church.

I'm really interested in what you have to say. And so I took 45 minutes. It was a two-part series, you know.

We had an intermission. And when I got finished, he wasn't really interested. Curious. But after hearing it, not really interested. That's this crowd here, intellectually curious.

You see, it's one thing to be curious. It's another thing to be converted to Christ. Now, Paul here isn't satisfied with staying in the synagogue where he's no doubt experienced and I would think probably very comfortable in that kind of environment, reasoning intellectually with these Jews and Gentile proselytes. So I want to point out verse 17. Notice further, Paul, we're told, went into the marketplace every day with those who happened to be present, those who happened to be there in the marketplace.

Now, here's what's happening. Paul has decided as he's waiting for Timothy and Silas to go into the agora, the marketplace, A-G, it's spelled, O-R-A. Today, we might call it downtown.

That's the picture I want you to have in your mind. We might call it the mall, another accurate picture. You might even call it the central plaza if you're in South America. It's literally acres and acres of shops all lined up and temples and fountains and parks and some buildings and people streaming in and out of their temples dedicated at the agora. The remains reveal what those temples were.

We have temples there dedicated to Zeus and Aphrodite and Apollo and Ares and Nike and even one to Caesar Augustus for being such a great guy to rebuild all these other buildings. So picture Paul. He's right here in the middle of all of this and he's starting conversations with people. He's introducing himself. Maybe he's even calling out as people leave one of the temples, hey, I'd love to hear about your God if you'd like to hear about mine. This is what we would call today open air evangelism. We might refer to it as cold calling.

In other words, you don't have an appointment, you've never met that person, but you're going to start a conversation. Some might call it confrontational evangelism as if evangelism isn't eventually confrontational. He's involved in all of it. And Luke writes here that what Paul is doing, he sort of indicates that it's random. You notice? He's talking to those who happen to be there, who just so happen to be there that day.

Well, don't be a fool. I mean, Luke obviously understood as did the Apostle Paul that every conversation was anything but random, right? Paul is depending on God's Spirit to lead his steps and bring people to that mall, bring people to sit by that fountain, bring people to shop, bring people to walk out of that temple at just that very moment for this encounter. Our evangelism explosion teams go out weekly and they call it divine appointments. I love that terminology because it isn't random.

Every conversation you have with someone about the gospel, it might seem random, oh, they just so happen to be here, but it is divinely ordained. Well, on the north side of the agora, this downtown plaza was an old building. In English, it would be translated the painted porch.

Kind of sounds like it'd be psychedelic and strange music and lights. It wasn't, but that was what it meant, the painted porch. It was a large gathering place, especially for philosophers. Now, evidently, Paul made his way over there because of what we read in verse 18. Notice, and some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers were conversing with him. You could translate that verb, arguing.

I would have loved to have listened in as the greatest Christian apologist. Apart from Christ, the greatest philosophically minded theologian is in an intellectual argument with the Epicureans and the Stoics. These are the descendants of Socrates and Plato and they hang out at the painted porch. This open area and they're debating and discussing and talking about the latest philosophies of the day and the latest speculations or whatever they may be.

This is no coincidence that Paul makes his way over there. Who are they? Well, in short, the Epicureans believed that life is short and death ends your existence. So what you need to do is live and get out of life as much pleasure and joy as possible, as much excitement as you can stand. And as far as the gods are concerned, and there are gods out there, but as far as they're concerned, they really don't care because actually the gods are trying to get all the pleasure they can get out of their existence.

Get all you can because the person in the end with the most toys wins. Sound familiar? It's the Epicurean philosophy. The Stoics argued that all gods were really the same. They all reflected this god principle, this god principle. And you didn't need to get all worked up about any one god.

In fact, all the gods were basically saying the same thing. So live your life, and you don't have to worry about all this. You don't have to get dogmatic. You don't have to make your decision. You don't have to make up your mind about really anything because in the end, you will become part of this god principle. You'll be one with the cosmos and live forever.

Athens and America are very, very similar, and every other country, by the way. These are predominant philosophies in life. Either the universe is an accident out of nowhere.

They're teaching children now. That's called the Big Bang Theory and have for a generation. And when life is all over, that's all there is, so get as much enjoyment as you can out of life because the guy with the toys wins.

Or don't get too dogmatic about any religion because all the religions effectively say the same thing. There's this god principle, and you've got divinity in you, and one day, you're going to live forever wherever you want to live, wherever you think it'd be nice to live, and don't get all worked up. That's Athens, and that's our world today.

Notice what the Epicureans and Stoics are saying. Verse 18 again, a little later on there in that verse. It says, what would this idol, they're saying, what would this idol babbler wish to say?

I'm very kind. Others are saying, he seems to be a proclaimer of strange deities because he was preaching Jesus and the resurrection, and I can't help but kind of chuckle at that statement. These people are surrounded by some really strange gods and goddesses, and I'm going to bring some more of this to your attention in our next discussion. And it's interesting to me that they think Paul was the one proclaiming something strange. Jesus is a strange deity?

I mean, really? Well, the truth is for Paul to talk to them about God the Son dying to redeem humanity, that would have been strange. If you understand that the gods to them didn't care about people, and the gods definitely wouldn't die to save people. People died, and in their view, the gods didn't care. But this God, Paul is describing and will, not only died to redeem sinners because he loved them, but he came back to life.

That's really strange. And it was shocking to them. In fact, it was entirely different than all of the other gods combined. And by the way, wherever you go in the world, the God we believe in, according to scripture, is different from any other god on the planet or in the universe.

It's still true to this day. Paul seems to have gained some credibility because of what they did next. Look at verse 19. And they took him and brought him to the Areopagus, saying, may we know what this new teaching is which you are proclaiming. We want to know more. You're bringing some strange things to our ears. We want to know therefore what these things mean.

Then Luke adds this commentary. Now all the Athenians and the strangers visiting there used to spend their time in nothing other than telling or hearing something new. And that gives you the idea that this is perhaps some kind of trivial conversation, but it was far from trivial. This is actually a trial. The Areopagus was both a title for a hill, also known as Mars Hill, after the Roman god Mars who was on trial for murder. And the Areopagus was also the formal name of the high court of Athens. And it met on that hill.

Now according to Athenian law, no religious system, no new religious system could operate, no new deity could be officially followed or recognized, no new temple could be built, and they assumed that Paul was probably going to want to build one without the permission of the Athenian council. And you need to get in your mind that you have 50 men in this council, and it's really the Supreme Court, the Oval Office, and Congress all rolled up into one. In fact, to this very day, the Supreme Court of Greece is called the Areopagus, the hill. And we in America borrow that.

We talk about capital, what? Hill. The hill.

The decisions are made on the hill. All this goes back to Athens. Well, in the days of Paul, the Athenian council was meeting on this hill, and it jutted 500 feet into the air. Next, Lord's day, Lord willing, I'm going to show you some pictures of this.

It was the perfect outdoor meeting place, and it had a panoramic view of Athens. The reason I want you to visualize it is because when Paul delivers his message, he's probably going to be pointing at different things that they can see from the hill. So here they come up this hill, and Paul is following them, the proclaimer of these new, strange deities. He's going to stand before the Supreme Court of Athens. But you need to know, I think from Paul's perspective, he's probably saying this is the ultimate divine appointment.

Is this great or what? He will begin to introduce to them the unknown God, and as he does, he's going to introduce one stunning attribute after another. In fact, each phrase is going to be freighted with so much truth about God as he introduces them to this new and living, true and living God. And when he does, he is going to change the value.

He's going to change their value of everything. When we come back tomorrow, that's where we'll pick up. We'll look at what Paul teaches as he introduces God to people who know virtually nothing about the true and living God. Be sure and join us. You've been listening to Wisdom for the Heart with Stephen Davey. We have a website that you can visit to learn more about us or to access our resources. We have books, commentaries, Bible study guides available, and we also have CDs of all the lessons.

But if you prefer, we have digital files of the audio and written transcripts that you can access free of charge. You'll find us online at wisdomonline.org. One of the things that encourages us is to know that you're listening and to learn how this ministry is encouraging you. Please introduce yourself by sending an email to info at wisdomonline.org or write to us at Wisdom for the Heart, P.O. Box 37297, Raleigh, North Carolina, 27627. And of course, join us again next time for more wisdom for the heart. Amen.