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.

It is amazing how we human beings have the capacity to get used to very serious, very sacred things.

I had a dear friend who was a game warden in Georgia. He passed away a few years ago and I miss him deeply. He was one of the godliest men I had ever known, and he was what I would call a pastor’s best friend, if that makes sense.

He told me once about a painful memory of his that still seemed to haunt him a bit. He told me about his years as a game warden and he became accustomed to seeing some terrible things. One instance, however, shocked him out of his own numbness, and it was an instance of his own callousness.

He shared with me that he and the other game wardens and law enforcement officers would work the boating accidents on the lake during the summers. This, tragically, would mean having to work scenes of fatal accidents and drownings. He told me that he personally oversaw the extraction of numerous bodies from the lakes of Georgia. And he told me that, amazingly, he actually became somewhat used to this macabre responsibility.

He shared with me how, on one occasion, there had been an accident on the lake resulting in a couple of people drowning. He said that they had been out in the lake most of the night trying to find and extract the bodies. They had located one of the bodies, pulled it from the lake, put it in a body bag, and placed the body in the back of a truck.

He shared with me that he and his men were tired, filthy, covered in mud and dirt, and were mentally and physically drained. Around lunch they were still working so he called one of his men over and told him to get everybody some hamburgers so they could take a break and eat. He then shared that, after the man returned with lunch, he leaned on the truck bed in the back of which was one of the bodies, unwrapped the hamburger there over the body and began to eat. He said that he was so accustomed to bodies and tragedy that he did not even stop to think that he was casually eating a hamburger while leaning over a body bag. And he may not have thought of it at all on this occasion, he said, had he not happened to look up to see the wife and children of the dead man staring at him in disbelief some distance away.

My friend was shocked out of his complacency by seeing himself through the eyes of the deceased man’s family and seeing just how utterly calloused and indifferent he must have appeared. He then realized that he had come to forget the seriousness of what he was doing and indeed the sacredness of it. He did not like the image of himself that he saw, and worked again to respect these powerful if tragic moments.

That story stays with me. I respected my friend’s candor in sharing it and I think it taught me a powerful lesson: we really can become so calloused that we treat extremely important matters with flippant indifference.

If you will receive it, I cannot help but feel that the Church needs just such a moment of awakening. We have been guilty of the same error as my friend. We have eaten burgers over corpses oblivious to the sacredness and urgency of the moment. And the eyes of Heaven are watching us. The eyes of Jesus Himself. We need desperately to see ourselves as He sees us and to realize that our petty distractions, our silly agendas, and our futile exercises in missing the point reveal a certain tragic detachment about us.

We have forgotten, Church, that life and death are at stake in what we are doing, that the souls of men and women hang in the balance. We simply can no longer operate as if these things are not the critically important, life-defining truths that they are.

I thank God, then, for the passion and resolve of men like our brother Paul, who saw the seriousness of the moment and whose heart burned with holy fire. Paul’s time in Athens bears ample illustration of this very point. Let us consider Paul in Athens.

Paul’s mission was driven by a broken heart that was moved to action.

We now join Paul in the great city of Athens, Greece, the intellectual center of the world at this time. He is there waiting for his partners Silas and Timothy to join him. And while waiting, he begins to look around. What he finds in that city disturbs him greatly.

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.

What is it that so upsets Paul? It was the idols in the city. R. Kent Hughes passes on the word of Pausanius, who was in Athens fifty years after the events of our text, to the effect that one was more likely to meet a god or goddess in Athens than a man. This was because there were about 10,000 people in Athens at this time and 30,000 statues of gods.[1] And this fact disturbs Paul deeply. The language Luke uses to say “his spirit was provoked” is intense language indeed and suggests that Paul was highly agitated.

He is so agitated that he decides not to use his “free time” waiting for Silas to Timothy distracting himself with the sites. Paul was a man on mission and he had no time to waste. The idols of the city spoke to him of spiritual darkness and he was a witness bearer to the light. So, Luke tells us, he began to preach the gospels to the Jews and Greeks alike. In fact, he was so passionate about it that he drew the attention of two philosophical schools: the Epicureans and the Stoics.

These two groups had numerous adherents and held to beliefs that were in no way consistent with Christian truth. Here is a brief summary of their beliefs:

Epicureans: there are gods but they do not interfere in the affairs of man (outsiders called the Epicureans “atheists” because they had so little to say about the gods) / the soul is tied to the body and does not exist without a body / there is no sin / the goal of life is to live in accord with nature which means pursuing pleasure / there is no afterlife / there is no resurrection / there is no Heaven or Hell

Stoics: they are pantheists (god is in everything) / there is no sin / life should be spent pursuing virtue and to live harmoniously with reason / “Individual human souls will ultimately be absorbed into the basic elements in periodic cosmic conflagrations.” / there is no Heaven or Hell[2]

I was fascinated when, a little over a week ago, a member of our church sent me the text of a presentation delivered last year by a young Cornell University professor named Michael Fontaine entitled “On Religious and Psychiatric Atheism: The Success of Epicurus, the Failure of Thomas Szasz.” Dr. Fontaine delivered the address to the 167th annual meeting of the American Psychiatric Association in New York City.[3]

I only mention this paper because, in it, Dr. Fontaine was arguing for a kind of measured return to modern day Epicureanism. I emailed him this week and pointed out that I would be preaching on this passage and mentioning the Epicureans. He responded and shared with me, among other things, that a man in Chicago has just started a society called the Society of Friends of Epicurus and then shared that this group is apparently growing quite quickly.

Epicureanism, then, would appear to be somewhat on the rise. And this makes sense, for the tenets of this philosophy would seem to fit with the beliefs of many Americans today. For instance, consider the famous motto of the Epicurean Diogenes who, writing around the year 200 A.D., wrote, “Nothing to fear in God; Nothing to feel in death; Good [pleasure] can be attained; Evil [pain] can be endured.”[4]

Well, Paul heard all of this and more, and he saw the idols, and he watched the people in their blind religious devotions…and his heart could not stand it! Paul’s mission was driven by a broken heart that was moved to action.

Friends, hear me: all great Christian advances in the world have arisen from broken hearts moved to action, from people who looked at the world, saw the spiritual darkness of people, and cared enough to cry out to God for their salvation. We may see this throughout the Bible’s record of the people of God.

For instance, in Genesis 18, Abraham pleads with God for mercy over Sodom.

²² So the men turned from there and went toward Sodom, but Abraham still stood before the Lord. ²³ Then Abraham drew near and said, “Will you indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked? ²⁴ Suppose there are fifty righteous within the city. Will you then sweep away the place and not spare it for the fifty righteous who are in it? ²⁵ Far be it from you to do such a thing, to put the righteous to death with the wicked, so that the righteous fare as the wicked! Far be that from you! Shall not the Judge of all the earth do what is just?” ²⁶ And the Lord said, “If I find at Sodom fifty righteous in the city, I will spare the whole place for their sake.” ²⁷ Abraham answered and said, “Behold, I have undertaken to speak to the Lord, I who am but dust and ashes. ²⁸ Suppose five of the fifty righteous are lacking. Will you destroy the whole city for lack of five?” And he said, “I will not destroy it if I find forty-five there.” ²⁹ Again he spoke to him and said, “Suppose forty are found there.” He answered, “For the sake of forty I will not do it.” ³⁰ Then he said, “Oh let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak. Suppose thirty are found there.” He answered, “I will not do it, if I find thirty there.” ³¹ He said, “Behold, I have undertaken to speak to the Lord. Suppose twenty are found there.” He answered, “For the sake of twenty I will not destroy it.” ³² Then he said, “Oh let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak again but this once. Suppose ten are found there.” He answered, “For the sake of ten I will not destroy it.” ³³ And the Lord went his way, when he had finished speaking to Abraham, and Abraham returned to his place.

Abraham looked at Sodom, his heart broke, and he pleaded with God for their salvation! In Genesis 32, after the children of Israel make the idolatrous golden calf, Moses is broken-hearted and begs God for mercy, even being willing to be damned himself if need be so that God will show compassion.

³⁰ The next day Moses said to the people, “You have sinned a great sin. And now I will go up to the Lord; perhaps I can make atonement for your sin.” ³¹ So Moses returned to the Lord and said, “Alas, this people has sinned a great sin. They have made for themselves gods of gold. ³² But now, if you will forgive their sin—but if not, please blot me out of your book that you have written.”

In Romans 9, Paul makes one of the most impassioned pleas for the salvation of the Jews in all of scripture:

¹ I am speaking the truth in Christ—I am not lying; my conscience bears me witness in the Holy Spirit— ² that I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. ³ For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, my kinsmen according to the flesh. ⁴ They are Israelites, and to them belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises. ⁵ To them belong the patriarchs, and from their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ, who is God over all, blessed forever. Amen.

And above all else is the Lord Jesus who, in Matthew 23, weeps over Jerusalem:

³⁷ “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! ³⁸ See, your house is left to you desolate. ³⁹ For I tell you, you will not see me again, until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.’”

An honest question for an honest people: has your heart been broken and moved to action? When you look around you and see the spiritual lostness of people, do you care? Do you? Do we? Do I?

Paul did, as have all great men and women of God.

Paul’s mission was driven by a singular conviction that the gospel of Christ really was THE truth above all other rival religious or spiritual claims.

And behind this broken-heartedness lay a conviction: the gospel of Christ really is THE truth above all other rival religious or spiritual claims. The Athenians take him up to the Areopagus to hear what he has to say. Notice the conviction of his words. Notice the certainty of his words.

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.

Paul begins strategically, telling the Athenians that he had noticed an altar with the words “To the unknown god” on it. He then announced he would now tell them about this God of whom they were ignorant. This kind of talk may sound arrogant to our modern ears, ears accustomed to being told that nobody can really know THE truth. But Paul believed that Jesus was THE truth and that the Athenians needed desperately to know Him.

So he begins to tell them about this God. He informs them that God is not confined to a temple. He informs them that God is not a needy idol that needs people to bring Him things. On the contrary, he says that it is God who gives us everything. He is not a greedy, petty god caught in an idol in a temple. He is the life-giving God of all.

Jaroslav Pelikan pointed out that Paul mainly used what theologians refer to as “apophatic language” to describe God in this sermon. The idea behind apophatic language is that all positive assertions about God inevitably fail to capture the true essence of who God is. Thus, it is sometimes most effective to speak apophatically, or negatively, about what God is not. This way of speaking about God is especially common among Greek Orthodox theologians.[5] So when Paul says that God is not bound to a temple and is not served by human hands, this is what he is doing: he is getting at the truth of who God is by asserting what God is not.

Please note what is happening here: Paul, a follower of Jesus, is standing in the most religiously diverse city in the world, amidst 30,000 altars to even more alleged gods, amidst countless temples and altars and idols, and before an Athenian audience comprised of a hodgepodge of complete philosophical and theological schools of thoughts and consisting of people who made a sport of trading and arguing opinions. And it is in this context that Paul dares to raise his voice and say to them, “You people have been worshiping in ignorance. You do not know the truth of God. But I do. And I will now tell you about Him.”

Again, this kind of boldness only happens when the person speaking believes in his or her heart of hearts that Jesus Christ is THE truth.

I ask you: are you absolutely convinced that Jesus Christ is THE truth, the truth above all other claims? If you are not so convinced, you will not be a bold witness bearer.

Paul’s mission was driven by an urgency arising from the recognition that we are running out of time.

So Paul has a broken heart moved to action and Paul has fierce convictions, but there is something else. There is also a sense of astounding urgency. Why? Because Paul believed that the human race is running out of time and that, when time ran out, the judgment of God was waiting. Listen:

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.”

Amazing! Paul tells the audience that they have been walking in ignorance, and that God had been merciful, but that now it was time for the Athenians to repent and to believe in God, to trust in the One Who God had sent and Who had been raised from the dead. He then told them that there was a fixed day, a day of judgment that was waiting for all of us. Thus, the people needed to hear him and respond and repent and trust in the true God!

These final words from Paul elicited quite a reaction from the crowd.

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.

Some laughed, some mocked, some jeered, some were merely curious, but a few believed! What a brilliant sermon! What courage! What bravery! What conviction!

Paul was a man who had not grown flippant about serious things, who had not grown accustomed to matters of life and death. He was a man who always kept before his eyes what mattered and why it mattered. His heart broke for the lostness of man and, as a result, he went to them and pleaded with them to believe in Jesus Christ.

Oh Church: we must love like this, go like this, speak like this, reach like this, grieve like this, and be bold like this! C.H. Spurgeon, the great preacher from yesteryear through whom God did such mighty things, said this:

If sinners be dammed, at least let them leap to Hell over our bodies. If they will perish, let them perish with our arms about their knees. Let no one go there UNWARNED and UNPRAYED for.

That is it! That is it! May it be so!

 

[1] R. Kent Hughes, Acts. (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 1996), p.230.

[2] Clinton E. Arnold, “Acts.” Zondervan Illustrated Bible Backgrounds Commentary. Vol.2. Clinton E. Arnold, gen. ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2002), p.388-389.

[3] https://www.madinamerica.com/2014/08/religious-psychiatric-atheism-success-epicurus-failure-thomas-szasz/

[4] Ben Witherington III, The Acts of the Apostles: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary. (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1998), p.514.

[5] Pelikan’s observations on apophatic language and Paul’s use of it is well worth considering. Jaroslav Pelikan, Acts. Brazos Theological Commentary on the Bible. (Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press, 2005), p.193-196.