It is the weekend and our reading thru the New Testament for today is Acts 17:16-34. After you've had a chance to read it through, come back and we'll think our way through the story of Paul in Athens.
Paul had hurriedly left Berea and taken a ship to Greek's grand city of Athens. Athens was a "high city", one that meant more than being elevated, although Athens was built on a series of hills and could be seen from miles away. It had the reputation of being an intellectual and cultural center for the Greeks. Indeed it contained some of Greece's greatest structures - the Aeropagus, the Parthenon, the Acropolis, and the Temple of Olympus (Zeus). The city's center was in the Agora, the hub of the social and commercial life of the city. It is hard to describe Athens in modern terms. It is an intellectual and cultural center and yet it was controlled by pagan worship.
Paul arrived and as he walked around the city he saw a city dominated by statues, shrines, altars, and pagan worship. One writer proclaimed, "it was said that there were more statues of the gods in Athens than in all the rest of Greece put together and that in Athens it was easier to meet a god than another person.”
He was "greatly distressed" (NIV), "provoked in his spirit" (ESV). What Paul saw "sickened him" (from the word "Kateidolos", meaning to "be smothered with idols"). What Paul observed was a massive display of idolatry - the city was "swamped" with temples, statues, shrines, and altars. An example was the Parthenon where a huge gold and ivory statue of the goddess Athena stood. There were statues of all the greek gods, and Paul saw it all as a demonstration of the darkness that Satan used to control the Greek culture.
The greek gods became the "deities" of Rome - renamed by the Romans - and they controlled the population by superstition, darkness, fear, and civic virtue. The Greeks and Romans couldn't agree on the exact nature of how the gods affected life, but they did agree that the gods were "out there" - not engaged in their lives except if angered and then famine, drought, volcanic eruptions, calamities unexplained, were ascribed to the god's anger, or retribution.
Paul engaged on two levels. First, he visited the synagogue to reason with the Jewish and God-fearing Gentiles. One can assume that his reasoning involved both the observation of a city steeped in idolatry and the truth of the Gospel. Then Paul went into the Agora - the public marketplace that was more than a shopping center, but a central hub for social gatherings. Here he engaged the city's intellectuals - specifically, the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers. Epicureans arose from Aristotle and believed that life was random, without real purpose or order. They didn't believe in life after death, so they ordered their lives around pleasure and some advocated licentiousness in lifestyle. Stoics arose from Plato, believing that life was ordered by a logic that gave order to the universe. The world was ordered by fate, thus humans derive their meaning by duty and accepting the fate of things that come to them. These philosophies are still here today. It is either a world of "eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow you'll die"; or, a world of "pull up your bootstraps and do it all, 'my' way." Either one sees no value in believing in one God who created and controls the universe.
Verse 18 is significant: "...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 (deities)”—because he was preaching Jesus and the resurrection."
They were using derogatory language by calling him a "babbler" - the Greek word literally meant "seed picker" and was used to describe a bird who seemingly went around to collect scrap, random seeds - thus Paul was accused of being a peddler of various ideas, all seemingly random in thought. When they accuse him of being a "preacher of foreign deities" they "took him and brought him to the Aeropagus" (Mars Hill).
Mars Hill was the gathering spot of intellectuals who saw their role to oversee the city's, even Greek culture's, morals, education, and religion. It is the University of our day - a place of controlling behavior, thoughts, ideas, and ultimately cultural values. They "took" and "brought" Paul to Mars Hill - not so much to put him on trial, but try to see if his teaching presented a threat to their culture and way of life.
Paul's defense and speech to them revolved around two things. First, he approached them on the level of observation: "So Paul, standing in the midst of the Areopagus, said: “
‘Men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious. For as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription, ‘To the unknown god.’"(vs 23)
What sickened him in his spirit he now uses as an introduction. He merely says what they all knew - the city was full of statues to gods. This one statue was probably the "Altar of the twelve gods of Athens" - an altar that was meant to make sure that they didn't leave any god out of their worship.
Paul uses this as a beginning point and his hook: "What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you." He then proclaimed Scripture as it declares God - first as Creator and then as sustainer (vss 24-25). Paul explains, God "...made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man". Secondly, God is not "served by human hands, as though he needed anything since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything." Paul declares God - Yahweh - not just the Jewish God, but Christianity's God. He is God who cannot be contained - as in a statue or shrine - and he is God who has no human needs. The Greek gods were petty, vain, and thought to be pacified with proper sacrifices - a pattern for pagan worship.
Paul quotes from one the Greek philosophers - Epimendes - who said that humanity lives and has meaning in their being because they are the offspring of God. Yet makes it clear that being God's offspring does not mean we can contain God in statues of gold or silver. Paul now gets to the heart of the message of the Gospel - "The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent 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.”
Jesus Christ came to a world swallowed up by Satan's dominion, his lies, and deceptions that are predominantly revealed in the various religions and idolatries of the world. This, Paul reminds us, needs to be "turned away from" - repent of - and "turn toward" Jesus, the redeemer who one day will judge the world in righteousness. This God proved when He raised Jesus from the dead in the resurrection.
Paul attacked the philosophical underpinnings of these supposed intellectuals. Some of which "got it" (vs 32-34 two are named) and turned to Christ that day, but the rest abruptly dismissed Paul and left.
The story of Paul on Mars Hill could be a modern story in every University and Political establishment today. Paul reminds us that we cannot change the philosophy of the world in one speech, but we can share the truth of the Gospel with a world that is steeped in idolatry. I cannot help but make the application that this world we live in is slowly restarting after a pandemic stopped everything. It stopped the flow of two dominant things that can be idolatrous in some cases - the Economy and Sports.
Jesus is our Savior and our Lord. In Him, we live, move, and have our being - i.e., our identity - or at least we should.
Peace
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