‘Therefore since we are God’s offspring, we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone – an image made by human design and skill. In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to everyone by raising him from the dead.’
Acts 17:29-31 NIVUK
The first time I went to Romania on missions, I must have been a complete nightmare to interpret.
Like most people in poor neighbourhoods in Scotland, I had a very thick, almost impenetrable accent. I also lacked confidence and mumbled a lot. Worse, my accent seemed to have been deliberately designed so that sounds approximating words could emanate without my mouth opening properly.
That allied to an almost complete lack of knowledge of the local language means that it’s a miracle I was any use at all, and an even bigger miracle that I was the only member of our team who lead anyone to Christ.
The church in the Western world is facing an existential crisis. We have backed away from our culture to such a degree that we are no longer understood. Our neighbours have such a scant knowledge of the Bible that one quiz show contestant was asked which word, starting with ‘H’, comes before ‘by Thy Name’ in the Lord’s Prayer.
Their answer? ‘Howard’.
We might mock, but the level of knowledge of even basic Biblical concepts has been declining to such an extent that, for many people, even Protestant rites and rituals might as well be in Latin, because they just don’t understand them anymore.
And the church is partially at fault for this.
We have backed off from our host culture. Instead of engaging them with the truths of the Gospel, we have condemned their life choices. Since we turned from them in disgust, they have also turned away from us. And by turning away from us, they have also turned away from the Gospel.
The result is that we are now aliens in our own culture.
Paul has the solution here. In the midst of a culture that was thoroughly alien, he engages one of the toughest audiences and meaningfully communicates the Gospel in a way they can understand. And people are saved.
We truly have a lot to learn from him.
Approximately twenty years ago, I was on a leadership training course in the Philippines. One of the ways they taught is to communicate better was to consider every sermon, every testimony, every message as being a means of taking your audience on a journey from where they are now to where you want them to be.
Paul does that here. And quite skilfully too.
For me, this is one of the most important events of the birth of the church. Earlier the disciples had communicated the message of the Gospel to pilgrims in Jerusalem. This was less challenging. Although some of them may have been antagonistic, they would be very familiar with the verses the disciples used to support their message and would likely also be familiar with the resurrection.
Communicating with those people would be easy.
Then the Word of God spreads to the Samaritans – the ancient enemies of Israel. Again, this would not be as hard. They at least had some grounding in the Law and also longed for Messiah.
But here, hundreds of miles away in Greece, in a land with a completely different philosophy and moral standard and values?
This would be a huge challenge.
Paul faces three huge challenges that he overcomes in these verses through the power and wisdom of the Holy Spirit. He shows us here that no-one – literally no-one - is so far from God that they cannot be brought near.
As Isaiah prophesied:
‘I revealed myself to those who did not ask for me; I was found by those who did not seek me. To a nation that did not call on my name, I said, “Here am I, here am I.”
Isaiah 65:1 NIVUK
This is precisely what happens here.
Firstly, we see that the Athenians don’t understand.
While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he was greatly distressed to see that the city was full of idols. So he reasoned in the synagogue with both Jews and God-fearing Greeks, as well as in the market-place day by day with those who happened to be there. A group of Epicurean and Stoic philosophers began to debate with him. Some of them asked, ‘What is this babbler trying to say?’ Others remarked, ‘He seems to be advocating foreign gods.’ They said this because Paul was preaching the good news about Jesus and the resurrection.
Acts 17:16-18 NIVUK
Dacă scriu în limba română, voi nu mă înțelegeți, nu e așa?
Excuse me for showing off, but it took me a lot of effort to lean Romanian, so I’m going to use it when I can.
You didn’t understand it, did you? Except if you put it through an online translation tool.
Why did I do it?
Because that’s how the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers would have felt when Paul was reasoning with Jews and God-fearing Greeks.
And this is how non-Christians feel when they come to our church when we use dusty, outdated language in our songs, our prayers, our Bible reading and our teaching. It sounds like we are babblers, like we are speaking in tongues.
Paul sets a standard for church worship in 1 Corinthians 14. We would do very well to follow it:
I thank God that I speak in tongues more than all of you. But in the church I would rather speak five intelligible words to instruct others than ten thousand words in a tongue.
1 Corinthians 14:18-19 NIVUK
Our services, our songs, our communication of the Gospel must be intelligible for our listeners. Otherwise, what are we doing? Are we just ticking boxes to say that we’ve done it?
Or are we making a concerted effort to make sure that our audience can understand what we are saying?
And yes, I know that the god of this age has blinded unbelievers to the glory of Christ (2 Corinthians 4:4). But that does not give us an excuse to poke them in the eye by being deliberately obtuse.
Paul realise he was being misunderstood. But instead of accusing these philosophers of being the problem, he realised it might be him and changed his method of communication.
And so must we.
That is how we get over the problem of lack of understanding.
Next, we see another problem Paul had to overcome. Not only did they understand, but they didn’t seek.
Look carefully at what the text says:
Then they took him and brought him to a meeting of the Areopagus, where they said to him, ‘May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? You are bringing some strange ideas to our ears, and we would like to know what they mean.’ (All the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there spent their time doing nothing but talking about and listening to the latest ideas.)
Acts 17:19-21 NIVUK
The Athenians were not monotheists – they did not believe in just one god. They were either agnostic/atheists (like the Epicureans, who believed purely in having a good time) or pantheists (who believed that god was in everything – like the Stoics) or polytheists (who believed in many gods).
In other words, they were mightily confused.
In fact, it’s pretty easy to see that whatever religion they had was not something that particularly impacted their way of life. It was more like an insurance policy – something they practiced with little sincerity or commitment to try to avoid disaster.
The commentator David Guzik points out that: ‘Athens was filled with statues dedicated TO THE UNKNOWN GOD. Six hundred years before Paul, a terrible plague came on the city and a man name Epimenides had an idea. He let loose a flock of sheep through the town, and wherever they lay down, they sacrificed that sheep to the god that had the nearest shrine or temple. If a sheep lay down near no shrine or temple, they sacrificed the sheep TO THE UNKNOWN GOD.’
In other words, there is a sense in which they would get themselves into trouble and start praying like this: ‘God! Jesus! Mary! Joseph! Allah! Mohammed! Buddha! Shiva! Ganesh! Somebody! Anybody! Help!’
Does this seem at all familiar? A system with as many deities as it had street corners, but all of them hunks of stone and metal that could do nothing to change their lives, for the better or the worse?
These men had ears that itched to hear the latest fad and fashion, but bore no resemblance to the men and women who sought Jesus to be saved.
They were not seeking salvation. They were not seeking repentance. They were not seeking God.
They just wanted to hear a new idea that would satisfy their itching ears (2 Timothy 4:3).
Apart from dress sense and diet, there is not much difference between these ancient Greeks and our modern culture.
We live in a time when everything is right and nothing is wrong: where your religion is good if you believe it, but you have no right to ‘impose’ it on other people – that is the ultimate offence.
So how did Paul pique the interest of this particular audience in the message of the Gospel?
The answer is simple, but also profound. He got to know their worldview, reached into their world and found something he could use. And he used three things.
The first was this altar to the unknown god – an altar used to fundamentally break the first commandment (Exodus 20:3; Deuteronomy 5:8). Paul did not condemn them for this. He instead used it as a symbol of their yearning beyond their worldview into the unknown. And on that yearning, he built his appeal to them to consider Jesus.
Secondly, he quoted from the Cretan philosopher Epinemides. Epinemides was not a Christian. Far from it. He believed, contrary to many of his fellow islanders, that the Greek god Zeus was divine. So Paul is quoting from a follower of a false god.
Thirdly, he also quotes from the Cicilian Stoic philosophers Aratus, from a work known as ‘Hymn to Zeus’, so we have no doubt where his allegiances lay.
We have to understand something very clearly here. Paul is not for one second giving equal weight to these pagan philosophers as he does to Scripture. That would be, and is, nonsensical.
What he is doing is something more profound. He is looking at the pagan religion around him and finding shadows and echoes of truth. This truth us that these Greeks are also God’s offspring, His creation and subject to His provision, and so they should reach out to God, and not to foolish idols.
This is a very wise thing to do.
Let me give you an example.
Little children often love to play with dolls where they can change their clothes and dress them up. They remove the clothing they have on and put new clothing upon them to transform then into something else: maybe a soldier or a fairy or a princess. The doll remains fundamentally the same: only the clothing changes.
That is what is happening here. Paul is not changing any part of the nature of the Gospel . He is not changing its message. He is simple changing the cultural ‘clothing’ in which it is dressed to make it seem less foreign.
But this is sometimes controversial.
The great missionary Hudson Taylor noticed that his preaching in Shanghai, China was not well received. He realised this was due to how he dressed – he dressed like a British man overseas. So what did he do? He wore Chinese clothes, shaved his head at the front, grew a ponytail and took on a Chinese style. His preaching suddenly became more successful because he looked like ‘one of us’ rather than ‘one of them’.
There is a deeply profound truth here.
Many, many people have a problem with modern Evangelicalism because we are far more prone to stand on the sidelines and condemn modern culture than we are to try to reach out to people with the Gospel.
We are not at all like Hudson Taylor. We are more like Alan Whicker – a journalist who had a TV show from 1958 to 1988 where he journeyed around the world in an immaculate white suit and conveyed with every programme how British culture and our way of life was superior to everyone else’s.
Of course, we now know that is highly inappropriate.
We need to ask ourselves why we are on this earth. What are we put here to do and to be?
The church’s reason for being is not to be a museum of when we felt comfortable, or our memories of bygone eras. It has one job and one job only: to be the active body of Christ that reaches out and brings people to the Saviour. Our job – all of us – is to be a missionary, not a curator. Our faith should be more than an anthropological curiosity – it should be something that touches and changes lives.
And so to do that we must – absolutely must – teach people about the God they do not know using the things they do know.
Let me give you an example. I used to help work in a kids club in a deprived area – not at all different to the area where I grew up. I knew for sure that once these kids reached a certain age, it was no longer ‘cool’ to be looking at cartoon videos or drawing pictures or playing with cut-outs. The teenagers needed to be reached too.
For any church, that is an incredible challenge.
Each night I was there, I set myself the target of finding something from their world that I could use to explain the Gospel.
And one night while on the bus to the clubhouse, I hit the motherlode.
The idea was blissfully simple. These kids, particularly the boys (who were often the hardest to engage) loved playing pool (or billiards, for any reader from across the pond). I noticed that some of the colours of the balls matched with the colours in the brilliantly simple evangelistic tool The Wordless Book.
So I cleared the table after a game had finished, set the white ball in the centre, and placed the different coloured balls at the mouths of the pockets. Then I went through the colours of The Wordless Book one by one, after each one asking one of the kids there to pot the ball with that colour.
They were very engaged that night.
What Paul does here is precisely that: he reaches into the Greek world to teach Greek philosophers the Gospel.
If we want to solve the problem of people who aren’t seeking God and show no interest, so must we. If we don’t, then we could be the barrier that prevents them coming to Christ.
Apart from not understanding and not seeking, the last thing we can say about these Greek philosophers is that they did not know.
This is something that is mentioned several times in these verses.
They don’t know what Paul is talking about (Acts 17:18).
They worship an unknown God (Acts 17:23).
They didn’t know that their idol worship was wrong and that they should repent and worship God (Acts 17:30).
This is absolutely key and critical to our approach towards those who have not heard the Gospel: we cannot hold them accountable for something they know nothing about.
God is absolutely fair and just in all His ways with mankind. Of that there can be no doubt.
However, this last section contains a verse that could make us scratch our heads with surprise:
In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent.
Acts 17:30 NIVUK
Paul is referring to the worship of idols here: something we saw earlier is completely unacceptable under Jewish law and which also truly disturbs Paul when he sees how it has spread like wildfire in Athens (Acts 17:16).
So how can God possibly ‘overlook’ (meaning: to leave unpunished) such sin? What exactly is going on here?
God might be overlooking the sin of idolatry committed in ignorance (unlike the idolatry widely practiced in Israel and Judah – they knew what they were doing), but there was one sin He could not ignore. That sin is the sin of ignoring the signs.
Paul outlines two signs in Romans that those who don’t know about God routinely ignore or reject.
The first sign is the sign of His works, in creation:
For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities – his eternal power and divine nature – have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.
Romans 1:20 NIVUK
They might not have the Word of God, but they are surrounded by His artistry in creation, and this alone should whet their appetite to seek Him and know Him.
Imagine that you are a famous artist. You have just finished creating an entire gallery of your most exquisite paintings and sculptures. You wait in the gallery for art critics and journalists to come in and tell you how wonderful you are, before asking you about your inspiration for every one of your masterpieces.
The gallery opens. But every critic, every journalist, evert single visitor, simply walks past you, ignoring both your work and you, and heads straight for the canapés and vol-au-vents in the gallery café.
How would you feel?
Now do you see why God says that even the wonders of creation alone should be enough to make people want to seek Him out and know Him?
The second sign is the sign of His whisper – the still, small voice of their consciences that teaches them right from wrong.
Paul explains in Romans:
(Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law. They show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts sometimes accusing them and at other times even defending them.)
Romans 2:14-15 NIVUK
So the fact that these people don’t know about God might provide an explanation for their ignorant idolatry, but it doesn’t mean they will be saved: not when they defy their own conscience.
And let’s face it – even we defy our own conscience at times. Everyone does. That’s the problem.
This is now added to the third sign – the sign of His Word, clearly preached and expounded by Paul. Note what he says to these Greeks:
In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent.
Acts 17:30 NIVUK
In other words, now the Greeks have the message Paul has brought to them, they are without excuse.
They may not have known before, but they know now.
Over the years, I have heard many objections to getting involved in evangelism. Here Paul encounters three of the biggest obstacles, anf he wisely and skilfully gets around them.
The Greek philosophers don’t understand him, which is quite understandable. So he changes the way he communicates the Gospel so they can understand him.
They don’t seek God. So Paul reaches into their worldview and shows then why they should.
They don’t know anything about the Gospel. So he brings the Gospel to them in a meaningful way and explains the way of salvation to them.
There are two things that we have to note. Paul’s message was not universally received. They had a real problem with the idea of the resurrection from the dead (Acts 17:32). It was also not universally responded to – only a small number of people repented and believed the message (Acts 17:34).
However, that is unimportant. Paul has ventured into very hard ground. By the grace of God and in His Divine wisdom, his message has caused some to repent.
Many of our churches have not seen converts for years. Maybe if we followed Paul’s pattern, we would.
And the Gospel that reached across the cultural barriers to save these few precious souls would do the same in our time.
Prayer
Lord Jesus, I thank You that your message cut through the barriers at the Areopagus and saved a few precious souls. Help me to learn from this and be willing to reach out to those around me who need to hear the Good News. Amen.
Questions
1. What is so important about these verses? What do they teach about the impact of the Gospel on those who show little interest in following it?
2. What are the three barriers Paul faced in communicating the Gospel to these men? How did he overcome them?
3. What can you do to better reach those around you with the Gospel?
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