Paul in Athens

Tom Shrader walks through Acts 17:16-34, where Paul arrives in Athens, is provoked by its idol-filled streets, and addresses Epicurean and Stoic philosophers at the Areopagus. Paul's sermon identifies God as creator, sustainer, and sovereign Lord, and calls his audience to repent because a day of judgment is coming and the resurrection of Jesus is the proof. Shrader draws practical application throughout, encouraging believers to understand the culture around them, speak in terms their listeners understand, and share the gospel knowing that only God can generate a response.

“God has appointed his son Jesus as the righteous judge — a judge who knows everything, a judge from whom you cannot hide any word or any deed or any thought.”

— Tom Shrader

Series: Acts

Recorded: 2000 at East Valley Bible Church

Duration: 48 min

Scripture: Acts 17:16-34, Genesis 1:1, Ecclesiastes 12:13, Romans 1:18-22, Colossians 1:16-17, Daniel 4:34-35

Full Transcript

Paul Arrives in Athens

Let me invite you to open your Bible to the book of Acts, the 17th chapter, specifically Acts chapter 17, beginning in verse 16. Luke writes this for us: while Paul was waiting for them in Athens. That is the scene. Paul has arrived in Athens and is waiting for Silas and Timothy. Remember, that is the story we looked at last week. They were in Berea. They were forced to suspend ministry there, at least on Paul's behalf. Paul was sent away and instructed Silas and Timothy to stay. Paul was escorted to Athens by some Christians from Berea, and as he said goodbye to them, he asked them to tell Silas and Timothy to come to him in Athens as soon as possible.

When we talk about Athens, most of us think of those grand days, those magnificent buildings and temples, when Athens was the seat of art and literature and philosophy — Socrates and Plato. But William Barclay reminds us that by this point in time, those days of Athenian grandeur had long since passed. She still housed one of the greatest universities in the world, but the rest of what we associate with Athens had faded away. In fact, Paul is really on his way to Corinth. That is now the capital, the main center of commerce in the area.

Getting to a city like Corinth — a city of wealth and political and financial power — was part of Paul's pattern. He would establish a church there and then move out from that center into the outlying areas. But he stops in Athens. Barclay again reminds us that it was a place filled with statues to gods. There were said to be more statues to gods in Athens than in the rest of Greece combined. One ancient philosopher tells us there were as many as 30,000 statues to gods in Athens, and that it was easier to find a god in Athens than to meet a man. That is the backdrop of the city Paul arrives in.

Paul's Reaction to the Idols

Paul comes to Athens — this great philosophic mind — and I have to assume that he is curious. He is probably there at this point all alone, and he begins to sightsee. As he looks around, Luke tells us he was provoked. That word is actually a little mild. It literally means to become angry or infuriated. He was seething with rage, but it was within him. The source of this rage was that he was looking at a city filled with idols. The apostle understood what worship of these false gods would do to these people — how these idols would never provide what men and women around the world seek: love and joy and peace. They would never provide comfort. He is outraged as he looks at this city.

The Three Groups Paul Engages

So he begins the process of attempting to witness, to evangelize, to preach to this city. He finds three groups he can talk to. The first follows his normal pattern: he proceeds to the synagogue, and there he reasons with the Jews and the God-fearing Gentiles. We have to assume he follows the same pattern he has used before. He opens the Old Testament, talks about the Messiah as He was prophesied and promised to the Jewish people, and declares that those prophecies are real and have been fulfilled in the person of Christ. We looked at that word "reasons" last week — he dialogues with them, answers their questions.

The second group is in the marketplace, and they are there every day — those who simply happen to be there. One of the things I want you to do tonight as we study this passage is constantly apply it to your own life. It is unlikely you are on your way to the synagogue to reason with Jews and God-fearing Gentiles, but I would wager you are on your way to the marketplace. That may be your neighborhood, where you work, the club where you work out, or someplace where you play golf. Paul is in the marketplace every day, talking with those people.

This week it is virtually impossible for you not to have the opportunity to share the Easter message. The world around you is filled with people wanting to know about Easter and the resurrection. If you have ears that are open, you will inevitably hear someone give you the opportunity to share the real meaning of Easter with them. That is exactly what Paul is doing — reasoning in the synagogues with one group, then going to the marketplace with another.

The Epicureans and the Stoics

He also deals with a third group: the philosophers of the day. Verse 18 tells us: "Also some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers were conversing with him." Let us look at each of these groups. First, the Epicureans. Their motto went something like this: eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow you die. They believed that life consists of today, this moment. Their highest end for man was to enjoy all the pleasure you could find and to avoid any pain.

That lifestyle made complete sense to them because they were atheists. They thought all of life just sort of happened by chance. There was no afterlife, so all there was, was right here, right now, today — so grab for all the gusto you can get. Do you see how what you believe ultimately affects how you behave? That is why when you look around at students, college students, or young people, you may say this does not make any sense. It may not make sense to you, but their life makes complete sense to them. They have been told by professors at university that everything was an accident, that everything just happened, that there is no God. Many of them are mocked for their beliefs in God, and after a while they begin to accept what they are being told. And if there is no God, then I become really my own highest authority.

The Futility of Life Apart from God

Pursuing one's own pleasure as a mission in life is ultimately futile, and as that futility provoked Paul, it should provoke us as well. Many of you in this room tonight have been delivered from a life of pursuing that emptiness on your own. Long before Paul arrived in Athens, God provided us a great example of what life can never produce apart from Christ, apart from a relationship with a living God. That man's name was Solomon.

God granted Solomon the opportunity to experience anything you might think would make you happy. Wealth? Solomon had wealth beyond measure. Consider this: this past Friday was a bad day for some people. If your name was Bill Gates, you lost $11.1 billion in a single trading day. And yet Warren Buffett, the steady long-term investor, made $570 million that same day. Even so, Solomon had all that wealth and declared it would not make you happy.

So Solomon turned to architecture, presiding over the construction of magnificent structures, and said that too was empty. He pursued every thrill imaginable — wisdom, insight, knowledge — and declared it all empty. He worked and worked and found no satisfaction there either.

Then there was personal pleasure. Solomon had, listen very closely, 700 wives. The original 700 Club, you might say. He would have needed someone with no other job but a device just to track the anniversaries — two every single day. Beyond that, he had 300 concubines, 300 women from across the empire at his disposal to please him in any way he desired. And he said that would not do it either.

Solomon had all the things the Epicureans would pursue. All the things many of you would pursue. Perhaps you are in this room tonight still holding out hope that if you just get the right thing — power, authority, money, pleasure — you will finally be fulfilled. Here is what Solomon said at the end, as he sat and looked back over all of it. Ecclesiastes 12:13: *"The conclusion, when all has been heard: fear God and keep His commandments, for this applies to every person."* The Epicureans were doomed to failure because satisfaction simply cannot be found in this life on those terms.

The Stoics and the Search for Answers

The other group Paul encountered were the Stoics. The Stoics believed in mastering yourself through self-discipline. "Grin and bear it" was their motto. To them, the highest possible achievement was to become indifferent to pleasure or pain — when things went really well, you never got too high; when things went really badly, you never got depressed. You controlled your emotions. That is how we get the word and the very idea of being stoic.

Their goal was to reach a point where nothing in this life affected you very much. They were not atheists but pantheists. They believed there was a God, but that God was present in everything rather than being a separate and distinct being. Both Stoicism and Epicureanism represented genuine attempts to answer genuine questions, even if their answers were illegitimate.

F.F. Bruce offers this insight: *"Stoicism and Epicureanism represent alternative attempts in pre-Christian paganism to come to terms with life, especially in times of uncertainty and hardship. Post-Christian paganism, down to our day, has not been able to devise anything appreciably better."*

What Bruce is saying is that the questions these philosophies addressed are real and legitimate. If you watch much television — Larry King, for instance — you will notice that Larry returns again and again to the same religious guests, whether evangelicals, Billy Graham, or rabbis. He never has one of them on without asking the same question: how do you explain suffering? How do you deal with hardship? He had on recently Susan Smith's mother and Pat Robertson, all of them trying to make sense of a mother who drowned her two children in a car. These are legitimate questions. Why is there suffering? Why is life so hard? Why do babies die? Why would God create a world like this?

Sin and the Broken World

Man continues to try to answer those questions, but you will never answer them apart from this book. In its simplest sense, the answer is sin. God did not create this world the way it is now. God created a place called paradise.

I was in the airport this past Friday, heading to Los Angeles to speak, and a man approached me — this was the year-2000 version of the Hare Krishnas. He was dressed in robes and came up holding a laminated card, saying he wanted to talk with me. Across the top in bold letters it read: "Help us create the ideal world." I told him I had to go, they were calling my flight, but let me help you out: you are never going to succeed. You cannot do this. There was a man called Adam, and when Adam sinned, we all fell.

Paul Speaks to the Stoics and Epicureans

Paul is dealing with two groups: the Stoics and the Epicureans. As he is talking with them, some — perhaps the Epicureans, who were the atheists — say, "What does this idle babbler wish to say?" The word "babbler" is a great word. It means literally "seed picker," and the picture is of a little bird going around randomly pecking here and there. That is how they see Paul. He is over here, then he is over there, then he is talking about a dead man and a man rising. He is a seed picker, and they cannot make sense of him.

The Stoics, on the other hand, come from a view that acknowledges a power beyond themselves, and they seem a little more confused. They say he seems to be proclaiming strange deities, because as he preaches, they hear two gods — Jesus, and this God of resurrection. They are confused by the whole process.

In verse 19, here is what they say: "And they took him and brought him to the Areopagus, saying, 'May we know what this new teaching is that you are proclaiming? For you are bringing some strange ideas to our ears, and we want to know, therefore, what these things mean.'" The idea of something new was genuinely pleasant to them. Luke adds this note in verse 21: "The Athenians and the strangers visiting there used to spend their time in nothing other than telling or hearing something new."

So they have found something special. They are moving Paul along and bringing him to the Areopagus, to the brightest minds in Athens. The Epicureans are saying, in effect, wait until you hear this seed picker — this guy was down there pecking for seeds all over the place. And the Stoics are saying, he has some really strange things to say about God, so you deal with it. And that is exactly what Paul does. He arrives at the Areopagus to speak to the best and the brightest, and he lays out his sermon.

An Introduction That Meets People Where They Are

Acts 17, verses 22 through 31 give us a perfect outline of the sermon. It begins with a masterful introduction: "Men of Athens, I observe that you are very religious in all aspects. For while I was passing through and examining the objects of your worship, I also found an altar with an inscription to an unknown God. What therefore you worship in ignorance, this I proclaim to you."

Paul starts by demonstrating that he understands the people he is speaking to. When we send a missionary to a foreign country, the first thing we do is train him in the culture, train him in the language, train him in the history — so he will not unnecessarily offend the people, but so he can communicate with them. Paul lets these men know that he knows what they are thinking and that he understands them. He is not blowing in like someone who has never been there before and is now going to lay everything on them. He says, in effect, I spent some time here, I looked around, and I have to commend you — you are religious people.

Notice that Paul does not use the Greek word *theos* here, which refers to the true God. He uses the word *daimon* — from which we get our word "demon" — referring to a lesser god. His audience understood that when he used this word, he was speaking of a lesser deity. He tells them: you are very religious people, you are worshiping this lesser god, and I have been all through this city and seen all 30,000 statues. And there is one that really caught my eye — this one, the altar to the unknown God, the one that covered all the bases in case they had missed one. That, Paul says, is the one he wants to talk to them about.

Communicating the Gospel in Terms People Can Understand

As you go out and begin to speak to people about the Lord Jesus Christ, it is critically important that you understand the culture you live in and are able to communicate with people in terms they can understand. That means you are going to have to listen to them and get to know them. When Paul speaks to the Jews, he goes straight to the Old Testament. But talking about the unknown God in the synagogue would not work. When he goes to the marketplace, he does not lead with the Old Testament, because no one will hear it. The word of God is relevant — there is no problem there. This book speaks to the true condition of man in all places and at all times. What we have to do is communicate it in a relevant way.

A little later in the sermon, Paul quotes the poets. He is making a point about the sovereignty, holiness, and creative power of God, and he says, even your own poets pick up on this. Paul finds a bridge into the culture through what the people around him are already hearing and saying.

This is something worth applying personally. When speaking at a retreat, in the opening session it helps to acknowledge that people come with real questions — and those are good questions. The world attempts to answer them and always comes up empty, because it has to manufacture some sort of answer on its own. But we have come to a place where there are real answers. Just as Paul references the poets, one way to make that point is to reference the music people are listening to. Jimmy Buffett, for example, wrote these exact words in a CD jacket: "Who I am, why I'm here, and where I'm going are questions that are yet to be answered." And as you listen to his music, you realize he does not have the answer. The Epicurean comes to mind.

The Creator God

You have answers. You can go to your culture and speak to those people, and you have answers. That is what Paul says. Paul said, "You are religious people — high marks for that. But you have a problem. You are ignorant." And that is okay. Ignorant is good; stupid is bad. Stupid we cannot fix. Ignorant we can fix. He said, "You are just ignorant, so we can help you. This unknown God — I want to talk about Him."

He said, "Here is the beginning. Here is where we have to start. God is the creator." There is a powerful verse in this Bible that we tend to overlook. Genesis chapter one, verse one: "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth." That is a very important verse. Where did all of this come from? God created it. The Bible feels no obligation to try to explain to you who God is or how He came to be. He just is. That is a fact. And He created all of this.

Paul is saying to these Athenians: you are looking around and you are stumped because you are stuck on the creation. You need to go to the Creator. There is a God. He happens to be this unknown God who created all of this.

Later, Paul writes to the church at Rome: "The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because that which is known about God is evident within them, for God made it evident to them." Romans 1:20: "For since the creation of the world, God's invisible attributes, God's eternal power and His divine nature have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that everyone is without excuse. For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks to Him. They became futile in their speculation and their foolish hearts are darkened." And what a great verse — Romans 1:22: "Professing to be wise, they became fools."

If you miss the truth that God created all of this, you will never be able to come to the one true God. Last night on PBS there was a program on evolution. Some man was trying to explain it all — first it was goo, then came the zoo, and now it is you, that philosophy. And you are watching this thinking, I do not see how that could happen. But then he gave the answer: it was hundreds of billions of years. Oh, okay — that now makes sense. If you are on that track, when you attack the issue of origins you are attacking a really important truth. Knock the legs out from under the Creator God and the rest of this will tremble and ultimately fall. Paul is saying to these philosophers: you had better understand He is the Creator God.

The Sustainer God

Here is the second thing about Him. He is also the sustainer. Verse 25: "Neither is He served by human hands as though He needs anything, since He Himself gives life to all and breath to all things." Colossians 1:16–17: "For by Him all things were created, both the heavens and the earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities — all things have been created by Him and for Him." And then Colossians 1:17: "He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together."

He is not just a remote God. Some of these philosophers would acknowledge there is this power, this deity, but it is removed, remote, disconnected — a God who kind of observes us from a distance. No. Paul says there is this God who is the Creator God and He is the sustainer God. He holds it all together.

The Sovereign God

Here is something else about this God. He is sovereign. Verse 26: "He made from one every nation of mankind to live on the face of the earth, having determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their habitations." He said this is a Creator God and a sustainer God, and He is sovereign. He determines. He determines man. He determines their appointed times and their appointments. He determines the scope and the boundaries of their habitation.

He is sovereign. That is what makes Him God. He is the Almighty. He is holy and separate from us, and He sustains this world.

God's Sovereignty Over All Nations

Who put Fidel Castro in power? God did. The same God who raised up Fidel Castro raised up George Washington. The same God raised up Adolf Hitler. Why? Because He is God.

There was a king named Nebuchadnezzar who was the most powerful man in the world. Daniel, on many occasions, shared the truth of the living God with Nebuchadnezzar, and he would not listen. He built around his city a wall so thick that they held chariot races on it.

One night, Nebuchadnezzar was walking on this wall, looking around at a magnificent night, absolutely perfect. He was looking at all of this and humming his favorite anthem, "How Great Thou Art." He was about at the third measure, and God said: that's enough. Nebuchadnezzar was struck with an actual disease — one we have seen cases of even in this century — where he roamed naked in the field, eating grass, thinking he was a cow.

Let's review. He was a king, and now he's a cow. How long would you wander around eating grass before you decided the king thing was better? A day? A week? A month? Six months? A year? Seven years. Seven years, and he came to his senses. God opened his eyes to see it.

In Daniel chapter four, verses 34 and 35, Nebuchadnezzar offers this personal testimony: "But at the end of that period, I, Nebuchadnezzar, raised my eyes toward heaven and my reason returned to me and I blessed the Most High and praised and honored Him who lives forever; for His dominion is an everlasting dominion, and His kingdom endures from generation to generation. And all the inhabitants of earth are accounted as nothing, but He does according to His will in the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of earth; and no one can ward off His hand or say to Him, 'What have You done?'" He is sovereign. That is what makes Him God.

Paul's Call to Seek God

Paul delivers this sermon and establishes, first of all, that there is a God who is a creator God, a sustainer God, and a sovereign God. Now, he says, you should seek after this God. In verse 27, God has appointed these boundaries so that people should seek Him, if perhaps they may grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us. "For in Him we live and move and exist," and Paul even quotes the poets of his own day: "For we also are His offspring."

The logical thing to do, then, is to seek this God. If there is one God — who happens to be this unknown God, the creator, the sustainer, the sovereign one — then the only reasonable response is to pursue Him. Paul is speaking to the sharpest minds at the university. He is saying: you are bright enough to figure this out. If it is true, then the only reasonable response is to pursue Him.

Repentance and the Coming Judgment

Paul begins to conclude his argument. "Being then the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the divine nature is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and thought of man." Given that we are God's creation, we ought not think God is like a stone statue or silver or gold or any creation made by the creature. He is the creator.

Therefore, verse 30: "having overlooked the times of ignorance" — those times when God was patient and did not bring His judgment — "God is now declaring to men that all people everywhere should repent." The word means to turn. In this context, Paul is saying: you have been worshiping false gods, and now you are to turn to the living, creating, sustaining, sovereign God.

You should repent for three reasons. First, God has fixed a day in which He will judge this world. There is an inescapable reality: a day of judgment has been set, and there is a time when you will be judged. Second, that judge acts in righteousness through the Man — capital M — Jesus, whom God has appointed. This creator God has appointed His Son Jesus as the righteous judge, a judge who will judge the living and the dead. He is a holy, righteous judge who knows everything, and from whom you cannot hide any word, any deed, or any thought.

The Proof of the Resurrection

Here is the third reason, and this is the part that stands out. There is a day of judgment coming at the hands of a righteous judge whom God has appointed, and He has furnished proof to all men by raising Jesus from the dead. You want proof? Look at the resurrection.

This comes up most often during the week when someone — usually a woman — approaches and says her husband is a bright, intellectual, analytical man, and asks whether there is a book he can read. Every once in a while, the husband himself comes up, and it tends to go something like this: "That was very interesting. I want you to understand, I am a very bright, intellectual, analytical man. I need a lot of facts and information." Here is the proof he needs: Jesus rose from the dead.

Most of those debates turn into long ordeals that accomplish very little, because the person on the other end did not really want to deal with the truth. They have all the proof they need. What is it? Jesus rose from the dead.

The Reactions to the Gospel

Verses 32 through 34 give us the reaction to Paul's message, and I want you to see that there are three different types of reaction. They are the same reactions you get almost every time the Word is preached. There are about 500 people in this church who have now been through *Changed Lives*, a four-week study on salvation and how to present the gospel. As you begin to share the gospel, you are going to get one of these three reactions.

What is encouraging to me is this: here is the apostle Paul, this great mind, this giant intellect. He wrote the book of Romans. Here is this giant, and he shares — and he gets three reactions. When they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some began to sneer. Some translations say they mocked him. That first group essentially said, "Resurrection of the dead — we'll see you later," and they were gone.

Here is a second group. Others said, "We shall hear you again on this." Perhaps you have had that experience. You begin to share with somebody and they say, "That's great — I'll get back to you on that next week." Interestingly, at that point Paul simply goes out of their midst. He is done. A third group, not many apparently, actually believed. You are always going to get those three reactions.

A Personal Confession

What strikes me, reflecting on this, is that in my own life I have been at all three of those places. Shortly after Susan and I were married and moved back to town, I was working at Motorola, and a couple invited us over for dinner. They had only been married about a month. I did not understand it at the time, but looking back I can see — it was a little Baptist couple, and what they intended to do was lead Susan and me to faith. About midway through dinner they started talking about all this theological content, and I remember thinking, "What are you talking about?" Susan was not open to it at all, and neither was I. Driving home we could not believe what had just happened.

I have also been in conversations where someone shared the gospel with me and I said, "You know what, I'll get back to you on that." And then there was a point in time when my eyes were opened and I actually saw, and my ears were opened and I actually heard the truth. Probably in your own life you have been at all three of those stages as well.

Paul's Identity Was Not on the Line

My point here is that Paul shares and he understands that his identity is not hung up on how people respond. There is a sense in which he cares deeply, and there is another sense in which he really does not care, because he understands it is not his job to generate a response. That is God's job.

So he shares. When he goes to the Jews in the synagogue, he says, "Here is what the Old Testament says about the Messiah." When he goes to the marketplace, he reasons with people and meets them where they are. When he gets to the Areopagus, to the sharp minds gathered there, he says, "I know what you are thinking. I know you are religious. I want to talk to you about the unknown God. He is the Creator, the Sustainer, the Sovereign One, and if you are as smart as you think you are, you had better seek after Him, because a day of judgment is coming. This judge is a perfect judge, and you do not need any more evidence — you have an empty tomb. If you want, go back to Jerusalem. You will find 500 eyewitnesses right now."

The Story Is Always About God

As you begin to share your faith, this is exactly what you are going to come up against. Ultimately, the story is not about Paul in Athens. Ultimately, the story is about God and how He works in people's lives. He says to these people: you are at your temples, but God does not dwell there. He dwells now in the living temple. All the proof you need is an empty tomb.

Father, please apply this truth to our lives. We pray it to You in Jesus' name, amen.

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