Acts 17:16-34
Nothing New Under the Sun
January 30, 2022

• INTRO:
• SLIDE
• Chapter 17 is almost an exact mirror to America
• Athens was the known world’s super-power under Alexander the Great.
  - At the time of Paul, Athens still retained a large portion of her worldly prestige.
  - They were still respected by the Romans as well.
  • Center of Knowledge and Ideas
    • Home of Socrates and Plato and the “adopted home” of Aristotle and Epicurus (Bruce, 329)
  • Center for building wonders of the world
  • Center for art
    • It took many centuries for the art, literature, and oratory skills of Athens to be surpassed on a secular level.
  • When Paul was there, Athens was at the Center of Decline.
• We are going to see Athenian theology in our county of America today.
• America is become as receptive to Christ at pagan Athens.
• BUT: Our approach to sharing the gospel should mirror what Paul did.

READ THE PASSAGE: Acts 17:16-34
PRAY

Paul and Silas in Thessalonica
Paul and Silas in Berea
v13 But when the Jews from Thessalonica learned that the word of God was proclaimed by Paul at Berea also, they came there too, agitating and stirring up the crowds.

Paul in Athens

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.

• “his spirit was provoked” when he saw all of the idols
• 1 Corinthians 8:4, Therefore, as to the eating of food offered to idols, we know that “an idol has no real existence,” and that “there is no God but one.”
• but to see them everywhere puts the depravity in your face.
• it has a spiritual weight to it.

Nothing new here: “reasoned in the synagogues with the Jews and devout persons.”

• Framework of understanding.
  -“SO”
• “and in the marketplace every day with those who happened to be there.”
• Paul reached out to everyone possible it would seem due to the idols.
• Marketplace evangelism.

🎯 Compare: Athens had a great need: Jesus.
🎯 Conroe has the same need.
🎯 Contrast: Paul did not go to Greece to sight-see (Wiersbe); he was on a mission.
🎯 Many Christians will not regularly share their faith.

ILL:

Sam Metcalf in his book, Beyond the Local Church: How Apostolic Movements Can Change the World, wrote of a time that he was taking a tour of the Church of Scotland’s beautiful Glasgow Cathedral … . It is estimated that over 50,000 university students live within walking distance of this extraordinary building. The congregation of the church itself is down to a remnant of less than two hundred people. So [he] purposely asked the [tour guide] leading the tour, “If this building still houses an active congregation, what is being done to reach these 50,000 students with the good news of Jesus?” Her response was stunning.

“The people we have who are active in this church are mostly old. And as you may well know,” she said, “young people these days are not that interested in religion. But we’re trying and we’re making adjustments. For example, the Church of Scotland has historically used black or dark vestments [robes] for our clergy. But recently, to be more relevant, we’ve added color!” [He said, he] was so stunned [he] could barely contain [himself]. (Metcalf)

The biggest risk many Christians will take in life is to put a fish on their car bumper. —Author unknown

APPL:

• Share Christ / Job 1
• Pray for our ministries.
• Pray for your ministry.
• Act on what God has called us to.

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.

The Epicurean and Stoic philosophers were rivals. (Bruce, 330)
Epicurus: “Come to the Garden” of Epicurus / Communal living school / sought a life of tranquility, a type of hedonism. They were the heros of hippies.
^{(cf., The Garden of Epicurus, https://iep.utm.edu/garden/)}

• Bruce said, they sought a life, “free from pain, disturbing passions, and superstitious fears (including in particular the fear of death).” (330, 331)
• They held that the gods were unconcerned with humans.
• Utley said, their motto was “Enjoy life now; there is no afterlife.”

Never studied the Stoics …

Wiersbe sentences and ideas on the Stoics:

• One “World God” = creation is god
• Pantheists, [everything is god].
• Their emphasis was on “personal discipline and self-control.”
• “Pleasure was not good and pain was not evil.”
• " … follow one’s reason and be self-sufficient,"
• “[be]unmoved by inner feelings or outward circumstances.”

"The Epicureans said ‘Enjoy life!’ and the Stoics said ‘Endure life!’ (377)

• Two sides of a coin, both presenting alternatives so that the Athenians could live lives that releases their consciences from guilt and increase their continual, self-righteous needs.
• [Bruce had an excellent point: “post-Christian paganism has never been able to devise anything appreciably better.” (331)

The philosophers had two initial responses to the gospel from Paul’s mouth:

• 1) Babbler
  spur-moll-ogg-ous (phonic); from G4690 and G3004;
  Greek = seed (G4690 Strong’s)
  Greek = speak (G3004 Stong’s)
  seed speaker = babbler
  Wiersbe wrote that, "it refers to someone who collects various ideas and teaches as his own the secondhand thoughts (377).
• What is this “parrot” saying! (NJB; Utley)
• 2) a preacher of foreign divinities

Today’s world = two responses to Christians:
- Babblers
- Preaching a God we don’t worship

ILL & APPL combined

FAST Stanford philosophers and hillbillies alike join the Atherians’ massive ranks daily with a cause they can live with: Deny God and His Son at any cost!

• They search for happiness in hedonism or their own religious, self-centeredness righteousness, while actively denying or consistently ignoring God.
• At the core of the Athenian religion, they had and we continue to have a 6000 year old humanism with “new and improved” labels on them; —with suckered salesmen shouting, "But wait; there’s more!
• They continue to preach their sermons from their sandstone hills!
  • They collectively deny, “The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom.” (Proverbs 9:10)
• The world still calls Christians “babblers” and “parrots!” and preachers of foreign gods!
• That will never change!
• Be strong in the Lord!
• The Church has seen it all before.

There is nothing new under the sun.

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.

• The Council of the Aeropagus was responsible to watch over both religion and education in the city. (Wiersbe, 377)
• So they had some responsibility here.
  • Protect the schools and society from disinformation.
  • Satan still uses boards to protect the schools from the truth of God.

Look at v 21
There favorite pastime however was “telling or hearing something new.”

• A statesman, four centuries earlier, had reproached the Athenian people “about asking what was the latest news in a day when [the king’s …] policy called for deeds, not words.” (see “Note 1”)
• Too a general rebuked the Athenians with “you are the best people at being deceived by something new that is said.” (Bruce, 332 footnote, he cited Cleon)
• America > post-Christian society.
  • “Christianity, been there done that.”
  • “More developed ideas” that don’t include low thinking math!

Man has a lust for puffer predicates and presuppositions. He lusts after knowledge that often doesn’t change anything for the better.

• Eric Hoffer wrote that, “the fear of becoming a ‘has been’ keeps some people from becoming anything.” (Wiersbe, 377)
• Isaiah 5:21, “Woe to those who consider themselves wise and judge themselves clever.” (CSB)

ILL:

• Secularist continue to package their new ideas = secular smarter and smarter
  • IN TRUTH = they are further away from the most basic truth of a loving God.
• Imagine: after your death you walk by your own tombstone and it reads: “He was a hearer and teller of new words.”
• IN CONTRAST
• While they were grinding their granite epitaphs, Paul was reaching the world for Christ; pushing himself into the daily lives of the souls in the marketplaces and universities of their day.
• Paul was going from town-to-town being chased by people who wanting to kill him.
• He was being a doer of the word not just a hearer.

APPL:

• Christians need to be perfectly satisfied with and continue to make that both claim of “Old Rugged Cross” message—priority one!
• What else is out there that save a man, a woman, a child?
• There can’t be anything else
  • Acts 4:12, “There is no other name given unto men by which we must be saved.”

Paul Addresses the Areopagus

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.

• Athenians had many alters = mostly polytheism = e.g., Hinduism
• Paul had laid aside the burning in his soul and keyed on one idea: the alter ‘To the Unknown God.’ (cf., MacLaren)

v 22 “you are very religious” = lit: “fear the gods”

• “too superstitious” (KJV)
• “somewhat superstitious”
• “you are very religious”
• “over religious”
• https://www.biblehub.com/acts/17-22.htm

People by nature worship something;
People are going to have their gods.

• Even the so-called atheist will worship something … money, nature, veganism, ninja warrior workouts, something!

17: 24-31 GOSPEL PRESENTATION READ OR POINT TO IT

Truths presented in Paul’s Gospel presentation—remember 1.5 minute gospel presentation:

• vv 24-26: God’s Divine
  • Creator: Made the world and everything in it (17:24a)
• vv 27-29: God 's Desire: for man to know Him.
  • Nearness of God
• vv 30, 31: God’s Determination: Salvation Solution and Judgment
  • God is patient and forgiving (17:30a)
  • God has commanded what humankind must do (30b)

Paul charged the still proud Athenian listeners with “ignorance.”

• Stop ignorance / that is what we do.
• Plant / Water
• TRUTH “SCATTERERS”
• Paul’s mission was to place the truth in the lap of his listeners.
• BUT Ultimately, People must charge themselves with ignorance.
  ^{(idea from the quote from MacLaren’s, “to make them charge themselves was more than an oratorical device”)}

32 Now when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked.

Athens afforded [Paul] ample confirmation of what he had already learned what he wrote in 1Cor. 1:21, that, “in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom.” (Bruce, 329)

32b 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.

APPL:

• Countries never change
  • America is the new Greece. We may be on tract to become a shell of what we used to be.
• People never change
  • Remember: we would be right there with the unbelievers if God had not enlightened our lives with His truth and righteousness that the light of the gospel brings to us.
  • 1 Corinthians 5:12, 13 in part Is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge? 13 God judges those outside.**
  • We ought to feel the the world’s ridicule on a regular basis.
  • People are still lost in ignorance. People still need the Lord to save them.
• The Mission never changes
  • We are the Pauls of our generation.
  • We should not provoke the unbeliever. We should give them the gospel (cf., MacLaren)
  • We should look for common ideas of truth in the delusional soup for an entrance with the gospel.
  • There will be a harvest from our efforts.
  • Simple gospel presentations.

There is nothing new under the sun.

Bibliography

Bruce, F. F. The Book of Acts: The New International Commentary on the New Testament. Ed. Gordon D. Fee, Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmanns Publishing Company, 1988.

Dick, John. Lectures on the Acts of the Apostles. Second ed., New York: Robert Carter and Brothers, 1857, https://www.bestbiblecommentaries.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Acts-.-John-Dick.pdf.

MacLaren, Alexander. “Commentary on Acts 17”. MacLaren’s Expositions of Holy Scripture. https://www.studylight.org/commentaries/eng/mac/acts-17.html.

NJB. New Jerusalem Bible. https://www.catholic.org/bible/book.php?id=51&bible_chapter=17.

Note 1: Bruce cited Demosthenes for the comments in *Philippic 1:10, also *Thucydides, Hist. 2.38.5., p. 332. See “Bruce” for bibliography info. Cf., Demosthenes, Philippic 1.10. From Tufts University’s website, https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Dem.+4+10&fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0069, translated used from DuckDuckGo.com.

Note 2: Bob Utley has a great article on first, second, third, and fourth class condition at this webpage: http://ntgreek.org/learn_nt_greek/conditional_sentences.htm.

Sam Metcalf. Beyond the Local Church: How Apostolic Movements Can Change the World. InterVarsity Press, from The Pastor’s Workshop, https://thepastorsworkshop.com/sermon-illustrations-2/sermon-illustrations-evangelism/.

Spurgeon, Charles H. “God’s Nearness to Us.” Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit Volume 33, July 17, 1887, from the Spurgeon Center, https://www.spurgeon.org/resource-library/sermons/gods-nearness-to-us/#flipbook/.

Utley, Bob. “Acts 17.” Bible.org, from the Series: “Luke the Historian: Acts,” Bible Lessons International, 2012, https://bible.org/seriespage/acts-17.

Wiersbe, Warren. The Wiersbe Bible Commentary: NT. Colorado Springs, CO: David C. Cook, 2007.