What is this Babbler Saying? - Pastor Tom Loghry
In Acts 17:16-34, Paul gives a speech in the Athenian Areopagus seeking to persuade the Greeks of the city to accept the Gospel.
Transcript:
Acts 17:16-18. 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 marketplace day by day with those who happen 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 for foreign gods. They said this because Paul was preaching the good news about Jesus and the resurrection.
Let us pray. Dear Father, as we come before your word this morning, we pray that you would lead us by the example of your apostle Paul.
That from the testimony that, that he offered to the city of Athens, that we might learn ourselves how we can testify to the truth of the gospel in our own time and place. We ask this in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen. You may be seated.
Most of us know at least two languages. And by that I mean that most of us have at least kind of two sets of vocabulary. I want you to think about your job, or maybe a hobby that you're passionate about. There are all kinds of terms associated with both your work and play that is sometimes just lost on other people 'cause they're not familiar. People who don't know sports won't know what you mean when you talk about things like a triple- double, or a fade route, or an indirect kick. Medical professionals know all kinds of technical words for pharmaceuticals that are lost on the rest of us. Skilled tradesmen, mechanics, engineers, IT professionals grapple with all kinds of challenges that can be difficult to explain outside of the terminology of their trade. It can sound like babble to the untrained ear.
To the unfamiliar, you have to begin by talking about winning and losing, how a medicine will make you feel better, and the basic goal of your project. And from this small start, they can begin to understand what you mean.
If you're a Christian, and especially if you've been one for a long time, then you too have a set of vocabulary that will be lost on some people. The Bible is familiar to us, not necessarily familiar to others. Words like atonement, sanctification, the Holy Spirit, have meaning in our minds, but are foreign or misunderstood by others. When we talk, it can sometimes sound like babble. Paul was met by a similar challenge during his time in Athens. His message had plenty that was familiar to the Jewish mind, but all that was mostly foreign to the Greek mind. They couldn't understand what he is really getting about, and so we find a helpful example from him here in what it looks like to clearly communicate the gospel in such a way that it can be accepted or rejected, as the case may be, by those who are unfamiliar with the world of the Bible. And so we continue today in Acts 17, first looking at verses 16 through 18.
As you recall, Paul had to eventually make his way to Athens because of persecution that he had received in Berea. Originally, he had a, a great reception in Berea, but then some Jews from Thessalonica came and caused trouble for him there. And so he went ahead to Athens. Silas and Timothy were not with him at this time. And while he's in Athens, Luke says he became greatly distressed to see that the city was full of idols. Now, many of you may be familiar with the city of Athens and think of it as kind of a city of, of philosophy, and that is, that is certainly true. It's known for its philosophy and we have plenty to say about that today. Just to kind of point out, Athens is there at the, at the end of the area of Achaia, very close to the coast, and in Athens, alongside there being many philosophers, there is quite a bit of religion. If you look at this map here, and this is provided by this video by Manuel Bravo on YouTube, you can see the layout of the city and you see this kind of main thoroughfare here, and it leads right to the center of, of Athens. And then you have the Acropolis here, in which you have the Greek Parthenon.
Now many of you will be familiar with that, with that imagery. Maybe you've seen that image before. This was a temple dedicated to the goddess Athena. Now if you pay attention a little bit, Athena, Athens, you see the connection. Scholars think that actually she got her name from the city of Athens because she was just the goddess of Athens, and so she became known as Athena. Doesn't, I mean, it looks kind of impressive now, but it looked even more impressive in its heyday. Again, from Manuel Bravo, you would see it would've been a very extravagant temple and it would've featured this large statue of Athena, this gleaming statue. And, and you know, when we see some of these things, we, um, we tend to think that, oh, you know, that would've been kind of a beautiful thing to take in. And nowadays when we see these things, we, we can appreciate some of the artistic quality about them, I think because they're dead things now at this point, they're purely manifestations of human artistry. But at that time, there were living religious symbols, living symbols of religious idolatry, and the city was permeated with them. It wasn't just as though it was fixed on, on the Acropolis, throughout the city they had altars all over the place, statues all over the place. It disturbed Paul to see this.
And so in light of this, he began, and as he would anyways, he began reasoning in the synagogue. We've seen him do that in, in other cities with both Jews and God-fearing Greeks there. It'd be interesting to know what he talked about with them, because to live in such a city, you probably had to go along to get along a little bit. So maybe he was challenging them about how they were getting along there. But he didn't just talk with them. He also talked with Epicurean and Stoic philosophers in the marketplace. Now, the marketplace, and the Greek word for this is agora, scholars think that it probably wasn't likely the traditional Agora, which is quite old, but rather the Roman agora, which is depicted here, and if we, I don't know if I, I might not have a picture of it, but if we go back to this image, you can actually see it here. It kind of looks like a little square with lots of tents, because they would've been selling things, but they weren't just exchanging materials. They were also exchanging ideas. Athens was a place where they were passionate about talking about new ideas and Paul was engaging with the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers.
Now, you might not know much about those, those philosophies. And so just to give you a very kind of simplistic summary of, of those two schools of thought. Epicureanism, founded by Epicurus who lived around 307 bc, the philosophy that he put forward was very kind of materialist in nature. That is, that there wasn't really much to consider in terms of the supernatural, didn't absolutely deny the possibility of the existence of gods, but basically maintained they're totally irrelevant. Life is just about the, the actual physical substance of, of existence, uh, and what Epicurus commended was pursuing a hedonistic form of life. Now when we hear the word hedonism, we kind of think of like, oh, someone, like, just pursuing pleasures without end, kind of a debauched sort of life. And that could have happened with some that subscribed to this philosophy, but that's not actually what Epicurus was prescribing here. His philosophy was that virtue is defined by whatever will make you happy. And so because he kind of knew the volatility of life, he actually recommended that people very live a very simple kind of minimalistic sort of life. And we actually kind of encounter those kind of philosophies around us today with people saying, you have to, you know, get rid of the clutter, kind of cut back and, and, and find just happiness in the simple things of life. So that was kind of the philosophy that, that Epicurus commended. And then you had the Stoic philosophers, and Stoicism was founded by Zeno, who lived around the same era, 300 bc. Stoicism is a little bit more of a thorough going sort of philosophy, it's pantheistic in nature, so it believes that God exists, but that God kind of is in everything. That's what pantheism means. And that this God is providential, he's benevolent, and that as human beings we should seek to live a virtuous life. Happiness is found in us being virtuous, kind of living unto our end as, as human beings. And, and it was a very predominant school, critical, both of these schools critical of, of pagan religions, kind of thinking that they're kind of simplistic and they're missing the bigger, the bigger picture here.
And so Paul's engaging with them, and as he's engaging with them, they, they have some thoughts about him. They say, what is this babbler saying? Now that term babbler in verse 18 in the Greek is called spermalogos, which means cocksparrow. You're wondering, how they get from cocksparrow to babbler? Well, what the translators are trying to do here is to try to communicate to us the sense of what they're, what they're saying here, which is he's just kind of picking up ideas in their minds and just babbling them. They think he's kind of a, kind of a amateur philosopher who's just kind of copycatting some of their ideas and just spitting it out. Again, kind of like a sparrow, just picking up little things. So they think this, this guy's not a serious thinker 'cause they're not tracking with him. They're not, they're not understanding what he's saying. And others say that he seems to be advocating foreign gods. And it's interesting that Luke concludes this observation, because it would seem to make an allusion to the philosopher Socrates. And if you know anything about Socrates, he was, he was punished, he was, he was judged by the Athenians and condemned to death, and he had to do it by his own hand by drinking hemlock. And he was charged with corrupting the youth and introducing foreign gods. And so there's some parallels here now being drawn kind of between Paul and Socrates. Now, you might think, why is he, why? Why would they say that, that he's introducing foreign gods? Well, we could think, okay, well, Jesus, of course. But Luke notes this. It says they, they said this because Paul was preaching the good news about Jesus and the resurrection. So what some commentators believe here is that the reason why they're saying gods is because what they actually are thinking is that Paul is advocating for two gods. Jesus, and they're actually personalizing, resurrection, kind of like Anastasia.
Cause very often the, the gods would have consorts and things like that. So they, so they think that he is talking about a couple of gods here, Jesus and the resurrection God. And, and so they have questions about what exactly he's getting on about and, and so to get some answers, Luke says in verse 19, 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 live there spent their time doing nothing but talking about and listening to the latest ideas.)
So the Areopagus, drawn after the name of the war god, Ares, was around in the center of the life of Athens, it's actual location. You can, you can see it here. It looks like a big rock. Not quite the center, but right in the middle of the life of, of Athens. You have a picture of it here. Quite an unusual sort of rock feature. And it came to become a place of counsel for the Athenians mythologically, going back to a story in which this man named Orestes avenged the death of his, his father, Agamemnon. And Athena put him on trial there and gathered a counsel of Athenians to judge him for murder. And then henceforth, you have this Council of the Areopagus, which wasn't strictly made up of philosophers, but it was a body that did deal with religious matters in the cities.
Now Craig Keener, who offers an excellent commentary on Acts, he is not certain that this meeting necessarily took place on this rock feature, it could have been. But in verse 19, it says to a meeting of the Areopagus. And so the Areopagus could have also met in the nearby Agora that Paul was actually in. There was these features, you see those columns around the edge in Athens, they had these kind of colonnades called Stoas where people would meet. And so it suggested that they met in the Stoa Basileios. And, and bringing Paul to the Areopagus, what they're intending to do is not to put him on trial in the sense like, if you don't answer right here, buddy, we're gonna kill you, but rather to ascertain whether the gods in their mind that Paul is advocating for are going to be welcomed among the Greek pantheon. And if you're accepted among the Greek, the, the pantheon of Gods in Athens, then you have a good chance of it kind of disseminating to the other Greek cities, 'cause Athens is a very influential city.
So you can almost think of the, the way that I thought about it is kind of, it's almost like America's Got Talent or like, or The Voice, or something like that for gods. And so they're saying, okay, like, give us your best shot here. Why should we welcome your Gods in? Because then if you do, then you're supposed to have a certain space in the city of Athens. And there, there's all kinds of things that go along with that to make sure that we properly honor this, this God, and they were truly interested in, in these ideas. In fact, they were, they were probably a little bit too curious. They had a knack for just talking about new, new things, talking about strange ideas. You know, Luke says that they spent all their time doing nothing more than just talking about, listening to the latest ideas. And you kind of think that we can actually draw some modern parallels here. We're very often kind of consumed with what I would call infotainment. You're on your social media feeds and it's just like, oh, always more information. We're always interested in something new, something kind of tantalizing that will excite our minds. That's the Athenians. They would've loved social media. And so we see Paul, the Jew, a student of, of Gamaliel the Pharisee, one who is now a servant of Christ, make this case before the august body of Athens.
So we continue on in verse 22. I'm just gonna read his entire speech here so you can really capture the sense of his presentation. So it says, Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopgus and said: people of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: to an unknown God. So you're ignorant of the very thing you worship, and this is what I'm going to proclaim to you. The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands. And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else. From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole Earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us. 'For in him we live and move and have our being.' As some of your own poets have said, 'we are his offspring.' 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.
So in this speech that Paul presents to the Areopagus, we actually see some of his rhetorical skills at play. There's actually some parallels here between what he does and kind of the, the, the art of rhetoric that was kind of professionalized at that time. He starts on a seemingly positive note. He says, I see that in every way you are very religious. Now that can kind of have a dual meaning there. They could say, oh, well, well thank you. We are very religious. But Paul's got a critical note here in terms of their religiosity because it's, it's a false form, it's a perverted form, and it also has this quality, potential meaning about it that they're, in fact, very superstitious. You can see how you could come to that conclusion. It's like they have so many gods, like one god's not enough for them. They have to have so many gods just to make sure their bases are covered.
It's, it's difficult for us to kind of put ourselves in their shoes. And I think sometimes, if I say this in the defense of the ancient world, they're very concerned about the gods and the implications that the relationship with the gods had for the welfare of their city and their livelihoods. If I was gonna criticize Americans, I don't think we care enough about our relationship with God and the ramifications that it has for our lives. They're very deeply concerned, and so they're like, we're gonna cover our bases. All the Gods. Name me a god, show me it's a god, I'll make an altar to him. So much so that they had this altar to an unknown God. And there's some corroboration for this. This isn't just something that Luke's making up here.
There's this story that goes back all the way to around 600 BC regarding this man named Epimenides, who was kind of a Greek, a Greek seer, sort of philosopher. And he was called upon when Athens was struck with a plague. And in his, in the Lives of the Eminent Philosopers, by Diogenes Laertius, he tells this about what Epimenides did. When Athens was struck by a plague, it says and Epimenides came in the 46th Olympiad, purified their city, and stopped the pestilence in the following way. He took sheep, some black and others white, and brought them to the Areopagus; and there he let them go whether they pleased, instructing those who followed them to mark the spot where each sheep laid down and offer a sacrifice to the local divinity. And thus, it is said the plague was stayed. Hence even to this day altars may be found in different parts of Athens with no name inscribed upon them, which are memorials of this atonement. So at the meeting he said, okay, the sheep are gonna show you where you're supposed to be offering sacrifices to the gods. And sometimes the sheep lay down like, we don't know what this god's about, like we have no association here, he is like, doesn't matter, build an altar, atone, and make right with the gods. And so they, and so that, that's what they did and that, and so those altars remained in place up to Paul's day. And so we see what Paul is doing here.
What he's doing is he's picking up on something familiar to the Athens in order to kind of make an unexpected move. They're expecting that he's coming here to make a case for a new god, a god that should be added to their pantheon. And what Paul is saying is like, actually, I'm introducing nothing new. You have an altar to an unknown God, and I'm calling your attention to him. Continue on in verses 24 through 26, Paul goes on and explains to them who this God is. He is the true God, the one who is the creator of all things, and unlike the gods of Athens, he requires no space. He requires no temple. And if you think about Paul's position now as a Christian, he's in a great position now to make this argument.
Because to the Greek mind, they might say to a Jew, well, hold up, you, you do have a temple. Now, the distinction between the Jewish temple and the Greek temples, these pagan temples, is that the Jews never supposed that their temple contained God. And there is no image of God in the Jewish temple. But now at this point, if you recall Stephen's speech, and it's interesting to see now, Paul is saying the same sorts of things that Stephen was saying in his speech, is that God has no need for this temple. Rather, now, he doesn't say this here, but it is the people, the Christians and believers who have been joined to Christ by faith, who now make up the temple of God. But in any case, he says there's no space required for a temple. He doesn't need these sorts of things. And this would've been actually appealing to the philosophers. I mean, the Epicureans, they, they could have said, yeah, do away with all this anyways. But certainly the Stoics, they would've had a great appreciation for this, especially 'cause what Paul is talking about here is, is God's providence and care for humanity. And this is something that the stoics certainly would've agreed with. And what Paul is talking about here also is, is the fact that this God is in fact the God of all humanity.
Now, something else to just understand about kind of pagan religions is very often gods were just limited to one god. You have the God of Athens, Athena, the Goddess Athena, you have the God of the Jews. And we can see even how in the Old Testament you have that sense of we're talking about the God of Israel and he had a special covenant with Israel, and yet from the beginning it's still understood that yes, he's, he's called out Israel to be his people, but nonetheless, the God of the Bible is still the God of the universe. He's the God of all creation. He is the one who made mankind. And so he is the God of all. In the Bible, we find testimony of the fact of how God's intent was for humanity to spread across the earth, and he sets their boundaries and Paul says there's a purpose in this.
Continuing on in verses 27 through 29, God did this, everything has played out as it has in order that we might seek him, in order that we might reach out for him and find him. Now, as Paul is speaking to these Athenians here, this sense of reaching out and trying to find him, it's kind of like a blind groping. They don't have the insight that they need. They've been living in ignorance as, as he'll say very shortly here. But his point is is that God is meant to be found. The Epicurean is like, we don't really need to worry about God. God's, they're in their whole other thing. We got our thing. They got their thing. Just don't deal with them. The, the Stoics are like, well, God's all around us, this is God. We are, we are a part of God. And what Paul is doing here is he's affirming two things that avoid the extremes of both errors, which is this, is that, yes, God is transcendent. God can't be identified with you and me and all creation. God is transcendent and yet he is not removed from us as Epicureans would have it. He is imminent. He's near at hand to be found. He wants to be found. He wants to be in relationship with us. And in order to add kind of authority to what he's saying here, Paul makes a very artful, rhetorical move here. Also demonstrating his knowledge, which is, is pretty impressive, by quoting to them some of their poets. Now, when we think about quoting, quoting poets here, we think, okay, that's kind of like quoting Robert Frost at them. Why would that necessarily be authoritative? You have to understand, for the Greeks, the poets in their minds were nearly divinely inspired. So it's almost like quoting the Bible to the Greeks, that was practically their Greek, their Greek Bible, and so he gives them a quote, it's been attributed to Epimenedes, saying, for in him we live and move and have our being.
Now again, Paul's not affirming pantheism here, as though, as though we're all a part of God, but he is saying that our being, our existence, is, cannot be sustained and held apart from God. It's only by God's providential hand that we continue to exist. And then he quotes Aratus in the Phaenomena. I have such a tired time pronouncing that word, Phaenomena, in which he says, we are his offspring. Showing that relationship we are to have with God. And the overall point is this, is that if this is the case, if we are God's offspring, then why in the world would we think that the divine being is like some graven image made of gold? If there's anything that's going to be an image of God, it is us. And in fact, that's what we learn in Genesis one, that we are made in the image of God.
God needs no image made. He's already done the work. Now, that does not mean that we should worship each other. That's not the meaning that's being taken here. But God has already revealed himself. He's displayed his glory. Now we are to just turn to him and worship him. We find criticism of this practice of making idols both in Isaiah 40, and then Paul also in Romans one talks about this, this tendency among humanity to worship things other than God. It's a, it's a sign of our sinfulness. It's a sign of our, of our brokenness that we wish to create, worship created things rather than the creator himself.
Now going on into verses 30 through 31, Paul says that God has overlooked such ignorance. Now, when we read that, we might think that, okay, he's saying that, no fault there because they're ignorant, but that's not in fact what he's saying. We have to understand, what he is saying here is that God has not brought full and complete judgment and destruction upon you yet. Because of your ignorance God has shown mercy, leniency. But now there, now things have to change. Now God is commanding all people everywhere to repent, because there is a final judgment that is coming. He says in verse 31, for has set a day when he'll judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. Now, the man that he's talking about here is Jesus Christ, and Paul's evidence for the, for this claim is the fact that Jesus was raised from the dead.
That is the, now, again, this I, I think I've said this before, but this aspect of the gospel is one that we can very easily neglect. Part of the gospel message includes the fact there that there is judgment coming. God has shown us mercy, continued mercy. I mean, think about, talking about nearly 2000 years ago. God is continuing to show patience and, patience and mercy towards mankind because he wants us to know him. He wants us to repent and be in relationship with him. But there is a day of judgment that is coming and we also are reminded of this, that Paul leaves a whole lot of things out here in terms of his gospel presentation, which reminds us that we don't have to talk about every single thing. There's a whole lot more to explain, but he feels like it's critical to mention the resurrection here.
If there is no resurrection, then there is no gospel. There is no hope for us being justified before God because it's not clear that any sacrifice for sin has been made that is acceptable to God. Without the resurrection of the dead, we have no hope of life hereafter because God created us to be physical creatures, beings who have bodies.
Now, I just want you to kind of step back here and notice the distance that's been traveled rhetorically here, the Areopagus isn't expecting, okay, Paul's gonna come in and give us his pitch for a new religion. Now instead, see what Paul has done. He says, I'm not introducing anything new. In fact, I'm calling out your negligence and I'm calling you to repent. A tough message, started very positive saying, noting you're very religious. And then by the end he says, repent, judgment is coming. So he's not afraid to ruffle feathers. Why? Because it's the truth, he's that concerned about them, how they feel about what he's saying here doesn't really matter because if they do not repent, they will come under God's judgment.
In closing, we learn the response of the Areopagus and those listening to Paul's message. Continuing on verse 32, when they heard about the resurrection of the dead, some of them sneered, but others said, we want to hear you again on this subject. At that, Paul left the council. Some of the people became followers of Paul and believed. Among them was Dionysius, a member of the Areopagus, also a woman named Damaris, and a number of others. So it's interesting they were tracking with, here we can even imagine again, the philosophers would've appreciated what he was saying about the gods don't need temples, all that kind of stuff. They basically, they thought a lot of the religious stuff was just kind of for the populace, you know, for the, the mass populace. It is for the masses. It was, no serious thinker really thought that was absolutely necessary.
They were tracking with him until he gets to the resurrection, because the, the very notion of resurrection was foolishness to the Greeks. Recall, so in the case of the Epicureans, they believe that when you died, that's it, there is no afterlife. In the case of the Stoics, they believed, again, kind of as pantheists do that you kind of just get reincorporated with, with God. And in fact, the popular mythology also attested to the fact that the Greeks, they just didn't believe that this was a possibility. If anything, if there was any afterlife they believed, probably along the lines of Plato, that it was in a spiritual existence. It was in a spiritual form, not, not the body. And in their myths, in a myth that actually takes place, I had already made reference to. It takes place at the Areopagus, this trial of Orestes. We have this narrative from Eumenides of the God Apollo saying this, Monsters, totally loathsome, hated by the gods! Zeus could undo the shackles, there is a remedy for bondage, in many means of release. And then notice this, but after the dust has absorbed a dead man's blood, there is no resurrection [anastasis]. My father created no magic spells for that, although he arranges everything else, and turning it all upside down with his power, does not cost him a breath.
What Apollo's saying here is that Zeus doesn't resurrect the dead. Here, Paul is with this message that the God that I speak of here resurrects the dead, the true God. So much of this is just so counter-cultural to them and, and again, it seems foolish to them, to their enlightened minds that they dismiss him, but others say, we want to hear you again on this subject, and then among others still there's those who believe, one noted Dionysius who is apparently a member of the Areopagus, so that's a big win. Getting a, a member of that actual body, this, this political body, to believe, that's a win. When you think about Paul, he's been on the run and all of a sudden he gets someone from that counsel to believe, that's huge. And a woman named Damaris. It's interesting, we don't know anything about her, but she's picked out here. Um, it's suggested that Paul's audience here may not have been strictly the Areopagus, could have included just some onlookers. And it's even suggested that perhaps she was a philosopher, 'cause in Athens, women were actually welcome among the philosophers. And so that that could be possibly kind of her, her background here.
And so now, kind of stepping into our day, into our time, I want you to think about this. What do we find in our agora? What do we encounter in our marketplace? Many gods, still? In a manner of speaking, I would say so, yes. We don't see as many statues or altars as such, though if you go to Plainfield Pike, you'll see an example of Buddhist idolatry. That's a vivid example, but it doesn't tell the story for most of the people in our local community. I'd say we do have many people who are nominally Christian, that is not Christian in name at least. We also have a significant number of, of people who are nones, not in the religious order, N-O-N-E-S, nones religiously, close to a third of Americans identify as nones. They're not necessarily atheistic, they may be agnostic, and they're probably spiritual, but in a very disorganized kind of way. Like the Athenians, we have a lot of ideas swirling around and around, and many that are not so dissimilar to what the Athenians were familiar with. In fact, even Stoicism has a bit of a revival now, a kind of popular falling in the social media sphere. And so among all these ideas, people pick and choose from the buffet what they want, even if the pairings can sometimes be odd, like pairing pizza with like lo mein noodles or something. We're grasping after many things, but never finding God.
Meanwhile, people might not trust in gold idols, but they'll trust in the gold. Many are unknowingly the devotees of Hygeia, the goddess of health. Then there's all the technology, the solutions that will save us, or possibly destroy us, they say, as tempestuous as any of the Greek gods. People will say these things are not their God, actions speak louder than words. Our lives tell the story of who or what we worship. Just look at your life, examine your life. Think about it. What does it say about who or what you worship?
There is a lot of noise. There is overstimulation, gods as far as the eye can see. What can cut through it all? What could possibly cut through it all? We're standing in the Agora, Paul knows what it's like. And he knows the, the only cure, the Gospel truth. We have a model here to follow. Not anticipating full embrace by all, paul didn't get that, but an example of how to meet the culture where it's at.
We start with the basics. Where do humans come from? What is our destiny? What do you think about God? Have you heard about the true God, the, the God that the Bible talks about? How can we know him? There is this man named Jesus, this is what he said about himself, this is what happened, who do you say he is?
Now as you work through these sorts of things, at first they might think that you're a confused babbler until you help them understand. And if you don't help them understand, if someone doesn't help them understand, then they'll just go on in that way, in ignorance. If you help them understand, some might think you're a fool anyhow. Others will believe. And there will be some who will say, we want to hear you again on this subject. And in my personal opinion, which isn't an expert opinion per se, but in my opinion, I think we are in such a season in our country. People might not immediately believe, but they are open now, they will hear us again on the Gospel. The idols are losing their shine. Whatever the case may be though, urgency is not optional, because Jesus Christ is coming again. He is returning with judgment. It is not too late for repentance, thank God, but the time is now, not later. And so my charge to you is this, following the example of the Apostle Paul. Be the voice. Be the voice that cuts through the clamor with the word of salvation.
Let us pray.
Father, we thank you for Paul's example, how it ministers to us. And seeing him, Father, we are reminded that we are not alone in the challenges that we face in our own time. They've been faced before. Father, we pray that you would lead us and guide us so that we may be able to communicate the truth of the gospel to our neighbors, to our family, to our friends who may be caught up in the swirl of ideas and confusion that abounds.
Help us bring clarity so that they may know you God, so that they would stop their pursuit of false idols and worship you as the one true God, that they would be liberated from superstition, and be redeemed and restored to be the people that you created them to be, living in communion with you. Father, we ask this in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Hey there, Pastor Tom here. I hope you enjoyed this sermon I offered to Rockland Community Church. Rockland Community Church is located at 212 Rockland Road in North Scituate, Rhode Island, just around the bend from the Scituate Public High School. We invite you to join us in person or virtually this Sunday as we worship God and hear the preaching of his word. It's our joy to welcome you into our community
Intro/Outro Song
Title: River Meditation
Artist: Jason Shaw
Source:http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Jason_Shaw/Audionautix_Acoustic/RIVER_MEDITATION___________2-58
License:(CC BY 3.0 US)