City Life Starter

The Word: Acts 17:22-32

22 So Paul stood in the midst of the Areopagus and said, “Men of Athens, I observe that you are very religious in all respects.
23 “For while I was passing through and examining the objects of your worship, I also found an altar with this inscription, ‘TO AN UNKNOWN GOD.’ Therefore what you worship in ignorance, this I proclaim to you.
24 “The God who made the world and all things in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands;
25 nor is He served by human hands, as though He needed anything, since He Himself gives to all people life and breath and all things;
26 and He made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their habitation,
27 that they would seek God, if perhaps they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us;
28 for in Him we live and move and exist, as even some of your own poets have said, ‘For we also are His children.’
29 “Being then the children 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.
30 “Therefore having overlooked the times of ignorance, God is now declaring to men that all people everywhere should repent,
31 because He has fixed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness through a Man whom He has appointed, having furnished proof to all men by raising Him from the dead.”
32 Now when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some began to sneer, but others said, “We shall hear you again concerning this.”

By Scott Fiddler

This passage from Acts recounts Paul’s visit to the Areopagus at Mars Hill in Athens in 49 A.D. To understand the significance of what Paul is doing one must understand how he ended up at the Areopagus and what the Areopagus was. Athens is not just another Mediterranean city. Athens was the home of the Parthenon. The Parthenon was built in 432 B.C. and was a temple dedicated to the pagan goddess, Athena, whom Athenians considered their patron goddess. The Areopagus was in essence the Athenian Supreme Court. It consisted of a group of men who ruled the city and doled out justice.

In the verses just prior to this passage Luke (the author and first-hand witness) describes Paul walking through Athens and being provoked in his spirit because of all the idols. (Acts 17:16). The ignorance of the Athenians’s worship provoked Paul into action to confront their ignorance. So, Paul went to the Agora.

The Athenian Agora, or marketplace, is where the Stoics and other philosophers would gather to discuss and debate philosophical issues. So, Paul went to where the important issues were being discussed to present to them Jesus and the resurrection. In response, the philosophers refer to Paul as an “idle babbler”—probably because he is talking to them about the prophecies about Jesus from Isaiah 53 or some other messianic prophecy, and they also refer to him as proclaiming “strange deities”—because the idea of God becoming man and dying for man’s sins would indeed seem strange to these pagans. But in all of it, they are intrigued. They want to hear more.

So, they lead Paul up to the Areopagus to question him before the Athens Supreme Court.

Application

In August 2010, Cindy and I visited Athens, the Agora, the Areopagus (Mars Hill), and the Parthenon. We had been there once before, but this time I approached it differently. I read through Acts 17 that morning, and then I retraced Paul’s steps. I started off in the Agora where Paul debated with the Stoics and Epicureans. I imagined him seeing all the idols and being provoked that so many people were living in darkness, worshipping idols of wood and stone, not knowing the true God who had become man and died for their sins so they could know Him.

I then walked up the hill from the Agora to the Areopagus, and I found out something you don’t get from just reading Acts 17, i.e. the walk is about 20 minutes. The walk is up a steep hill and it takes a while, and I began to wonder what Paul was thinking . . . He had to be thinking . . . It was too long a walk. “Are they going to kill me when I tell them they are worshipping God in ignorance? Is this where it all ends for me?”

Then when I arrived at the Areopagus and I stood where I imagined Paul stood, I saw something else one doesn’t find in Acts 17; there in the background maybe 200 yards away, up on the highest hill, just behind the Areopagus, was the Parthenon, the most revered temple in all of Greece. So, when Paul was telling these Pagan leaders of the Greek capital of Paganism that they were worshipping God in ignorance, he did so with the most famous symbol of their pagan beliefs looming over their shoulders and reminding Paul of the terrible risk he was taking, yet Paul was not deterred.

I loved what Pastor Chris said last Sunday about the difference between social tolerance and intellectual tolerance. If Paul had been brainwashed like so many in our culture he never would have debated with the Stoics and Epicurean philosophers, he never would have told the Athenian Supreme Court they were worshipping God in ignorance, and Dionysius, the Areopagite, and the others would not have found Jesus when they did. Paul’s boldness didn’t stop with the Athenians. We know for a fact that Paul stood before Nero Caesar, perhaps the harshest persecutor of Christians ever (he would tie Christians to stakes and burn them alive to light his garden parties at the palace in Rome) and preached the gospel to him, which may be why Paul was ultimately beheaded in Rome.
The Apostle Paul has always been one of my favorite people in all of history and on our trip to Athens my respect for him grew even more. The guts he had to engage people who were lost in false religion and separated from God should be a inspiration for all Christians.