Paul Preaches the Bad News in Athens Peg

Paul goes to synagogues preaching Christ, fulfilling prophecies. He challenges idol worship in Athens, preaches to God-fearing Greeks and Jews. Faces philosophical groups, Epicureans and Stoics, who debate him on resurrection and Jesus. They invite him to the city council to learn more. Paul's approach in a pagan place like Athens can be a model for sharing Jesus today, planting seeds to shape worldviews for the gospel to make sense. He engages with different beliefs, sparking interest and discussions. So, Paul, I imagine, he gets up on a Saturday morning, because he wants to go to the synagogue on the Sabbath, of course, right? And the Sabbath is a Saturday, not a Sunday, and as he goes there, he begins to preach Christ crucified to them, and this is his strategy, right? He likes to go to the synagogue, and maybe this is his second or third trip there. As a visiting scholar, he's asked to share again and again, he flips open the Torah and shows how Jesus fulfills all the prophecies about Messiah. I think he would have turned to the prophecies found in Isaiah 53 to 55 about the suffering servant, or he might have flipped to Psalm 22 and showed how that psalm told what Jesus said on the cross, you know? And then I think he would have turned to Micah 5, verse 3, and showed how this Bethlehem of Judea and there Jesus was born, and he would have turned to Deuteronomy and Numbers and shown out of there how prophecies written by Moses about a Redeemer coming are all fulfilled in Jesus. And he would have shared this with the Jewish people at the synagogue and all God-fearing Greeks. They were worshiping Yahweh, these God-fearing Greeks, and any Jews who listened, some would believe, some would want to hear more, and others probably would reject. But Paul did this in synagogue after synagogue in a city called Athens. He's waiting for Timothy, and he's waiting for Silas to show up to continue their ministry, their missionary journey. Paul's not just going to sit idly by once the synagogue closes for the day, Paul walks out on the streets and goes to the marketplace as he walks along. It's crowded and hot, and I can imagine it's dusty, and maybe he stops and gets some lemonade to drink as he goes along, or maybe he stops at a coffee shop, gets a quick shot of coffee, and then continues down the marketplace. As he walks around, he would have found an idol to the god Zeus, and then he would have turned right around the corner, and then he'd see an idol to the god Diana, and then a shrine to a god named Mercury, or Hermes, or he'd bump into another shrine to the god Neptune. And Paul would have seen shrine after shrine to all these gods, then, to top it all, he sees a shrine to a god that the Greeks don't even know his name. They literally had a shrine to the unknown god. And I think Paul would have just, his righteous soul would have been vexed, he would have been so discouraged, and he would have found eventually an open square, and I think he would have pulled out a soapbox, stood up on a soapbox, and then he would begin to preach. And he'd tell people about this man named Jesus, who came to die for their sins, and he would talk about Jesus, and how they could only find salvation through Jesus. And he would preach to who? Greeks. Now, he was in a synagogue before preaching to Jews, who had an Old Testament. They had some Bible, some background to this. But here, he's talking to pagan Greeks, who have no conception of Yahweh, sin, and salvation. So how is Paul supposed to explain the gospel in a theological vacuum? These people have no concept. Again, this is why he went to the synagogues. They had some scriptural knowledge. Now he's speaking to Greeks, who have no scripture, no basis in his worldview. What's he going to do? And I'd like to say, I think it's the same problem we are facing today in America. Many of us are talking to people, or trying to witness to people, who have no knowledge of the Bible at all. We used to, but a lot of people never heard of somebody named Moses, somebody named Noah, somebody named Abraham. They might have heard of Jesus, thanks to Christmas and Easter. But we live in a world that's theologically dead, right? It's a vacuum. And not only that, we also live in a world surrounded by idols. We just don't call them that, you know. If we walked around the average marketplace in the American town, I mean, again, we're not going to see shrines to Patrick Mahomes, but we're not going to see shrines to whatever it happens to be that we worship. I think in America, we build shrines to glorify ourselves, right? And self-worship. One of the things I noticed when I first came back to the United States, Americans love sports. I mean, every country loves sports. And Americans especially, they love sports. Your high schools have sports teams, and you pour more money into your sports program than your art program. Again, it sort of shows, rightly or wrongly, what you worship. It's interesting. Massive football stadiums, the SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles, cost approximately $6.75 billion. Now hopefully it'll bring in income, and hopefully it'll bring in other things. But think about that, $6 billion. The Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas, $1.9 billion. The MetLife Stadium in New Jersey had a construction cost of $2.3 billion. That's massive for a sports stadium. And to me, I would argue in some ways, idolatry. You ask your average fan if they worship a god called sports, they would say no. But when you look at the insane amounts of time and money and energy spent towards playing, cheering, or developing athletes, you can see how this could be idol worship. And I'm not just going to pick on sports, but entertainment, education, self-help, beauty, sadly, porn, lust, human trafficking, is a testament to the fact that Americans are worshiping at the shrine of self-indulgence, right? The shrine of hero worship. And I just want to encourage us, you know? I think we should be appalled at idol worship around it. Paul was. He came to a point where, as it says, his spirit was provoked within him when he saw the city was full of idols. And a part of it is part of the American dream, part of the American culture. It's hard to separate from that. I love sports. Nothing against sports, but we can take anything good and turn it into an idol. That's where we need to be careful that we don't join in idol worship around us. We're not going to see an idol to some god specifically like Paul did, but we're seeing it. We're not going to be appalled at that. So the average American, no knowledge of God, really, worshiping idols, so how do you preach the gospel in a spiritual vacuum like that? How do you make sense of the gospel in that vacuum? Well, I just want to encourage you today. I think Paul found a way, and I think we can learn a lot from what he did in a pagan place like Athens. How Paul presented Jesus to the Greeks can be a model of how we can present Jesus today. Paul planted seed. He set up his audience. He introduced ideas. What we see here isn't so much an evangelistic appeal. Paul is letting them know he's shaping their worldviews so that they're ready for the gospel. You with me? That's what we're seeing here is Paul dropping some seeds so that people can maybe change their worldview a little so that the gospel makes sense. So Paul, again, he's on some soapbox in the middle of some marketplace someplace in Athens, and he begins to preach Christ crucified, buried, and risen again. As he preaches, some intellectuals begin to show up. They wonder, who is this man that's preaching? The Bible says, in particular, two groups of people showed up, philosophers from Epicurean philosophy and Stoicism. Those were the two popular competing philosophies of the day. And so these great learned men, you know, they followed Paul preaching, and they heard he was slightly different, and something was off there, and so they came over to listen. The Epicureans, they're more like Americans. They love to party. They love to have a good time. All of life is about partying, essentially. They believed in an afterlife, but they didn't believe your body would be resurrected, just your soul. Life's short. Have a good time. The greatest thing you can do is just have pleasure. While the Stoics, they believed in work hard, live in order, respectable life. It's all about reason and thinking. We don't party because we'll lose our chance to reason. We don't drink alcohol because we have to, say, keep our mind fresh, you know? And the goal of life is to live in accordance with rationality and order. You would put yourself in a highly managed day. You would keep away from certain things. It's all about following the rules. And they also, though, did not believe that the body would be resurrected. When Paul began to preach, and they began to listen to him, they're like, there's going to be a bodily resurrection. Because remember, if you go back to 1 Corinthians 15, Paul says that we are going to be risen, and our body is going to be risen one day, and we're going to be with the Lord. They heard Paul say the name of Jesus, and they're like, huh, this Jesus is God? And then Paul would mention that he's going to one day come back and rule the world. It says there, as he's speaking alone, that some of, verse 18, some of the Epicurean Stoic philosophers, they also, you know, talked to him and conversed with him, and maybe even debated with him. Eventually, they asked Paul to come to their city council called the Orophagos. They said, hey, come to the Orophagos. We want to hear more about what you're talking about, Paul. It says in Acts 17, verse 13, some said, what is this ignorant show-off trying to say? Others replied, he seems to be a creature of foreign deities. Because he was talking with good news about Jesus and the resurrection. They took him and brought him to the Orophagos and said, may we learn about this new teaching you are presenting, because what you say sounds strange to us, and we want to know what these things mean. The Orophagos is on a hill called Mars Hill, and from Mars Hill, you can overlook and you can see the Acropolis, this big center of deity worship, of Greek God worship in Athens. And here, again, they would walk up and hold this city council meeting called the Orophagos on Mars Hill. One evening, I imagine Paul's walking up the path to the top of Mars Hill next to the Acropolis, and the sun is beginning to set, you know, so they've lit torches along the route. He probably comes to the top and he looks down and comes to a little amphitheater. A group of men are seated, and the leader of the council gestures for Paul to come and speak to them. And guess what? Paul Hall does. He gets a chance to speak to the leading intellectuals of the day. He gets a chance to preach Jesus. From verse 22 to verse 31, we get a sample of how Paul preached. And I think it's a good example of how we can understand how for us to preach and teach in a theological vacuum. Paul begins by building common ground. He says, men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious. Or my version says, I see that you are extremely religious in every respect. This is sort of a nice thing. You say, hey, you're highly religious, you know, I am too, and I can see that you are very religious. Not only does he try to establish common ground by saying they're both religious, he also says, I notice something in your city. I notice this idol to an unknown god. A man would have thought, yeah, I've been to that shrine a couple of times. I've worshipped there. We've got the god of Apollo, the god to Diana, the god to Hermes, we've got all these gods. We want to make sure we have this unknown god. Paul is saying you're religious. Paul mentions their culture. And then Paul drops the hammer, just a little bit. Not a big hammer, just a little hammer. He says this, he says, I even found an altar which was inscribed to an unknown god. And here's the part where he drops that hammer just a little bit, because he says in verses 22 and 23, therefore, what you worship in ignorance, this I proclaim to you. Now he's calling them ignorant, you know, he's challenging their intellectual superiority a little bit. Is that the best choice of word here? I think it is if you're trying to be kind, but also to get people to listen to you. Hey, this unknown god, guess what? I know who he is. I know who he is. And then Paul moves into the heart of his message right there. He says the God who made the world, verse 24, and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man. His basic heart of his message is this, there is one true God, and his name is Jesus. There is one true God, and his name is Jesus. And then Paul tells these men all about this God. He talks about how he is a sovereign creator. He declares God the Father is sovereign over everything. Verse 24, the God who made the world and everything in it, he is Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in shrines made by hands. This God is sovereign over everything, and he doesn't need some shrine to be worshipped. This God who is over everything is not in any of these shrines is essentially what Paul is saying. First Corinthians 10, verse 20, Paul says that when you sacrifice at these shrines, they sacrifice to demons and not to God. Shrine after shrine, he is seeing demonic beings everywhere being worshipped, and the one true God ignored. I can tell you the one true God, he is sovereign over everything. He also declares God is creator of everything, neither is he served by human hands as though he needed anything, since he himself gives everyone life and breath and all things. From one man, he has made every nationality to live over the whole earth and has determined their appointed times and the bounties of where they live. He declares God is a God who has purpose in human history. He has a plan to bring all of humanity to himself. He points out in verses 26 and 27, verse 27, he did this so they might seek God and perhaps they might reach out and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. So he declares God as father and sovereign over everything. He declares God as creator of everything. He declares God as a God who has a purpose in human history that humanity might find in. He declares God is not bound by human thought or craftsmanship. He says these silly idols don't obtain God, they never did. For in him we live and have our being, even as some of your own poets have said. Finally he attacks the idolatry all around him. But notice what he uses to attack it. He uses words from their own poets. A guy named Epimandes and another nameless Greek poet. For we are also his offspring is a direct quote from Greek writers. For in him we live and move and have our being is a direct quote from Greek writers. Paul uses the culture of his time and that Greek worldview to point out the beauty of who God is. This is brilliant stuff. Hey, I just want to encourage you, you need to know your culture. It's so easy for us to hide here in our basement and not get out there. I would encourage us to understand who our culture is. Sometimes you have to go into the American culture with a hazmat suit on because it's disgusting. And that's where you don't want to sin in addressing that culture, right? You have to understand how are they thinking, what's making them tick. Paul knew enough about the Greek poets to apply their own speakers to what he's trying to get across. So Paul, in this great speech, begins by appeasing his audience. He begins wince-ably, not attacking him. He tries to establish some level of dialogue. Then Paul uses a major cultural touchstone for them, their worship of idols, and he shows how it's useless. He then points out how their use of an idol, of an unknown God, is particularly useless. And then Paul says, I can reveal this unknown God to them, and in fact, this unknown God, guess what? He is the God of all gods, who created everything, who is sovereign over all nations, and who because of this God, they move and exist and live. This is that unknown God. This is amazing. And then finally, he drops his second hammer. And he says, this God, in whom we live and move and have our being, this God, who is God of all gods, creator of all creators, this God, who is God of all gods, the second hammer falls, and what is that second hammer? This God is returning in judgment. It says, the times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day, verse 31, on which he will judge the world in wages. And the big hammer number one, the God you call known to Paul, and in fact, big hammer number one that Paul dropped earlier, the God you call known is known to Paul, and in fact, he makes a mockery of all the idols you worship. Big hammer number two that drops, this God has appointed a man to judge all of humanity one day. And this man, he has proven that he has the right to judge because he gave assurance to all by raising him from the dead, verse 31, because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed, and of this he's given assurance to all by raising him from the dead. And when this man comes back to judge, God commands all people everywhere to repent and obey God. Has Paul ever used the name Jesus in this sin? He never once mentions the name Jesus, and it bothered me for a bit, so I'm like, why doesn't he just say Jesus? Why doesn't he just talk about Jesus? Well, I found out in that time period, it was illegal to introduce new deities in the Greek society. You could have been arrested and immediately hauled away. And so Paul knows if he mentions the name of Jesus, he's going to get arrested maybe. It's going to shut down conversation. But remember I told you he's planting seed. I think this is what Paul is setting up to talk about Jesus later. I think he's basically telling the men of Athens some very bad news. And he wants them to understand you are in big trouble. In terms of the gospel message, this message doesn't talk about God's love or grace. It talks about judgment. When he does talk about the resurrection, it's to point to the coming judgment. It doesn't mention the cross, and neither does it mention the name of Jesus, only he at the very end. One author wrote, Paul's speech is not expounding the gospel, rather it is commending the gospel, drawing attention to its ultimacy and urgency. The point is this, you will not understand the good news of Jesus and his resurrection unless you develop the context around it. And that is what Paul provides to the Athenians. And so that's where I want to encourage us. Hey, I want to proclaim the gospel, but I don't think the average American knows they're lost. I want to proclaim the gospel, but I don't think the average American understands how much trouble they are in. I want to proclaim the gospel, but I don't think they believe God is actually going to judge them for anything at all. And I think what we see here with Paul is sowing seed, making the Athenians aware of their lost condition and of the coming judgment. Paul's Mars Hill speech in Acts 17 is not actually gospel, but the necessary context for understanding the gospel. And maybe that's where we need to go, you know. Maybe you need to think about witnessing to your neighbor, hey, this is going to be a long haul thing. I've got to get them to understand they need the gospel. I need to get them to understand that there is a God who they should submit to. Their sin is taking them to hell, and sin is real, and hell is real. And Jesus is coming back to judge one day. If you're not ready for His return, if you haven't repented of your sin and asked Jesus to save you, and are trusting in His righteousness alone to save you, then you're in big trouble. But for me to say all that, I've got to get them to understand the bad news before I can present the good news. And I think that's what Paul is doing here in a brilliant way. He wants his audience to listen. He presented a different gospel in various cities, but here in Athens, he knew his audience, he knew his culture. And I just want to encourage us today, hey, some equipment for living this week. Number one, disciples making disciples. You've got to know people that you want to reach out to. Don't just do the, hey, have you thought about Jesus, ask Him to save you, the gospel message. No. We're learning from Paul. I've got to help them to understand their lost condition. Secondly, as difficult as it is, I enjoy myself, but as difficult as it is for some of you, you've got to know your culture. You can't just know it through Fox News, and you can't just know it through Breitbart or whatever your conservative source is. You're going to have to look at it from some of these liberal perspectives. Not that you have to agree, but in debate, we like to say the best way to understand your opponent is to know their position better than they do. And if you can, without losing your morality, try to understand who their culture is. Who are the big names? Why are they big names? What worldview are they offering that is so appealing that makes Taylor Swift such an awesome cultural touchstone? What does she say in her song? What does she offer? I think we need to be aware of that, Paul was. And ultimately, though, I think my final question for living is, yes, we do want to lead people to the gospel. And that was Paul's goal, to ultimately lead people to Jesus, because I want to encourage all of us, Jesus is returning. And that's good news for us. And I pray that we will get inside the mind of wherever we're at, so that we can tell other people about Jesus and the coming judgment before it's too late.