Compassionate Confrontation (Acts 17:22-34)
Last week we saw the compassion of Paul toward the idolatrous people of Athens, and the sermon was about us having similar compassion for those around us who are trapped in pagan thought. And there are a lot more of those people than we realize.
Compassion for people does not mean that we are soft on the idols they believe in. We will see that today with Paul. But we see this with others in Scripture.
In 2 Kings 10:18-27 Jehu struck down the worshipers of Baal and turned that place of worship into a toilet. Now, I do not want to advocate for violence against idolatry in our country. But our attitude toward idols should be in line with turning them into a toilet.
In Isaiah 44:9-20 we read of the stupidity of pagan worship and idolatry. The entire passage is spent mocking these false gods.
Remember, last week we discussed the ignorance of the pagan ideologies that are floating around our society today. Paul had compassion toward the people and preached the gospel to them. He was moved to action. But that doesn’t mean his action was anything but derisive and mocking of the pagan beliefs of the people of Athens.
What we observe Paul doing in our passage today bears little resemblance to what many Christians and even pastors do today because of their compassion for others. Paul’s response is closer to the response of Jehu and Isaiah than it is to many Christians and Christian leaders today.
It is oftentimes the case that compassion for others leads a pastor to equivocate on doctrines or approve of life decisions condemned in Scripture. But Paul understood that this was not the way forward. He understood that compassion for others leads to action. It leads to us sharing the gospel with others. But it did not mean that he would waver on what Scripture taught.
These ancient pagans believed that out of nothing all of life was created through chaos. This is incredibly similar to what many people today believe about the creation of the world. Paul went straight at this idea and declare that God created everything and everyone. He declared that the pantheon they worshipped was nothing by declaring that it was God who created and upholds all things. He told these educated people that they had lived in ignorance concerning God, but they could be saved if they repented and turned to Him.
Being compassionate does not mean that you compromise on the truth. But that’s not what we oftentimes see today.
How many people today profess that Scripture is true and that the world came to be through the chaos of evolutionary processes?
How many people will refuse to speak about atrocities taking place in our country because it will offend lost people? How many people will refuse to speak about abortion from the pulpit in case a visitor would find it off putting?
What happened to the people that would live like John the Baptist and tell the governing authorities that they’re living in sin?
What happened to the people that would turn the idolatrous places of worship into porta-potties?
Today in America people will talk with a homosexual person about Jesus, or even have someone close to them say they are homosexual or transgender, and what do they often do? They don’t talk about what is plainly taught in Scripture. They begin to change Scripture so as not to hurt the feelings of the person they are speaking with. Rather than holding firm the truth of God’s Word and seeing these beliefs as sinful and in need of repentance, they hang rainbow flags outside of their church and call their selves inclusive. And they preach this changed message to the entire congregation.
That’s not what we see with Paul at the Areopagus. Paul has compassion for the people and is moved to declare God’s grace and mercy to them. But Paul’s compassion does not lead him to compromise the truth. Paul’s compassion and love for God leads him to declare the truth to the people at the Areopagus with boldness and clarity.
Remember, Athens is the most educated place on Earth. This is where Plato made the first university. This is the home of Aristotle. This is the birthplace of democracy and the cradle of Western Civilization. And Paul was taken to the Areopagus, which was the place where the leaders decided whether or not this thing could be taught in Athens. This had formally been a legal body, but now it was relegated to only dealing with the matters of what could be taught there. And Paul did not waver.
We are going to see in our text today, that when dealing with unscriptural ideologies, we do not waver in our truth telling. We tear down strongholds and boldly declare that there is salvation in no one but Jesus Christ.
Tell People They’re Wrong
Paul began the speech by saying that the people were “very religious”. This sounds somewhat complimentary to modern English ears. But if we consider the context, it doesn’t seem that he was complimenting them at all.
According to Lucien, who gives us information about how the Areopagus worked, it was forbidden to give compliments to sway opinions. I do understand that this could have just been an oversight on Paul’s part, considering he was not from there. But when I look further into the text, this just doesn’t seem to be the case.
The Greek word itself is difficult to translate. So the reality is that you must use context clues to help understand what is meant. Δεισιδαιμονεστέρους can either mean “very religious” or “very superstitious” depending on the context. It’s difficult. Because of this, let’s look at what else Paul says to them.
Paul tells the members of the Areopagus that God created the world differently than they believe it came about. Remember, they believed that there was nothing in the beginning. Out of chaos, everything sprung. Paul tells them that God created all things, all people, even them.
This gets interesting because they believed that they were different and better than everyone else because they were Greeks. And these Greeks believed themselves to be more intelligent than even other Greeks. But Paul here told them that they are from the same man. As Christians familiar with the Bible we understand that to be Adam.
Now, Paul didn’t stop there. He told them that they had been ignorant when they failed to worship the One true God and God overlooked this misbehavior in the past. But that was coming to an end.
So when I look at the context of Paul’s words I do not see him as being complimentary. At best he seems to be slightly mocking of all the idols in town. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t believe he pompously walked up there and openly disdained the Athenians before he even got started. But he doesn’t seem to be approving of their religiosity with his opening words.
Because of this, I believe that the King James Version has done a better job in translating this difficult text. In the KJV it is translated as “too superstitious”. Given the context, I do believe that is at least closer to the meaning that Paul was giving. And that would mean that his opening statement is a comment on the people of Athens being “too superstitious” as they followed worthless idols.
When we dig down deep into what Paul is saying here, he is also correcting their wrong view of the world. They believe that out of chaos nothing became something. And as the gods did chaotic things, there were changes here on Earth. Paul is putting forward what we understand from Scripture. God created everything. God created them. And they were worshipping wrongly out of ignorance and needed to repent.
Paul also corrected their view of God vs their view of the gods of the Pantheon. God is not an idol made of stone or precious metals. He is not a being from the imagination of man. God is real and He will one day judge them.
And Paul, knowing his audience, did use some of their won educated people to prove this. He quoted a stoic philosopher who said, “In Him we live and move and have our being.” As human beings we receive all our life from the Lord. And, taken to its logical conclusion, that would be all of life has the same source. That is not how the Pantheon worked. But it is how the One True God works.
Paul would later write,
“For though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ,” (2 Corinthians 10:3-5 ESV)
On Wednesdays we are exploring different ideas found within our society today and how to demolish those strongholds. I want you to be able to hear what people say and destroy these arguments and lofty opinions raised against the knowledge of God. And that is what you see Paul doing in our text today. In this text, we witness him performing a full frontal assault of these ideas.
As we saw last week, he was moved with compassion to declare the gospel to the people. But this compassion did not cause him to give up the truth. He declared the truth boldly and at times quite abrasively. He was aiming the missiles at these ideas and assaulting them.
I can’t imagine that the most educated people in the world took it very kindly when Paul told them that they were ignorant.
I don’t believe that him discussing the many idols in town in a rather condescending manner made many people happy.
I would imagine that these Greeks who believed their selves to be superior to everyone else were not too happy about Paul telling them that they were created by God from the same man everyone else was.
But Paul was not like so many people are today. Paul was not going to just change God’s Word and hang a rainbow flag outside the church out of compassion. Paul was going to declare God’s Word boldly and without compromise in front of whoever he had the opportunity to speak to. And he understood that these ideological strongholds needed to be overcome. That is real compassion. That is real love for God and for people.
For us today it causes us to think about a few things.
First, we need to be a place where these ideas are discussed. We need to discuss the ideas of our day and you need to go home prepared to think through them. And we are doing that to some extent. Wednesday nights are an attempt to think through some of these ideas in our day. And we discuss them as they come up in sermons and Sunday School, which deals with it a lot.
Second, we need to be a place that does not compromise on the truth in anyway whatsoever. When we get the opportunity to discuss the different ideas in our society that go against God’s Word, we need to turn them into a latrine.
Today, as I mentioned last week, the pagan ideas that were in Ancient Athens are with us in a modern form today. The Epicureans thought that life was all about being happy. There was no need to worry about the gods because the gods didn’t stick their noses into the affairs of people. Sexual promiscuity and sexual abuse were everywhere in Roman society. The powerful men got everything they wanted while women and children were abused. If it sounds similar to growing problems in our country, it’s because the same things are thought today in a different way.
The Stoics were pantheistic and believed they needed to live in accord with nature. They believed God was in everything. Everything in nature was part of God. Sending good vibes to people and positive energy are pantheistic ideas. Mother Earth or Gaia is another pantheistic idea.
And Paul was willing to stand there to these groups of people and tell them that they were wrong.
It is something that we need to be able and willing to do as well. Our love for people should make us willing to open our mouths.
Many of us have children and understand this concept whether we realize it or not. If I allow my child to wander off into horrible evils without my intervention, what does that say about my love for my child? Do I actually love them?
Probably not.
Now change the illustration from your child to your friend or neighbor and what do you see? Do you love your friends, neighbors, coworkers enough to tell them they are wrong?
That’s tough. I know it is. But when I look at what Paul is doing in our text today, I see him doing exactly that.
Pay Attention And Connect People To The Gospel
Paul saw the idolatry all around, but he also saw something peculiar. It was an altar to “the unknown god”.
Paul knew that their ideology did not satisfy their understanding of the world. It didn’t make sense of the world. Neither does it make sense of the world today, even though similar ideas pervade our society today. And so, he is able to make sense of the world by speaking of “the unknown god” that he himself knew.
This functioned as a bridge for him to speak about God who he was representing. They didn’t know the “unknown god”. Paul had been commissioned to carry the gospel of God to the Gentiles.
This God that they did not know was actually the Creator of all things. He created all of life and all of humanity. It was God who set boundaries for nations and peoples. And this God that they did not know created them to worship Him and no one else. They were created “that they should seek God, and perhaps find their way toward Him and find Him” (Acts 17:27 ESV). But they had not worshipped God as they ought and Paul exhorted them to repent.
There are a million touchpoints with people concerning the gospel if you just give it a little thought as you are conversing with people. And Paul helps us to see how this is done.
Paul saw an altar to an unknown god and proceeded to tell them about God who they did not know. The idea was that they already knew He existed and to this point had failed to worship Him.
We see things that help us in the same way today.
Sometimes it’s hobbies that we love. We’ve given a lot of thought to these great blessings and how things work in that area. So we are able to discuss them with people.
If you love nature then you are able to talk about the great beauty of creation that God has put into the world.
If you love gardening, you can talk about the great beauty that God has instilled into the tremendous variety of plants that are out in the world.
If you like to exercise then you can discuss the wonder of God in that He created our bodies to adapt to the difficulties we put them through.
If you love art then you can discuss the creativity of human beings and the greater creativity of God.
If you love people and are willing to listen and converse with them, then there will be times when you can connect with them. If you are listening and thinking through what is being said, you will notice these things.
Paul walked around town and observed the people that were there. He gave thought to it all.
This can be done in our conversations with people today. A good friend will listen. We listen and think as we do so. We’re not just supposed to be thinking about the next thing we are going to say. We should be listening to them and attempting to understand them.
When you do that, when you actually observe people’s lives, you will be able to see the connections to the gospel.
Declare The Gospel
Paul declared that God created them. And He created them to worship Him. By not doing so, they had incurred God’s wrath and judgment. This judgment would some day come for them. And the Judgment would come through the One that God raised from the dead.
Now, it doesn’t sound like Paul declared the gospel to them if we’re just reading what is said here. The assumption I am making is a safe one. It is that Paul spoke about Jesus’s life and death. Earlier, outside the Areopagus, Paul had been preaching about “Jesus and the Resurrection” (Acts 17:18). This is also the pattern we see in the rest of the Book of Acts. He preached the gospel everywhere he went. And besides, there are people that believe. They believed the gospel that Paul had been preaching (Acts 17:34).
The message that Paul gave here is the message we hear so often in this very room. It is the gospel.
There is a massive difference between sharing the gospel with someone that understands that the world was created the same way you do and a person that does not. Paul began with creation because they didn’t understand who God was before he began speaking. This is much different than what had taken place in the synagogues he had spoken in previously.
The Jewish people believed that God created the world. They already believed that God created all human beings. They already believed that God had given them the boundaries that they lived in. If they believed God’s promises, they already believed that a Messiah would come.
To preach the gospel to faithful Jews, Paul had to proclaim that Jesus was the Messiah.
But to a person that does not have this understanding there is much more to say. If Paul were to look at them and argue that Jesus is the Messiah, they would look at him strangely.
In the last sermon, I argued that our society has a lot in common with the people of Athens. And the implication of that is that when we declare the gospel, we have to start from the beginning or a lot of people won’t understand it.
A few decades this may not have been the case, but today it is. That is why you hear me declare the gospel using the headings of God-Man-Christ-Response. It is a short way to declare the message of salvation to a person with little understanding of what Scripture teaches.
God – God created all things and He created them good. That includes human beings. Humanity was created upright, righteous, without the stain of sin.
Man – We were created good and upright, but rebelled against God. All of humanity now has the stain of sin and is rebellious. We were created good and upright, but now we sin and rebel against God because we are sinners. We were created to worship God, but instead we rebel against Him.
Christ – God the Son took on human flesh and dwelt among us. He lived a perfect life, fulfilled all righteousness on our behalf. And He died on the cross bearing God’s wrath in our place. And He rose from the grave for our justification. Because of what Jesus did, we can be counted as righteous, our sins can be forgiven, and we can be declared right before God.
Response – What is the response to the gospel? The response is to repent and believe. Repentance means “a change of mind”. And that change of mind leads to a change in direction of life. Faith means “trust”. These are two sides of the same coin.
When we repent, we believe what God has said about us in His Word. We believe we are guilty before Him and the life we are living is not pleasing before Him. We turn from that. But it’s not just that we turn away from trusting ourselves. We turn to Christ, trusting in Him.
This is the message we declare to a lost and dying world. This is the message of grace and hope that the people around us desperately need to hear.
And do you know what the result was?
Some people mocked and ridiculed Paul.
Some people were interested and just wanted to hear more.
And some people believed.
Eusebius tells us about one of those people that believed. Dionysius, who was a member of the Areopagus believed. That is in our text (Acts 17:34). Eusebius died in 339 and wrote a history of the Church up to this point. And in it he wrote about Dionysius. He said that this man became the pastor of the Church at Corinth later in his life.
Conclusion
We live in a day in which there are many strongholds to open fire upon. And the battle will not be pleasant.
The enemy has arrayed his armament in such a way that we see great struggle to make any headway. We fear moving forward. We fear what will happen as we go out there and proclaim the gospel in this environment.
But the strongholds must be torn down. And the truth of the gospel must be proclaimed.
D-Day is one of those events that we think of often. It is filled with tremendous sacrifice and heroism. When thinking about D-Day, we almost always think of the many men that stormed the beaches from the Higgins Boats. But there were also overnight parachute drops and men scaling cliffs. Many acts of heroism and courage from the air, land, and sea led to the destruction of the German stronghold on these beaches. And it was from there that the allied military forces were able to move inland and eventually defeat Nazi Germany. Before that day no one thought that these strongholds could be taken down. But once they were, the victory became much more likely.
When I think about our place in history, I actually think we are seeing weakness and the falling of many strongholds today.
More and more thinkers are looking at our day and saying that it is impossible that everything came together by chance. The further mankind has been able to study the complexity of biology, the more people are seeing that the stories they’d been told for so long could never really take place. We live in a day when more and more people are seeing the truth that there must be a god to make all things be. A stronghold is rupturing.
I look around at the world around me and there seem to be more and more people looking into Christianity than at any other point in my adult life. The bankruptcy of a completely naturalistic view of life is revealing itself and people are taking notice.
And here’s why I am saying all of this. I want us, as a church, to be equipped to do this work. I believe that we can be equipped to go forth and tear down those strongholds and share the gospel with the people of Conway and beyond.
R. Dwain Minor