Be Provoked By The Pagans (Acts 17:16-21)
I don’t believe that there is an understanding of the times by most Christians in America today. In 1 Chronicles the men of Issachar were singled out as those who understood the times, and we need to be the same way (1 Chronicles 12:32).
Before Christianity came to this continent there was not a noble people residing here. Christianity improved and tamed this area. We are told over and over that things were peaceful before the European Christians rolled into town. But all evidence is to the contrary. The evidence states, as Steven Pinker points out, that the most violent era in America happened before Christians arrived on the continent. This was no calm place.
The harshest example of this is from Colorado among the Central Mesa Verde. A full 90% of the human remains from that location in the mid-1200’s had trauma from blows to the heads or parts of the arms.
Human sacrifice to pagan deities was practiced at this time. The different peoples did different things, but it was widespread in America. We don’t know everything that went on at that time, but we know that even the tribes along the Mississippi River practiced ritual sacrifice in worship to their Pagan gods.
And then Christianity came with it’s understanding of the world. There is but one God and He hates human sacrifice. He hates the sort of violence that pervaded the continent.
I will not try to say that the Christian activity in this land was perfect. But I will say that Christianity built a society that was and continues to be better.
The Indians were pagans, like the rest of the world before Christianity expanded. What was all of Europe before Christians came with their message of redemption in Christ? It was pagan. The behavior there was similar to what was described in America.
Why?
Why has it been the case that so much of the world has behaved the same way apart from Christianity’s influence? We hold ancient Greece and Rome in high esteem, but we understand that it was a violent place. And we also understand that there was human sacrifice to the pagan deities practiced there. Why?
As moderns we have made a narrative that does make sense and there is a lot of biblical truth to it. It’s just not the complete picture.
We say that all people were created in the image of God and have an ingrained desire to worship. That’s true. And so, we state that all these different false gods are just figments of their imagination. This is where we miss with our naturalistic explanation.
Why are the false gods so similar? Why are there pyramids spread out all over the world? Why did human sacrifice as an act of worship take place all over the world?
The answer to that is that the same deceptive force was at work among all these peoples of the world.
In Scripture we read of the pagan sacrifices to Moloch. It was believed that a child sacrificed to Moloch would give prosperity to the family that gave the child. Native Americans did so to appease gods they worshipped, or often to bring good fortune.
People don’t just imagine the same things all around the world. But Scripture does give us an answer to this question. And the answer is that idols are nothing, but the power behind these idols are something.
“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.” For although there may be so-called gods in heaven or on earth–as indeed there are many “gods” and many “lords”– yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist.” (1 Corinthians 8:4-6 ESV)
There are many “so-called gods. But there is one true God.
Then, just a few chapters later we read this.
“What do I imply then? That food offered to idols is anything, or that an idol is anything? No, I imply that what pagans sacrifice they offer to demons and not to God. I do not want you to be participants with demons.” (1 Corinthians 10:19-20 ESV)
Now things begin to make sense. It’s not that the idol is nothing, there is a demonic power behind the idol.
Why would pagan worship look so ridiculously cruel no matter where we are in the world? Well, the same demonic power stands behind both.
Today we are going to see Paul in Athens. Athens was thoroughly pagan. For Paul, it was shockingly so. And the similarities between Athens and us are going to go much further than you might immediately realize.
The philosophers that Paul ran into were very similar to people you might run into today. They just knew what they believed. These were the Stoics and the Epicureans.
The Stoics claimed Zeno as their founder. They aimed to live consistently with nature. Self-sufficiency and rationality were very important to them. And they were pantheistic. God was not outside of creation, but in all of creation. The entire universe is divine and to be treated as sacred.
Bits and pieces of this are being passed around today. I think it is easy enough to see that there is a good bit of pantheism in our world today. The phrase Mother Earth is a pantheistic idea. And when someone is “sending positive vibes your way”, they are saying something pantheistic whether they realize it or not. Pantheists believe that the divine is a force or an energy that manifests in nature. And they are wanting to send that force or energy your way.
How very pagan of them! How very stoic of them!
The other group that Paul ran into was the Epicureans. The Epicureans believed that pleasure was the goal of life. They believed that the gods didn’t really care about the affairs of people. And the most important thing was for you to be happy, free from pain and superstitious fears.
Again, we see parts of this in our own country today. How many people today believe and act like they believe pleasure is the goal of life? How many people believe God doesn’t really care about what people do? It’s obvious that this is prevalent.
Paganism was virtually removed from the landscape of the Western World for quite a while. And the same is true here in America. But Paganism is making a comeback, and it’s ideas are definitely part and parcel of Modern America.
It’s not that Americans think they are going back to paganism. It’s that they are born to worship something and rather than just become the free thinkers that they believe themselves to be. And they fall into a modern version of the same demonic practices that pervaded the continent 500 years ago.
Modern Americans have abandoned Christianity and reverted to something akin to what we find the Apostle Paul walking into 2,000 years ago. And I think that we can learn and apply a lot to our day from his interaction.
And it has been done in more ways than we realize. It’s not just sending positive vibes.
Mother Earth is a pantheistic idea. And people are called upon in our day to give up certain things for the good of Mother Earth.
Children are sacrificed in our day through abortion. Though we wouldn’t say that they are given up to a deity so that they would give us prosperity, these children are sacrificed for prosperity’s sake. The baby dies so that a career can be furthered or there’s one less mouth to feed is a death for prosperity’s sake. The thought process is very similar.
To be clear, not everyone we run into that doesn’t go to church is pagan, but a quickly growing portion of the population is and we see evidence for that all over the place. And I do believe that the very same demonic powers that were in play in Ancient Paganism are the powers behind these thoughts and activities today. And the tremendous evil of today makes this thought terrifying.
“When the unclean spirit has gone out of a person, it passes through waterless places seeking rest, but finds none. Then it says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came.’ And when it comes, it finds the house empty, swept, and put in order. Then it goes and brings with it seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they enter and dwell there, and the last state of that person is worse than the first. So also will it be with this evil generation.” (Matthew 12:43-45 ESV)
Paganism was pushed out of this land, for the most part. The demonic was put to flight. But it seems they have returned and the last state could be “worse than the first” if the Lord does not intervene.
So, how do we respond?
We give the pagans the gospel. This state of affairs should provoke us to action.
Be Provoked By The Paganism You See Around Us (Acts 17:16)
We are sure that Paul had seen pagan worship take place at different times in his life. Tarsus, where Paul grew up, was a melting pot of religions and an intellectual center of sorts. He had been around idolatry in that land. But it seems that the sheer volume of pagan worship that surrounded him in Athens was staggering. And this provoked Paul to action.
The Greeks worshipped the pantheon of gods that you likely read about in school. It is quite likely that you studied them, even if it was just for a day or two in history class. So some of this may sound familiar.
In Greek thought and worship, disorder and chaos gave birth to the world. This is also the case for the Romans. As a philosophy professor at Arkansas Tech once said to us in class, “the Romans just stole the Greek ideas, they weren’t all that creative.” The British Museum sums up the Greek and Roman creation myth this way.
“According to Greek mythology, the world began when Gaia (the Earth) emerged from Chaos-an empty nothingness. She then gave birth to Ouranos (the Sky) and other primordial deities like Pontos (the Sea) and Ourea (the Mountains).
Together, Gaia and Ouranos had 12 children-known as the Titans-including Cronos and Rhea, Zeus’ parents. The Titans rebelled against their father Ouranos, overthrew him, and Cronos became the ruler of the gods until Zeus deposed him to rule over the Olympic gods…” [1]
Now, if you remove from this the names of the pagan deities, then you have the Atheistic Creation myth of Earth emerging from “empty nothingness”.
“What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun.” (Ecclesiastes 1:9 ESV)
In my opinion, the naturalistic explanation seems like a cheap and less entertaining adaptation of a pagan creation story.
In the Greek/Roman pantheon was large enough to make Paul astounded by all the Pagan worship. I will mention the Greek name first and follow it with the Roman name. Again, the Romans just stole the Greek pantheon and called them their own. These are the deities of Olympus, there were others, so this is not an extensive list. That would take a while. They were Zeus/Jupiter (king of the pantheon, Hera/Juno (Zeus’s wife), Poseidon/Neptune, Ares/Mars, Athena/Minerva, Demeter/Ceres, Apollo (Romans didn’t give him a new name, Artemis/Diana, Aphrodite/Venus, Hephaistos/Vulcan, Hermes/Mercury, and Dionysos/Bacchus. For modern ears that’s quite a long list.
To make matters even worse for Paul emotionally, in 131 BC the Temple of the Olympian Zeus was finished. I am sure that this structure was one of the things that Paul noticed as well as the different places to worship the rest of the Pantheon. But there were other idols worshipped there as well.
So, what was Paul’s response? “his spirit was provoked within him” (ESV). That word for “provoked” is παροξύνω its day to simply mean “to stimulate or spur on to action”.
It’s a little bit of a difficult word to translate into English. And so, the different Bible translations attempt to get at this idea in different ways. The New Living Translation says “deeply troubled”. The New American Standard Bible says that “his spirit was being provoked. But I do think that the King James Version really gets closer to the meaning when all things are considered. It says, “his spirit was stirred in him”. Paul’s spirit was provoked with a desire to do something.
Sarah McLaughlin illustrates this for us with her dog commercial. If you were watching television in the early 2000’s you likely saw Sarah McLaughlin’s dog commercial. You remember it, “I will remember you” would play in the background of all these pitiful looking animals on the screen. In 2 years the commercial raised over $30 million for the ASPCA. That was a lot more money in 2007 than it is now. In today’s dollars that would be around $45.5 million.[2]
Why? The commercials elicited a sympathetic response that many of you remember even today. And it was a call to action for the people that gave money.
That is what it means to be provoked to action.
Paul saw the idolatry all around. And he was saddened by what was around him. He was saddened by the idol worship. And he was saddened by the demonic hold that was over the people of Athens.
This is the reaction we should have to the paganism that is around us today.
When someone says, “I’m sending positive vibes your way.” It should do something to us other than elicit an eyeroll. It should cause us to feel sympathy for that person. It should provoke us to help them.
When someone states their believe that chaos gave rise to all things, which is what the Big Bang is, it should elicit sympathy from us.
When people abort their babies to gain prosperity, we should do all we can to rescue the little ones from such a fate. We should seek with all our might to eliminate that sort of terrible evil from our midst. But we should feel pity for the woman who is under the sway of such an evil ideology.
Why should we feel pity?
We should feel pity for these people because they are held under the sway of idols, whether they realize it or not. And they are unwittingly under the influence of demonic forces.
Overt paganism, we call it Wiccan, has risen dramatically over the course of the last few years. In 2001, 134,000 Americans identified as Wiccan. These are people that would call their selves witches. As of 2021 there were over 2 million.[3] And the instruments used in this ancient form of paganism are now seen in stores. Things like “healing crystals” are found there. In fact, there is a store in North Little Rock that just sells “healing crystals”.
But that is not nearly as prevalent as the covert paganism we see. The naturalistic theory of creation that is prevalent today is eerily similar to the paganism of old in which through nothing something comes and the vehicle for that happening is chaos. This combined with the common talk of “Mother Earth” “Gaia” and the idea that we can send positive energy back and forth is covert paganism in our own day.
The whole point of this sermon is that I want you to see it with open eyes similar to how Paul saw it in Athens. I want you to be able to walk out of this church and be able to see what’s going on around you.
And I want that to provoke you to action.
I have repeatedly stated that there are over 18,000 people that live within three miles of this church and 80% of them don’t go to church anywhere. Many of those people have unwittingly ended up living as pagans in this world. And that very fact should provoke us. It should move us to compassion for those under the sway of the powers of this age.
Be Provoked To Declare The Gospel To The Pagans (Acts 17:17-18)
What did this provoke Paul to do?
He preached the gospel to the pagans in the town. And later we’re told that he was “preaching Jesus and the resurrection”.
Paul was declaring the gospel to these pagans. This is what he was provoked to do. He declared to them the forgiveness of sins that is found in Jesus Christ alone.
We rebelled against God and earned His wrath and justice. But God didn’t leave us without hope. God sent His Son to live on Earth, take on human flesh, die on the cross, pay the punishment for sin, and rise from the grave. He lived a perfect life, died in our place, and rose from the grave. He did this so that we could be brought to God.
It says that Paul was reasoning with this group of people and declaring this message.
To say that Paul was reasoning with this group should cause us to be taken aback just a little.
This was not a normal group of people. Paul was reasoning in what was considered the most educated place in the world at that time.
He is in Athens Greece, the birthplace of democracy and the cradle of western civilization. In 387 BC Plato had founded a school where Aristotle was taught in this place. Though it had lost its previous splendor by the time Paul was preaching, it was still the place where the big ideas were discussed, taught, and debated.
He was standing on the law of Harvard, Yale, or Cambridge reasoning with people about the Savior.
As Christians, we need to be provoked to action. And the action we are provoked to is the declaration of the forgiveness of sins found in Jesus Christ.
Paul’s interaction at Athens is helpful for us today. We don’t need to be afraid of confronting the pagans. They believe themselves to be wise, but they have fallen into a terrible trap. They are intelligent people, I have no doubt about that. But, at the same time, they are under the sway of the evil one and we are commissioned to go forth with the message of the gospel.
These pagans believed that the world was created from nothing through chaos. It’s the same thing children in school and people in college are taught today. And they are taught that there is no God, there is no Heaven, there is no Hell. And in the face of that, we declare the truth of God’s Word.
Deep down, they understand that God created the world and everything in it. Deep down, they understand that they have offended a holy God and deserve His justice.
“For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse.” (Romans 1:18-20 ESV)
We live in Conway, City of Colleges. This is a place where many people are educated in a way that leads them to believe the world is as the pagans taught. But we are not to be intimidated by this. We are to go and declare the gospel.
We began thinking and talking through responses to unbelievers on Wednesday Nights. In that time we have discussed God’s revelation of Himself in the Universe, God’s revelation of Himself on Earth, the fact that marriage and societal structures prove God exists, the fact that morality proves that God exists, and we will go one with this series. Time and time again, what we see is that there is no way we are a product of blind chance. Chaos didn’t create this. And when you dig into that just a little bit you realize that there is no possible way that it’s true.
And we’re looking at that so that you can stand in Conway, City of Colleges and discuss Christianity with people here under the sway of false and demonic ideas. The desire is that you would see what other people believe and be prepared to confront them with the truth of the gospel.
But we’re not just approaching them to debate them. We’re approaching them and declaring this message because we are provoked in our spirit, out of love and compassion, we declare the gospel. We declare the forgiveness of sins found in Jesus Christ.
Be Provoked SoMuch That You’re Okay With Being Mocked (Acts 17:18-21)
If you take the gospel to others you will often be rejected. And this is something that you need to be okay with.
Notice what happened to Paul. He was mocked and called a “babbler”.
They also misunderstood what Paul was preaching to the point that they believed him to be preaching about two different deities: Jesus and Resurrection.
This makes sense when we understood that even Chaos was a primordial deity in Ancient Greece. There were a lot of deities being worshipped. And some of them thought Paul was just talking about two more. The city was literally “full of idols”. So talk of the One True God didn’t make sense at first.
But they were intrigued and he presented himself in a way that made them want to hear more.
Christians and Pagans don’t look at the world the same way. In fact, the difference is tremendous. And there is a real sense in which people don’t really want to understand you sometimes.
Paul is a good example here of the proper behavior before Pagans, or anyone else. You might be misunderstood. You might be ridiculed, to be called a “babbler”, was certainly a bit of ridicule. You might be called worse. But you should be driven by your compassion for these lost people to be called that. You should be driven by your love for Christ and desire to follow His command to go to be called much worse.
I am astounded by how often I think, “these people really don’t understand what we believe do they?”
They have trouble putting into words what it is that we believe. They don’t understand why we think laws on marriage are important. They struggle to understand the argument against abortion that seems so simple to us. They look baffled when a Christian speaks of rebellion against God, or they mock the idea. Judgment is not to be spoken of in polite society, but we speak it. And they don’t understand why. And they don’t understand how the death of Jesus could possibly save from God’s wrath.
They don’t understand us.
And that’s okay.
When Paul made it to Athens, he was in a completely different place. Paganism was rampant. The Old Testament Scriptures had no place here. And the thought of there being only one true God was new information to these people. And none of them believed that God would die and need to be resurrected.
But Paul preached and taught. Paul felt pity for these people captured by the power of sin and the deception of Satan. And he preached because that is what the Lord commanded him to do, to proclaim forgiveness of sins to these people that won’t always understand.
Is Christ worth it? Absolutely!
Are the lost people around us worth it? Absolutely!
Has Christ commanded us to go? Yes He has.
Conclusion
I hope that you have seen the similarities to today. We live in an era of growing paganism. Paul lived in an era of paganism. And Paul’s response teaches us something important.
We should be with compassion, provoked within ourselves, to work for the furtherance of the gospel in our day.
As a youth pastor, I once had a student that had fallen into overt paganism. He had gone through some Pagan and Satanic rituals. He heard me preach Christ repeatedly and one day he trusted in Christ.
He was, in an obvious way, deceived by the demonic powers of this age.
But so are the Atheist professors at the colleges in Conway. So are the people that reject Christianity and send positive vibes to one another.
And what is the message we have been commanded to give to them?
What is the message that is their only hope?
It’s the same message that is our only hope. It is the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.
“And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.”” (Acts 4:12 ESV)
R. Dwain Minor
[1] Gods and goddesses of the Greek and Roman pantheon | British Museum accessed 09/05/2024.
[2] Inflation Calculator | Find US Dollar’s Value From 1913-2024 (usinflationcalculator.com) accessed 09/05/2024.
[3] Witches on the rise in US as TikTok, social media brings it mainstream (usatoday.com) accessed 09/05/2024.