Knowing God – August 18, 2024

Psalm 130, Acts 17f
August 18, 2024

The first part of this chapter is an interesting read.  Paul and Silas were in the city of Thessalonica.  And yes, that’s another city with a church that Paul wrote to in a couple of his New Testament letters – First and Second Thessalonians.

Well, while they were there, they were preaching, of course, and they convinced a number of the Thessalonians that Jesus was indeed the Christ.  But, they created quite a stir in that town, because some of the Jewish people were angered and tried to get them arrested.  Remember, last week it was the Romans in Philippi.  This week it’s the Jews in Thessalonica.

So they left Thessalonica, and they came to the city of Beroea.  And of course, they preached the Gospel there.  And this is the interesting thing!  The same Jewish people who gave them a hard time in Thessalonica, heard they went to Beroea, and so they went there themselves to continue to give them a hard time!  Do you get that?  It wasn’t enough that they persecuted Paul and Silas in their own city. They followed him to the next city and persecuted them there!  These were pretty determined persecutors!  So the believers sent our guys off to Athens.  And that’s where our story for today takes place.

Athens, you may remember from your history class, was a Greek city.  And it was the center of the Greek culture.  As I’ve said before, the Romans were very enamored with the Greek empire that came before them, and so they patterned their culture and their entire society after them!  They used their system of government, their architecture, their philosophy – you name it.  They even used their same gods.  They just gave them different names!  Do you remember that?

Well, the other big thing they took from the Greek culture, which was now the Greco-Roman culture, was their love of debate.  I was at a seminar one time in Michigan where the leader was talking about this.  He said that debate in that society was almost like an Olympic sport.  (Did you all see the debate competition in Paris?)  It was like that, though.  And the good debaters had their own following, they were part of a hierarchy.  They even their own patrons who would support them.

I say all that because, here in Acts, Paul was starting to get a reputation as being a good debater.  And he was!  The way he argued for the Gospel was very convincing!  And as his reputation grew, people wanted to engage him.  They wanted to take him on!  That’s why he said to the Corinthians in his letter, “I came to you preaching the Gospel, and not with eloquent words, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.” (I Cor. 1:17)  Then a little later, “I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.” (I Cor 2:2)

Apparently Paul didn’t accept the challenge in Corinth.  And he was a bit of a disappointment to them in that regard.  But then, of course, in his letters, he gave them some of the most magnificent words of wisdom ever written!

Well, here in Athens, he did not disappoint!  He debated with the Athenians!  He took them on!  He started in the synagogue and then market place, debating first with the Jews, and then with the philosophers of the age.  The Epicureans and the Stoics are named here.  And you can Google them, or look them up in your old High School history notes!  But keep in mind that it wasn’t just them.  Luke tells us here, that “all the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there spent their time in nothing except telling or hearing something new.” (Acts 17:21)  That debate, that intellectual discourse was a huge thing to them!

Well, Paul impressed these guys so much that they “made it official.”  They took him to the Areopagus, which was their main “stage” of debate, and they asked him to speak.  And our scripture lesson for today is Luke’s account of his speech to those Athenian philosophers.  (And of course, all the spectators who came to hear him that day!)

This is a great speech!  And I want you to hear what Paul was saying to these people.  He made a very clear distinction that day between “being religious” and “knowing God.”  Did you ever hear anybody make that distinction before?  I used to know people who would say, “I’m not religious.  I just love the Lord!”  I think that was even made into a song way back when.  “I’m not religious.  I just love the Lord!”

That’s the distinction Paul was making.  And here’s how he did it.  He started off by acknowledging the Athenians.  And that’s always a good thing to do.  And not just because it’s effective, but because it affirms people.  And that’s always good.  If we start out any “conversation” like this by criticizing someone or showing our disapproval, they will shut us down right away!  And sad thing in our world is, that they will then continue to shut down anybody like us!

Well, Paul didn’t do that.  He started out saying, “Men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious.”  “As I walked around your city, I observed your many of your objects of worship.”  Again that’s a good start.  And notice, if we go back the previous paragraph, before our reading for today, Luke tells us that Paul’s spirit “was provoked within him because that the city was full of Idols.”  That’s different than, “I observed your many objects of worship.”  Paul toned down his “spirit” a bit here.  He took a breath and he started by acknowledging them.  Again, that’s a good way to start!  We need to take a lesson from that.

Then he said, “I found also an altar with this inscription, ‘To an unknown god.’”  My understanding is that their “unknown god” was sort of a “catch-all god.”  In their world, they had a god of almost everything!  They had a god of war, a god of the harvest, a god of fertility – you name it!   And just in case there wasn’t a god of something, they had this “unknown god.”

Well, Paul used that, brilliantly, to introduce the idea that God could be known.  And not just in the sense of being “identified” or “proven,” but in the sense of “relationship.”  We can know God!  We can have a relationship with him.  Of course that’s part of our theology.  We’ve heard that all our lives.

But do you see how Paul did this?  It was masterful!  He was the quintessential debater!  (He was quite the “brainy character!”)  And the result was that some mocked him.  Some couldn’t buy that resurrection of the dead thing.  But others – and this is important – others said, “we will hear you again about this.”  Because of Paul’s approach, the “conversation” could continue.  And that should always be our goal.  Whether we are actually telling someone about our faith, or simply living it, like we were talking about last week, our goal is to keep the “conversation” going.  Our goal is to “leave them wanting more,” as the old expression goes.

Now don’t get me wrong here.  Paul didn’t imply – and I’m not either – that the God we worship is but one of the many gods of “pantheon” of the gods Paul saw in that city.  No, it was simply a way of introducing to these people the idea that we can know God.

When I think about that, I often think about John Eldridge, one of my favorite authors.  He’s the one who said, “There are too many people in our world, even too many believers, who have substituted ‘knowing the right things’ for ‘knowing God.’”  If you think about that, it’s true.  There are too many for whom that’s their only concern.  They want to be sure that they’ve got the things of faith right, but they forget about their relationship with God.

That happens too easily, doesn’t it?  It’s too easy for any of us to slip back into that “religious mode” where we’re only concerned with “knowing the right things.”  We want to be sure we know and do all the right things so we can get to heaven, right?  But we forget the relationship with God!  And too often that puts us in a bad light with the world – the world to which we are called to be the light.  Because it makes our faith a matter of what is right or what is wrong.  And that really turns people off!  That makes them shut us down.

That’s why this story is so important.  We need to remember what Paul said to the Athenians here.  We need to be sure that we’re in the mode of “knowing God.”  We need to remember that that is the most important thing in our faith.  And we need to remember that when we’re thinking about being the light of the world!

But as I said, it’s too easy to forget!  It’s too easy to just “be religious.”  It’s too easy to think of God as being someone “way out there” who doesn’t really notice us all that much, and doesn’t pay much attention to what we’re saying or doing, as long as we say and do the right things.  It’s too easy to get into thinking that we can say and do anything we want, and God probably won’t notice anyway.

As Paul told the Athenians, we worship a God who can be known!  We worship a God who is with us every day of our lives!  We worship a God who cares about us, and who cares about all the people around us every day.  May that be our attitude toward the world – the world that God so loved when he gave his only Son.

As we close, I’d like to remind you of the words of the First Commandment.  “Hear, O Israel, the Lord, your God, is one.  And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.”

Prayer

Eternal God, help us in our search to know you better.  Help us to seek your presence every day, and to hear the voice of your Spirit in our hearts.  Help us, by our words and by the way we live our lives, to be compelling to others, that they may seek to know you, too.  And we thank you for your Grace, your peace, and your hope, in Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen.