The God We Know – August 6, 2023

Psalm 130, Acts 17:22-33
August 6, 2023

As we pick up the narrative today in Acts, Paul is in Athens.  You can also read through Acts and see where else he has been and where he’s going.  And the names are familiar.  He went to Philippi.  He went to Ephesus.  He went to Corinth.  All cities to which he later wrote letters that became our New Testament books.

Well, now he’s in Athens.  (A city he did not write a letter to.)  If you remember your European geography, Athens was in Greece.  (And of course, it still is!)  And if you remember your European history, Greece had two major cities.  There was Athens and (who knows?) Sparta.  And Sparta was the center of the physical world.  It was the world of Athletics and physical competition, while Athens was the center of the intellectual and philosophical world.  In Athens, they were all about philosophy and debate.  There were even competitions in those things.  Maybe some of you have been on debated teams in the past.  That’s what it was like in Athens.  Other cities had that kind of thing going on, too.  Corinth was one of them.  But Athens was the center of that world!

Paul gained a reputation for being good at debate.  As word got around, people like that looked forward to him coming to their town, so they could “take him on.”  That was the context in which he wrote to the Corinthians, saying, “Christ sent me to preach the Gospel, and not with eloquent words of wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.” (I Corinthians 1:17)  That’s one of my favorite passages in the whole Bible.

In other words, he decided not to come to debate them, just to preach Christ.  And there is some sense that they were disappointed!  They wanted to debate him!  But he told them, “The Jews seek signs, and the Greeks seek wisdom.”  (We might say philosophy and debate.)  “But we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to the Jew and folly to the Greeks.”

That’s the world Paul came into in Athens.  And he did start by preaching in their synagogues, but he also spoke in the marketplace.  And there he caught the eye of some of the Greek philosophers.  They started listening, and questioning.  And before he knew it, he found himself in their world!

The two who were mentioned here were the Epicureans and Stoics.  Do you remember them from your History class?  The Epicureans followed the teaching of Epicurus.  He was born around 300BC.  He taught that the absence of pain and fear led to a life of pleasure.  That was the highest goal in life.  And doesn’t that sound like our world?  The Stoics were the opposite.  They believed that virtue was the highest goal, and the things that brought pleasure in this life didn’t matter, and were even to be avoided.  Living a simple life in tune with nature was preferred.

So here was Paul, dealing with a world outside of his usual realm.  And whatever he said in the marketplace, made these people curious.  They said, “May we know what this teaching is that you present?”  So they brought him to the Areopagus.  (Isn’t that the elephant in Sesame Street?)  No. That was their place of debate – their arena of debate, if you will.  And there Paul addressed the Athenians.

That’s the passage we’re focusing on today.  And this is where this story relates to our world. Because, as he was walking around the city, Paul had noticed that there were statues and shrines to many Gods.  And that’s like our world today.  In our Post-Modern world, we have a proliferation of spiritual pursuits – one might even say a “plethora!”  And we’re talking about non-traditional spirituality.  We’re not talking ab out the Judeo-Christian world.  Today we have Eastern religions, meditation groups, you name it.  We have many different spiritual pursuits going on around us.  And that’s the world we need to be aware of.  That’s the world we have to deal with.  That’s the world Paul “took on” that day in Athens.

As he stood there in the Areopagus, Paul addressed their world.  He said, “I perceive that you are very religious – very spiritual.”  He began by acknowledging that.  I think that’s important.  If we want to dialogue with people who believe differently than we do, we need to acknowledge them.  That doesn’t mean we agree with them, but we must acknowledge them.  Because the tendency, the thought that rises within us, is often to simply dismiss them.  Or even to blurt out our beliefs.  That’s one of the reasons people in our world are so dismissive of Christians.  Because they’ve been dismissed.  We need to acknowledge people.  We need to listen to them.  Because, if we send them out the door, if we cause them to walk away, we will never have the opportunity to win their hearts!

So Paul listened.  He acknowledged.  And then he focused in on this “Unknown God.”  It was kind of a “catch all” god they had, a god of things that they didn’t have other gods for.  And Paul used that.  He used their “unknown God, to introduce them to the idea of a God who can be known!  He didn’t say they were wrong worshipping their many gods.  He sort of side-stepped that.  And then he gave them his experience.  He said, “Let me tell you about a God who can be known.”

That reminds me of William Tennant.  Do you remember him?  His is one of my favorite stories in American history.  In the early 1700’s there was, what has been called, a “spiritual malaise” in the colonies.  People just didn’t care about faith.  It wasn’t that they didn’t believe in God.  They just had little to do with him.

William Tennant came along, and he taught that a person could have a personal relationship with God through his son Jesus.  He taught that God could be known!  He started a school to train pastors with that as his focus – a personal relationship with God.  And the result was what has been called “The Great Awakening.”  It was one of the greatest spiritual “revivals” in modern history.  50 years later, by the time of the revolution, everybody in the colonies had been touched by that message.  Churches were full.  People talked about their faith all the time.  And Tennant’s students went on to found over 60 institutions of higher learning, including most of the Ivy League colleges and universities.  (Starting with Princeton!)

It was all because they taught what Paul focused on that day in the Areopagus.  There is a God that we can know.  And God wants to know us!  Paul told the Athenians that God created us in such a way that we “seek after him,” that we might “feel after him and find him.” (verse 27)  And he assured them that God “is not far from each one of us.”  And then he told them about his experience with Jesus.

Paul’s message was compelling.  He began by observing and listening and acknowledging.  He didn’t dismiss their beliefs.  Because again, if we dismiss people, they will dismiss us!  Paul didn’t.  But instead he chose to focus in on the God we can know.

And I love the way this worked out.  I think his result should be our goal.  In verse 32 we read, “Some mocked.”  Did he convince everybody?  No.  “But others said, “We will hear you again about this.”  I believe that’s what we want!  We want people to desire more.  Sometimes we think of Evangelism as speaking to someone about Jesus, and having a moment of salvation right then and there.  And we tend to shy away from that approach.  It makes us uncomfortable.  But often the most important thing in Evangelism is “planting a seed.”  And then trusting God to give the growth.

Paul acknowledges that process!  He told the Corinthians, “I planted the seed, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth.” (I Corinthians 3:6)  And notice that God is the important one in that process!

So, by the way we live, by the way we treat other people, and sometimes by what we say, we plant seeds.  Or we water the seeds that someone else has planted.  Maybe that’s a good analogy, a good mental image for us as we live our lives.  With everything we do and say, we can see ourselves planting seeds, or watering the seeds somebody else has planted.  But then, as Paul said, we trust God to give the growth!  That part is not up to us.

Remember, though, that we can also plant bad seeds, can’t we?  Or we can water them badly.  We can ruin the seeds someone else has planted.  And again that too happens by how we live, how we treat people, and sometimes what we say.

So, think of your life of faith as planting seeds.  And the most important seed we can plant is the one Paul so beautifully planted in the hearts and minds of those Greek Philosophers that day.  He planted the seed – the idea – that God is not an “unknown God,” but a God who can be known.  And who has sent his son for that very purpose!

And we plant that seed best, when we show the world that God is the God we know!

Prayer

Eternal God, we ask for your strength to live as your faithful people.  Help us to live so that everything we do reflects your glory, and promotes your kingdom here on earth.  We thank you for your son, Jesus, who is our greatest example.  Help us to know him better, and to follow him more closely.  For we pray in his name, Amen.