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Back to the Bible. Let it be our plea, God's word alone, our authority, every word, every step in the name of Christ. Back to the Bible for the way of life.

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Thank you for joining us for this period of Bible study. I don't know how you're listening. I don't know if you're coming to us through the WJLX station in Jasper or the WGOL station in Russellville, or maybe you're listening via the podcast. However you're coming to us. We are thankful. Most of all, we are thankful to our Father who has provided such an opportunity for us to be able to consider his will, His Word, and to be able to share that with people all over through this means. We are thankful. We are thankful for you. We are thankful for the time that you're taking. And if you are listening within with an intention to listen, then I think that shows your interest in spiritual things and I hope that this is beneficial to you. It may be that you're just coming across the program and you have questions about what we're trying to do and what we're trying to accomplish. We are happy to respond to questions like that. And we know that there may be things that we say on the program that raise questions and we want to be in a position to address those as well. And so we invite you to reach out to us. Probably the easiest way would be through our website. BackToTheBiblePodcast.com BackToTheBiblePodcast dot com There is information about the program. There are previous episodes linked there. There are, there's more information about us and what we're trying to do. And there's even archives of when my grandfather was doing the radio program through wjlx. For the most part, not all the lessons that he did are on there, but several for you to listen to and, and, and more there at the website. And so we would be happy for you to visit that. And of course, we want to be clear in our teaching and we want to be faithful. And if we're not either one of those things, if we're not clear, if we're not faithful, feel free to reach out to us and we'll try to make correction or clarification as needed. What I want to do today is I want to continue in our study of the Book of Acts and where we are. Where we left off in the Book of Acts is in Acts 17. And this is what we would think of, I take it to be, as Paul's second missionary journey. Now in Acts 17 what you have is Paul had that vision in Acts 16 of Going over into Macedonia. And so he goes over into Macedonia, they went to Philippi and then he went to Thessalonica, and then he goes to Berea. And in all of those places he is driven out by persecution. In Philippi it seems to be more like Roman legal persecution. And then in Thessalonica and Berea it is religious persecution. The Jewish people come from Thessalonica even to Berea to drive him out. And so he comes to Athens, Athens, Greece, which would be probably of all the places that we've mentioned, would be the one that would be most recognizable in name and in history. To most people who are reading through the text or who are listening now, it tells us that in Athens that Paul is alone. So Timothy and Silas, they remain at Berea it looks like. And what you're going to have is that when Paul makes it to Athens, he sends for them to come back. So the men who help him get to Athens, who are with him, he sends word back to them to come as quickly as possible. We'll see more about that, Lord willing, later on. It may even be in a later lesson in Acts chapter 17 and verse 16. And I think we may have mentioned this some on our last program, but what you have is you have Paul waiting in Athens. Now I don't know that Paul was intending to preach in Athens. It seems to be that he's waiting there. But as he looks around and sees all of the idols and the idolatry that's going on, he is provoked. The text says he's stirred up, he's prodded in his spirit. And so he goes into the synagogue with the Jews and then the God fearing Gentiles. And here's something that's additional. And I'm not sure that Paul wasn't involved in this everywhere, but it's a special note here that he was also in the marketplace every day with those who happened to be present. So he's doing his usual, his process of being in the synagogue and dealing with the Jews and the God fearing Gentiles. But he also is there in the marketplace, in the community area so that he is able to speak to those who are idolaters and not just the Jews and the God fearers. Now one thing that we should note here is that there were these philosophers in Athens, Epicureans and Stoics and these men, these philosophers had different approaches basically to the idea of how to live the good life. And some of the Athenians said the Way to live the good life is to embrace and to satisfy all of your affections and appetites and all of that. And then there were some. And I think the Stoics were like this. They were people who talked about living above your appetites and your desires and living. We use the word stoic, right? We use that word to describe somebody who kind of tries to put off emotion and expression. And they're very stoic. And still now they were saying, what does this idler babbler wish to say? That's what some were saying. And other people were saying he seems to be a proclaimer of strange deities because he was proclaiming the good news of Jesus and the Resurrection. There are some who even suggest that when he's talking about new gods, that they think what he's talking about is Jesus as a God and then a God called the Resurrection. I don't know about that, but they do certainly hear him saying something that seems to them to be a proclamation of strange deities. Now, in verse 19, we saw that they take him to a place called the Areopagus. The Areopagus in our language would be Mars Hill. And Mars Hill was a council meeting place. And they would meet together. And so Paul is able to speak to them on Mars Hill. And they want to know what this new teaching is that you are speaking now. I think initially, when we look at that, I think we see. I think I would see in that an honest group, right? They want to hear this new teaching. Let's evaluate that. Let's see if this is true. But. But in verse 21, Luke gives us the commentary. The Athenians and the strangers visiting there used to spend their time in nothing other than hearing something, than telling or hearing something newer. So when they ask about hearing these things and knowing what these things mean, is it just out of curiosity or is it out of a sincere desire to understand what Paul is doing and commit to it? If it's true? It looks like the former to me. It looks like that what they're wanting is they are wanting just to hear the. The new thing. They are curious. Now, that is unfortunate, because what you have here is what is reportedly a center of wisdom, right? Athens, you've got Plato and Socrates and all of these great thinkers that have come from there. And the men there, I think, still would have framed themselves as that kind of place. And yet what you've got here is you have just curiosity. You have only a shallow desire to know what's being said. And they want to know what these things mean. And I think if they really grasp what they meant, they would be obedient. But I think, as we see in Luke's comment there, they're not interested in life changing. They're just interested in having a new bit of information. Now, I think we're going to see that as well in their response to the sermon. So Paul starts preaching. He stands in the midst of the Areopagus of this council that's meeting. And he says, men of Athens, I'm going to read all the way down through his sermon. Men of Athens, I observe that you are very religious in all respects. For while I was passing through and examining the objects of your worship, I also found an altar with this inscription to an unknown God. Therefore, what you worship in ignorance, I proclaim to you the God who made the world and all things in it. Since he is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands, nor is he served by human hands as though he needed anything, since He Himself gives to all people life and breath in all things. And he made from one man every nation of mankind to inhabit all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their habitation, that they would seek God if perhaps they might grope for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. For in him we live and move and exist, as even some of your own poets have said. For we also are his offspring. Being then the offspring of God. We ought not to suppose that the divine nature is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the craft and thought of man. Therefore, having overlooked the times of ignorance, God is now commanding men that everyone everywhere should repent because he has fixed a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness through a man whom he determined, having furnished proof to all by raising him from the dead. So Paul on top of Mars Hill, says that he sees religion all around him. Some of the older translations said, I see that you are very superstitious. Now, superstitious, I think, has the idea of kind of a fake belief in something shallow. As far as spirituality goes. It may be that he is kind of mocking it, but it may very well be that he's starting with a compliment, recognizing their religious mindset. You are very religious in all respects. Maybe there had been other places that did not have such devotion, even to what they thought were gods, even to what they thought were divine beings. But he says, I was passing through, and he says, I even saw that you recognized that there might be something out there that that you don't know about. They had even made an altar to the unknown God. And if I understand correctly, the idea here was, is that they had the God of the seas and they had the God of the sky and they had the God of the sun and they had the God of the moon and they had the God of wisdom and they had the God of love and they had the God of war. They had all these different gods. But what if there was some aspect that they were leaving out? What if there were some God that they did not know about? And so they made this altar to make sure that that God was taken care of even if they didn't know who it was. Now Paul is going to use that as an entryway to tell the listeners about the one true God. I don't think he's saying that God was super happy with the worship that was to an altar with the inscription to an unknown God. But I think he is saying you are admitting that you understand that there could be something out there that you don't know about. And in fact you even say there could be an unknown God out there that you don't know about. And what Paul is saying is here I am to be the one to tell you about the God that you do not know about. The God. Verse 24, he says, who made the world? I want you to see the that Paul is going to span. He's going to cross the whole span of human history from creation to the final judgment. From creation to the final judgment. And I want you to look at the number of universal references and applications that God makes, that Paul makes about God, God who made the world and things in it. He gives life to all people. He calls all people from everywhere to repent. He will judge the whole world in righteousness. I think what Paul is showing is this is not just some Jewish sect. It is not just some local religion. Now, of course, and Paul is going to cite scripture. Not directly, but he's going to reference it as we go. Of course this is rooted in Judaism. Paul was a Jewish man preaching this message. But when he preaches the message of Jesus to Athenians, the local stuff is not near as significant as the global stuff. And we're going to note that as we go. Now first he says this. God was the Creator. And as the Creator, he could not be bound in temples. And he didn't depend on humans. They had the wrong idea about temples and sacrifices. And someone might raise a question about that. Wait a second. Didn't God give instructions for how to Build a temple in the Old Testament. Didn't he give instructions about sacrifices in the Old Testament? Yes, he did, but it's important to see how he is framing those among when he gives instructions for them. In the Old Testament, the purpose of the tabernacle first and the temple later was so that God could dwell among them. But it was not as if he is bound by that box. Even Solomon prayed in his prayer in 1 Kings chapter 9 says, what kind of building could hold you? And Isaiah will say that the throne of God is heaven and the earth is just his footstool. So God is not bound by those houses and he doesn't need the sacrifices. Of course the sacrifices are being offered in the Old Testament, but they are not for God's benefit. They are not keeping God alive. What they are doing is they are providing atonement for the offerer. And so it's important to see, yes, they have temples and yes, they have sacrifices, but it's as if they have missed the point of the temples and sacrifices. I think some of the Jewish folks missed the point about the temples and the sacrifices as well, about the temples and the sacrifices. Because what you have, you have very similar language in other places. For example, Acts 7 in Stephen's sermon where he talks about the fact that the temple is not what they think it is. And so what we see here is that Paul is challenging their religious practices. Instead of God being in a temple who needs their sacrifices, he is the maker and the life giver. He was the overseer and the director of, of history. Now why, why did God make the world and why did he create human beings? I think that is a great question and it's a question that we wrestle with, isn't it? Why does God make a world and why does he make humanity? What was God's goal? I think the answer is in verse 27, that they would seek God if perhaps they might grope for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. God's goal was that people would seek him and find him, but it wasn't as if he was far away. And so Paul cites Greek authors to say that it was well known that there was a creator who gave life. And it seems as though he is saying God is not that far off. Searching for him isn't a fool's errand. Even your writers recognize he is there. I think that is a great passage for us to think about that the purpose that God has in you existing is that you would seek God. And the text here says if we would grope for Him. I think the idea there is God had not always fully revealed Himself and so people were having to search him out. But now he is made available to us in that we can reach out and find him because we see him in Jesus. Now, as a result of this understanding, they should have drawn the conclusion that God could not be made of earthly materials and pictured by our own imagination. He says we are his offspring. If we are his offspring, then we can't think that God, the divine nature is going to be able to be shaped by gold or silver or stone, that we would be able to think up what God looks like. Rather, he says that God is beyond the capacity of us to image in a stone. In fact, I think he may even be suggesting that we are the image in keeping with the fact that we are his offspring. Now, for a long time God had not intervened in that. He had not brought judgments on all the nations for their idolatry. I think that's the idea of overlooking or winking at There had not been messages to a world calling them to turn away from idols. Now that doesn't mean that the whole world was in idolatry and it doesn't mean that God was pleased with the fact that they were in idolatry. But I wonder if we could go to Romans 1 and see that he gave them up. And so he overlooks or he winks at that period of time. And what we see is that now, this is the key point. There had not been messages calling the world to turn away from idols. But now a new day arrived that God is now commanding all men everywhere, all people in all places to repent. Now that is to break away from that idolatry. Why? Because a day of righteous judgment was coming on which we, that is the whole world, will give an account to the God appointed judge. God assures us of that by having raised the judge Jesus from the dead just as surely as Jesus was raised from the dead. A day of judgment is coming. I want you to think about that. That you and I will stand before the judgment seat of Christ. That we will stand in judgment before the righteous judge. 17 verse. And when we stand before the righteous judge, that will mean he is faithful both to his promises and his warnings. And so that call for all men everywhere to repent. Don't let it fall flat. Hear it and respond to it appropriately. Now when we come to Athens and we look at the response of the Athenians, we see them in verse 32 when they heard about the resurrection of the dead. Some began to sneer, but others said, we shall hear you again concerning this. In this way Paul went out of their midst. But some men joined him and believed, among whom also were Dionysius the Areopagite and a woman named Damaris, and others with them. Now the concept of the resurrection is what made these Athenians mock. Now some say, we'll hear from you again about this. But it seems like they're just putting him off. So Paul left. But it is important to note that there were some who believed and joined him. Now I want you to keep in mind that the response of supposedly wise Athens is to on the whole reject the laughable idea of resurrection. It was foolishness to them. I think that is the way that the Scriptures describe how most people who view themselves as wise will view the gospel in First Corinthians chapter one. And Corinth we'll talk about in Acts chapter 18. But it was not far down the road from Athens. And in this text in First Corinthians 1, in verse 18 it says, the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God. Here's what God says, for it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the cleverness of the clever I will set aside. Where is the wise man? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know God, God was well pleased through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe. For indeed Jews ask for signs and Greeks search for wisdom. But we preach Christ crucified to Jews a stumbling block and a Gentiles foolishness. But to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God. Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men. The idea here is that Paul is saying the message of Jesus and him crucified. And we would see it Even here in First Corinthians 1, the message of the resurrection. In Acts 17 the message of the resurrection was a message that the wise of the world would mock it. And Paul will continue in his conversation with the Corinthians and say where you are, it's not the wise and the noble according to the flesh, not the mighty, but the outcasts of the world. And God had a purpose in that. He wanted people to see that it was not in the world's wisdom that. That he was accomplishing his purposes. I think we have to be careful because we live in a day and age where we have access to so much information, we have access to so many new things to listen to, and we can become like the Athenians and pride ourselves on our wisdom. And what we are priding ourselves in is that we know a lot of stuff and we have access to lots of information. And. And what we end up doing is we end up rejecting the truth of God's word because we are so impressed by our own knowledge and understanding. And we are in this modernist age where we think everything ought to be able to be explained by science and by mathematics. And when we hear something like the idea that Jesus was raised from the dead, I think it challenges us because then we have to say, you mean there are some things outside of our capacity that to be able to evaluate from our very modern scientific evaluation? Yes, And I think that's the great trouble with atheism, is that of course, mathematics and science have helped our lives tremendously, but they help our lives tremendously because we live in a world made by a God who made a good world in which we live that could be studied and understood. And what we see there is people assume, you know, at the very beginning of our scientific revolution, when people began to say, maybe we can investigate the world around us more carefully, you know, that they were saying, they were concluding that since God made such an orderly universe, we should be able to consider it and understand it. And I think they are exactly right about that. But what happened over time is that people began to be pulled away from the idea of there being a God because they became obsessed with that understanding of the world that they were gaining. And they began to say, well, we don't need God to explain how all of it got here. See, they've missed the point. Because while science can tell us all sorts of things about how the world works and the way that atoms operate and the way that orbit happens, it cannot tell us about the purpose for which God made the world. And it can't tell us anything about the God who made us, except that he is powerful and that he has divine nature. And yet that's the very thing that people's observation of the universe is causing them to reject. Which seems foolish. In fact, it is foolish. And what people will say is, well, you are relying on your faith, or you're relying on that superstition in order to believe. No, I am relying on the truth of the resurrection. Of Jesus Christ. And on that basis, and on the basis that we live in a creation, the very fact that we are able to have a conversation about who we are and what our meaning is and what our purpose is and that you, whether you are an atheist or an agnostic or an unbeliever or whatever, that you can consider your meaning and your purpose and your and life, doesn't that indicate that there is something more to what's going on than we're just balls of meat floating through space? Indeed we are. We are his offspring and he has made us to seek him out that we might find Him. And now the call comes to everyone everywhere to repent. Until next time, we bid you a pleasant good day.