A Seedpicker Takes on the Eggheads
Note: This sermon was edited considerably and preached again 13 years after the original series. It was delivered at First Free in St. Louis right after I returned from a trip to Athens in 1999.
Introduction: I have decided to share a message related to the journey from which I just returned.
I had a unique privilege over the past two weeks of visiting some of the amazing sites of antiquity in Greece, Turkey and Italy. Thirty-seven of us took a tour of the Footsteps of Paul, spending with a few days at the end in Florence and Venice. I absolutely love cathedrals, museums and ancient ruins, and I had enough of each to saturate all my senses. We were able to see the Hagia Sophia and the Blue Mosque in Istanbul, the temple of Dianna in Ephesus, the Monastery of St. John on the Isle of Patmos, the Palace of Minoa on Crete, the Parthenon in Athens, the Agora in Corinth, the great Cathedral of Santa Maria, Uffizi Gallery, and the incomparable statue of David in Florence, and Doge’s Palace in Venice. By the end of the trip I felt like an ancient ruin myself.
One of the issues that struck me profoundly is the privilege that has been mine to travel extensively around the world. My grandparents never left the United States; my parents only got as far as Canada and Mexico; and yet I have been on every continent except Australia, seeing some of the most awesome sights a person could imagine. But the travel I have done is dwarfed by the travels of the Apostle Paul when one factors in the difficulty of communication and transportation in his day, as well as danger. In a day when transportation was essentially on foot or by small ship, Paul traveled all over Asia Minor, through Greece, to Rome, and perhaps as far as Spain. He logged thousands of miles on his three missionary journeys, plus his final journey to a martyr’s death in Rome.
The two greatest cities of the ancient world were Rome and Athens. In our text today, Acts 17, the Apostle Paul enters Athens for the first time in his life. This is a break in his busy schedule, for according to verses 15-16 he is just waiting for his companions, Silas and Timothy, to join him so he can resume his journey. What a perfect opportunity to visit the Acropolis, the Parthenon, the Agora, Mars Hill, the Stoa of Attalos, or the Dionysius Theatre—all of which were in their prime. After all, this is where western civilization began. These are the very streets on which Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle walked. Here are some of the great architectural wonders of the ancient world. Who would blame him if he took a few days for sight-seeing, regained his strength, and chilled out a bit?
No one, of course. Not even God, in my estimation. But I find it curious that when Paul visited Athens, he makes no comment whatever concerning his reaction to the architecture, the monuments, the universities, the museums, the culture, or the art. Rather it says in verse 16 that “he was greatly distressed to see that the city was full of idols.” The Jerusalem Bible translates it, “his whole soul was revolted.” The Greek word is a term brought over into the English language as “paroxysm,” meaning, “a fit of rage.” Paul couldn’t enjoy the sights or savor the history or admire the aesthetics, because the pervasive idolatry drove him into a fit of righteous indignation.
Let’s read the whole account of Paul in Athens, Acts 17:16-34:
“While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he was greatly distressed to see that the city was full of idols. {17} So he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the God-fearing Greeks, as well as in the marketplace day by day with those who happened to be there. {18} A group of Epicurean and Stoic philosophers began to dispute with him. Some of them asked, “What is this babbler trying to say?” Others remarked, “He seems to be advocating foreign gods.” They said this because Paul was preaching the good news about Jesus and the resurrection. {19} Then they took him and brought him to a meeting of the Areopagus, where they said to him, “May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? {20} You are bringing some strange ideas to our ears, and we want to know what they mean.” {21} (All the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there spent their time doing nothing but talking about and listening to the latest ideas.)
{22} Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: “Men of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. {23} For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. Now what you worship as something unknown I am going to proclaim to you.
{24} “The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands. {25} And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else. {26} From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. {27} God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. {28} ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’
{29} “Therefore since we are God’s offspring, we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone–an image made by man’s design and skill. {30} In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. {31} For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to all men by raising him from the dead.”
{32} When they heard about the resurrection of the dead, some of them sneered, but others said, “We want to hear you again on this subject.” {33} At that, Paul left the Council. {34} A few men became followers of Paul and believed. Among them was Dionysius, a member of the Areopagus, also a woman named Damaris, and a number of others.”
I want to begin by suggesting that Paul encountered major culture shock in Athens.
Culture shock in Athens
He met three groups of people there. The first group was relatively familiar to him–they were the God-worshipers. Verse 17 indicates that he went immediately to the synagogue in Athens and reasoned with the Jews and the God-fearing Gentiles. “God-fearing” doesn’t mean they were Christians, but at least they were monotheists who shared both a faith in God and a commitment to biblical standards. But they needed to know the Messiah in order to be saved, so Paul reasoned with them.
But there were also the pagans. Paul went daily to the marketplace, the Agora, to reason with whomever happened to be present. The vast majority of these ordinary citizens were idol-worshipers, and there were idols everywhere. At the gate of the city was an image of Neptune seated on horseback. Passing through the gate near the sanctuary of Bacchus were the sculpted forms of Minerva, Jupiter, Apollo, Mercury and the Muses.
From the Agora Paul had a full view of the Parthenon on top of the Acropolis, where the famous statue of Athena stood, reaching forty feet from floor to roof, glittering in lavish ivory and gold. On Mars Hill between the Agora and the Acropolis was the Temple of Mars. Around the Acropolis itself was a series of little sanctuaries on the very ledges of the rocks—shrines of Bacchus, Venus, Earth, and Ceres. In fact, cramming the streets and public buildings were an estimated 30,000 gods. The Roman satirist, Petronius, said it was easier to find a god than a man in Athens.
In addition to the God-fearers and the pagans, Paul also met a number of philosophers, and it is these that become the focus of his attention. I call them eggheads, because as a philosophy major in graduate school, that’s what I was often called. There’s not much, you know, one can do with a philosophy major except teach philosophy (and try to sound profound). For some five centuries Athens had been the center of intellectual and philosophical thought for the ancient world. Socrates had engaged the men of Athens in discussion in that marketplace more than 500 years earlier. In fact, the same tribunal, the Areopagus, that heard Paul, put Socrates on trial for corrupting the youth and also teaching strange gods. After Socrates took his own life, his pupil Plato developed an Academy destined to be the intellectual center of Greece for 900 years. Aristotle, probably aided by funds from his famous pupil, Alexander the Great, opened his Lyceum in one of the most elegant of Athens’ gymnasiums.
But it was two later schools of philosophy which captured Paul’s attention—the Epicureans and Stoics. The Epicureans, deistic in their view of God, emphasized pleasure as the chief end of human existence–an idea that suited the Greek temperament well. Their founder, Epicurus, aimed to free men from fear–more than anything else the fear of the gods. He did so by teaching that the gods are remote and don’t care, so worry and concern are of little use.
The founder of the Stoics, Zeno, lost a fortune while sailing to Athens, but there he discovered something he prized much more highly–philosophy. He taught a pantheistic view of God that emphasized duty and discipline in the face of unalterable fate. Henley’s famous poem, “Invictus,” is really a modern expression of Stoicism:
“Out of the night that covers me
Black as the pit from pole to pole
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced, nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeoning of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the horror of the shade
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.
It matters not how straight the gate,
How charged with punishment the scroll.
I am the master of my fate,
I am the captain of my soul.”
These philosophers in Athens encounter the Apostle Paul sharing his faith in the Agora and begin to converse with him. Two major reactions to his ideas are recorded. Some call him “a babbler”according to verse 18. The word in Greek means literally, “a seed-picker.” It signifies someone who scavenges for any bits of knowledge he can find, like a bird ready to pounce on a stray scrap of food. Others assert that he seems to be advocating foreign gods.
Paul must have appeared highly educated, however, for the decision is made to bring him to the Areopagus, a place on Mars Hill where the leading intellectuals served as a panel to challenge and investigate new ideas. (We stood on the very spot two weeks ago and envisioned the drama as it must have unfolded). The Apostle is not afraid to interact with these unbelievers. He doesn’t shy away from skeptics who ask hard questions. He reminds me of modern voices like Francis Schaeffer, Josh McDowell, and Charles Colson.
Wisely Paul does not try to use a memorized presentation of the Gospel; rather he starts where they are. He uses the familiar to introduce the unfamiliar. They have a shrine to an unknown god and Paul informs them that he knows the God who is unknown to them.
By the way, the situation Paul faced in Athens is not that foreign to us. True, people may not build monuments to unknown supernatural powers today, but when people experience what they call “good luck,” they thank a god they do not know. And when they experience misfortune, they curse an equally unknown deity. Perhaps we should more often seize the opportunity to identify the God of whom they speak so cavalierly. Perhaps we should say, “You know something, the God you just called upon to damn so-and-so is a personal friend of mine and He’s not in the damning business–He’d much rather change people and heal them than send them to hell.” In effect, that is Paul’s approach.
As one reads the Apostle’s brief speech beginning in verse 24 it becomes immediately apparent that his discourse focuses primarily upon the nature and character of God. This is a bit unusual for him, for generally he moved immediately to the person of Christ and the salvation He wrought at Calvary. However, the speech he prepared is interrupted just when he gets to the resurrection of Christ. I would assume he had much more he would like to have said than what is recorded for us here.
The speech as it is given to us is a valuable example of how to share the Gospel with those who are not even monotheistic. It demonstrates a truth we tend to forget–namely that a concept of God as the creator and sustainer of the universe is a prerequisite to an understanding of the person and work of Jesus Christ. In other words, the Gospel starts with the fact that there is a God who has been offended by human sin, but who has graciously provided for that sin by sending His own Son to die in our place and to rise in victory over sin and death.
Whenever Paul spoke to Jews and God-fearing Gentiles, he naturally went directly to the Scriptures, for they had prior knowledge of and belief in the One true God. But when a knowledge of God could not be assumed, as here in Athens, he reasons from general revelation, from nature, and begins with the most basic issue of all–the existence and nature of God. First, he talks about the fact that God is above culture.
The God above culture (24-31)
He is the creator. (24-25) The Greeks believed the physical universe is eternal, but Paul clearly states in verses 24-25 that God has created everything and gives life to all.
He is transcendent and infinite. (24) God’s transcendence is another way of expressing that He is infinitely great and without limitations. Here’s how Paul puts it: He is “the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands.” The Greeks believed every entity, every planet, every force of nature was a different God. Zeus was definitely the greatest of the gods, but even he had to fight for his uneasy supremacy. Further the Greeks believed their gods to be localized. Some lived in the Parthenon; others lived in the theatre; still others lived in little shrines along the road. But here is the Apostle proclaiming that God is Lord of heaven and earth, who transcends by an infinite degree the power and greatness of all others. And there is no human temple which can contain Him.
He is self-sufficient. (25) In verse 25 we read, “And He is not served by human hands, as if He needed anything, because He Himself gives all men life and breath and everything else.” The ancient pagans fed their gods, made sacrifices to them, built fantastic monuments to them, and tried to appease them. But Paul says all such external actions are irrelevant when one is dealing with the God of heaven. He doesn’t need to be fed; in fact, He doesn’t even need to be served, for He has no necessary relation to anything outside of Himself. His interest in His creatures arises from His sovereign good pleasure, not from any need these creatures can supply. When He requests their service, it is not because He needs them but because their very service to Him enhances them.
Listen to A. W. Tozer speak of the self-sufficiency of God:
“Were every man to become an atheist, it would not affect God in any way. He is what He is in Himself without regard to any other. To believe in Him adds nothing to His perfections, to doubt Him takes nothing away. God is not greater for our being, nor would He be less if we did not exist. That we do exist is altogether of God’s free determination, by our desert nor by divine necessity.” [i]
Sometimes when people are confronted with the self-sufficiency of God for the first time, they feel that it demeans them and turns them into meaningless blobs in the universe. On the contrary, a proper understanding of the self-sufficiency of God gives to man a true sense of his value. The God who doesn’t need me, has nevertheless stooped to work by and through me. Though He needs no one, He will work through anyone.
He is sovereign. (26) This is indicated in verse 26 where we read that, “From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live.” Sovereignty means final authority. God is supreme, He’s autonomous, He has undisputed supremacy, He’s in control of this universe. There are no loose ends, no contingencies awaiting some celestial battle between supernatural adversaries.
All of these characteristics of God we have looked at so far emphasize that He is above and beyond human culture. However, there is another set of characteristics that are just as true of God which emphasize the fact that He is the God of culture.
The God of culture
That is, He is intimately involved in the human condition.
He is knowable. We already noted that the very springboard Paul uses to begin his discourse is the altar to the unknown God. So consumed are the Athenians by their polytheism that they have to assure themselves that even the unknown gods are mollified. Paul uses this admission of ignorance as an opportunity to declare that there is a God who, though unknown to them, is thoroughly knowable. The reason they don’t know Him is they are spiritually blind and have failed to read His revelation in either nature or the Scriptures.
He is immanent. (27-28) This attribute of God is the opposite of one we looked at earlier–transcendence. While transcendence refers to the infinite greatness of God, immanence looks at His infinite smallness, or His nearness to His creatures. You see, the gods of the Greeks were too remote to take any kind of personal interest in mankind, but not the God Paul worships. His God is not an absentee landlord, but rather (verse 28) “is not far from each one of us, for in Him we live and move and have our being.” All life is a gift from Him and if it weren’t for His sustaining power this whole universe would immediately dissolve into total chaos.
The fact that God is not far from each of us is mentioned for a very important purpose. It should cause men to seek Him and reach out for Him so that they might find Him. He is not hiding; He is not playing hard to get. His fingerprints are all over the universe and He is available to those who seek Him.
He is alive. (28-29) Now this point would not have to be made but for the fact that the Athenians had idols of metal and stone everywhere. But Paul reasons back from man’s nature to God’s: if man is alive, and if he is created in the image of God, which even one of their own poets acknowledged (verse 28), then surely “we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone–an image made by man’s design and skill.” In other words, the very idea of idolatry is foolish, in effect denying the unique and spiritual nature of God.
He is patient. (30) Paul is nearing his conclusion in verse 30 when he says, “In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent.” That’s an amazing statement. With one fell swoop Paul sweeps away five centuries of Greek culture by calling it “ignorance” and calling for repentance. But what does it mean when it says that in the past God overlooked such ignorance? Did God not hold pagans accountable for their unbelief prior to the coming of the message of the Gospel? That seems to contradict Romans 1, where Paul clearly states that the heathen are without excuse.
I prefer to interpret this verse as meaning that God was not as harsh with the wicked as He might have been, giving them one opportunity after another to mend their ways. He didn’t exterminate them, as He might well have. But now that the person of Christ has come and the truth of the Gospel has been made clear, God’s patience is running thin. The time for repentance is now. And why is repentance so crucial?
He is the Judge. (31) Verse 31 says, “For He has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed.” He is speaking, of course, of Jesus Christ. There are still those today who scoff at the coming judgment. They are prone to say, “Well, it looks like God is still overlooking man’s ignorance. Paul seemed to think the judgment was near, and now 1950 years have passed since he gave his dire warnings. I think I’ll take my chances.” Really there are no “chances” involved. Judgment day is sure and certain, once to every man, and the only way to escape it is to repent and believe in the One God appointed to be the substitute for us.
And how do we know that Jesus is the appointed One? Well, says Paul, God furnished proof of that fact to all men by raising Him from the dead. Up to this point in the dialogue the Athenians have been polite, intrigued, perhaps even amused. But when Paul mentions the resurrection, everything changes. It is now God against culture.
The God against culture
Verse 32-33 tell us of various reactions when they hear of the resurrection.
Some sneer. The Greeks did not believe in immortality; the human body was viewed as evil or neutral at best, and death was viewed as the cessation of existence. The very idea of a dead person coming back to life introduced a concept for which they had no categories. These philosophers realize that any God who raises the dead requires more than philosophical reflection–He demands to be reckoned with. So, they stop Paul before he can talk any further about the resurrected Christ. They are being pressed beyond the realm of ideas into a confrontation with the Living God! The Spirit of God is closing in on them and they want nothing of it.
Frankly, I believe much of the opposition true Christianity receives today in the public sector is directly related to the fact that we believe in a God who makes ethical demands on people. Why do you think government, the media, and the public schools can accept almost any viewpoint except a Christian one? They welcome atheism, agnosticism, humanism, pluralism, postmodernism; they welcome anything and everything that enables them to be autonomous. But they cannot tolerate a faith that speaks of a God who intervenes in human culture, who raises the dead, and who calls upon men everywhere to repent.
But there were others who postpone judgment.
Some postponed judgment. (32-33) It says in verse 32 that they respond, “We want to hear you again on this subject.” They are the broad minded, the tolerant, the people who would never openly oppose the truth but at the same time don’t want to make a commitment to it. They just want to wait and see. They want to dialogue further. Paul apparently discerns their real sentiments–they are brushing him off, so he leaves the Council, and a short time later leaves the city. Had he felt there was a genuine desire to hear more, he would doubtless have stayed longer in the city. Whether these people had another chance to hear the Gospel we do not know; Paul himself never again returned to Athens.
To most observers it might appear Paul’s evangelistic mission on Mars Hill was an abject failure. The effort to confront a pagan culture with the Gospel had resulted in scorn and agnosticism. But, almost as an aside, the last verse of our chapter tells us there was a different response from a few. “A few men became followers of Paul and believed. Among them was Dionysius, a member of the Areopagus, also a woman named Damaris, and a number of others.” And this brings us to our final point.
The transformation of culture
There are some, rarely many, almost never a majority, who respond positively to the message of the crucified and risen Savior. When they do, they learn of God’s most important relationship to culture–He is its Transformer–not on a large scale, not generally targeting the great cultural institutions of art and literature and government and business, but on a small scale, starting with individuals who know they need a great Physician, not for cosmetic surgery but for a heart transplant.
There is a reason why our great universities are more often than not hotbeds of atheism and humanism–it is because the more knowledge a man gains, the greater the pride and self-confidence that he can answer and deal with the great issues of life. Paul writes in I Cor. 1:21 that “the world through its wisdom did not come to know God.” That was true then and it’s still true today.
But through the power of His resurrection Jesus can make all things new for anyone who believes. The details about how Dionysius’ life was changed or Damaris’ or the others are not given for us in this text, but there are more than enough examples elsewhere in Scripture to establish the fact that when one believes in Jesus Christ, He gains a new birth, a new perspective, new relationships, new hope, new goals, new priorities, and new power.
Conclusion: I’m reminded of a story the late Dr. Charles Berry once told of the inadequate Gospel he preached at the beginning of his ministry. Like many other young men with a liberal theological training, in his early years he minimized the supernatural nature of Christ’s death and resurrection and looked upon Christianity essentially as a way of becoming a good person.
During his first pastorate in England, Berry was sitting in his study late one night when he heard a knock. Opening the door, he found a little Lancashire girl, with a shawl over her head and clogs on her feet. “Are you a minister?” she asked. Getting an affirmative answer, she went on anxiously, “You must come with me quickly; I want you to get my mother in.”
Imagining that it was a case of some drunken woman out on the streets, Dr. Berry said, “You must go and get a policeman.” “No,” insisted the girl, “my mother is dying, and you must come with me and get her in–to heaven.” The young minister dressed and followed her through the lonely streets on a journey of a mile and a half. Led into the woman’s room, he knelt beside her and began to describe the kindness of Jesus, explaining that He had come to show us how to live unselfishly. Suddenly the desperate woman cut him off. “Mister,” she cried, “that’s no use for the likes of me. I am a sinner. I have lived my life. Can’t you tell me of someone who can have mercy upon me and save my poor soul?”
“I stood there,” said Dr. Berry, “in the presence of a dying woman, and I had nothing to tell her. In the midst of sin and death, I had no message. In order to bring something to that dying woman, I leaped back to my mother’s knee, to my cradle faith, and told her the story of the cross and the resurrection, and how Jesus was able to save the worst of people because He conquered sin and death—(sin at the cross and death at the resurrection).” Tears began running over the cheeks of the eager woman. “Now you are getting there,” she said. “Now you are helping me.” And the preacher, concluding the story, said, “I got her in, and blessed be God, I got in myself.”
That’s it! That’s what the Gospel is all about. “Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, was buried, and was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures.” Do you believe it? Have you received Jesus Christ into your life by an act of faith? Are you willing to allow a living Savior to transform you? He’s ready; He’s able.
Tags:
Culture
Philosophy
Idolatry
Attributes of God
[i] A. W. Tozer, The Knowledge of the Holy, 39-40.