Nobodies like Paul among the idols

This sermon was given in Athens between the Acropolis and Mars Hill as a finale to a 10-day Shoresh Study Tour looking at Jewish Paul's second missionary journey.

Acts 17:16-34

In our reading today, Paul is disturbed by the idols in Athens. I also felt disturbed at Delphi, as we learned together about the long history of Apollo worship at the site. The more we heard and saw, the more the depth of the idolatry in ancient Greece began to sink in for me. 

And Paul walks into that. As one of our guides said to us, Paul was a nobody. He is a Jewish man roaming the pagan world. Nobody thinks much of the tentmaker that sometime sets up his shop in the agora (marketplace).

Paul is alone when he comes to Athens. He had to flee Berea when the antagonistic Jews of Thessalonica traveled a long way to stir up trouble. Some Bereans take Paul to Athens where he is to wait for Silas and Timothy.

But Paul is not a man who sits still. This message of the Messiah is burning within him, so he starts preaching, first to those audiences who are best prepared to hear: synagogue-going Jews and God-fearing Greeks. These are people who have encountered the Jewish scriptures. They know of the promises to Israel. They will have a Messianic expectation. Then he moves out into the market place. 

There, biblically illiterate Greeks begin to engage with Paul. 

The two philosopher groups that Acts mentions are the Epicureans and the Stoics. The views of these two groups capture where most unbelievers fall today. 

The Epicureans, generally, did not believe in a practical god. The universe existed by chance. So enjoying life was the goal. Some did this with abandon while some believed moderation helped you enjoy good things. If it feels good, do it, as long as you're not hurting someone else. Do this sound familiar?

“Stoics were pantheists for whom “God” was merely a word standing for some vague spirit of reason in the universe.” At death, all souls were absorbed back into “god.” “All the major Eastern religions and certain seemingly Western offshoots have at bottom a similar theology, that there is no transcendent God who created and rules the universe independently of human beings and their imaginings.” (Stern, Acts 17:18)

Paul meets these Greek thinkers where they're at. He doesn't quote scripture to them. It would mean nothing. He speaks to them in the language of their philosophy, using it to point them to the God of Israel. 

Those who read NT Wright's Paul biography before the trip, you may remember that Wright believes that Paul's sermon on Mars Hill is not a lecture to the philosophy club but that Paul's been brought before a court to defend his theological arguments.

Wright believes that Paul is on trial, not unlike what happened in Corinth before Gallio (Acts 18). 

Paul, alone before leaders in Athens, perseveres in his mission to call the nations to acknowledge the God of Israel. He says, “In the past, God overlooked [ignorant idolatry]; but now he is commanding all people everywhere to turn to him from their sins.”

How can Paul say this to these pagans? Why does Paul believe this?

I do not believe that Sha'ul the Pharisee, persecutor of the church, would have said this before his Road to Damascus experience. 

Even today, Orthodox Judaism believes that the non-Jews will submit to the God of Israel, Creator God, but only in the last days. 

When Paul hears Jesus speaking to him from heaven, he understands that the rumors of Jesus’ resurrection are true. He accepts that Jesus is the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Ancient of Days with dominion over all the kingdoms of the earth (Dan 7:14ff). If all that is true, Paul grasps that the last days have begun! The resurrection of the dead has begun in Jesus! It is time for the regathering of the nations scattered from the Tower of Babel.

So Paul confidently – we might even say with chutzpah – tells a group of pagan Greeks, Athenian leaders that God is calling them to repentance from their idolatry. 

This is a bold word. And the Holy Spirit moves on the hearts of his remnant from among these Athenians: a High Council member Dionysius, a woman Damaris and others along with them. 

Here's what I want to leave with you from this reading and from our time retracing parts of Paul's second missionary journey. 

1. We are nobodies in a pagan world that either denies God exists or thinks he's some undefinable power.
2. We carry the good news that the resurrection of Jesus is the sign that the nations are invited to return to God the creator. 
3. The story we carry is Jewish. It is our job to understand that and communicate it cross-culturally wherever we are. We take this Hebrew story and live it out in Western Pennsylvania, Hollywood, San Diego, North Carolina, New Hampshire, Texas, Britain, and back in Israel.
4. We speak it to the people around us, the people we know, the people we encounter. Very few of us may be called preach on a street corner. More likely, we will have quiet moments with friends, family, coworkers to share our personal testimonies. Some of you have shared your personal stories with me during this trip. Tell those stories. As Revelation says, we overcome this world by the blood of the Lamb and the word of our testimony.
5. The work is slow, it ebbs and flows, but the word of God does not return void. Paul comes to Greece around AD 50. Not quite 2,000 years later, nearly 90 percent of Greece is Christianized. Yet, as we've toured, we’ve touched on how that number has gone up and down as different groups were in power. Persevere, hold fast even when you see Islam growing, secularism dominating. Our job is to live our faith faithfully, to persevere even when we think like Elijah that we are the only one who believes. 

We are nobodies who carry the good news of Yeshua Messiah to the nations. Let us tell our stories to those who will hear. Let us hold fast to Jesus, our faith, and each other even when darkness increases.

Thank you, Jesus, for the call to imitate Paul even as he imitated you. 

Let us pray. 

O God, by the preaching of your apostle Paul you have caused the light of the Gospel to shine throughout the world: We pray you to illumine the world with the radiance of your glory, that all nations may come and worship you; and that we may show ourselves thankful to you by following his holy teaching; through Yeshua the Messiah our Lord, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Reach out to shoresh@cmj-israel.org or info@cmj-usa.org for more about Shoresh Study Tours in Israel, Greece, and more.