Sunday, October 6, 2024 AM

The Good God Revealed in Athens

Father, we do thank you for the reminders we've had today and the reading of your Word and our prayers and our singing of how good you are. All the reasons why we adore you and trust you and direct our prayers to you is all because of your Son, Jesus Christ, and your glory that is manifested through him by your Spirit.

To us.

So we thank you for your grace in our lives, and I pray that this grace would redound to you as glory today as we worship you, as we respond to the truth of your Word, that you would help us as you bring your Word to our lives, as you, our Heavenly Father, speak of your Son by your Spirit in this Scripture, that there would be by your grace a resounding amen in our lives, that we would respond, that you would form Christ in us.

We pray these things in his name.

Amen.

Paul’s Sermon at the Areopagus

I invite you to open your Bibles and turn with me to Acts 17, and we'll be reading verses 22 through 34, Acts 17, verses 22 through 34. Here in Acts 17, we've had some brief encouragements concerning the good book and the good fight, and the Lord wills we're going to take an extended look at the good God, the good God that Paul proclaims in Athens and everywhere else he goes as part of his good fight, preaching from the good book.

Throughout the book of Acts, we encounter really terrible gods, bad gods everywhere. We read about Elemas the sorcerer on the island of Cyprus. He was in the capital city of Paphos, and he had the ear of the Roman pro-council, and he was trying to shut Paul and Barnabas down, didn't want the pro-council to know anything, so Elemas was there trying to keep the Roman governor from hearing the good news.

And Paul said, be quiet, you son of the devil. He was blinded, and the Roman pro-council believed. And when they went up to Galatia, they came to the city of Lystra, and there they encountered the priest of Zeus.

And when Paul and Barnabas healed a lame man, they thought, oh, we've got the gods among us. And so they began to rile everybody up in the city to make sacrifices to them, and they were so amazed. And then when Paul and Silas got to Philippi, they found a young girl there possessed by a demon from the cults, and they were using her for divination.

What awful gods there were. Everywhere Paul went trying to preach the gospel, bad God after bad God after bad God. Of course, it's true that the human heart is an idle factory, that God having made us in His image, we sinfully return the favor and make God out to be in our image, the way that we would be comfortable with Him and the way we would have Him.

Idolatry is always a danger that we must be aware of. But what sinful people need, what wretched man needs, is quite simply the good God. Not more bad gods, not new varieties of bad gods, but we need the good God, the one who made us.

And this is the good God whom Paul proclaims to these idolaters in Athens. I invite you to stand with me as we read God's holy word, Acts 17, beginning in verse 22. This is the word of the Lord by His Holy Spirit through His servant Luke.

"'Then Paul stood in the midst of the Oropagus and said, "'Men of Athens, I perceive that in all things you are very religious, for as I was passing through and considering the objects of your worship, I even found an altar with this inscription, "'To the unknown.

God.'.

"'Therefore, the one whom you worship without knowledge, without knowing, Him I proclaim to you, God, who made the world and everything in it, since He is the Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands, nor is He worshiped with men's hands as though He needed anything, since He gives to all life, breath, and all things.

He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their pre-appointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings, so that they should seek the Lord in the hope that 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 have our being.

As also some of your own poets have said, for we are also His offspring. Therefore, since we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the divine nature is like gold or silver or stone, something shaped by art and man's devising.

Truly these times of ignorance God overlooked, but now commands all men everywhere to repent, because He has appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by the man whom He has ordained.

He has given assurance of this to all by raising Him from the dead. And when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked, while others said, we will hear you again on this matter. So Paul departed from among them.

However, some men joined him and believed. Among them Dionysius the Aropagite, a woman named Damaris, and others with him. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. You may be seated. Fifty years ago, in the 1973 preface of Knowing God, J .I. Packer wrote that ignorance of God results in two trends among the saints.

Ignorance of God in the church. Ignorance of God amongst Christians. Not knowing God well enough results in two trends among the saints. He wrote this 50 years ago. I don't think these trends have changed.

One, that Christian minds have been conformed to the modern spirit, and that Christian minds have been confused by the modern skepticism. And if we were to do a survey, and many have already done a survey, of the current state of theology, the current state of Christian belief in our world today, we would find many conformed to the modern spirit and many confused by the modern skepticism.

So the need of men 50 years ago is still the same need of men today. The nature of man has not been changed by the invention of the Internet. We are still as needy and fragile and ignorant today as we were 50 years ago.

The new gods are still bad. What we need is the good God. This makes biblical sense that those who are made in the image of God need to know.

God.

That our number one need, having been made in the image of God, is to know God. The very first thing God did after He breathed the breath of life into Adam is to speak to him, to talk to him. So those made in the image of God need the word of God so that they may know God.

We need to know God. If we do know God, if we do know the good God, then we ought to worship Him. We ought to serve Him. We ought to proclaim Him. We ought to love Him. We ought to fear the good God. The fear of the Lord, thinking of Him first, thinking of Him most, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, the beginning of knowledge, the beginning of understanding, the fear of the Lord, to know Him, to think upon Him, to consider Him above all else.

This is understanding. This is life and breath. This is health to the bones. To fear the Lord is to depart from evil. This is life. This is life. Jesus Christ faithfully reveals to us the good God. So Paul comes to Athens, a city full of really bad gods, and he proclaims to them, Jesus Christ, Jesus of Nazareth, risen from the dead.

Why? Because this city full of bad gods, full of sinners made in the image of God need to know the good God, and they can only know Him through Jesus Christ, His person and work. Are we convinced of that?

Are we convinced that knowing God is truly life? Jesus in His high priestly prayer in John 17 spoke these words. He lifted His eyes to heaven and said, Your Father, the hour has come. Glorify Your Son that Your Son may also glorify You.

As You have given Him authority over all flesh, a thing Paul is going to pick up in Acts 17. As You have given Him authority over all flesh, that, notice the purpose, He should give eternal life to as many as You have given Him.

What is that eternal life? Verse 3, Jesus says,. And this is eternal life, that they may know You, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom You have sent. That's eternal life.

That's life.

And those made in the image of God need to know God, and that's life. And we only know God through Jesus Christ, the Son. So Paul, what else is he going to do? Here in Athens, we've already looked at the good fight.

Paul comes to Athens. His spirit is grieved.

He is upset.

He is angry. He is bothered deeply by all of the idolatry that he sees in the city. This city is given over to idols. What else is he to do? When faced with insidious idolatry, this pragmatic pluralism, this destructive demonarchy of Athens, he says, let me tell you about the good God.

Let me tell you about the true God. Let me tell you about the only God who is bountifully God, truly God, who is gloriously.

God.

And that's what we're going to look at in this pinnacle passage in the book of Acts. What a vitally important sermon that Paul preaches here at Mars Hill, at the Aeropagus, at the Oxford University of the ancient world, where all the thought leaders gathered.

Here is, if the ancient Near East had an internet, it was the Roman road, and if there was a Google, it's the Aeropagus. And Paul is showing up and using terms that give no results on the search engine, and they have no idea what to do with Paul.

The gods are bad, and they need to know the one true God. As we work our way through this passage, the very first thing that we're going to see is that the good God is revealed, revealed. We're not saying discovered, we're not saying deduced, we're not saying divined, we're saying revealed.

The good God is revealed, and it will see in future opportunities that this good God is self-sufficient, this good God is sovereign, this good God is Savior, this good God is spirit, and this good God is righteous.

So let's begin with the very first point, the good God is revealed. Listen to verses 22 and 23 again with me. Then Paul stood in the midst of the Aeropagus and said, men of Athens, I perceive that you are very religious, that in all things you are very religious.

For as I was passing through and considering the various objects of your worship, I even found this altar with this inscription, to the unknown God, therefore the one whom you worship without knowing Him, I proclaim to you.

It's important that we, I think, slow down a little bit and appreciate the richness of this message. I've often said that Acts is the second most abused book in the New Testament, Revelation being number one.

But the book of Acts gets taken up in its beautiful historical narrative and used for all manner of justifications to say this or say that and to back up various ministerial.

Philosophies.

But I would have us focus, first of all, on Paul's moment. Here is his moment to proclaim Christ, to confess Christ before all men and to say what God has said, to bring the word that God would have him say.

Not that he would seek to please men, not that he would seek to say things in a way that would be appealing, but that he would be faithful to the message that was entrusted.

To him.

After all, when Ananias first was told to go see Saul of Tarsus and to pray for him and to lay hands on him, Ananias protested against the word of the Lord and said, no, do you understand this man, he's been killing your servants.

He is violently opposed to the gospel. And Jesus tells Ananias, go, he's a chosen vessel of mine, to proclaim my name before the Gentiles and the Jews and many people, and he will suffer great things for my namesake.

This is Paul's moment. This is what he does, and he stands in the midst of the Europagus. Luke uses the exact same word down to the last accent and spelling as he did for Peter on the day of Pentecost.

As Peter stood on the day of Pentecost and preached the gospel of Jesus Christ to these Jews of the Diaspora who have gathered back to Jerusalem as they hear the gospel being preached to them in their own heart languages by the gift of the Holy Spirit.

So also Paul stands here in Athens to confess Christ, to preach the gospel, to preach the one true God. Here he stands. He can do no other. That he stands in the midst of the Europagus does not mean that he's standing in the middle of a mountain.

It's not so much a geographical or geological statement as it is one of a sociological statement. He's standing in the middle of a forum known as the Europagus. This is where the Epicureans and the Stoics, the Athenians, and all who visited this university town came to make all of their discussions public and to push and pull against the various latest best ideas.

He stands in the midst of people. Later on we hear that there was one Arapagite, Dionysius, who followed Paul. One of these Arapagus men followed Paul.

Just one.

Out of all the various philosophers, out of all the various thought leaders, there was one Arapagite. But as Paul stands, he stands in the midst of many such Arapagites that make up the Europagus. And he is speaking to men made in the image of God who do not know the true God.

And they have gathered together. These who's who of Athens have gathered together. They've already mocked Paul. They're ready to deride him further. They've called him a seed picker, a bird brain, a lunatic who would propose new gods to of all people, the Athenians who know all the gods.

This is Paul's moment. And before we observe Paul's method as he conducts himself as wise as a serpent and harmless as a dove, we ought to give some thought to his means, meaning by what power and by what authority does Paul stand as a sheep in the midst of wolves?

This is important to us as the saints. By what power, by what authority do we stand as the followers of Jesus Christ in the midst of all these many bad gods of our pluralistic society? What right do we have to speak into the public forum of whatever it is and say, oh, I'm so very sorry, but you're wrong.

And what I'm saying to you is right. What you're saying is untrue, but what I tell you here today is true. By what right do we stand and say such things? By what power do we stand and say such things?

Paul does not come in his cleverness. He does not come in his rhetorical ability. He does not take on the mannerisms of the Oropagus and play their game to convince them of the truth. We know that because not very long after he stands at the Oropagus in Athens, he goes to Corinth, and he continues the very same ministry he had in Athens, but he does so in Corinth, which, if you can believe it, is even more of a pluralistic town than even.

Athens.

And in 1 Corinthians 1, in verses 17 through 19, Paul says this, for Christ did not send me to baptize. It's not a bad thing. It's what you do when you are in a local church and you're planted somewhere.

Paul wasn't very planted. He was just on the move. Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel, not with wisdom of words. I mean, the translations will have cleverness as the translation there.

Not with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be made of no effect. You see what he does there? If you add cleverness to the gospel, you take away from the gospel. You add men's wisdom to the gospel, you actually take the power of the gospel away.

But the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing. Very often great concern for the perishing may put a catch in our heart that I don't want this perishing person to perish, and so I won't tell them the gospel because they're going to find it offensive and foolish and ridiculous, and it will push them farther away, more into the realm of perishing than they are now.

No, brothers and sisters, because they are perishing, that's why the gospel seems foolish.

To them.

But to us who are being saved, it is the power of God. Well, how can someone go from perishing to being saved? That's the power of God. Who is sufficient for these things? Well, then who can be saved?

With man, these things are impossible, but with God, all things are possible. Verse 19, the word is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent.

So Paul is not standing in Athens, and he's not going to Corinth in the wisdom of men. He's going and preaching the gospel, Jesus Christ, Him crucified and risen again, and he knows it's foolishness to them.

But there's no other message to bring. He says the same in 1 Corinthians 2, verses 1 through 5, and I, brethren, when I came to you... So he came to Corinth after being at Athens, I, brethren, when I came to you did not come with excellence of speech or of wisdom declaring to you the testimony of God, for I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified.

I was with you in weakness, in fear, and in much trembling. In my speech, in my preaching, were not with persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the spirit and of power that, here's the purpose, so that your faith should not be in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.

Paul stands in Europagus, he stands at Mars Hill, he stands among the who's who of the philosophers of his day, and they point at him and they mock him and they jeer him and they say, you don't have any of our wisdom.

And he says, you're right, I don't need any of your bad gods. What has caught the attention of the who's who of Athens, what has caught the attention of the Epicureans and the Stoics is that Paul is preaching Jesus and the resurrection.

He's been doing that in the synagogue, he's been doing that in the marketplace, he's been doing that all day to everyone, everywhere. We've looked at that in verse 18 of Acts 17. And so that has grabbed their attention.

They say, this is something strange. They use the Greek word that in the English becomes zany. You're preaching zany things. And we want you to come up here and say to everybody else, this will be a good entertainment.

Now he goes up Mars Hill, now he goes to the Europagus. Will he now cease what he's been doing in the marketplace? Will he now change his message that he has been preaching in the synagogue? Will he stop preaching Jesus and the resurrection?

Will he stop preaching biblical truths? Will he stop using biblical authority now? God forbid. I bring this up because this is a passage in Acts that many commentators and ministry leaders seize upon and say, this is proof positive that Paul did not use the Bible to preach to those who had no biblical background.

This is a model, and this is prescriptive for us that when we deal with people who don't have a Christian background, a biblical background, that we would not use the Bible in our evangelization of them.

That if they are people of science, we'll use science to convince them. If there are people of deep morality, we will use morality to convince them. If they're a person who values rationalism, we'll use rational thought to capture their affections for Jesus.

But we won't use the Bible as an authority when preaching to them and speaking to them, because if we do, they won't recognize the Bible as authoritative and they'll reject the entire message as being foolish, saying that's not my authority.

But is that what happens in this text? Also, the same crowd that would say that this is how we are to evangelize, to not use the Bible, we'll also cite Acts 14 and Paul's time in Lystra as an example where it was overrun with the worship of pagan gods as well.

But when we went through Acts chapter 14, verses 11 through 18, we find that Paul clearly proclaims truths to those pagans, to those worshipers of Zeus, which can only be derived from Genesis 1 and 9 and 10 and 11.

He doesn't pretend like they are Abraham's children who are very interested in circumcision and the laws of Moses. He doesn't pretend like they're interested in those things, but he does preach to them Bible because they are the sons and daughters of Adam.

And they did descend from Noah and they still were made in the image of God and God is their creator and they are accountable to him and they wear his uniform every day and they break that uniform code every day and they're under the wrath of God every day.

And so he preaches to them Bible. And the following passage, when we spend some time in coming weeks as the Lord wills and we go through verses 24 through 31, as we look at Luke's synopsis of Paul's sermon, we're going to find that this sermon is built upon specially revealed truths of God that can only be found in 30 different Old Testament passages.

This is an amazingly biblical sermon. I want us to see that Paul's means for declaring the good God in this good fight remains the spirit-empowered truth of the good book. And then what happens at the beginning of Acts 17 and at the end of Acts 17 is coherent, it goes together.

And notice Paul's method in verse 22 and 23, Then Paul stood in the midst of the Europagus and said, Men of Athens, I perceive that in all things you are very religious. For as I was passing through and considering the objects of your worship, I even found an altar with this inscription, To the unknown God, therefore, the one whom you worship without knowing Him, I proclaim to you.

Paul's method is polite, but it's also to the point. He doesn't deal with false praise. That's not what he means by calling them very religious. We'll talk about that in a moment. He's not dealing with false praise and he's also not compromising the uniqueness of God.

Paul is not a pragmatist. He is not a pluralist. He is not a politician. He is a preacher. And so his method is one of proclamation. He is a herald. He doesn't come to be a persuasive philosopher. He comes as the herald of the king.

I'm not coming to convince you that Jesus Christ is king. I'm coming to announce to you there's a new king of the universe and his name is Jesus Christ of Nazareth. And that's the proclamation, the word he uses for proclaim is the word for being a herald.

I'm just bringing you news. Now, it's good news, but I'm bringing you news. I'm not selling you on an idea. I'm not recruiting you to a movement. I'm telling you news. Paul says him, I proclaim to you the one you worship, and that is in quotations without knowing you whom you worship, without knowing him, I proclaim to you.

That's his method. Him, I proclaim to you who the good God, the one revealed by Jesus Christ and the one who was revealed by Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, him, the good God. That's the one I proclaim to you.

The only God, the one who is bountifully God, truly God, only God, gloriously God, him I proclaim to you. And he begins by making an observation, I perceive that you're very religious. That's not a compliment, but it's also not necessarily an accusation.

It's a wonderful turn of phrase that leaves them wondering, I wonder what he means. It does grab their attention, but what he means is going to be made very clear. Now, when he says, I perceive that you're very religious, he's making a statement of fact, one that is so obvious, one wonders the need to even say it.

Paul says it because it needed to be said, and it needed to be said in such a way that the men of Athens would then take a hard look at the absurdity of their own belief.

System.

The word Paul uses when he says, I perceive that you're very religious, the word that he uses is 19 Greek letters long, drops a $20 word in the middle of people who were accustomed to $20 words. And it sounds like this, Deisidaemon esteros, the middle two syllables, daemon is the Greek word for demon.

And the term is in its intensified form. So it's like, I perceive that you're uber religious. And older translations actually render this word, I perceive that you are too, T-O-O, too superstitious.

And the term could be taken either way. It was used both ways in the ancients, among the ancients. So it's possibly a good thing that they're uber religious. Perhaps he means that they are very devout and possibly means that it's a bad thing because they're so obsessed with superstitions.

When Luther and Wycliffe and Calvin all translated this term, they translated this term as vain worshipers because they saw the middle part of that word was daemon. You're worshiping daemons, that's what you're doing.

Paul later on says that in 1 Corinthians. He says that the worship of idols is the worship of daemons, bad gods indeed. When Paul says, I perceive that you are very religious or uber religious, at the moment they're not really sure what he means by that.

Is he saying that we're bad or that we're good? But he makes his meaning clear when he says to them, you're ignorant. I perceive you're very religious, but you're also very ignorant. Because he says, when I'm passing through your uber religious city, I find the shrine you see upon which has been inscribed the following words to the unknown God.

And so this one that you honor and venerate, supposedly, I'm going to tell you about who he is because you don't know who he is. When he says the objects of your worship, he he refers to those shrines and those areas that are are set up as gods.

There's 30 ,000 shrines in Athens. 30 ,000 shrines in Athens, those are the public ones, not even the private ones. And so somewhere along the way of Paul making his way through Athens, providentially, God brings him to this shrine that says to the unknown God.

And although our English translations have the noun inscription, it's actually a very rare, strange Greek verb. And you can translate it this way, upon which had been inscribed. To the unknown God. The Greek construction means this is a past completed action that has no ongoing result.

There's another great construction that is the most beautiful one. It's a past completed action with an ongoing result. Christ has died upon the cross for our sins and he is raised from dead the third day and the ongoing result is that we are saved and brought to the face of God in righteousness.

That's a wonderful construction. But in this particular Greek verb, this is a past completed action that has no ongoing result. The way Paul is pointing out, he's saying this shrine had been made, this shrine had been dedicated and this shrine had been forgotten and fell into disuse a long time ago.

I found a forgotten shrine that you made to an unknown God. And of course, you're very religious and you honor all your shrines, you worship at all your shrines, I'm sure. But there's a story here. There's a story here.

Epimenides was a religious forefather to the rampant idolatry in Athens. And Paul is about to quote Epimenides in verse 28. But there's a story here about this ancient Greek scam artist. The great historian of Greek philosophers, Diogenes Laetrus, records the following story about Athens.

He writes, Hence, when the Athenians were attacked by a pestilence and the Pythian priestess, remember the young lady in Philippi? Luke wrote she had a python spirit because she had visited the cult of Ophir and she had been possessed by a demon.

One of those, one of those belly talkers, one of those snake people. And the Pythian priestess bade them, bade the Athenians to purify the city. So they sent a ship commanded by Messias to Crete to ask the help of Epimenides.

So they went to Crete to go get Epimenides. They had to go get a Cretan to help them out. Paul will quote him as well in the book of Titus. So they went to go get Epimenides and said, we need you to come cure Athens.

And so he came out to purify their city and he stopped the pestilence in the following way. He took sheep, some black, some white, and brought them to the Oropagus, right, where Paul is now standing. And there he let them go, whether they pleased, instructing those who followed them to mark the spot where each sheep lay down.

In a city with many shrines, these sheep are just going to stop at some point in the closest shrine will indicate where you offer these sheep as the sacrifice, because apparently those are the gods that are angry with Athens.

And that's why you have the plague. Unfortunately, at that time, there was still a little bit of real estate in the city that had no shrine, and then the sheep lay down in that area and they say, well, which god is this?

And they didn't know. So they made a shrine to the unknown god. And offered the sacrifice there as they sought to do whatever they could with all the wisdom they had to stop the pestilence that was upon them, it was very safe and.

Effective. So.

It was reported by the ancients from that point on that there were altars to unknown gods in Athens. So Paul, as he's preaching, points to an old forgotten shrine, and he does not pretend like they're actively worshiping at the shrine.

He uses a very weak word for worship. He says, you honor and you venerate this unknown god. You worship in ignorance, agnuntes, you honor the unknown, the agnosto, we get a word agnostic, so you don't know who this god is.

He says, you are very religious, the term he uses for religious is uber, the term he uses for worship is very weak, and the term he uses for ignorance is repeated, and that's what he's emphasizing, you're ignorant.

He says this to the philosophers of the day, the ones with the double PhDs, the ones with all the honor. He says to them, you are ignorant. He's not sanctifying their ignorance. He's saying, you need to know the good God.

Now, we may pat ourselves on the back and say, we are not ignorant, we know we're not ignorant, but the truth of the matter is that unless the good God reveals himself to us through Christ, by his spirit, in his word, we are ignorant.

We are ignorant, too. Now, we need to know the true God, the good God, but the good God is revealed, he is revealed, he's not randomly discovered in the manner that Paul encountered the shrine. The good God is not deduced through long argumentation and rhetoric that long sounded from the Oropagus.

He is not divined through witchcraft and superstition, such as Epimenides tried to use to quell a plague. I listened to a very interesting pseudo church service the other day on the podcast, two and a half hours on the Tucker Carlson podcast because he had John Rich and Russell Brand on.

And here's what happened. The regulative principle of worship from First Corinthians 14 was observed. And each one, in turn, gave their sermon in order, and they even sang country Western songs together as their hymns, and then they were blessed and departed with prayer.

It was a straight up church service, and the people there were just happy to be there. But Tucker Carlson got up and he preached his sermon about how because we know truth by our innate instincts. Now, all men, everybody knows what the truth is because of our own innate instincts.

He talked about God and he talked about a lot of things, but that's what his claim was. Russell Brand came out, he preached his sermon and he talked about God being the spirit within all men rising unto goodness.

OK.

Thank you for that Protestant liberal throwback. And Russell Brand made fun of John Rich because John Rich kept on going around to everybody and saying, you're not Christian enough, you're not Christian enough, because John Rich was saying, told right after Tucker got finished, he said, no, you don't know truth by your nature, by your instincts.

You have to know the truth by the Bible. You have to know the truth by the Bible. What does God say in his word? That was very interesting, three sermons, three sermons for our age. The truth of God, the truth of God will be idolatrous when we rely on bad gods.

What the Athenians need, what our current populism needs, what our current world needs, what men need, what you and I need, we need the good God to reveal himself to us. That we would know him through Jesus Christ.

And so Paul declares him by preaching Jesus in the resurrection. When Jesus dealt with the Samaritan woman, she said, you know, you Jews say we have to worship on that mountain, we Samaritans say we worship on this mountain.

And Jesus said, no. Thank you for bringing up both sides of the issue, the answer is no, it's neither one. It's not a middle way, it's not a third way, it's the only way. God is spirit and he must be worshiped in spirit and in truth.

She said, well, I know when Messiah gets here, he'll tell us all things. He says, I'm here. I'm here. So the Samaritan woman would know who God is. She needed the good God. She didn't need another husband.

She didn't need another man. She didn't need another bad God. She needed to know the one true God who had made her in his image. And Jesus revealed that good God to her. Jesus prayed in Matthew 11, he said, I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth.