Always Ready: The Encounter With Athens Acts 17

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OK, we've concluded all five sections of the book.

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So now we're looking at the appendix, the encounter of Jerusalem with Athens.

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And I'm going to talk a little bit about the introduction that Greg Bonson gives.

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This is a quotation from Tertullian. What indeed has

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Athens to do with Jerusalem? What concord is there between the academy and the church?

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Our instructions come from the porch of Solomon, away with all attempts to produce a modeled

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Christianity of stoic, platonic, and dialectic composition. We want no curious disputation after professing

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Christ Jesus. Strong statement. Got to see the follow -up, though.

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So said Tertullian in his prescription against heretics. Tertullian's question, what does

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Athens have to do with Jerusalem, dramatically expresses one of the perennial issues in Christian thought, a problem which cannot be escaped by any biblical interpreter, theologian, or apologist.

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We all operate on the basis of some answer to that question, whether we give it explicit and thoughtful attention or not.

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It's not a matter of whether we will answer the question, but only how well we will do so.

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All right, you see what Bonson's saying there? What are some of the different meanings, or what are some of the different answers to Tertullian's question?

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What has Athens to do with Jerusalem? What are some of the answers the church gives?

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If not overt answers, where you've heard somebody say it, but in practice. And that's what

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Bonson is getting at here. He says, it's not a matter of whether you answer it or not, because you're going to answer it in how you approach apologetics.

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So what are some of the ways in which the church has responded to that question? Oh, by the way, it's good that I'm getting you thinking already, because you're going to do most of the work tonight, not me.

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And if I don't get hands, I'm going to start calling on people. So lock the door,

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Shane. So there's the first.

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This is an easy question. They get harder as we go along. How has the church answered that question?

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And the answer is not always the same. Go ahead, Mike. I just want to ask a clarifying question.

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When they mean Athens, is it the city of Athens? Oh, yeah. OK, I'm sorry. It's a metaphor.

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He's using a metaphor. In other words, secular thought versus Christian thought.

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Jerusalem being the seat of Christianity, Athens being the seat of secularity.

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I think one is subjected to the other. This is God's world. God set up Jerusalem, so to speak, his kingdom.

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So even though the Gentiles are apart from the law of God, they're still accountable to things of God.

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Mm -hmm. OK. You're talking about philosophy? I'm sorry. No. Like philosophy? Yeah.

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In other words, how does the Christian church approach this somewhat of, you could even say, a dilemma?

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Some Christians totally reject philosophy and stuff like that. They'll try to use a verse to say, oh,

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God doesn't want us being a part of it. And other people, though, will understand. I think C .S. Lewis had a quote.

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I think it's slightly different. But he was talking about the arts. You're going to do something to read.

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You're going to read something. You're going to entertain something. So do it right. So basically, the biblical position would be to, like what

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Michael was saying, put everything under the feet of Christ. Because, you know, this is God's world. And there's truth. So you align it with scripture.

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But you want to think well. So use what's best. Does that make sense? You left me before that.

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Just maybe. I was going to say that one of the stances that specifically the dispensational was to withdraw the church from the world.

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That was one of the ideas. Yeah. One approach has been, we want nothing to do with philosophy, with secular thought whatsoever.

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We want nothing to do with it. And we should only be concerned with Christian thought.

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It's epitomized by people. I have a good friend. I haven't seen him in years now. He moved off Long Island.

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Would read no book other than the Bible. That's all he would read.

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He said, that's all I need. It's me and the spirit. And that's it. I don't want to read anything to do with philosophy.

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And others answer the question in this way. Well, we need both.

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And so I'm going to give as much weight to the secular. I can learn from the Platonic, the

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Socratic method and think as I can from Christianity.

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And they take an eclectic version. And they meld the two. It's not what we believe.

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Sarah said it pretty accurately. What we look at is there is something to learn because God is

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Lord over all of history. And how history has responded to the

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Lord can be instructive for us. For example,

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I'm actually moving a little bit into the sermon for Sunday. So you're going to hear it twice.

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Nebuchadnezzar is the most powerful ruler alive at his time. God gives him the vision as to how the world is going to play out.

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Think about that. He doesn't give it to Joachim, the king of Israel.

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He gives it to Nebuchadnezzar. How about when Joseph is the number two ruler in Egypt?

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Who does God give the vision to of the fat and the lean? Pharaoh.

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OK. So it's not a biblical position to say that the secular rulers, we have nothing to do with them.

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Quite the contrary. The key is making sure that the Lord is the

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Lord of all, as Michael put down. Everything else is subject to it.

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And so if we want to read Plato and you want to understand Aristotle, have to look at it in light of what the scripture teaches.

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OK. So that's good. All right. So now we got the idea.

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So what we're going to do now is we're going to look at Paul's sermon on Mars Hill at the

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Areopagus. And I thought it would be helpful, since it was Bonson's idea anyway,

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I thought it would be helpful to get a little bit of background going into this sermon.

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Because this sermon on Mars Hill has so many different critics.

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And you would be amazed to listen to what so many theologians, how the difference of opinions they are.

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Some of them say it's Paul. It's not Paul at his finest. It's not a very good sermon.

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It's not a very good apologetic. Obviously, we disagree with that.

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And we think that this is a perfect illustration of presuppositional apologetics.

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So but we need to understand the background going in. So just a few words of background.

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Paul. Remember, Paul was a citizen of Tarsus, the leading city in Cilicia, which was a center for learning, which should not surprise us.

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We understand that the apostle Paul, they figure he had the equivalent of about three doctoral degrees.

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In addition to general education, Tarsus was noted for its schools devoted to rhetoric and philosophy.

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And some of its philosophers gained significant reputations. Among them,

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Zeno, Antipater, Heraclitus, and Athenodorus, and Nestor, just to name a few.

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In the appendix in the book, Bonson goes into this in much more depth.

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So if you want to follow through with it, you can always do that. Paul would have been very familiar with the teaching of all of these

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Greek philosophers because he was a student of Gamaliel in Jerusalem.

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And his course of study under Gamaliel would have included courses in Greek culture and philosophy.

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In the debate between Jerusalem and Athens, all right, that's

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Christianity versus the secular thought, Paul was the perfect representative for Jerusalem because he knew the opposing side and he knew it well.

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And remember, Paul, right after his sermon in Mars Hill, he goes to Corinth where he winds up saying,

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I have decided to preach nothing but the cross, Jesus and the cross, and him crucified.

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So he never changes, never wavers on that idea.

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But he obviously is looking at defending the faith while he's at Mars Hill.

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All right, the background of Athens. Athens is the philosophical center of the ancient world, was renowned for its four major schools, the

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Academy of Plato, the Lyceum of Aristotle, the

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Garden of Epicurus, and the Painted Porch of Zeno. Now, again, I'm just mentioning these.

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We're not going to get into what they are. But notice four schools of philosophy.

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Did these four schools of philosophy, were they all consistent with one another? Hardly, hardly.

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Even just between Plato and Aristotle, the difference is remarkable.

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So here you have the leading teachers and proponents of these schools of thought, and they all disagree with each other.

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The Platonic tradition is remembered for the view that man's soul is imprisoned in the body and that death man is healed as his soul is released from its tomb.

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Interesting, huh? How'd you like to live with that as your ultimate thought? In Paul's day,

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Athenian intellectual life had come to be characterized by turmoil and uncertainty. Because you have all of these competing schools of philosophy, there was no centralized thought.

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Skepticism had made heavy inroads, which in turn fostered various reactions. Notably, interaction between the major schools of thought, widespread eclecticism, widespread eclecticism.

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People were trying to incorporate the various schools into one thought, which never works.

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Nostalgic interest in the past founders of the school. This is where you find them constantly referring back to the founder of this school and this one, etc.

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Religious mysticism and resignation to hedonism. Men were turning every which way in search for the truth and for security and finding none.

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On the other hand, over 400 years of philosophical dispute with its conflicts, repetitions, and inadequacies had left many

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Athenians bored and thirsty for novel schemes of thought. Keep that in mind so you can understand

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Luke's accurate and insightful aside to the readers in Acts 17 .21. Now all the

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Athenians and the strangers sojourning there spent time in nothing else but either to tell or to hear some new thing.

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Earlier, Demosthenes had reproached the Athenians for being consumed with a craving for fresh news.

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Who knows who Demosthenes was? Nobody? So if I ask you what he was really noted for, he was an orator.

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He's considered to be one of the greatest orators in Greek history. But he had a speech impediment.

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And he did something very unique to overcome his speech impediment. Huh? I'm missing something.

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Okay. He's practiced his speeches by putting pebbles in his mouth and then speaking to try to overcome his speech impediment.

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You guys haven't learned? You didn't learn that in school? You guys went to public school, didn't you?

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Okay. The Greek historian

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Thucydides tells us that Cleon once declared... Now this is Cleon speaking to the

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Greeks. You are the best people for being deceived by something new which is said. Isn't it amazing how our culture, especially in the academies and the universities, fawn over the

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Greeks? And yet look at what the contemporaries of the Greeks were even saying. They were confused, skeptics, innovators, and being deceived by something new, anything new.

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They would believe the newest fad that would come along. All right.

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So now with this background, let us examine Paul's apologetic to secular intellectuals.

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And here's how I've decided to do this. We're going to break it into just two parts.

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But instead of me spouting everything off, I want you to put into practice what you've learned in the class by reading the book.

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So we're going to look at... Remember the criticism is that Paul strayed too far from biblical truth and didn't stop using the presuppositional method, stopped using the scripture as his foundation.

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That's the criticism that's leveled. So as we go through verse by verse,

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I want you to come up and do the exposition. So we're looking at Acts 17.

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Now while Paul was waiting for them at Athens, his spirit was being provoked within him as he was observing the city full of idols.

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All right. Remember who Paul was waiting for? He was waiting for Timothy and Silas.

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And he was told to wait for them. They were going to meet him. Meanwhile, he's sojourning.

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So he's kind of on a little break. Paul has a couple of days off from his missionary journey.

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And he's walking around Athens. Now it's interesting what happens when we visit

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Greece today. What do most tourists do in Greece, in Athens?

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Visit the ruins, take a lot of pictures of them, talk about their beauty.

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Now imagine Paul is there when they're in their heyday. And what is he looking at?

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The beauty of these structures? He's looking at the false worship.

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And he was observing the city full of idols. He realized that even the Parthenon, each column stood for something.

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All right. So that's what Paul sees. So right off the beginning, we see Paul, he's on a little bit of a break.

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And he's looking at Athens, and his spirit is provoked. He's looking at this can't keep quiet.

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Okay. This is what I want you guys to do in the future.

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So he was reasoning in the synagogue with the Jews and the God -fearing Gentiles and in the marketplace every day with those who happened to be present.

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Notice again Paul still follows remember the command of our

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Lord, the Gospels to go to the Jew first and also to the Greek. Notice what's the first place

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Paul goes to? Goes to the synagogue. All right. And he's reasoning in the synagogue with the

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Jews and also the God -fearing Gentiles. Those would be having been Jewish Gentile converts to Judaism.

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Okay. And chances are they haven't even heard the full

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Gospel at this point. This might be their first time hearing it or even if they have heard it before you can pretty much guarantee that their worship is riddled with secular philosophy interfering with it.

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Okay. So far so good, right? We see Paul, he's right on target being typically the apostle

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Paul. And also some of the

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Epicurean and Stoic philosophers who were conversing with him. Some were saying what would this idle babbler wish to say?

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Others he seems to be a proclaimer of strange deities because he was preaching Jesus and the resurrection.

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All right. Go ahead. What do you see? Is Paul being true to his calling?

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Is he compromising here? What's he doing? He's standing on the Word. Standing on the

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Word. So he's preaching from the Old Testament. He's using proof text from the

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Old Testament to testify to Christ and his resurrection.

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What else? Well, he was giving them the

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Gospel right then and there. He was preaching Jesus and the resurrection.

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I don't think he can get more Gospel based than that. And this is before he's brought before the council.

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This is when he's talking in the marketplace just casually. Notice I call this the encounter.

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This is what's leading up to his sermon. So no, what do we see here?

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He's conversing with people. He's going down to Port Jeff station and singing the

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Gospel. That's what he's doing. But he's doing it in Athens. All right. And you can see that because what's the response?

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What would this idle babbler wish to say? Others he seems to be a proclaimer of strange deities.

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Well, it would be a strange deity. I mean, if he's preaching Jesus and the resurrection, he's preaching that Jesus is

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God. He was raised from the dead. Right? Okay.

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Continue. And they took him and brought him to the Areopagus saying may we know what this new teaching is which you are proclaiming.

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Now the Areopagus just a couple of words about that. The Areopagus that means technically means the hill of Mars or the hill of Aries.

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Mars is what? Who is Mars? The God of war. Okay. And so this is the temple, the

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Areopagus. The Areopagus is where the council met.

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So there's full reason to believe that this was not just him Paul talking to people in the marketplace like he had been.

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Notice where it says they brought him. And in fact, some of the translators say it's almost like an arrest.

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Not quite. He was compelled to go to the Areopagus which is where the council members who were ruling the city, that's where they would be seated.

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Okay. And what were they saying? May we know what this new teaching is which you are proclaiming.

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So obviously Paul is not talking about Zeno, Aristotle, Plato or any of those such things because they would understand that.

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Anybody else want to comment on verse 19? That's the question you want people to ask you.

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Tell me. Okay. So far how is

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Paul standing up to what we've learned about presuppositional apologetics?

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Not bad, huh? Not bad for an apostle. And they continue.

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For you are bringing some strange news, some strange things to our ears. So we want to know what these things mean.

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Yeah. I mean one of the things that you want to evaluate when you're bringing the gospel message to see how you're doing.

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What comments does it elicit from the people you're giving the gospel to?

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And this obviously whatever Paul is saying you know they're saying strange things to our ears.

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And remember of course that this sermon is an abridged version. I mean this whole thing takes place over a longer period of time.

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We can read this in like five minutes. I mean he's in about we know he preached

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Jesus in the resurrection but it doesn't tell us what he preached. I mean we can imagine because we know what he preached other times.

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I think of also the verse where it says that the gospel is foolishness to the

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Greeks. Because it was so outside of what they knew or what they heard it's just completely bizarre what it would be like.

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Yeah. Excellent. And then this is one we looked at before.

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Now all the Athenians and the strangers visiting there used to spend their time in nothing other than telling or hearing something new.

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Paul was shrewd. Remember when Jesus sent out the disciples sending out sheep in the midst of wolves be shrewd as serpents and innocent as doves.

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Paul is being shrewd. He's putting the things out, the gospel knowing full well that the situation the climate in Athens is they're looking for something new.

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They want to hear it. So he's got somewhat of a captive audience.

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What do you think about verse 21? What do you think about verse 21 compared to our universities today?

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Oh, in that regard. There are indoctrination centers there's no discussion of that.

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They're not looking for anything new. Exactly. Right. So Paul stood in the midst of the

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Areopagus and said, men of Athens I observe you are very religious in all respects.

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Here's his opening. Tell us. We want to know. What is this new thing that you're talking about?

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And this is how he starts. Tell me about how he opens his dialogue.

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Respectful. I'd say he's being honest because it's gotten lost where people don't understand that even if they're not following Christ, they're religious.

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Everyone's religious. And it just matters whether you're worshipping truth or you're worshipping an idol. Everybody's religious, right?

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And the fact that that's how he starts, I think it's obviously intentional. Yeah. And remember one of the things we've been studying about the style of apologetics?

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What's one of the things? Not arrogant, not prideful, but respectful, gentle. And that's how he starts.

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Right away, men of Athens, I observe that you are very religious in all respects. Go ahead,

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Jake. I just wanted to also make note of the fact that with what we read in the book, he's outright declaring that there's no neutrality.

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He's not allowing any neutrality to be present. He's saying, you're not neutral.

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I'm not neutral. Now, based off that and then he goes on. Yeah.

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Absolutely. We know Paul was not neutral. The question is, some people try to make it sound like he was neutral in his sermon.

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Let's put that to the test. Yes. Yes. Yeah. For while I was passing through and examining the objects of your worship,

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I also found an altar with its inscription to an unknown God. Therefore, what you worship in ignorance, this

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I proclaim to you. Sure.

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He's taking something that they have in part of their worship to an unknown

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God. They're admitting that there's a God that they don't know. So he now teases them and I don't mean tease in a negative respect.

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He throws out the teaser. You know what you don't know? I can tell you about that.

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I know it. Go ahead, Michael. You know, being true to his word when he says to the

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Jew I became a Jew and to the Greek I became a Greek. So then, you know, not not compromising his beliefs but understanding about sovereignty in this time and place.

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Yeah. Yeah. PJ, I think of a lot of like pagan religions or other religions of the world there is certain kernels of the truth buried in a lot of those religions.

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And obviously it's completely warped and distorted but the kernels are there because God's truth of God is embedded into us.

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The people distort it. So I think for a modern, like taking those things and applying them and using them as well you, you know, like you worship the sun and the moon while God gave us the sun and the moon as symbols and using things like that is kind of what

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Paul is doing here. It's like an example of that. Absolutely. Oh, sorry.

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I like how he was observing them. He acknowledged that he's observing he knows his audience and I feel like rather than just approach someone in a certain way we should kind of like,

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I mean of course in Port Jeff we don't know people's lives like that but like in people's, you know, people that we interact with we should kind of like know where they come from and observe that and start to respond in that way.

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Yeah, and think about it. We may not know the individuals but we understand the climate of what's happening here on Long Island we know the vast the general attitude for people towards Christianity, towards God, etc.

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So we can adjust how we speak even on a street corner to Long Island which is going to be vastly different if we were to go down to you know, one of the southern states take

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Nashville, Tennessee you go down there on a street corner and start preaching the gospel you're going to get a lot of amen, yes,

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I'm not saying that they're all Christian, but they all know it's cultural Christianity down there, you know.

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Up here you preach the gospel and you tell people, do you know that Jesus Christ died for you?

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They say, I never heard that before. So we can adjust how we speak to the climate that we know here on Long Island.

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Okay, good point. The God who made the world and all things in it, since he is

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Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands. Is he compromising?

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No, he's laying the foundation. What do we say?

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What's one of the basic foundations that we've looked at in our apologetics?

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What is the main reason that we have disagreements with non -believers? Different presuppositions, how did we state it?

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Conflicting worldviews. And here he's coming out and who do they worship?

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They're worshiping idols that have dwelling places and even if it's not on Mars Hill it's on Mount Olympus.

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But all their gods are living, they all have these human characteristics and Paul's coming right out now saying the

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God who made the world and all things in it he is Lord of heaven and earth does not dwell in temples made with hands.

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Talk about the five point covenant model, it's your transcendence. Far from compromising,

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Paul is just laying it out, yet with gentleness and kindness.

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Nor is he served by human hands as though he needed anything since he himself gives to all people life and breath and all things.

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I think that's just following along with what we've already seen. And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth having determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their habitation.

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What's happening here? Laying out the story of mankind.

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Sovereignty of God every nation.

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Yep. In other words, he is transcending all of their false gods.

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He hasn't gotten into calling them false gods yet but that's coming. That they would seek

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God if perhaps they might grope for him and find him though he is not far from each one of us.

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Let me think about that. Still on track?

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Now he's talking about 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.

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A little Calvinism in there, kind of subtly. Okay?

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For in him we live and move and exist as even some of your own poets have said.

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For we are his children being then that the children of God we ought not to think that the divine nature is like gold and silver or stone, an image formed by the art and thought of man.

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Here's where he really you really see Paul's background coming into play.

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Notice what he says. For even as some of your own poets have said, for we are all his children.

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Alright? For in him we live and move and exist as even some of your own poets have said. Anybody know for in him we live, move and exist?

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Have you ever heard that before? Outside of the Bible. There's also the same one who said

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Cretans are always liars, vicious beasts, lazy gluttons. Epimenides?

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Epimenides. Epimenides the Cretan is quoted from a quatrain in an address to Zeus saying in him we live and move and have our being.

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Paul is quoting one of their own poets bringing it back to who

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God really is. I don't know every time I read this sermon

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I just wow to be able to and he's doing this you know without the aid of his laptop

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I mean he's standing in the middle they just grabbed him and brought him in because he was talking and this is the way he just starts going off.

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Alright? And then talking about the nature that we are children of God. I like how he says for we also are his children like for example like if it was in a different context where you're having a debate with someone who's saying we're all children of God and you're like well actually

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God says this in his word but he's appealing to what they know to be true by a hope something that a poet said like he doesn't go into we're not all children of God like he actually is appealing to that very same statement to point them to the fact that God is not made of gold or silver.

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Right. The divine nature is not like gold or silver or stone which is all they're

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God that's what they were they're all and in fact remember that this was also these deities were money making for the temple and the priest remember what happened with Paul when he's in Ephesus Artemis the great and then he's coming against it and they conspire against Paul why because their silver business is going to if people stop buying the idol.

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I have a question were children could that be substituted for creation?

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No we are all children of God in one sense we are children of God in a special sense just like remember we need to be careful does

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God love everybody in a general sense yes he loves his whole creation but there's a special love the salvific love that are upon those who are called children of God but in another sense we're all children of God in that he is our maker our creator and I think that's the way he's using it here yeah people say we're all it's the context you know for here like you're saying we're all his offspring we all come from him you know they have all these different gods and all this where people say oh we're all

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God's children so we're all in the right relationship so you know it's um in one context it's right in one context it's wrong come across with it and that's something that we need to be aware of make sure that we're speaking in the right context therefore having overlooked the times of ignorance

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God is now declaring to men that all people everywhere should repent he's going right back to the unknown

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God you were ignorant of him but now now he's overlooking those times now he's declaring that people everywhere should repent he's bringing the gospel and calling them to repentance any other comments on this

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I'm moving up a little bit into time so I'm gonna because he has fixed a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness through a man whom he has appointed having furnished proof to all men by raising him from the dead boy he's just nailing the gospel

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I don't know how you can say that he's he's compromising here at all and again gets right back he brings it always right back to Jesus Christ how are we going to repent proof is by Christ being raised from the dead now when they heard of the resurrection of the dead some began to sneer but others said we shall hear you again concerning this and that's really the end of his sermon you couldn't ask for a better outcome those who sneer that's exactly what the gospel is gonna do the gospel remember what

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Christ said I didn't come to bring peace I came to bring a sword gonna divide even families so you're gonna have some who are going to sneer and reject it remember even among the

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Jews they wanted to take Jesus and throw him off a cliff alright but others said we shall hear you again concerning this so Paul went out from their midst but some men joined him and believed among whom also were

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Dionysius the Areopagite and a woman named Damaris and others with them that's a perfect example of presuppositional apologetics he doesn't quote the scripture because they wouldn't know what he was talking about anyway so he doesn't say you know in Isaiah 53 he's not doing that but he's giving the gospel message to a pagan audience in terms that they can understand it and that's exactly what we have to do we want to make sure that we're teaching in a way that people can understand and that's why it's important too one of the chapters that we didn't cover and we're not going to was the problem of religious language whether you realize it or not when you come into the church and you're here for any period of time we have our own language our own lingo and when you're speaking with somebody who is not church who has never darkened the doors of a church don't start using all the language if you say repent even explain what you mean by repenting because you can't take it for granted that the person is going to know what repentant means and so many other things that we just have to be careful of and Paul does a masterful job here of using the language that they're even quoting one of their own poets and yet bringing pure unadulterated not an eclectic mix but the gospel without compromising one iota final thoughts and this closes our study on always ready the chapters that I skipped

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I think it's because they get very deep and only if you're going to really spend a lot of time in apologetics

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I would recommend reading those chapters but it's not necessarily for everyone final thoughts just it's an encouragement for us you know some mock some believe some are going to want to hear more

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I mean Paul was arguably one of the best apologists of the time and that was the result he had

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Jesus who would be the greatest who is the greatest preacher of all and there were some who believe some who rejected and some who kept hanging around wanting to hear more you shouldn't feel like failures if you know people are not convinced with our argument they have to be made alive spiritually to do that but some are going to mock some are going to believe and some will keep the conversation going but maybe the one thing is keep that conversation going because of the way you do it people want to keep the conversation going if we're jerks about it like maybe