Pillar 8, Missions, Acts 17:22-31

Acts 17 and Paul’s Missionary Preaching in Athens

Acts chapter 17 starting in verse 22 Hear the word of the Lord. So Paul standing in the midst of the Arab haggis said Men of Athens I perceive that in every way you are very religious. For as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship. I found also an altar with this inscription to the unknown God.

What therefore you worship as unknown this I proclaim to you. The God who made the world and everything in it being Lord of heaven and earth Does not live in temples made by man. Nor as he served by human hands as though he needed anything since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything and He made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth.

Having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place that they should seek God in the hope That they might feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us for in him We live and move and have our being as even some of your own poets have said for we are indeed his offspring.

Being in God's offspring We ought not to think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone an image formed by the art and imagination of man. The times of ignorance got overlooked. But now he commands all people everywhere to repent because he has fixed a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed and Of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.

Now when they heard of the resurrection of the dead some mocked but others said we will hear you again about this. So Paul went out from their midst but some men joined him and believed. Among whom also were Dionysius the Arapaagite and a woman named Damaris and others with them.

May the Lord add his blessings to the reading of his Holy Word. Mary graduated from Fuller seminaries School of Missions out now after following her to Singapore I I thought that we she should have some she should have some experience in some real cross-cultural missions.

And so we ended up choosing to go to Ethiopia in 1993 at that time Ethiopia had soon come out had just recently come out of a repressive communist regime called the dirge and Because of that it was so repressive the Ethiopian Church had not had many opportunities if at all any opportunities to develop their own Leadership their own doctrine.

They don't think they could have Bible colleges during the dirge good day. No, so they had need then and we didn't want to go to some place and go to many places. You're kind of displacing a local leadership, but we didn't want to do that so there in Ethiopia there was a there was need for people who were already educated and we could help raise up a new generation and here's here's a new generation right here and we met a testify and Dilla Ethiopia, which is in the south in the southern Ethiopia and he Testify impressed us immediately as a particularly earnest and serious student and we stayed in touch even before the days of Social media.

Mary is still doing missions. At this time though not crossing cultures in Ethiopia, but in the United States. Which to her is just as much a mission field you villas that don't you I mean to her Ethiopia United States it's all kind of the same.

It's all mission field to her and many American churches are used to missionaries coming through the churches, you know periodically. Used to be the old days. They show slides. I guess now they have PowerPoint Showing slides about the their mission field.

These are the natives in our mission field now understand that you. You are the natives and this is the mission field. Sometimes you'll go back to Singapore and should be telling people about you. You're the ones being talked about and we still want to be supporting missions to Ethiopians.

And so we support testify missions is Evangelism Across cultures or it's these strengthening churches across cultures. It's making disciples of Jesus obeying the Great Commission. Go and make disciples of all nations the word nations ethne all ethnic groups other cultures and so that means sometimes you have to cross cultural divides.

To different kinds of people and here in this passage in Acts chapter 17. We see missions in practice. We see Paul doing that crossing a cultural divide and we see three keys to doing that. Crossing that cultural divide to do missions first the connection second the content and third the controversy.

First there's the connection the Apostle Paul think about who he is. Okay, he's a Jew. He's a Jewish man. He called himself a Hebrew of the Hebrews and Philippians. Otherwise, I'm he's saying I'm really do it.

I'm thoroughly Jewish has raised that way. I was in that environment. This is what I'm used to as he's going out spreading the gospel. Then he first goes and targets Jews. He goes to the synagogues makes speaks to the people there, but he wouldn't stop there.

If it's just reaching his fellow Jews, that would be just plain evangelism, but it says in verse 17 He went to the marketplace in Athens. Oh, this would be mostly Gentile people you wouldn't read his point of view.

These would be pagans. And this is missions this is crouching cultural barriers. So he went to all kinds of people and we see here that he understood that the way you reach one kind of people is Different than the way you reach another.

You look at his speeches and acts when he's speaking to Jewish people. I'll be quoting often the Old Testament and speaking about Jewish issues when he's speaking here very different in verse 26 He says God made every nation of mankind.

God made the Ethiopians and Chinese and Indonesians and Americans and yet even though there is a great diversity of Peoples and cultures. There's only one God Who made them all from one man? It's all definite groups have one source and all of us being God's he calls him here God's offspring people are part of people are part of groups of Ethnicities of cultures and if you're going to reach them you need to understand how to cross cultures and make connections.

That work that's connections and that requires Commitment you have to do your homework. In other words, do you notice here how much commitment think about how much commitment? It must have taken for Paul to make the effort to evangelize these people because he's already this kind of people.

First he has to be willing to break out of his comfort zone. Just just to go there just to go to Athens. You know, he could have stayed in Antioch could have stayed in Jerusalem. Well, they might have killed him in Jerusalem, but you understand but then he had to learn something about these people.

And many of them don't think well of him at first, you know verse 18. They call him a babbler. So it's not as though but you know He's out there by popular demand because they loved him many of them weren't even interested in the truth.

But as Luke describes in verse 21, they're just interested in just hearing new ideas. They weren't there. They were there. They were there for the entertainment. They were there looking To learn what's true.

They were looking just to be Entertained the time filled with hearing something new. It's quarter like Some of the guy may be all of the guys come here later this evening afternoon. They come for the basketball.

Okay, we're not in it shouldn't be under any delusions or they're actually coming here to hear the preaching of the word. No, they're basically here the basketball now Paul could have thought well. These people that aren't worth the trouble.

I mean, they're calling me a babbler. They don't really care about the truth. They're so pagan there eat they eat pork all the time and they sacrifice to gods and bow to idols. Yeah, they don't care and if Paul decided on what to do by what was most comfortable what was most convenient to him.

Well, he would have stayed with the synagogues winning. They with his Jewish people. He was a Jew. He's comfortable with the Old Testament. He's able to read it in Hebrew. He's familiar with that environment.

He eats their same food. Those are his kind of people, but he's a missionary. And so he's willing to go far outside his comfort zone. And so speak Greek to the philosophers and he does it all you know, she does it all on their own ground.

He doesn't say well if they come to me, I'll talk to him about it. He goes to them. No, it's the beginning of verse 22. He's standing in the midst of the Arab pagas. It was just a forum a Place for philosophers or like a university for philosophers and he'd talk about their topics.

He he went to them. He didn't expect the pagan philosophers to come to him. They'd expect him to learn the Old Testament first and to be interested in his issues. He went to them. He listened to them.

We can see evidence of that here and then he then He was able to communicate With them in verse 18, he was debating with the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers. He was able to hold his own with them. He understood their philosophy.

He was able to answer their questions. He could show that he had ideas worth listening to. He had to study them now in this speech. He quotes two of their poets. Think of that. How did he know what their poets had said?

Likely he attended their plays. Their drama and he paid attention to what they were saying. He's listening carefully Studying them and that required that that is required permissions for a for apologetics giving an answer to the Objections the philosophies of the world, but you got to learn what those objections are what the world is saying.

You got to listen to them. It's required for making disciples and teaching people from all nations. You know, we have two errors today in the church regarding missions. Well, there's the error of the liberal and then there's the error of the fundamentalist.

The liberal studies the philosophy of the world and Gets converted to it. He ends up believing it liberal theology Basically is just basically it's just Western philosophy. Whatever fad of Western philosophy happens to fall into it at the moment.

Basically Western philosophy dressed up as Christian theology they may use some Christian biblical terms, but there but there the content of their ideas is basically Philosophy, it's Western philosophy less than a century ago.

Pearl Buck was the daughter of missionaries American missionaries to China and She studied Chinese culture and philosophy and all that and was Essentially converted to it. She was converted away from Christianity to become I don't want you to call her Calling her Confucian would be too much.

I think but basically to believe like Chinese people believe. She ended up arguing that we don't need Christian missions anymore. Because she didn't believe in what they were saying on the other hand.

We have the fundamentalist. That's that. The first was the error of the liberal they're converted To the philosophy that they supposed to be studying. But on the other hand is the error of the fundamentalist who think well.

You don't need to study anything about the world. You don't you don't need to debate. You don't need to dialogue. You don't need to discuss. You don't need to read their books. You don't need to understand their ideas certainly.

You don't learn from them. We just they think we just preach at them in the worst sense of the word. We berate them with Scripture and we hope as we're berating them with Scripture that they'll drop their ideas and accept ours.

In my opinion some of the missionaries to Ethiopia didn't bother to study and understand the culture there. Some of them not all of them some there's some good ones, but some came in kind of like a wrecking ball.

Crashing into issues. They really didn't take the time to bother to understand very well like polygamy. That's why I think my opinion the Lord in his sovereignty. Use the Italians to move those missionaries out for a time I think to let the Ethiopian Church grow without their impact.

The Ethiopian Evangelical Church grew a lot When the missionaries were kicked out by the Italians who had invaded shortly before World War two. So it's best to learn first about the culture. You're you're trying to reach and then partner With leaders from that culture because they already know the culture.

They know it thoroughly. They know it from their mother's milk like testify. They already understand it. Don't be a liberal who isn't grounded in Scripture. Who's just basically worldly. Who has who has been one to the philosophy that he studies and don't be a fundamentalist who doesn't bother to study to understand to Dialogue and Paul here.

He did neither right? He studied them. He was able to dialogue with him. He understood them. He was able to communicate with them in terms that they understood that to address their issues. He was able to use their philosophy and their poets to win them to Christ.

Here in Acts chapter 17, we see that it is right to go out of the church and seek to be relevant. But it's to speak in the terms of the world understands issues that they understand here. Paul uses a hook first to catch their attention, you know, you know this altar to an unknown God.

That's something in their culture. He'd gone been going around the city saying things the way they live. There's a altar to an unknown God and he refers to that makes this reference to their religion.

It's a way of building a bridge to their culture so that the gospel would be would be better understood. You've been preaching this unknown God. Well, let me tell you about him. Everything that he says shows that he thoroughly understood the people he was speaking to that he had taken the time that the effort to learn.

Who they are the way that how they think he begins with what they have in common. That's the connections you begin with what you have in common. Many of the philosophers what these philosophers would have believed in in in a creator.

Kind of unlike the sort of the common people in their pagan temples these philosophers. They would have believed there's a creator God the first source. And so he so because they have that in common he makes a connection.

He begins talking about the Creator in verse 24. They these philosophers Probably what also have been critical of the the superstitious Idolatry of the common people this the superstitious idolatry that thinks that the true God can be confined in Temples and he he needs people to sustain him.

He needs to be fed. By the sacrifices people provide to him like in Chinese traditional religion that the kitchen God. It needs to be fed or your ancestors that need to be given hell money to be sustained.

The philosophers would have looked down on all that and Paul basically says yeah, we agree on that. We too don't believe in a God who needs us to keep him with cash and were with food. He so he reached into their culture as pagan as it was.

He just says condemn it all. You know, you're all wrong. He found the points that they were right about and He reached into it look for points of contact and then he makes a connection. He was carrying on the mission of Jesus to make disciples all nations.

He was crossing that culture gap. A biblical church supports mission missions. A biblical church is a church for others first first first for God the glory of God and then. For different people people different from us.

Because it is for others. It knows it's worth taking the time and the effort to learn how they think of their customs how to make connections how to to interact with them on their own terms in order to share the gospel with them to not be offensive because you just do something the wrong way you think is.

You think it's normal. I didn't Ethiopia. You try to shake hands with both hands or at least hold your old forearm, right. And in Chinese culture. You hold you hand somebody a piece of paper. I did it with both hands.

I'll just like that. You do little things like that, you know, you know, you thought it through but in their culture. That's offensive and you need to take the time to find out what those those things are you have to say with your life?

That the gospel is worth sacrificing. What is comfortable to me if you want to reach say kids here? You've got to offer them something they they want. You don't just expect them to come quietly to church and sit and listen to our long-winded sermons.

That doesn't work. You got to be willing to maybe drive a vehicle pick them up and to sit here and don't watch them play sometimes for hours on end. You've got to make connections to bring the good news.

The Content of Paul’s Gospel in Athens

We need to be able to make connections and We need to know the content. The content of the gospel. Look at the content of his message here. Paul's message he begins with God the Creator. He's not confined to to religion.

He's not appeased by sacrifices. He doesn't need us to feed him to keep us all keep him alive. He's not preaching just what they thought in verse 18. You know, they thought he's just preaching another.

And you call it they call it a foreign divinity. Another local God of another different ethnic group and maybe that's probably what they gathered for. Let's hear what this strange guy has to say about this other local myth way out there.

There's a small local God for one particular nation for one particular culture. He's not preaching that and he makes that absolutely clear. I'm not talking about that kind of local cultural God. He's preaching the one supreme being that their Plato had spoken about the prime mover that their Aristotle had tried to describe.

He says that he is the Lord of heaven and earth the whole earth. Including you here in Athens. Then there's us just God and there's us his creatures. We are one human family created by God. But created in in different groups nations and cultures are determined by God.

God is both the one God for all people and in verse 26 God determines for nations. He says their borders for allotted periods their rise and fall. He creates ethnic groups and in cultures. So we're both one and diverse and both those things are good and acceptable nations.

Don't make God. They may make their own gods. There's a false gods if they're made by a nation for a nation nations don't make God. God makes nations there's one creator and One created people. The actual content of the gospel then think about this in our culture.

The actual content of the gospel even in his most basic form here delivered to a bunch of pagans. It does not allow. For racism, it doesn't allow for well, this is a church for our kind of people if you want to go.

You want to go worship go find one for your kind of people? It doesn't allow for segregation. Any of that. We so often wanted to divide humanity up into races to nations and forget the basic unity of all people.

Created from one man by one God with one need. That God he says has put within us a conscience that testifies to him. Testifies that the God is real that he exists. And so he says in verse 27 that there was there was the hope.

I'm not sure how they should be translated. This is the possibility. That people would feel their way. Feel is like groping like a blind person groping around in the dark feel their way toward him and find him.

Otherwise, there's nothing outside of people that keeps people from finding God. God's not keeping them away. He's not withholding them the truth from them anymore. Of course, they don't find him do they it's because they don't look for him.

Anyway, he is near to us and just here when some of them would have a problem in their philosophy. When he says he's near to us and some of them would have thought in their Greek philosophy. Well, yeah, there's a creator God, but it's like Aristotle's is like a prime mover.

He says he's remote. He's distant. He's not he's not anything in any way involved in our life. So just here is where Paul calls in reinforcements from their own culture. He's not just a distant force from us.

So Paul Paul quotes two of their poets to prove in the words of the Prophet Jeremiah that God is not only far away. But he is a God nearby that he is both transcendent Over everything and he is imminent nearby the vast eternal creator of the universe overlooking galaxies is right here beside you and Quotes their own poets to them to prove it.

This is the theme That he develops in the book of Romans. He's right here. People know it. So we should Grope for him kind of like people, you know grope in the dark look grope in the dark around the wall looking for a light switch.

That's the way you should be looking for God maybe in the dark, but the light is there and you know, it's there you should grope for God. But people don't. This is the theme he develops in the book of Romans that there's enough testimony about God in nature and People's conscience that they should seek after God.

But they do not instead they seek to suppress the true knowledge of God and here they suppress that true knowledge of God with with Images that they make to deceive themselves about God. These religions that are out there aren't different ways of trying to find God they're actually quite the opposite they are there.

Because people really don't want to find him they want to escape from him. And that's what people did in the Paul's calls here the times of ignorance. Now those times are over as the truth about God is being brought to all people.

The time of ignorance is over. When the truth was not being revealed to all nations that time is over and now the time when the gospel is being given out. To all people that time is here. This is the time not of ignorance.

But of missions, there's one God for all people. It's a way of a mission to reach all people with the news that he is not far from any of us. So it's now at the at verse 30 where Paul goes in he goes in for the kill.

He builds on the connections that he's made He with the content of the gospel and he calls for them to make a decision. This isn't just philosophy for you to consider for you to meditate on for you. Oh, that's a clever idea.

I never thought of that it requires a decision an urgent decision is needed. He's not just a babbler entertaining them with new ideas he's coming with good news with truth that requires them to accept it and to change their lives and That truth is not just an idea sort of a Greek philosophy a logos principle.

But it's a person. It's the logos as John calls him who became flesh and dwelt among us the Lord of heaven and earth. He says in verse 30 in the past God overlooked the ignorance. He now calls all people everywhere from America to China to Ethiopia to repent.

Change your mind to turn. Change who you are. God is now in this age. No longer the time of ignorance, but the age of missions. God is now calling every person to turn around. Turn around from going your own way, maybe the way that in your culture was normal the way your culture Nurtured you to be to way it taught you to think.

The way it taught you to live turn around from that from your ethnicity and turn from that it and go God's way. Why repent? Because Paul says in verse 31 the day of judgment is set. It is already marked of the caliber.

In verse 30 when he says he God has fixed a day fixed it. It's determined. I got a procrastinate about it. Past tense. He has set it down on which he will Future he will judge. He has already judged the sins of his people on the cross.

When Jesus hung there God judged our sins on him. He fixed a day Before creation on which he would judge the sins of his people to save us. Jesus is the Lamb who was slain from the foundation of the earth.

That day is Past that day was fixed and it came about and still coming. We wait for a day on which he will judge the world. Right, not that his people this time the world the people outside of Christ and he will judge them in righteousness.

According to his own righteous standard. We now live in between those two days. The day which he has judged the sins of his people and in which the day he will judge the world. We live in between those times and in this in between time is the age of mission the judge for that future day Has already been selected.

He's already been appointed for that job. How do we know who the judge is? By the fact that he was raised from the dead that tells us who he is. The resurrection is the assurance given to all not just to Christians.

But to all he says to all people that he is the true judge. He is the judge who will judge the world. Now apologetics or missions is telling all people That the Lord Jesus is the judge that all will have to answer to.

Maybe you have to argue why he was really raised. You got to show people defend the resurrection the resurrection of Christ that he was raised from the dead. So people will know he has been raised. So he was my judge.

I will have to answer to him. Maybe this missions maybe people don't never even heard about the resurrection of Christ. You need to tell them so they'll know he's the judge they have to answer to and we can we can prove that he is The judge by his resurrection.

He is the risen Lord of all and he sends us now to tell all. So that's the content. God Lord of heaven and earth us. Created as one race, but in different nations straying. Blind, we should be groping toward him, but we don't even do that sin judgment.

Jesus is the judge and the resurrection. He's made these connections he's given them the content and then at that last note He dared face the controversy. The controversy is over the resurrection. You see the Greeks didn't believe in the resurrection.

In fact, they didn't just not believe in it. They didn't want it. They thought it was a bad idea. You know all the way back to at least Plato. They believe that the material world the world that you know Matter world of flesh and blood it was kind of that was like that was like shadows on the wall of a cave.

It's not really it's not really real. The real world they thought was the world of spirit and about the world of ideas. The body was in their view a prison for the soul. So the goal then of religion the promise of death was to escape.

From the body you want to get out of this body. To be told that we would have we would be resurrected. Was not good news to them. It was Controversial it was repulsive to them. That's why he said it says in verse 32 that when they heard of the resurrection some mocked oh, oh Resurrection.

Who was that? And noticed by the way, though he saved it for last. There's a reason that is it the last thing he mentions here. So after driving that is to make connections. So many points of agreement.

Showing all the points of agreement that he could in the content of the gospel with what they believed. Paul sparks a controversy. Why? Think of that. He's shown so many ways. We've agreed he's he's tried to connect with them to appeal to them show what we have in common and Then he brings out this thing that he knows that they will hate that will disoffend some of them.

Paul knew that the Greeks would find the resurrection offensive and yet he preached the resurrection anyway. Think about that. Why? Why would he work so hard to make these connections? He's studying their culture.

He's looking for everything they have in common. Everything that he can so many ways. He's gone through all that effort and then he Blows it. By mentioning the resurrection this thing they found so offensive something so controversial.

Why. Because the resurrection is so central to the content of the gospel that it could not be held back. You can't just kind of forget it. It's not an optional doctrine. You can kind of take or leave is part of the gospel.

It shows us here that then we cannot compromise the gospel for the sake of winning approval. We can be wise we can be clever about Communicating but we cannot compromise the gospel. Taking the gospel to other cultures does not mean adapting it to other cultures.

Changing it by what? Oh, so you Greeks don't like the resurrection. Never mind. You know Jesus just goes like a sunrise in your heart. It wasn't really physical resort because you don't like it. No, it doesn't work like that.

Taking the gospel to other cultures does not mean adapting it to other cultures. Adapting the content of it just to avoid controversy. So it'll be more readily accepted. No, we might adapt it now our presentation of it.

We might even save the controversy. That is the thing that the culture finds so hard to accept. We might save that controversy for last. What's the things that our cultures around here have? Today have find controversial maybe among some I'm Chinese.

You can't sacrifice to your ancestors. Not even at their funerals. No, you can't do that. That's that's giving worship to some other God. God's maybe here in the South. You you can't treat Some of your neighbors the second-class citizens.

You can't Enslave them or segregate them. Well, yeah. Well, yeah, we know it's part of your culture. You can't do that. It's love your neighbor as yourself, you don't want to be made a slave. You don't want to be made to sit in the back of the bus.

Then you can't treat others like that. Maybe today. Today's modern American culture. The controversy is over the Bible's teaching about homosexuality. You know, it's considered understand now. This is I've seen this change in my lifetime.

It's considered scandalous by many in our culture that the Bible teaches. That all homosexual practice is simple, there's no acceptable kind of homosexuality does not that's that's controversial to say that today now if you're Preaching the gospel to someone or an audience that actually I bet say home it to some homosexuals.

But as many other people that aren't homosexual if you're preaching the gospel to people who believe like that you might save that controversy for last for later. Like Paul does here. But eventually you have to confront the culture you have to tell them to repent.

God calls all people everywhere to repent. God now calls in between the two fixed days you know the day on the cross when the sins of The saved were taken care of when they were judged on Christ on the cross between that day and the day in the future when the sins of the Of the wicked of the world will be judged.

God now calls all people to repent and those who do They do repent. They don't just then go their own way. Kind of happy that now they take a care of their own need now. They're saved and they don't need to think about anything else.

They're they're now separate saved in disconnected individuals. No, notice that salvation joins us together. Notice the verse 34. Near the very end here those who believe Paul they heard him Preach this they they even accepted the controversy.

Oh, we could believe in the resurrection. They It says they just said just say they believed they prayed a prayer and went their way. It says they joined. Paul joined. Two of them are apparently prominent because they're they're actually their names are given Dionysius the Arapaia guy didn't a woman named Amaris.

They don't just meet with Paul, you know shake his hand and at the altar and then go their separate ways. It says they they joined him. They're now connected to him. They committed to him. So these are educated Greek philosophers now.

They're former pagans now they're Christians and they join Paul probably together with some of the Jewish converts from the synagogue some of the common Gentile folks from the marketplace and This is the church made up of all kinds of people joined together.

Americans Chinese Ethiopians called now to be to be one joined with each other and as the church the body of Christ. They're commissioned that Great Commission to carry on the mission to make disciples of every nation every ethnic group every tribe to cross Cultural divides.

Missions or evangelism is not just about creating individual converts. It's about planting and growing nurturing churches bodies of believers who are joined together and Right now in between the day that was fixed for our sins to be dealt with on the cross and the day that the world Will be judged in the future.

We are still joined With the church so joined together as the church. We must continue the mission of Christ in this age of mission to make disciples of different kinds of people people from different different ethnic groups than you like Dionysius and Damaris here.

Dionysius the Arapaagite in Damaris, you know, they were different from Paul, but they joined him. Like testify may be different from you, but you join with him in this age of missions. Christ calls us to turn from the lie that we can come to God.

Unjoined it's just individuals that we can just care about. You know just about our kind of people long as our family our tribe our ethnic group is doing. Okay, that's all we care about. He calls us to be raised with Christ join with his body to be disciples who follow in his steps and make disciples of all kinds of people even people different than you to care about more than just your family and your nation to care about the kingdom of God.

About the body of Christ made up of all kinds of people to care about all the people that Jesus died for. He calls you now to do your part joined with the church to continue his mission. Will you?