SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 5/14/2018
9:29 AM
My Worship Time Focus: Intro to
Acts 17:16-34
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference:
Acts 17:16-34
Message of the
verses: “16 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. 17 So he was reasoning in the synagogue with
the Jews and the God-fearing Gentiles, and in the market place every day with
those who happened to be present. 18 And also some of the Epicurean and Stoic
philosophers were conversing with him. Some were saying, "What would this
idle babbler wish to say?" Others, "He seems to be a proclaimer of
strange deities,"-because he was preaching Jesus and the resurrection. 19
And they took him and brought him to the Areopagus, saying, "May we know
what this new teaching is which you are proclaiming? 20 “For you are bringing
some strange things to our ears; so we want to know what these things
mean." 21 (Now all the Athenians and the strangers visiting there used to
spend their time in nothing other than telling or hearing something new.)
22 So Paul stood in the midst of the
Areopagus and said, "Men of Athens, I observe that you are very religious
in all respects. 23 “For while I was passing through and examining the objects
of your worship, I also found an altar with this inscription, ’TO AN UNKNOWN
GOD.’ Therefore what you worship in ignorance, this I proclaim to you. 24 "The God who made the world and all
things in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples
made with hands; 25 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; 26 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, 27 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; 28 for in Him we live
and move and exist, as even some of your own poets have said, ’For we also are
His children.’ 29 "Being then the
children of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold or
silver or stone, an image formed by the art and thought of man. 30 "Therefore having overlooked the times
of ignorance, God is now declaring to men that all people everywhere should
repent, 31 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."
32 Now when they heard of the resurrection
of the dead, some began to sneer, but others said, "We shall hear you
again concerning this." 33 So Paul went out of their midst. 34 But some
men joined him and believed, among whom also were Dionysius the Areopagite and
a woman named Damaris and others with them.”
As we look at this introduction to this section I wanted
to let my readers know that we will actually be going over verses 16-21 in this
introduction and then pick up the first main point beginning with verse
twenty-two.
One of the things that I have thought about when I looked
at this passage before was how Paul felt when he was looking over the city, how
terrible he felt because of all of the idolatry that he saw, all of those
people who worshiped them, unless they would hear about Jesus Christ and except
His forgiveness that they would end up in hell, and then one more thing which
comes at the end of this section telling how few people had actually accepted
Christ while Paul was there. Both of
these things seem to go together, both of these things are very sad indeed.
It was because of Paul’s saddened emotions that he
decided to do something about these people who were worshiping idols so he “was
reasoning in the synagogue with the Jews and the God-fearing Gentiles, and in
the market place every day with those who happened to be present.” As we have been studying Acts we have seen
and written about Paul’s pattern of going to the Jews first and then going to
the Gentiles after that, as in most cases the Jews had not been interested in
the coming of their Messiah. This was
very difficult on Paul as seen when he wrote to the Romans: “1 I am telling the truth in Christ, I am not
lying, my conscience testifies with me in the Holy Spirit, 2 that I have great
sorrow and unceasing grief in my heart. 3 For I could wish that I myself were accursed, separated
from Christ for the sake of my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh,
4 who are Israelites,
to whom belongs the adoption as sons, and the glory and the covenants and the
giving of the Law and the temple service and the promises, 5 whose are the
fathers, and from whom is the Christ according to the flesh, who is over all,
God blessed forever. Amen.”
After following his normal plan of ministry, or we could
say evangelism we see that he went “in the market place” something that Athens
was very famous for, and while there he was dialoguing “every day with those
who happened to be present.”
I suppose that you could say that not only was Paul
effected by those in Athens, but he also made an impact on those whom he
engaged in debate with as they were “some of the Epicurean and Stoic
philosophers.” John MacArthur adds that “they
along with the Cynics, represented the three most popular contemporary schools
of philosophy.”
We will now look at a few quotes to help understand who
these different groups are. “Central to
Epicurean philosophy was the teaching that pleasure and avoidance of pain are
the chief end of man. They were materialistic,
who while not denying the existence of the gods, believed they did not
intervene in the affairs of men. They
taught that, at death, the body and soul (both composed of atoms) disintegrate;
there is no afterlife.”
Next a quote from “The Stoic Philosophers, on the other
hand, saw self-mastery as the greatest virtue.
They believed self-mastery comes from being indifferent to both pleasure
and pain, reaching the place where one feels nothing. In contrast to the practical atheism of the
Epicureans, the Stoics were pantheists.
“The extremes of Stoicism and Epicureanism sum up the
futility of man’s existence apart from God.
F. F. Bruce writes:
‘Stoicism and Epicureanism
represent alternative attempts in pre-Christian paganism to come to terms with
life, especially in times of uncertainty and hardship, and post-Christian
paganism down to our own day has not been able to devise anything appreciably
better.’
“Although they differed radically in their philosophic
beliefs, both Stoics and Epicureans were united in their contempt for Paul’s
teaching. Some of them were saying
derisively, ‘What would this idle babbler wish to say.’ Spermologos
(idle babbler) literally means ‘seed picker.’ The Word
Evoked images of a bird
pecking indiscriminately at seeds in a barnyard. It referred to a dilettante, someone who
picked up scraps of ideas here and there and passed them off as profundity with
no depth of understanding at all. (John B. Polhill, The New American Commentary:
Acts).’
“Others, misunderstanding
completely Paul’s message, thought him ‘to be a proclaimer of strange deities—because
he was preaching Jesus and the resurrection.’
They may have thought Paul used the term anastasis (‘resurrection’) as the proper name of a goddess.”
As we read on we find that Paul had created enough of a
stir that according to verse 19 “they took him and brought him to the
Areopagus, saying, "May we know what this new teaching is which you are
proclaiming?” The “Areopagus” according
to John MacArthur was a court, so name for the hill on which it had once met.”
We see the reason that they wanted him to come in verses
20-21 “20 “For you are bringing some strange things to our ears; so we want to
know what these things mean." 21 (Now all the Athenians and the strangers
visiting there used to spend their time in nothing other than telling or
hearing something new.)”
Now as we usually do we quote the last paragraph of John
MacArthur’s introductory comments to see where we will be heading as we
continue to look at the remain verses in this rather long section: “The theme of Paul’s message to the assembly
was how to know the unknown God. That
involves three steps: recognizing that
God is, recognizing who He is, recognizing who He is, and recognizing what He
has said.” We will begin the first part
of “recognizing that God is” in our next SD.
Spiritual meaning
for my life today: Understanding
what these false teachers believe and taught is good to know because there are
many who desire to teach similar things today, and because of what Paul said to
them we know what we can say to those who believe similar things today.
My Steps of Faith for Today: When a bank teller is trained they are not
trained to know what counterfeit bills look like, they are trained to know
everything to know about real money so that they can spot counterfeit
bills. Same is true in Christianity,
that is know the truth and then when false doctrine come along you will know
that it is false.
Answer to yesterday’s Bible
question: “Lot” (Luke 17:29).
Today’s Bible
question: “What two men are considered
to have written the last two chapters of Proverbs?”
Answer in our next SD.
5/14/2018 10:55 AM
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