October 14, 2025 • 32 mins
What happens when the gospel collides with culture? In Acts 17, Paul arrives in Thessalonica and begins reasoning with the Jews in the synagogue. For three weeks, he opens the Scriptures, connecting the prophecies of the Old Testament to the suffering, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The result is explosive. Some believe, joining Paul and Silas in following Christ, while others resist violently. A mob forms, riots erupt, and Paul’s host Jason is dragged before city officials, accused of treason and upsetting the entire world.
In this episode of The Wisdom Journey, Stephen Davey unpacks this dramatic moment in church history. Paul’s message was clear: Jesus is not just a religious figure but the true King, the sovereign Monarch of all creation. That claim directly challenged the decrees of Caesar, forcing listeners to choose between loyalty to Rome or to Christ.
The story of Thessalonica reminds us that Christianity is not about keeping peace with the status quo—it’s about proclaiming the truth that changes lives and cultures. It challenges divided hearts, calls for full allegiance to Jesus, and invites us to live boldly under His rule. Discover how the same gospel that turned the world upside down in the first century still speaks with authority and clarity today.
Stephen's latest book, The Disciples Prayer, is available now. https://www.wisdomonline.org/store/view/the-disciples-prayer-hardback
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Episode Transcript
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SPEAKER_01 (00:06):
You know, one of the things we miss when we speed
read is the fact that Paul isengaged here in a legal trial.
He's not standing before theSupreme Court because he thought
this would be a great place todo a little evangelism.
No, Athenian law required thatany new religious system and the
(00:28):
following of any new god receivethe approval of this council.
And the penalty decreed foranyone who introduced a foreign
god was death.
SPEAKER_00 (00:52):
Respect, humility, consideration of others'
feelings and convictions.
These characteristics definedPaul's evangelism to the
Athenian philosophers, and theyshould define our evangelism as
well.
The Apostle Paul was introducingunbelievers to the true and
(01:13):
living God.
As he did, he approached themthoughtfully and carefully.
That's not to say that Pauldidn't confront their false
belief systems because he did.
We'll see both of these thingstoday.
This is Wisdom for the Heartwith Stephen Davey.
Stevens in a series calledIntroducing God.
(01:33):
And he's calling this messageSetting Aside Superstition.
SPEAKER_01 (01:41):
A few years ago, the Pew Research Center surveyed
4,000 U.S.
adults to identify the spiritualexperiences that they claimed to
have had in life.
Of those surveyed, 29% said theyhad been in touch with someone
who had died.
18% said they had seen or beenwith a ghost.
(02:06):
That's 47% who had contact witha deceased person or a ghost.
A Gallup poll found that threeout of four Americans believed
in something paranormal.
In other words, the majority ofpeople believe there is
something out there.
There's something otherworldly,uh, some kind of otherworldly
(02:27):
creature or creatures out there.
I came across this recently.
One Sunday school teacher inBritish Columbia thought that
she would set the recordstraight with her uh students in
uh uh second grade.
Some of her uh kids raised thesubject of fairies being real,
(02:47):
and she assured the young classthat fairies were not real, only
make-believe.
One little boy wasn't too happyabout it, and he argued back.
She stood firm and repeated,fairies are not real.
And finally he blurted out,fairies are too real.
My daddy rides a fairy to PortMcNeil every single day.
(03:09):
Okay, those fairies are real,all right?
One Gallup poll revealed thatfour out of ten people believed
that houses could be haunted.
That's a popular belief, by theway, by many.
That houses can be haunted bythe spirits of the deceased.
And remember that 47% of thepeople polled in this one
(03:32):
particular poll believed they'dhad contact with something like
them.
When Marcia and I moved to Kerrynow almost 30 years ago, and
into a rental home that I found.
We moved into it with our twinsons who were about five months
old.
After we had lived there acouple of years, about two
(03:52):
years, neighbors told us thatthe former couple who lived
there, something about them,evidently the husband, murdered
his wife right there in thatvery house.
They didn't know what room, butthey informed us that he killed
her in that house.
We were so glad that they sharedthat with us.
(04:14):
That little revelation, though,I have to tell you, it, you
know, produced kind of a creepyfeeling.
You know, we kind of wonderedwhere.
You know, Marcia started hidingthe knives, just, you know, in
case.
And frankly, I'm dead serious.
It didn't really help that wenoticed that at times you could
hear what clearly sounded likefootsteps coming down the hall.
(04:37):
Now, obviously, the solution forus was the simple truth of
Scripture, that the spirits ofthose who die without Christ go
to Hades immediately and awaitthe judgment.
Luke 16.
The spirits of believersimmediately go to be with the
Lord.
2 Corinthians 5.8, to be absentfrom the body is to be present
(04:59):
with the Lord.
Right.
When you die, your spirit is notgonna linger on earth scaring
people.
There might be some people you'dlike to scare, and it kind of
sounds fun, but that's not gonnabe given, you won't be given the
chance.
You know, if Marcia and I hadnot been believers, we would
have never lived in that housefor five years.
(05:22):
We would have immediately movedout and claimed it was haunted.
In a New York Times article Icame across not too long ago, it
is ironically entitled ConjuringUp Our Own Gods.
A journalist wrote that morethan 90% of those who do not
belong to any church, do notbelong to any religious system,
(05:44):
all say that they pray to somedivine being.
39% of them pray often, if notweekly.
But note this (05:53):
they are prone to believe in ghosts and Bigfoot.
The article ended by declaring,and I quote, Americans are
obsessed with the supernatural.
It's not really a newphenomenon, and it really isn't
just American, is it?
It's around the world.
(06:14):
I I did a little research on andfound in the Middle Ages uh the
flickering lights in the marshbog uh was considered to be
ghosts of departed people oreven goblins.
The popular view in the MiddleAges about fireflies was that
they were the souls of deceased,unbaptized infants.
(06:38):
And many thought ghostsmanipulated human life.
On ancient maps, back before theworld had been fully discovered,
cartographers or mapmakers wouldput down what they knew, and
then at the edges of their map,beyond anything they had
knowledge of or understanding,they would often write into the
margin the words, quote, beyondhere there be dragons.
(07:04):
Frankly, superstition is the badside of a good thing.
It really is.
It's the world's attempt toexplain the supernatural, to try
to come up with an explanationabout the truth that is stamped
on every human heart andconscience about a creator and
(07:29):
about immortality.
This isn't all there is, Romanschapters 1 and 2.
And it's really up to thebeliever to contradict or
confront the notions andspeculations of the darkness
with the light of the gospel.
In fact, Paul writing to Timothyin 2 Timothy 1, verse 10, said
that he was effectivelypreaching and teaching the truth
(07:50):
about Jesus Christ, who wasbringing to life or bringing to
light life and immortalitythrough the gospel.
This is the mission of theApostle Paul as he enters a very
superstitious city by the nameof Athens.
Now, in our last study, Ipointed out two observations
(08:13):
from what Luke tells us in Actschapter 17.
Let me return you there.
First, we learned that Athenswas intuitively religious, and
secondly, that Athens wasintellectually curious.
In fact, today you can see theremains of Athens' obsession
with speculations andcuriosities of the unseen world.
(08:36):
One author living in the days ofPaul said that there were more
than 70,000 statues of the godsin Athens.
They lined the streets, theyfilled the parks, they adorned
the temples and publicbuildings, all dedicated to
their glory.
(08:57):
There were temples literallyeverywhere.
A temple to Nike, the god ofvictory, a temple to Athena, the
goddess of wisdom, to Ares, thegod of war, to Hephaestus, the
god of craftsmen and sculpture,to Aphrodite, the goddess of
love and beauty, to Eros, thegod of sexual desire.
(09:20):
In fact, the Romans would pickit up, and they had their
counterpart to Eros, they namedhim Cupid.
And like Eros, they both justsort of flew around with a bow
and arrow, shooting people theywere bringing under their spell.
By the way, in Paul's day, allthe working classes and
tradesmen belonged to guilds.
(09:41):
We would call them unions.
And they paid dues to theirpatron God.
They would have annual feasts.
They would offer libations totheir patron God or goddess that
had made them prosperous.
So you can imagine if you couldtravel back to Athens during the
days of Paul, the difficulty ofa believer in Athens to decide
(10:02):
whether or not to offend hisbusiness partners by not
attending the feast where theywould give libations to their
patron God, perhaps even losingthat career path.
I have little doubt that many abeliever would be kicked out of
the guild and deprived ofemployment because of their lack
of political correctness.
(10:23):
The pressure has always been onthe believer to contrast their
life to the speculations of theworld.
So as Paul is touring this city,he would have been struck, of
course, by the Acropolis.
The Acropolis was this ancientcitadel, this platform built on
rock upon which buildings wereseen from every direction.
(10:46):
The most famous building on theAcropolis would have been the
Parthenon.
It was a temple dedicated to thegoddess Athena, the namesake of
the city of Athens.
The Parthenon is considered theenduring symbol to this day of
ancient Greece.
(11:06):
It is a massive building.
It's nearly the length of afootball field.
It is five stories high.
Paul would have also seen theOdeon of Herod.
This was a famous theater thatwas in full swing when Paul
arrived.
The theater was wildly popular.
It would also be the place formusical concerts and poetry
festivals as well as plays.
(11:29):
Paul, no doubt, would havestared at one particular temple
built with incredible beauty andwith its sculptured columns that
form the porch of a templededicated to Athena and
Poseidon.
And then for our primaryconsideration today, there was
(11:51):
the Areopagus.
The Areopagus was a naturalstone outcropping that jutted up
500 feet in the air, and itserved as the outdoor court for
the Supreme Court of Athens.
Today, all the names of theSupreme Court justices before
(12:12):
whom Paul stood have long beenforgotten, except for one who
will show up a little later onin this text.
But I want you to just imaginethis scene as Paul has taken up
these stone stairways, and theyhave been restored.
He's going to walk up thesestairs to the top of the
(12:33):
Areopagus where the council hasconvened.
It's going to be up these stairsand on top of this windswept
open chamber where Paul is goingto have this panoramic view of
Athens as he introduces to themthe living God.
He is about to introduce God andseveral of his attributes to a
(12:56):
city that is intuitivelyreligious, that is
intellectually curious.
Let me give you a thirdobservation, then we'll look at
the text.
Athens was inwardly anxious.
With all that it believed, withall of its buildings, with all
of its gods and goddesses, withall of its temples, with all of
its statues, with all of itsreligious investments and
(13:20):
rituals, Athens was still at itscore inwardly anxious.
Let me show you where.
Let's pick the narrative back upwhere we left off at verse 22.
And Paul stood in the midst ofthe Areopagus.
These men would have beenforming a semicircle around him,
(13:41):
these 50 council members.
And he said, Men of Athens, Iobserve that you are very
religious in all respects.
By the way, don't overlook thisgracious, tactful introduction.
I observe that you are veryreligious.
Paul does not say, I observethat you are very ridiculous.
(14:02):
Okay?
Or I observe that you are verysuperstitious.
Now, I observe that you are veryreligious in all respects.
And the council, by the way,would have taken that as a
compliment.
That would have been a kindapproach to them.
Very religious.
(14:22):
You could literally ratherwoodenly translate that Greek
phrase.
He's effectively saying, I cansee that you are fearing the
gods.
It isn't his attempt right nowto say, what in the world is
going on around here with allthis stuff you're making up?
No, I can see that you couldtranslate them this way.
(14:43):
I can see how religiouslydevoted you are.
And I think those men would havesat there probably nodding their
heads thinking, you know, thisguy understands us.
He gets us.
It's a wonderful introductionand a good model for us.
Notice further, for while I waspassing through and examining
(15:04):
the objects of your worship, Ialso found an altar with this
inscription to an unknown God.
Athens had discovered so manythings.
They were the birthplace ofdemocracy.
They were the home of Socratesand Plato and Aristotle with all
(15:24):
their sage advice, but the mostimportant truth they had not
discovered.
And they were troubled by it.
They fit the description of whatPaul wrote to Timothy in 2
Timothy 3 and verse 7, wherePaul says that unbelievers are
always learning but never ableto come to the knowledge of the
(15:46):
truth.
They can learn a lot of things,but never come to know the most
important thing.
And so, because of this, they'reliving in a world of inward
anxiety and confusion, andthey've erected these uh
pedestals and even temples.
Tertullian tells us, dedicatedto the unknown God, we're
(16:09):
probably missing one, and wedon't want to do that.
So here you go.
Beloved, you travel the worldand and you see the same
uncertainty played out in everyculture.
In fact, I was reading in one uhjournal not too long ago, and I
pulled it out.
The Hindu practice of Kumari,and I hope I translate that
(16:31):
correctly.
The belief that the supremegoddess of the cosmos, who gave
birth to everything through herwomb, that she inhabits a young
girl's body for um for a brieftime.
The Hindu believe, in fact, thisis shared from what I could
research and discover by manyBuddhists as well, it holds that
(16:54):
the Supreme Goddess Teleshu, whobirthed the cosmos from her
womb, indwells a carefullyselected young girl for a period
of time.
And that young girl then becomesthe incarnation, as it were, of
the goddess.
And she can be worshipped asdeity.
(17:16):
You can see the kernels of thegospel, can't you, even though
twisted in the end?
She's worshipped.
I went online and I watchedabout 15 minutes of an annual
festival where she is dressed upin an amazing costume and people
are nearly fainting around her.
The goddess a few years ago thathad been selected, though caused
(17:39):
quite a stir.
Evidently, the rules are thatunder no circumstance can the
goddess ever leave Nepal.
She's carefully watched andcared for, typically living in a
central palace.
But a few years ago, Nepaleseauthorities were outraged when
they discovered that she hadbeen taken at her approval with
(18:02):
uh adult uh supervisors to theUnited States to take part in a
video documentary of uh theKumari tradition.
And when she returned home, thearticle said she received
notification that she was nowterminated as a goddess.
(18:24):
I mean, God was fired,basically, is what they're
saying.
She was no longer worthy ofbeing worshipped as a deity.
However, I couldn't help butchuckle, after pressure from the
public, oh goodness thanks forthe public, and and her own show
of remorse.
(18:44):
The government backed down andagreed that she could stay a
goddess if, and I quote, shegoes through an intense
cleansing process that washesher of the sins of the countries
she visited while travelingabroad.
Now, just think about that for amoment.
What insecurity.
(19:06):
If even your goddess has to becleansed from sin and can lose
her deity, how can any Hinduever hope to be cleansed of
their sin?
And even be secure that they'refollowing a deity that's going
to last.
Well, here in Athens, with allof their ceremony and all of
their curiosity and all of theirreligious piety, Paul
(19:29):
effectively finds them in thesame state of spiritual anxiety.
Notice the end of verse 23.
What therefore you worship inignorance, this I proclaim to
you.
He's coming to the end of hisintroduction.
In other words, the God whosename you do not know.
(19:50):
He's not calling them ignorant,by the way.
He simply says, What you don'tknow, the one whom you worship
without knowledge of who he is,I'm going to proclaim him to
you.
I'm going to tell you who he is.
Now, with that statement, whatPaul does is absolutely
(20:11):
brilliant.
He sets the legal stage for hisintroduction of God.
You know, one of the things wemiss when we speed read or speed
preach is the fact that Paul isengaged here in a legal trial.
He's not standing before theSupreme Court because he thought
this would be a great place todo a little evangelism.
(20:35):
No, Athenian law required thatany new religious system and the
following of any new God receivethe approval of this council.
And so, in fact, Josephus, in mystudy, I encountered one thing
he said, he was the firstcentury Jewish historian who
wrote that it was forbidden byAthenian law.
(20:56):
Let me quote him, and thepenalty decreed for anyone who
introduced a foreign god wasdeath.
End quote.
(21:18):
Socrates had been roaming thestreets of the city of Athens,
teaching this growing band offollowers, most of them young
people, that the gods of Greecewere not who they thought they
were.
He denied the omnipotence of thepantheon.
(21:39):
He denied that gods were allpowerful.
And he rejected the polytheismof the culture that is the
worship of many gods.
Now, while he didn't follow thetruth of one God, the true and
living creator, he didn't followthe superstitions of his culture
either.
(21:59):
So he's effectively teaching anew religion.
In fact, he was charged withatheism because he didn't buy
into the polytheism of his day.
He's brought up on charges.
He literally is brought to trialon the very hill where Paul now
stands 500 years later, and theSenate or this council, I should
(22:25):
say, claims that he iscorrupting the youth of Athens.
And they sentence him to die bydrinking poisonous hemlock,
which he did.
Now here we are, 500 yearslater, at this text, and Paul is
(22:47):
referencing the nearbypedestals.
He's referencing the nearbytemple dedicated to the unknown
God.
And what he's really doing isinforming them I'm not I'm not
telling you about a new God.
I'm not introducing a foreigndeity to you, somebody new.
I'm really just going to talk toyou about the name and the
(23:09):
nature of the God you've alwayswondered about.
You have temples dedicated tohim.
Brilliant strategy of Paul.
He's claiming to provide thisstunning answer to centuries of
uncertainty.
Now, where do these pedestalsand altars and temples originate
(23:34):
to this unknown God?
Oh, let me tell you, this is alittle history.
This is just an introduction tothe sermon that'll begin, you
know, uh later.
History records for us that 600years before Paul arrives in
Acts chapter 17, Athens had beenbesieged by a terrible plague.
People were dying every day, andthey were terrified of what was
(23:58):
happening.
They were desperate for ananswer from their gods.
No answer came, and with thatthen no cure.
A famous poet and sort of aquasi-spiritual guru from the
island of Crete, of all places,his name was Epimenides.
He came up with a solution.
(24:18):
He said, I know what's going on.
There are some gods that areangry because they have been
overlooked in the worship ofAthens.
The citizens have beenoverlooking them.
Now he didn't know which gods,but whoever they were or or
whoever it was, they were thecause behind the plague.
(24:41):
And the council thought, that'sbrilliant, that's it.
And then they convened and said,Well, what do we do about it?
And Epimenides said, I have asolution.
He took a flock of sheep to thetop of the hill where Paul is
now standing, on top of theAreopagus, Mars Hill, and he set
(25:02):
those sheep loose.
And he instructed the Atheniansthat whenever any sheep lay
down, they were to be sacrificedin the name of the God whose
temple was nearest the sheep.
It was believed that the sheepwould be pulled by the God to
(25:22):
the temple to reveal that he wasthe one effectively pouting
because he wasn't gettingattention, but that's how I
interpret it.
So when the sheep were letloose, many of them roamed and
and they they just came off theAreopagus and went around and
and settled and grazed and laydown eventually to take a nap.
(25:44):
The problem is some of them layfar from any nearby temple.
And so that created newconfusion.
And so what Epimenides said todo was build an altar to the
unknown God and sacrifice thesheep upon it.
(26:04):
The Athenians would later buildtemples, scatter numerous altars
around Athens dedicated to thisunknown God.
And now, if you can imagine it,Paul arrives on the scene and
stands on this same hill and hesays, I know who this unknown
God is.
(26:25):
And I want to introduce him toyou.
And what Paul will do is he willbegin to introduce his God at
the same point, by the way, thesame key point that anyone has
to start at with a pre-Christianworld like Athens or America.
(26:46):
You begin with introducing Godas the creator of all that is.
You begin with Genesis chapter1, verse 1.
And so Paul begins hisdeclaration of who God is by
telling these Athenians the nextrather shocking declaration, and
that is this the unknown God,whom I know created everything
(27:12):
that is.
SPEAKER_00 (27:22):
This is Wisdom for the Heart.
Stephen Davy is currently takingyou through a series from Acts
17 called Introducing God.
This message is called SettingAside Superstition.
I'll mention that during theairing of this series, the CD
set is available at a deeplydiscounted rate.
(27:44):
If you'd like to add this seriesto your library of biblical
resources, now would be the besttime.
You'll also find this resourceon our website,
wisdomonline.org.
Then join us next time todiscover more wisdom for the
(28:06):
heart.
You know, one of the things we miss when we speed
read is the fact that Paul isengaged here in a legal trial.
He's not standing before theSupreme Court because he thought
this would be a great place todo a little evangelism.
No, Athenian law required thatany new religious system and the
(00:28):
following of any new god receivethe approval of this council.
And the penalty decreed foranyone who introduced a foreign
god was death.
SPEAKER_00 (00:52):
Respect, humility, consideration of others'
feelings and convictions.
These characteristics definedPaul's evangelism to the
Athenian philosophers, and theyshould define our evangelism as
well.
The Apostle Paul was introducingunbelievers to the true and
(01:13):
living God.
As he did, he approached themthoughtfully and carefully.
That's not to say that Pauldidn't confront their false
belief systems because he did.
We'll see both of these thingstoday.
This is Wisdom for the Heartwith Stephen Davey.
Stevens in a series calledIntroducing God.
(01:33):
And he's calling this messageSetting Aside Superstition.
SPEAKER_01 (01:41):
A few years ago, the Pew Research Center surveyed
4,000 U.S.
adults to identify the spiritualexperiences that they claimed to
have had in life.
Of those surveyed, 29% said theyhad been in touch with someone
who had died.
18% said they had seen or beenwith a ghost.
(02:06):
That's 47% who had contact witha deceased person or a ghost.
A Gallup poll found that threeout of four Americans believed
in something paranormal.
In other words, the majority ofpeople believe there is
something out there.
There's something otherworldly,uh, some kind of otherworldly
(02:27):
creature or creatures out there.
I came across this recently.
One Sunday school teacher inBritish Columbia thought that
she would set the recordstraight with her uh students in
uh uh second grade.
Some of her uh kids raised thesubject of fairies being real,
(02:47):
and she assured the young classthat fairies were not real, only
make-believe.
One little boy wasn't too happyabout it, and he argued back.
She stood firm and repeated,fairies are not real.
And finally he blurted out,fairies are too real.
My daddy rides a fairy to PortMcNeil every single day.
(03:09):
Okay, those fairies are real,all right?
One Gallup poll revealed thatfour out of ten people believed
that houses could be haunted.
That's a popular belief, by theway, by many.
That houses can be haunted bythe spirits of the deceased.
And remember that 47% of thepeople polled in this one
(03:32):
particular poll believed they'dhad contact with something like
them.
When Marcia and I moved to Kerrynow almost 30 years ago, and
into a rental home that I found.
We moved into it with our twinsons who were about five months
old.
After we had lived there acouple of years, about two
(03:52):
years, neighbors told us thatthe former couple who lived
there, something about them,evidently the husband, murdered
his wife right there in thatvery house.
They didn't know what room, butthey informed us that he killed
her in that house.
We were so glad that they sharedthat with us.
(04:14):
That little revelation, though,I have to tell you, it, you
know, produced kind of a creepyfeeling.
You know, we kind of wonderedwhere.
You know, Marcia started hidingthe knives, just, you know, in
case.
And frankly, I'm dead serious.
It didn't really help that wenoticed that at times you could
hear what clearly sounded likefootsteps coming down the hall.
(04:37):
Now, obviously, the solution forus was the simple truth of
Scripture, that the spirits ofthose who die without Christ go
to Hades immediately and awaitthe judgment.
Luke 16.
The spirits of believersimmediately go to be with the
Lord.
2 Corinthians 5.8, to be absentfrom the body is to be present
(04:59):
with the Lord.
Right.
When you die, your spirit is notgonna linger on earth scaring
people.
There might be some people you'dlike to scare, and it kind of
sounds fun, but that's not gonnabe given, you won't be given the
chance.
You know, if Marcia and I hadnot been believers, we would
have never lived in that housefor five years.
(05:22):
We would have immediately movedout and claimed it was haunted.
In a New York Times article Icame across not too long ago, it
is ironically entitled ConjuringUp Our Own Gods.
A journalist wrote that morethan 90% of those who do not
belong to any church, do notbelong to any religious system,
(05:44):
all say that they pray to somedivine being.
39% of them pray often, if notweekly.
But note this (05:53):
they are prone to believe in ghosts and Bigfoot.
The article ended by declaring,and I quote, Americans are
obsessed with the supernatural.
It's not really a newphenomenon, and it really isn't
just American, is it?
It's around the world.
(06:14):
I I did a little research on andfound in the Middle Ages uh the
flickering lights in the marshbog uh was considered to be
ghosts of departed people oreven goblins.
The popular view in the MiddleAges about fireflies was that
they were the souls of deceased,unbaptized infants.
(06:38):
And many thought ghostsmanipulated human life.
On ancient maps, back before theworld had been fully discovered,
cartographers or mapmakers wouldput down what they knew, and
then at the edges of their map,beyond anything they had
knowledge of or understanding,they would often write into the
margin the words, quote, beyondhere there be dragons.
(07:04):
Frankly, superstition is the badside of a good thing.
It really is.
It's the world's attempt toexplain the supernatural, to try
to come up with an explanationabout the truth that is stamped
on every human heart andconscience about a creator and
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about immortality.
This isn't all there is, Romanschapters 1 and 2.
And it's really up to thebeliever to contradict or
confront the notions andspeculations of the darkness
with the light of the gospel.
In fact, Paul writing to Timothyin 2 Timothy 1, verse 10, said
that he was effectivelypreaching and teaching the truth
(07:50):
about Jesus Christ, who wasbringing to life or bringing to
light life and immortalitythrough the gospel.
This is the mission of theApostle Paul as he enters a very
superstitious city by the nameof Athens.
Now, in our last study, Ipointed out two observations
(08:13):
from what Luke tells us in Actschapter 17.
Let me return you there.
First, we learned that Athenswas intuitively religious, and
secondly, that Athens wasintellectually curious.
In fact, today you can see theremains of Athens' obsession
with speculations andcuriosities of the unseen world.
(08:36):
One author living in the days ofPaul said that there were more
than 70,000 statues of the godsin Athens.
They lined the streets, theyfilled the parks, they adorned
the temples and publicbuildings, all dedicated to
their glory.
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There were temples literallyeverywhere.
A temple to Nike, the god ofvictory, a temple to Athena, the
goddess of wisdom, to Ares, thegod of war, to Hephaestus, the
god of craftsmen and sculpture,to Aphrodite, the goddess of
love and beauty, to Eros, thegod of sexual desire.
(09:20):
In fact, the Romans would pickit up, and they had their
counterpart to Eros, they namedhim Cupid.
And like Eros, they both justsort of flew around with a bow
and arrow, shooting people theywere bringing under their spell.
By the way, in Paul's day, allthe working classes and
tradesmen belonged to guilds.
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We would call them unions.
And they paid dues to theirpatron God.
They would have annual feasts.
They would offer libations totheir patron God or goddess that
had made them prosperous.
So you can imagine if you couldtravel back to Athens during the
days of Paul, the difficulty ofa believer in Athens to decide
(10:02):
whether or not to offend hisbusiness partners by not
attending the feast where theywould give libations to their
patron God, perhaps even losingthat career path.
I have little doubt that many abeliever would be kicked out of
the guild and deprived ofemployment because of their lack
of political correctness.
(10:23):
The pressure has always been onthe believer to contrast their
life to the speculations of theworld.
So as Paul is touring this city,he would have been struck, of
course, by the Acropolis.
The Acropolis was this ancientcitadel, this platform built on
rock upon which buildings wereseen from every direction.
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The most famous building on theAcropolis would have been the
Parthenon.
It was a temple dedicated to thegoddess Athena, the namesake of
the city of Athens.
The Parthenon is considered theenduring symbol to this day of
ancient Greece.
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It is a massive building.
It's nearly the length of afootball field.
It is five stories high.
Paul would have also seen theOdeon of Herod.
This was a famous theater thatwas in full swing when Paul
arrived.
The theater was wildly popular.
It would also be the place formusical concerts and poetry
festivals as well as plays.
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Paul, no doubt, would havestared at one particular temple
built with incredible beauty andwith its sculptured columns that
form the porch of a templededicated to Athena and
Poseidon.
And then for our primaryconsideration today, there was
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the Areopagus.
The Areopagus was a naturalstone outcropping that jutted up
500 feet in the air, and itserved as the outdoor court for
the Supreme Court of Athens.
Today, all the names of theSupreme Court justices before
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whom Paul stood have long beenforgotten, except for one who
will show up a little later onin this text.
But I want you to just imaginethis scene as Paul has taken up
these stone stairways, and theyhave been restored.
He's going to walk up thesestairs to the top of the
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Areopagus where the council hasconvened.
It's going to be up these stairsand on top of this windswept
open chamber where Paul is goingto have this panoramic view of
Athens as he introduces to themthe living God.
He is about to introduce God andseveral of his attributes to a
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city that is intuitivelyreligious, that is
intellectually curious.
Let me give you a thirdobservation, then we'll look at
the text.
Athens was inwardly anxious.
With all that it believed, withall of its buildings, with all
of its gods and goddesses, withall of its temples, with all of
its statues, with all of itsreligious investments and
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rituals, Athens was still at itscore inwardly anxious.
Let me show you where.
Let's pick the narrative back upwhere we left off at verse 22.
And Paul stood in the midst ofthe Areopagus.
These men would have beenforming a semicircle around him,
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these 50 council members.
And he said, Men of Athens, Iobserve that you are very
religious in all respects.
By the way, don't overlook thisgracious, tactful introduction.
I observe that you are veryreligious.
Paul does not say, I observethat you are very ridiculous.
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Okay?
Or I observe that you are verysuperstitious.
Now, I observe that you are veryreligious in all respects.
And the council, by the way,would have taken that as a
compliment.
That would have been a kindapproach to them.
Very religious.
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You could literally ratherwoodenly translate that Greek
phrase.
He's effectively saying, I cansee that you are fearing the
gods.
It isn't his attempt right nowto say, what in the world is
going on around here with allthis stuff you're making up?
No, I can see that you couldtranslate them this way.
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I can see how religiouslydevoted you are.
And I think those men would havesat there probably nodding their
heads thinking, you know, thisguy understands us.
He gets us.
It's a wonderful introductionand a good model for us.
Notice further, for while I waspassing through and examining
(15:04):
the objects of your worship, Ialso found an altar with this
inscription to an unknown God.
Athens had discovered so manythings.
They were the birthplace ofdemocracy.
They were the home of Socratesand Plato and Aristotle with all
(15:24):
their sage advice, but the mostimportant truth they had not
discovered.
And they were troubled by it.
They fit the description of whatPaul wrote to Timothy in 2
Timothy 3 and verse 7, wherePaul says that unbelievers are
always learning but never ableto come to the knowledge of the
(15:46):
truth.
They can learn a lot of things,but never come to know the most
important thing.
And so, because of this, they'reliving in a world of inward
anxiety and confusion, andthey've erected these uh
pedestals and even temples.
Tertullian tells us, dedicatedto the unknown God, we're
(16:09):
probably missing one, and wedon't want to do that.
So here you go.
Beloved, you travel the worldand and you see the same
uncertainty played out in everyculture.
In fact, I was reading in one uhjournal not too long ago, and I
pulled it out.
The Hindu practice of Kumari,and I hope I translate that
(16:31):
correctly.
The belief that the supremegoddess of the cosmos, who gave
birth to everything through herwomb, that she inhabits a young
girl's body for um for a brieftime.
The Hindu believe, in fact, thisis shared from what I could
research and discover by manyBuddhists as well, it holds that
(16:54):
the Supreme Goddess Teleshu, whobirthed the cosmos from her
womb, indwells a carefullyselected young girl for a period
of time.
And that young girl then becomesthe incarnation, as it were, of
the goddess.
And she can be worshipped asdeity.
(17:16):
You can see the kernels of thegospel, can't you, even though
twisted in the end?
She's worshipped.
I went online and I watchedabout 15 minutes of an annual
festival where she is dressed upin an amazing costume and people
are nearly fainting around her.
The goddess a few years ago thathad been selected, though caused
(17:39):
quite a stir.
Evidently, the rules are thatunder no circumstance can the
goddess ever leave Nepal.
She's carefully watched andcared for, typically living in a
central palace.
But a few years ago, Nepaleseauthorities were outraged when
they discovered that she hadbeen taken at her approval with
(18:02):
uh adult uh supervisors to theUnited States to take part in a
video documentary of uh theKumari tradition.
And when she returned home, thearticle said she received
notification that she was nowterminated as a goddess.
(18:24):
I mean, God was fired,basically, is what they're
saying.
She was no longer worthy ofbeing worshipped as a deity.
However, I couldn't help butchuckle, after pressure from the
public, oh goodness thanks forthe public, and and her own show
of remorse.
(18:44):
The government backed down andagreed that she could stay a
goddess if, and I quote, shegoes through an intense
cleansing process that washesher of the sins of the countries
she visited while travelingabroad.
Now, just think about that for amoment.
What insecurity.
(19:06):
If even your goddess has to becleansed from sin and can lose
her deity, how can any Hinduever hope to be cleansed of
their sin?
And even be secure that they'refollowing a deity that's going
to last.
Well, here in Athens, with allof their ceremony and all of
their curiosity and all of theirreligious piety, Paul
(19:29):
effectively finds them in thesame state of spiritual anxiety.
Notice the end of verse 23.
What therefore you worship inignorance, this I proclaim to
you.
He's coming to the end of hisintroduction.
In other words, the God whosename you do not know.
(19:50):
He's not calling them ignorant,by the way.
He simply says, What you don'tknow, the one whom you worship
without knowledge of who he is,I'm going to proclaim him to
you.
I'm going to tell you who he is.
Now, with that statement, whatPaul does is absolutely
(20:11):
brilliant.
He sets the legal stage for hisintroduction of God.
You know, one of the things wemiss when we speed read or speed
preach is the fact that Paul isengaged here in a legal trial.
He's not standing before theSupreme Court because he thought
this would be a great place todo a little evangelism.
(20:35):
No, Athenian law required thatany new religious system and the
following of any new God receivethe approval of this council.
And so, in fact, Josephus, in mystudy, I encountered one thing
he said, he was the firstcentury Jewish historian who
wrote that it was forbidden byAthenian law.
(20:56):
Let me quote him, and thepenalty decreed for anyone who
introduced a foreign god wasdeath.
End quote.
(21:18):
Socrates had been roaming thestreets of the city of Athens,
teaching this growing band offollowers, most of them young
people, that the gods of Greecewere not who they thought they
were.
He denied the omnipotence of thepantheon.
(21:39):
He denied that gods were allpowerful.
And he rejected the polytheismof the culture that is the
worship of many gods.
Now, while he didn't follow thetruth of one God, the true and
living creator, he didn't followthe superstitions of his culture
either.
(21:59):
So he's effectively teaching anew religion.
In fact, he was charged withatheism because he didn't buy
into the polytheism of his day.
He's brought up on charges.
He literally is brought to trialon the very hill where Paul now
stands 500 years later, and theSenate or this council, I should
(22:25):
say, claims that he iscorrupting the youth of Athens.
And they sentence him to die bydrinking poisonous hemlock,
which he did.
Now here we are, 500 yearslater, at this text, and Paul is
(22:47):
referencing the nearbypedestals.
He's referencing the nearbytemple dedicated to the unknown
God.
And what he's really doing isinforming them I'm not I'm not
telling you about a new God.
I'm not introducing a foreigndeity to you, somebody new.
I'm really just going to talk toyou about the name and the
(23:09):
nature of the God you've alwayswondered about.
You have temples dedicated tohim.
Brilliant strategy of Paul.
He's claiming to provide thisstunning answer to centuries of
uncertainty.
Now, where do these pedestalsand altars and temples originate
(23:34):
to this unknown God?
Oh, let me tell you, this is alittle history.
This is just an introduction tothe sermon that'll begin, you
know, uh later.
History records for us that 600years before Paul arrives in
Acts chapter 17, Athens had beenbesieged by a terrible plague.
People were dying every day, andthey were terrified of what was
(23:58):
happening.
They were desperate for ananswer from their gods.
No answer came, and with thatthen no cure.
A famous poet and sort of aquasi-spiritual guru from the
island of Crete, of all places,his name was Epimenides.
He came up with a solution.
(24:18):
He said, I know what's going on.
There are some gods that areangry because they have been
overlooked in the worship ofAthens.
The citizens have beenoverlooking them.
Now he didn't know which gods,but whoever they were or or
whoever it was, they were thecause behind the plague.
(24:41):
And the council thought, that'sbrilliant, that's it.
And then they convened and said,Well, what do we do about it?
And Epimenides said, I have asolution.
He took a flock of sheep to thetop of the hill where Paul is
now standing, on top of theAreopagus, Mars Hill, and he set
(25:02):
those sheep loose.
And he instructed the Atheniansthat whenever any sheep lay
down, they were to be sacrificedin the name of the God whose
temple was nearest the sheep.
It was believed that the sheepwould be pulled by the God to
(25:22):
the temple to reveal that he wasthe one effectively pouting
because he wasn't gettingattention, but that's how I
interpret it.
So when the sheep were letloose, many of them roamed and
and they they just came off theAreopagus and went around and
and settled and grazed and laydown eventually to take a nap.
(25:44):
The problem is some of them layfar from any nearby temple.
And so that created newconfusion.
And so what Epimenides said todo was build an altar to the
unknown God and sacrifice thesheep upon it.
(26:04):
The Athenians would later buildtemples, scatter numerous altars
around Athens dedicated to thisunknown God.
And now, if you can imagine it,Paul arrives on the scene and
stands on this same hill and hesays, I know who this unknown
God is.
(26:25):
And I want to introduce him toyou.
And what Paul will do is he willbegin to introduce his God at
the same point, by the way, thesame key point that anyone has
to start at with a pre-Christianworld like Athens or America.
(26:46):
You begin with introducing Godas the creator of all that is.
You begin with Genesis chapter1, verse 1.
And so Paul begins hisdeclaration of who God is by
telling these Athenians the nextrather shocking declaration, and
that is this the unknown God,whom I know created everything
(27:12):
that is.
SPEAKER_00 (27:22):
This is Wisdom for the Heart.
Stephen Davy is currently takingyou through a series from Acts
17 called Introducing God.
This message is called SettingAside Superstition.
I'll mention that during theairing of this series, the CD
set is available at a deeplydiscounted rate.
(27:44):
If you'd like to add this seriesto your library of biblical
resources, now would be the besttime.
You'll also find this resourceon our website,
wisdomonline.org.
Then join us next time todiscover more wisdom for the
(28:06):
heart.
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