“The Knowable Unknown God”
(Acts 17:16-34)
Series: The Church on Fire!
Rev. Todd A. Linn, PhD
First Baptist Church Henderson, KY
(2-17-08) (AM)
- Take your Bibles and open to Acts, chapter 17.
We are making our way, verse-by-verse through one of the most exciting books of the New Testament. The book of Acts is an engaging history of the early church. The writer is Luke and the book records for us the spread of Christianity from Jerusalem 2,000 years ago to the utter ends of the known world at that time.
We pick up in our study by following the Apostle Paul on his second missionary journey. Last week we had Paul and Silas and Timothy together in Thessalonica and then Berea. And then we read that the believers hurried Paul out of Berea and he is on his way to the city of Athens. So Paul is by himself in Athens and he is waiting for Silas and Timothy to join him there later. Let’s read what happens as Paul is in Athens.
- Stand in honor of the reading of God’s Word.
16 Now while Paul waited for them at Athens, his spirit was provoked within him when he saw that the city was given over to idols.
17 Therefore he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and with the Gentile worshipers, and in the marketplace daily with those who happened to be there.
18 Then certain Epicurean and Stoic philosophers encountered him. And some said, “What does this babbler want to say?” Others said, “He seems to be a proclaimer of foreign gods,” because he preached to them Jesus and the resurrection.
19 And they took him and brought him to the Areopagus, saying, “May we know what this new doctrine is of which you speak?
20 “For you are bringing some strange things to our ears. Therefore we want to know what these things mean.”
21 For all the Athenians and the foreigners who were there spent their time in nothing else but either to tell or to hear some new thing.
22 Then Paul stood in the midst of the Areopagus and said, “Men of Athens, I perceive that in all things you are very religious;
23 “for as I was passing through and considering the objects of your worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO THE UNKNOWN GOD. Therefore, the One whom you worship without knowing, Him I proclaim to you:
- Pray.
Introduction:
My favorite verse in this passage is the verse we read just before we prayed. Paul has observed the thousands of idols all over Athens and says to the people of Athens there in verse 23, “As I was passing through and considering the objects of your worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO THE UNKNOWN GOD. Therefore, the One whom you worship without knowing, Him I proclaim to you.”
That’s just a great statement! Paul’s like, “You guys are so religious, so concerned about having altars constructed to every possible god you can imagine that you even have an altar dedicated to a God you don’t know. Well, I’m going to tell you about the God you don’t know,” and then for the next several verses Paul shares the Gospel with them.
The people of Athens are not altogether different from the people who live on your street here in Henderson or the people with whom you go to school or the people with whom you work. There are many people who believe God to be “unknown.” They might refer to themselves as being “agnostic.” How many of you have heard that word: agnostic? Agnostics believe there is probably some kind of god, but they do not believe that that god can really be known in a personal sense.
Well the Bible teaches us that there is but One God and that we may know Him in a personal, real way. So the Bible will teach us this morning about the “Knowable Unknown God.”
Now there are a few actions required from us as we study this text. We learned last time about the noble Bereans, they had their Scriptures open and they were searching the Scriptures to see whether what they were hearing was true. How many Bereans are here this morning? Okay, there are a few actions required of us as we study this passage. The first one action is for every single person who calls himself or herself a Christian. Number one, we must:
I. Reveal God’s Gospel to the Culture (16-21)
Remember that the major theme of the book of Acts is about revealing the Gospel to the culture. The key verse to the book is Acts 1:8. Jesus says, “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you and you shall be My witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea and Samarian, and the uttermost parts of the earth.” So we, as followers of Jesus Christ, are His witnesses, taking the Gospel to folks in Henderson, the state of Kentucky, North America, and internationally, across the seas. And while fulfilling that Great Commission of our Lord occurs simultaneously, most of us spend the majority of our time right here in this community, so we have this challenge to reveal God’s Gospel to the culture around us.
Paul reveals God’s Gospel to the culture in Athens. Athens was a great city in Paul’s day, though not as great as it had been just four to five hundred years earlier. Athens was not as politically significant when Paul was there 2,000 years ago but it was a very academic city, a place full of culture and history. Athens was the place of the great philosophers Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. The city was full of impressive buildings, statues, shrines, and altars. Some buildings could be seen as far as 40 miles away. The Acropolis had innumerous sights to behold, including the famous Parthenon, which contained an impressive statue of the Greek goddess Athena; namesake of the city; Athena the protectress of the city of Athens.
So the Bible says in verse 16 that, while he was waiting for Silas and Timothy, his spirit was “provoked” within him when he saw that the city was given over to idols. The NIV better translates that word “provoked” as, “greatly distressed.” Paul’s heart ached for a people who were completely given over to idolatry. They were lost and without Christ.
Scholars estimate the number of idols in Athens to be around 30,000 at the time Paul was there. A popular Roman satirist had once written that it was easier in Athens to find a god than it was a man! And he wasn’t exaggerating. Most scholars put the population of Athens in Paul’s day at about 10,000 people. So with 10,000 people and 30,000 gods, it would seem easier to find some idol god than a man. Paul must have been tripping over these things!
So what does Paul do? He reveals God’s Gospel to the culture. Verse 17 says “He reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and with the Gentile worshipers, and in the marketplace daily with those who happened to be there.” He’s just sharing the Gospel wherever he has opportunity. I want to be like that, don’t you? I mean, this afternoon if I stop for lunch or this week as I meet people or at the mall. You know, just engaging the culture, not beating it into their heads, but just sharing as God gives opportunity.
Then the Bible says in verse 18 that there were other people Paul encountered, “certain Epicurean and Stoic philosophers.” Who are these guys? Well, the Epicureans were people who believed that if there were any gods that the gods really didn’t have anything to do with the world. They were absent from the world and events just sort of happened by chance. So the Epicureans didn’t believe in a judgment from God or anything. Theirs was a pleasure-seeking lifestyle whose motto may well have been, “Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die.” You probably know people like that today.
The Stoics, on the other hand, were pantheists. They believed god was everything and that their lives were ruled by fate. Whatever happened to you was your destiny. The world was often harsh and cruel, but that’s just the way it was so Stoics sort of lived a life of detachment, unmoved and indifferent.
So this is the culture Paul encounters in Athens. Verse 18 says that these Epicurean and Stoic philosophers here Paul and they refer to him as a “babbler.” Some said, “What does this babbler want to say?” That word “babbler” is a word that means, “seed-picker.” They thought of Paul as a bird going around and picking up a scrap of bread here and there, nothing really remarkable about him. “Others said (verse 18), ‘He seems to be a proclaimer of gods,’ because he preached to them Jesus and the resurrection.”
So what do they do with Paul? Verses 19, “They took him and brought him to the Areopagus, saying, ‘May we know what this new doctrine is of which you speak?” The Areopagus was a council, the council of Ares, the Greek god of war; Ares, or Mars as the Latin has it. Some believe Paul was standing on Mars Hill, an outcropping near the Acropolis. What a scenic place from which to share the Gospel!
So the philosophers bring Paul to the Areopagus and they’re like—verse 20—“You are brining some strange things to our ears. Therefore we want to know what these things mean.” And I love this little aside Luke gives us in verse 21. He says, “For all the Athenians and the foreigners who were there spent their time in nothing else but either to tell or to hear some new thing.”
Luke’s like, “These people don’t work or anything. They just walk around like, “Hey, teach me something new! What’s new! I want to learn some other thing I can write down in my Philosophical journal.”
Paul reveals God’s Gospel to the culture. He stands there on Mars Hill and he shares the Good News of Jesus Christ with them. That’s what we’re to do, too. If we know Jesus Christ as our personal Lord and Savior then we will reveal God’s Gospel to the culture around us. Our Mars Hill may take the place of a classroom or a construction site or a ladies group, but we too, will reveal God’s Gospel to the culture.
Here’s the second action required of us from this text. Number two, we must:
II. Recognize God’s Greatness in Creation (22-31)
Watch as Paul preaches about the greatness of God; God’s greatness in creation.
22 Then Paul stood in the midst of the Areopagus and said, “Men of Athens, I perceive that in all things you are very religious;
23 “for as I was passing through and considering the objects of your worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO THE UNKNOWN GOD. Therefore, the One whom you worship without knowing, Him I proclaim to you:
Again, isn’t that a wonderful way to engage the culture? I mean Paul meets the people where they are, meeting them in their idolatry, and then just takes them to the One True God. He doesn’t waste any time. He gets right to the point. I think that’s important for us to remember in our evangelism. We don’t have to know everything about other religions. It’s helpful to know something about them. But Paul spends only two verses on their religion and then the next eight verses on the Gospel. Let’s read about God’s greatness in creation.
24 “God, who made the world and everything in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands.
Right to the point! God made everything and if God made everything then He is Lord of everything. He doesn’t dwell in the things men have made. He is much bigger than that! We spoke last week of the omnipotence of God. Here we are reading of the immensity of God. God is bigger than anything we can imagine. He is immense. His greatness exceeds everything. In our culture where TV preachers too often reduce God to a miniature sort of self-help guru, who exists for our pleasure, Paul reminds us that God is bigger than we can even imagine and He doesn’t even need us. Verse 25:
25 “Nor is He worshiped with men’s hands, as though He needed anything, since He gives to all life, breath, and all things.
I love this verse! Paul says, “You can’t make and idol to God. He isn’t worshiped with men’s hands as though He needed anything.” As though He needed anything! God needs nothing. This is the doctrine of God’s self-sufficiency. He needs nothing. He needs nothing because He has everything. He’s got the whole world in His hands. Recognize God’s greatness in creation. He needs nothing, “since He gives to all—(what?)—life, breath, and all things.”
A quick exercise: How many of you are living, let me see your hands. Say, “Thank you, God, for life.” How many of you are breathing? Say, “Thank you God for breath.” How many of you have things? Say, “Than you God for my stuff.”
26 “And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings,
27 “so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us;
Here is an acknowledgement of the sovereignty of God over His creation. He has created all men from one blood, from Adam, and has “determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings.” That is, “God has placed people where He wants them.” The people of Athens were living in Athens because that’s where God wanted them. You’re living in Henderson right now because that’s where God wants you. And verse 27 indicates that God seeks a personal relationship with us. God puts people where He wants them, “so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us.” We should seek after God, but because of our sin, because of the darkness of our condition, we are like men “groping” in the dark and we don’t even realize “He is not far from each of us.”
28 “for in Him we live and move and have our being, as also some of your own poets have said (this appears to be a quote from the poet Epimenides), ‘For we are also His offspring.’ (and this appears to be a quote from the works of Aratus).
29 “Therefore, since we are the offspring of God (that is, since God created us; we didn’t create Him), we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold or silver or stone, something shaped by art and man’s devising.
30 “Truly, these times of ignorance God overlooked, but now commands all men everywhere to repent,
Paul is driving the message home now. He says, “God, in His mercy, has overlooked your past times of ignorance, you Athenians, but not any longer. Now he is commanding you to repent. He is commanding this of ‘all men everywhere,’ repent!”
The word “repent” means “turn.” It is a change of direction. Those of you who are FAITH-trained or are now being FAITH-trained are familiar with this question we ask as we share the Gospel: “If you’re going down the road and someone says, “turn,” what is he or she asking you to do?” Answer: to change direction. That’s what repent means. It means I am no longer in charge of my life. I am turning away from my sin and self and I am turning to Christ. I am changing direction. I am following Jesus Christ. Turn. Repent. Why? Verse 31:
31 “because He has appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by the Man whom He has ordained. He has given assurance of this to all by raising Him from the dead.”
There is a day of judgment. A time is coming when each and every person will stand before the Judge of the universe. We will stand before God and God will judge us in righteousness by “the Man whom He has ordained.” That is, by Christ, the One God raised from the dead. Here again, the reason why Christians may be grateful to be judged in Christ Jesus. Jesus Christ took our place by dying for our sins and He continues to stand between God and us in judgment. God looks at me and He sees my Advocate, Jesus Christ, the One who stands between me and my sinfulness and the purity of God. In the words of John Newton:
…Since my Savior stands between, Who shed His precious blood,
‘tis He, instead of me is seen, when I approach to God.
Thus, though a sinner, I am safe: He pleads before the throne
His life and death on my behalf, and calls my sins His own.
What wondrous love, what mysteries, in this appointment shine!
My breaches of the law are His, and His obedience mine.
That takes us to the final action this text requires of us. Number three, we must:
III. Receive God’s Gift in Christ (32-34)
Paul has shared the Gospel with the Athenians. What is their response? Will they receive God’s gift in Christ? Verse 32 and following:
32 And when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked, while others said, “We will hear you again on this matter.”
33 So Paul departed from among them.
34 However, some men joined him and believed, among them Dionysius the Areopagite, a woman named Damaris, and others with them.
Note there three responses to the Gospel: 1) mocking, 2) delay, 3) belief.
Some mocked. The Greeks did not believe in a bodily resurrection from the dead. They mocked. They made fun of Paul. Some delayed. They said, “We’ll hear you again on this matter.” That’s a dangerous thing to do, delay. There is no guarantee that the God of creation who “gives to all life, breath, and all things,” will give us any more time. This breath may be our last. Delay is dangerous. Then some believed. Not many. Only two are mentioned here by name, Dionysius the Areopagite, apparently an important man there in the city, and a woman named Damaris. We don’t know anything else about these two people, but we’ll see them in heaven because they received God’s gift in Christ.
If you have not received God’s gift in Christ, if you have never been saved, you will make one of those three decisions this morning. You may mock. You may delay. Or you may believe. Know this: the God of creation has you right where He wants you. He has, verses 26 and 27, “determined your preappointed time…that you should seek the Lord…and He is not far from you.”
- Stand for prayer.
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