Sermons
A Message by the Rev. Harvey G. Throop
Palisades Presbyterian Church
San Diego, California
(10) The Apostle: To An Unknown God
(Acts 17:16-23)
“ For as I went through the city and looked carefully at the objects of your worship, I found among them an altar with the inscription, ‘To an unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you.”
(Acts 17:23)
Last fall, when we began this series of messages on The Apostle, we were introduced to Saul – later to be known as Paul – whose influence over Christianity is second only to Jesus Christ, himself.
We first met Saul as a tormentor and persecutor of Christians. Then we read about his conversion experience on the road to Damascus and his subsequent meeting with Ananias, who baptized him. We reflected upon his sojourn to Arabia and return to Damascus, where this former persecutor of Christians became a proclaimer of the Christian Gospel.
From Damascus, Saul had traveled to Jerusalem to link up with the Apostles and where he had befriended Barnabas. But because of threats on his life, he retreated to Tarsus for the next few years, where he most likely returned to his tent-making business and waited in the shadows while God prepared him for what lay ahead.
When a revival occurred in Antioch, Barnabas looked up his old friend Saul and, together, they ministered to an ever-growing church.
Over the course of the next few years, Saul, now known as Paul, made two of his three missionary journeys, spreading the Gospel and starting churches. During the course of his travels, he suffered much persecution at the hands of Christ's enemies: floggings, beatings, stonings, imprisonments, hunger, thirst, danger from bandits and dangers at sea. Yet still, he persevered for the sake of his Lord (see 2 Corinthians 11:23-28).
This morning, we are picking up on his story and find him making his way into the city of Athens, a city that was named for the ancient Greek goddess Athena, the daughter of Zeus, the protectress of the city.
Athens was a renowned center for Greek culture. The city's golden era had been back in the 5th century B.C., when it was the center of an empire. Sea trade from the Mediterranean world had brought wealth to the city. Temples and other public buildings gave the city an air of grandeur. It boasted a sixty-thousand-seat stadium – just a bit smaller than Qualcomm Stadium here in San Diego. Philosophy flourished in the city . During its long and impressive history, Athens had produced three of the most influential philosophers in human history: Socrates, Plato and Aristotle.
The city was a philosopher's dream. Wealthy families sent their children to Athens to learn philosophy and to be enriched by the many myths attributed to fanciful gods and goddesses.
New Testament scholar and commentator, William Barclay, writes that here were two philosophical thoughts that dominated this city. The Epicureans asserted that happiness and pleasure were the two principal aims of the tranquil life. They believed that everything happened by chance, that any gods there might be were remote, and so there was no need for concern or anxiety. “Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die,” is the classic Epicurean sentiment.
The Stoics, on the other hand, were just the opposite. They believed that life was determined by gods and it had to be lived according to the law of nature. The Stoic's goal was to accept nature and live in it without emotional intensity. They were pantheistic, seeing all as an expression of their gods (see Barclay, The Acts of the Apostles , The Daily Study Bible Series Commentaries, Westminster [Edinburgh, 1955], p. 141).
When the Apostle Paul arrived in Athens, he discovered that it was filled with idols. What surrounded the person on the streets was a veritable forest of stone, wood and precious metals all carved into altars, an endless array of strange gods shaped into faceless images.
The ancient author, historian and philosopher, Pliny the Elder, wrote, “In the time of Nero, Athens had well over twenty-five thousand public statues, and another thirty thousand in the Parthenon alone.” Wrote another ancient historian -- Petronius, “It was easier to find a god than a man in Athens.”
When Paul saw all these idols, Luke writes, “He was deeply distressed” (Acts 17:16). The place was a literal junkyard of idols. As a Jew, Paul had grown up in a tradition that had seen how angry God became over idol worship. The worst judgments Israel faced in its history always came in response to their worshiping before idols.
An idol, of course, is anything, or anyone, on earth in whom one trusts for one's salvation. One would think that a city filled with such highly intellectual people would not worship so many idols. But in fact, just the opposite has always been true in history. The smarter we are, the more tempted we are by the illusion that we can control life and save it through the right idol. Even today, the idols of materialism and power abound. Of course, the classic idols have always been money, sex, and power.
Having been a philosophy major myself in college, I know how exciting and exhilarating it is to learn new ideas and to explore unorthodox beliefs. That's a part of what you do when you study philosophy. But being knowledgeable in philosophy does not free one from the temptation to idolatry. It just gives you the opportunity to worship many idols at the same time.
As Paul walked about the city, he noticed that the Athenians even had an idol to an unknown god. That's the idol to which many folks are actually most devoted. It's the one we haven't yet discovered.
Well, Paul began to preach in the places of worship in Athens where devout people gathered. He also preached in the marketplaces where people were bowing before the idol of commerce. And he preached to the Epicureans and the Stoics. Remember, Paul was an intellectual in his own right. He had been educated in the university town of Tarsus and had studied under one of the great religious scholars of his time – Gamaliel. He had been trained in the law and knew perhaps as many as seven different languages. So armed with his own academic credentials, he presented the Gospel of Christ.
Yet, in spite of his impressive educational background, Paul was called a “babbler and a “proclaimer of foreign gods” (see Acts 17:18).
“Babbler” means seed-picker, a term used for nervous little birds that flit about picking at crumbs or discarded French fries at McDonalds or Jack In-The-Box restaurants. In Athens, it meant a philosopher who belonged to no recognized school of thought, but had picked bits and pieces of thought from many different systems of philosophy.
Being called a “babbler” was demeaning to Paul's intellectual integrity. For him, Jesus Christ was the revelation of the only true God, the Lord of all creation and the author of all truth.
As Paul talked about the God who revealed himself in Jesus Christ, the Athenians took him to the Areopagus to tell them more about this God. The Areopagus was a sort of philosophic review board for the intellectual and moral quality of the city. It had the authority to control who lectured in the city and to bring any lecturer before its philosophers to pass on his credentials and content. It was in front of this court, which met on Mars Hill, that Paul used the opportunity to communicate his message.
Looking directly into the eyes of his listeners, he began, “Athenians, I see how extremely religious you are in every way” (Acts 17:22). And he was off and running! This is the only complete sermon we have of Paul's.
Paul proceeded to offer a more accurate description of “The Unknown God” to them. This true God, Paul proclaimed, is not just one more competing demand upon your soul. He is the Creator God and he does not live in shrines made with human hands. He is as the Stoics claim, "In him we live, and move, and have our being."
So far, everyone was still listening to Paul, because this sounded very good and reasonable. But then Paul went on to say, “ For as I went through the city and looked carefully at the objects of your worship, I found among them an altar with the inscription, ‘To an unknown god.' What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you” (Acts 17:23,24).
It was at this point that Paul transitioned into the core of his sermon. He said two things that were not so popular. He spoke about the judgment and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
People have never been fond of hearing about the judgment of God. Most of us like to think that we left behind all that angry judgmental talk back in the Old Testament, and that in the New Testament we discover a more loving, compassionate God. But even the most cursory reading of the Bible reveals that in both Old and New Testaments, the love and judgment of God live side by side. It is because he loves us that God reveals his judgment to us.
The opposite of love is not judgment or even anger. The opposite of love is indifference, and God is not indifferent about us. He loves us so much that, by grace, he presents his judgment upon our wrongful turns in life. The purpose of God's judgment is not to condemn us, but as Paul tells the Athenians, “to invite us to repent or to turn from the idols who have led us astray” (see Acts 17:30).
Then Paul really loses his audience by saying, “The way we turn toward the right way of living life, is through the resurrection of Jesus from the dead.“
That did it! It was when he said the word “resurrection” that brought a heated response from his listeners. And then the crowd dismissed him with a polite, “We will hear you again about this” (Acts 17:32). Yet, we can be sure that they had no intention of hearing him again.
We get the impression that in Athens, everyone was welcome to his or her own philosophies. Their motto was “live and let live. If it works for you, go for it.” Every new idea offered to them was an opportunity to have a good, healthy debate and then go on virtually unchanged. All thinking was about the mind, not the heart. It was about challenge – not change. I worry that for many folks in our day, that is also the prevailing attitude.
Yet, Christianity is not just another interesting philosophy to ponder. It is a way of life.
Our hope, as Christians, is based on the resurrection, which claims that Jesus has defeated death for us. So we don't have to be afraid of physical death, or even the death of our relationships, dreams, health, or jobs -- all of which we will eventually lose. Knowing that we will lose these things is what makes us afraid. And it is our fear that leads us into selling our souls to “unknown gods.”
Understand: the resurrection doesn't claim we won't experience death. It claims that death is only the beginning of new life. We can have that new life today if we go ahead and die to our own selves and to those things we are so afraid of losing.
We wonder how Paul would have finished his lecture, had he been allowed to finish. No doubt, he would have told his listeners what repentance and acceptance of Christ could mean to them.
As followers of and believers in Jesus Christ, we are called to do one thing: to share the good news of Christ's Gospel.
God knows: the people around us need to hear this gospel message. So many people are living after the wrong things. For many of them, they worship the idol called money. Worshipping this idol often steals your soul from you as well as every important thing in your life with the promise that the more money you have, the better off you will be. Is that the legacy you want to leave – that so-and-so made a lot of money? Wouldn't it be better to have an obituary that says that during your life, you gave yourself and your energies to making this world look a little bit more like heaven?
There will always be scoffers to the Christian Gospel. There will always be rejection. There will always be moments of disillusionment and discouragement. But there will also always be successes.
As followers of Christ, we are committed to one message and one hope in Christ! The Gospel of Christ is not merely one more means of trying to save yourself. It is, rather, an invitation to die with Christ so that you may discover new life and, at long last, give yourself to things that will make an eternal difference.
As we make our witness, God will use us to achieve his ends.
