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biblestudy: Acts (Part Eighteen)

John W. Ritenbaugh
Given 24-Jan-89; Sermon #BS-AC18; 61 minutes

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OK. Back to act 17 again in act 16, why we were, we had gotten the Apostle Paul started off on his second evangelistic campaign and this one took him down the southern end of, of Turkey and then on into the western end. Remember I was telling you that every time he tried to turn North and go into other areas, why he was turned back, he said that Satan stopped him. Now, what, what I was going to read to you from a commentary was the admission in this commentary that in the northern part of what was then the, the province of Galatia, there were Celts living there. Celts Celts. You see those people who later worked their way up to Norway and, and into Scotland and IrelandAnd in this commentary, which was Tim Tyndall's commentary on the Bible said that these were Israel I people and that the Apostle Paul was not sent to those people. He was sent to other peoples and those other peoples were primarily the Gentiles and also then Israelites who were living in the cities where that were mainly gentile but every time he tried to get up into areas where there were, where the bulk of the people were Israelites, he got turned aside in some way so he could not go into Northern Galatia. But he continued W. working his way west, got over into Asos, which is on the very western end of Turk Turkey. And there he had that vision of a man of Macedonia saying, you know, come on over. So he then hopped on a ship, went over to Neapolis, which is the port city for Philippi. Then they went up into Philippi and he began preaching the gospel. There. I mentioned to you that Mr Armstrong said that he felt that that was in 51 ad. It was one time cycle from the time that the Apostle 50 or 51 I think it was 50. Actually what it was 50 AD was 119 year time cycle from the time that the gospel began to be preached. OK. The first convert, there was a woman Lydia, apparently there was not a large enough Jewish population there for them to have a synagogue because he, it doesn't say that he went into a synagogue instead, it says he went by the riverside was where prayer was made. And there he had the opportunity to, to talk to Lydia. And very quickly she invited him to stay with her and her house then became the center of operations. While they were in Philippi. He also ran into the young woman who was possessed of a demon and that proceeded to start a riot whenever he cast the demon from her. And the city was in an uproar. The Apostle Paul and Silas were thrown into prison. There was an earthquake late at night and the, the Philippian jailer was converted out of that. And then it was revealed to the people in the city that the Apostle Paul and Silas were both Roman citizens. And they were very quickly biting their nails, wondering what to do with these two men that they had beaten very unfairly. Didn't even give them a trial, never inquired as to whether they were Romans and they were in trouble if the Apostle Paul chose to prosecutebut he did not choose to prosecute, which is very interesting. He did choose to make them come out to the prison and let him out personally. And thus was able to throw somewhat of a warning into them that they better be careful about the way they treat these Christian missionaries or they might find themselves into trouble, but they had to leave. It was the better part of discretion for them to get out of Philippi. They did do that. So we get into chapter 17 and we find them on the road now to Thessalonica. Now it says verse one when they had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia. They came to Thessalonica where there was a Synagogue of the Jews. Now, why they did not stop in these other places? I do not know. Nobody seems to know but it was a fairly long journey. It was about 30 miles, I believe from Amphipolis or Philippi to Amphipolis. And then it was about another 35 miles from Amphipolis to Apolo Apollonia and then another 40 miles on to Thessalonica. So whether they were mentioned, those cities were just mentioned because it was one day's journey. I do not know. But if it was one day's journey, that was a long walk in one day. Oh, maybe they used horses. I do not know. But at any rate, he finally made his way to Thessalonica. Now Thessalonica was a pretty good sized city. It was about according to the commentaries, about 200,000 people in Thessalonica. It was the major city of Macedonia. It was the capital of the area, commercial center of the area. And it was set astride of thatI do not know whether I mentioned it to you last week, but via a Ignatia, which was the main east west road that ran, ran all the way from the Adriatic Sea across northern Greece, then Macedonia and then it picked up again in, in Turkey, what's today, Turkey and went all the way over into Antioch. So a lot of traffic through this area verse two. And then Paul as his custom was went into them and for three Sabbaths reading with them out of the scriptures. So he reason with them, it says in verse three, it says, explaining and demonstrating that the Christ had to suffer and rise again from the dead and saying this Jesus whom I preach to you is the Christ. Now, this is Paul's basic approach to preaching the gospel. It was on the one hand pro proclamation. Now by that, I get it that he stood up in the congregation and he preached a sermon and he proclaimed to them, the Kingdom of God and the Jesus of Nazareth was the Christ. And then interlocking with that, he sat down later and had, I guess what you would call personal Bible studies in which he argued with them. We do not like to use that word, but it was a pretty strong, he argued with them here. They softened it by saying that he reasoned with them in other places. It does. It says that they argued, oh, and you know that the discussions must have been pretty heated if they were willing to beat on him with rods and things like thatThey, they just were not sitting around twiddling their thumbs and just kind of having a philosophical discussion about this and that these people got hot under the collar about these things. Of course, it's easy to get hot under the collar about religion, is not it? For many of us anyway? But again, to the Jew first and then also to the Greek. And I think one of the major things that he was trying to get across to these people is this, the Jews were looking for a Messiah. They knew that it was about time. They could, they could read Daniel and the 70 weeks prophecy is in there and they had their thoughts regarding it, but the Messiah had come and gone and they missed him. And one of the major reasons that they missed him is because of their preconceptions regarding what the Messiah would be like. And of course, the major misconception was they missed entirely that the Messiah was going to come and that he was going to live life as a human being that he was going to suffer and die for the sins of the world and be resurrected and then come again. And it wouldn't be this until the second time that he would come, that he was, would establish his kingdom on earth. Ok? Now, what Paul had to do with these people was prove them that the life of Jesus Christ fit the scriptures. And so that meant that he had to understand Christ's genealogy and be able to show to those people that Jesus indeed was descended from David and that he was in line to be the king. In addition to that he had the show that he was born in Bethlehem, the city of David. He had to show that he grew up into manhood in the land of Naphtali. You see in Nazareth, he had to show then the things that Jesus preached were in conformity with what the Messiah would preach. He had to show them from the scriptures that the Messiah was intended by God to suffer and die for the sins of the people. And you see all along the way, just as we do today, we have our conceptions, misconceptions is more like it. And so we tend to resist those things. And the Jews of course re resisted very strongly. These things were things that they had believed for centuries regarding the messiah. And they were not about to give them up very very easily. Now, the second thing was very difficult for them had to do with the positions of grace and law and grace included within it, the diminution, at least to them anyway of personal works. And that was something also that was very difficult for them to accept. And it was this kind of proclamation that caused the death of Steven and the persecution of the church around the area of, of Jerusalem. It was also what was responsible for the council that was held in, in acts the 15th chapter. So the Apostle Paul had to be prepared to reason with these things with these people and it was not something in which he could have a tract or, or an article written off at the local newsstand, Gane get xerox copies and hand it to people and say here, read this between now and the next Sabbath, everything had to be communicated verbally. And so there was a lot of face to face confrontation, things that well, I could say we are spared today because this blizzard of paper that Pasadena sends out, prepares the way for us. And well, television does as well. And before that, it was radio and, and so he had to do all of this face to face and it was a lot more excitingYou get run out of town, you get beaten and have people screaming at you, you know, nose to noseWell, that was the way it was done then. OK, verse four and some of them were persuaded and a great multitude of the devout Greeks and not a few of the leading women joined Paul and Silas. So there was some success there and it is very likely that these women were GentilesIt's hardly likely that Jews were in a position to be leading in a city in which they were in a very minority position. So it's likely that these ladies were Gentiles. It is also though very likely that they were proselytes of the Jews of Judaism. And so in a sense, they were well on their way to conversion before the Apostle Paul ever came along. But they very quickly saw the truth of what he was saying and were converted. OK. It says that they joined themselves. It means that they formed a group around the Apostle Paul that was separate from the synagogue now verse five. but the Jews who were not persuaded, becoming envious that some of the evil men from the marketplace and gathering a mob set all the city in an uproar and attacked the House of Jason and sought to bring them out to the people. Here we go again. And it's interesting that the thing that seemed to precipitate, it was envy of the success of the Apostle Paul and Silas. OK. Now Thessalon Eike, it was what the Romans called. A free city, which meant that it was self governing. Now, there were still a Roman governor who was over thinks. But if it had not been a, a free city, they would not have been allowed to rule themselves in the way that they did. Now, the Romans actually permitted them to hold elections. The general Greek system was a democracy and the Thessalonica were um Thessalonians were allowed to elect what we would call today. A council or an assembly. And so they were going to, to bring those men, they did bring them to I shouldn't say they brought them, they brought Jason as we are going to see in the next verse they could not find Paul and Silas. And so they did the next best thing they took Jason who was their host there in the city and they dragged him before the council. Now, they could have done that without the disturbance. They had the right as citizens to do that, but they created the disturbance. I am sure in order to make their case stronger, they were the ones that were making the uproar. It was not the Christians. Christians were probably trying to protect themselves, you know, holding their heads or something. But the disturbance would make it look as though the Christians were the ones that raised the things they were not doing it at all. The Jews were doing it. Ok. Done in verse six, that when they did not find them that is Paul and Silas, they dragged Jason and some brethren to the rulers of the city crying out. These who have turned the world upside down down have come here too. Now, we know they did not literally turn the world upside down. It simply means that these people cause trouble everywhere. Just a colloquialism. I guess you would call it for, for something that would mean that now the news was getting around. So here they were in Thessalonica and these Jews already knew that there had been trouble elsewhere. Now, where had that trouble been? Well, there are two likely places. It was either Philippi or Rome Paul never made it to Rome until after a church was already formed. And as we go through here, we are going to see that it's highly likely that somebody else went to Rome and already started a congregation there by this time. And the apostle Paul did not get there until many years later. And actually converts were coming from Rome over into Greece, maybe on business travels or whatever. But it's very likely that Priscilla and Aquila who are going to show up in the, in the next chapter were converted in Rome. And then they got chased out of Rome because of an edict of Claudius. And so they went over to Corinth and started a business there and that's where Paul met up with them. They were already converted when he got there. So the news was getting Iran and it's very likely it came either from Rome or it came from Philippi or perhaps in what is present day Turkey. OK, verse seven. Now Jason has harbored them. This is their accusation and these are all acting contrary to the decrees of Caesar saying there is another king Jesus. Now, here is the heart of the accusation that they hope to, to pin on these people. Now, there is some measure of truth in the accusation that Jesus is a king and he is the king of a kingdom. Now that's what the Gospel is all about. It's about the Kingdom of God. However, they construed it to be an attack on the emperor because that they the the legal religion of Rome was emperor worship. Now that does not mean that the only legal religion of Rome at the time was emperor worship. Because the Jew, the Jews had free access to their synagogues in Rome. And Rome's general policy in the areas that they governed was to allow the people to continue to worship according to their, their religion as long as it did not disturb the peace. And so then when Rome gave that permission, then that religion became a lawful religion. Now Christianity was not yet really a lawful religion in Rome. Now, one of the things that I mentioned to you when we were laying the foundation for this book is that it seems as though it was Luke's intention to show that regardless of the disturbances, Rome never declared Christianity illegal. And so it had the legality that it needed to operate. If Rome had declared it illegal, then it would have stopped the preaching of the gospel. But I am sure what happened is that that God continued to hold the door open until the work was done in that area. And then he closed the door to the preaching of the gospel in those areas, at least for a while. And at any rate, that was the heart of their accusation. And that is that it was a an attack on the emperor verse eight and they troubled the crowd and the rulers of the city when they heard these things. And so when they had taken security from Jason and the rest, they let them go. Ok. Here's what happened there. At first, the accusation alarmed the council city fathers, the assembly. However, the Jews could not present enough evidence to support their case. First of all, they did not have the troublemaker, Paul or his assistant Silas, all they had was Jason. Yeah. And so there was, there was no real real case. In addition to that, the city fathers were able to see that the evidence that they presented was awfully scanty. And maybe they were even, even though this is not included, maybe they were even able to have evidence presented otherwise that it was the Jews who were doing the rioting and creating the disturbance. So what they did in effect is what we would call today, they threw the case out of court. Now see here again is a case where a government having the opportunity to persecute, backed away from it. And Luke is saying, look, we operated legally within the framework of the law, ok. They made Jason though post bond and that bond or that security evidently was to ensure that the Apostle Paul would leave. If the Apostle Paul did not leave, then he lost his bond. Well, in verse 10, then the brethren immediately sent Paul and Silas away by night to Berea. And when they arrived, they went to the synagogue of the Jews. Undoubtedly they left at night to avoid any further trouble. Didn't want to run into any moreJews and create a disturbance. So they went at night, went to Bea another 45 or 50 miles away. And in this case, Bea was not sitting astride this road. So they went off the beaten pathThey got out of the, the, the mainstream so to speak and went to to this place and straight to the synagogue again. I'll tell you, you've got to give that Apostle Paul and Silas some credit people could kick him in the teeth and he'd get up smiling. You know, we, we would get awfully offended. I think if, if we got the rejection that the that he got, most of us could never be door to door salesman because we can't face rejection. We got a knock on the door and we, we are hoping the pe the people will not kick us in the teeth, but nothing seemed to hold him back. OK. Verse 11, these were more fair minded than those in Thessalonica, Thessalonica. In that they received the word with all readiness and searched the scriptures daily to find out whether these things were so well. For all eternity, the barns are going to be praised. They were fair minded, noble minded and I think what it means is, but they were open minded to the extent that they were tolerant of listening to something new without getting angry, upset and super defensive. But on the other hand that even though they were open minded and tolerant, they did not take his word without proving it, they did not fight with him like, like the Jews did in all these other places. You know, it just makes you wonder why, why this one place stood out like that. What, what kind of a, what kind of a spirit was there? What kind of an attitude was there in the whole city that this group of people would, would have this open-minded approach to things. It's just so interesting, maybe because they were off the beaten path, they were not so full of themselves. They were not from the big metropolitan area like that's a loa. But they were maybe just plain folks who were open minded about things. I also something that is interesting to me there is that, that, you know, they had scriptures available to them. How many, how many scrolls, you know, were there? I do not know, but there was enough there that they could read enough that they had access to the scriptures in order to check things out. And they met with him daily was not just something that they did on the Sabbath either. So very interesting. So there were apparently verse 12, many of them believe and also not a few of the Greeks prominent women as well as men they even, apparently the unpersuaded Jews caused them no problem. And then verse 13, here come the bad guys again. But when the Jews from Thessalon, Thessalonica heard that the word of God was preached by Paulet Baria, they came there also and stirred up the crowds. You know, I wonder if the Apostle Paul ever thought about this, you know, whatever you sow you reap. I mean, he was the bad guy in the beginning. Yeah, he was getting it back in Spades everywhere he went. Somebody was on his case just like he had been on everybody else's case a little while before that. And there is a, there seems to be a law in the universe that evens things out. I do not even know how to describe it. Sort of like a law of compensation. So that those who do those who do bad, get theirs, if they do not get it theirs from the people, they did it to, they get theirs from somebody else so that it makes that law, you know, that whatever you sow you reap or that principle to be true. Eventually, you know, it all comes home at any rate. The Jews showed up in Thessalonica and learned that the word of God was preached by Paul at Berea. And verse 14, then immediately the brethren sent Paul away to go to the seaBut both Silas and Timothy remained there. So those who conducted Paul brought him to Athens and receiving a command for Silas and Timothy to come to him with all speed, they departed and now here is what happened. Paul left and went to Athens. That's very clear. Timothy apparently remain in Baria. Silas went to Macedonia up to Philippi. Now, both of those men later met up with Paul in Athens. Then we find they were sent right back to where they came from and then they came back again. Only this time they met him in Corinth. Well, that's an awful lot of walking, an awful lot of writing an awful lot of something. Now, this was done within a fairly short period of time. When we get to chapter 18, I'll tie all these things together because once we get to chapter 18, we can begin to tie the book of First Corinthians in with the things that are going on in, in uh in that chapter. And we will begin to put some of these things together because it's right about in this time that the Apostle Paul begins to write his epistles. The First Thessalonians was probably the first one that was written and that he probably wrote it from Corinth. In the next chapter. We're going to get the Corinth. Now, why did he write it? We wrote it because Timothy came back with a message about things that were going on in, in, in, in Thessalonian and things that need to be addressed in their understandings or misunderstandings of the things that he said earlier. But we begin to be able to tie the epistles together with the story flow because pretty soon he's going to start writing, OK, verse 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. Well, in Athens, we are going to see Paul's approach to a city that was really pagan. I mean, it was as pagan as you can get practically. And it was pagan, but it was culture, get a little do a little bit of more of that later. Now, here we are going to begin to see then the way Paul approached them and he did not approach them in the same way that he did the people in Thessalonica or Philippi or anywhere else that he had been before, you know, verse 17. Therefore, he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and with the gentile worshippers in the marketplace daily, with those who happened to be there. So, let's see, verse 18, let me go on to that and certain epicurean and stoic philosophers encountered him and some said, what does this babbler want to say? And others said he seems to be a proclaimers of foreign gods because he preached to them, Jesus and the resurrection. Now what they had there in Athens was a blend of, well, superstitious idolatry along with we will call it enlightened philosophy. Now, in Paul's address here, he touches on both of them. Now, the two major groups were the epicureans and the stoics. Now, the epicureans felt that it was unnecessary to seek God because God was not paying any attention to man, you know that he was off doing his thing, but it was not really necessary to, to seek to please him. Now, as a result of that, they were really unafraid of God and they were unafraid of his judgments. And yet on the other hand, they were the kind of people that would attack what they considered to be superstitious beliefs in the gods. The epicureans were essentially monotheistic, like they believe this is a generality. They believed that there was one God, but he was not paying any attention. It was one God, the Creator. Now, the stoics on the other hand, were polytheisticyou know, you could kind of worship whomever it was that you want. Now, the rest of their religion was pretty sensible. They tried to be real rational in, in their thinking that there was an essential unity of all of mankind and that it was mankind's responsibility to make a very strong attempts to try to get along with one another. And also they felt that there was a kinship with God, you know, that man was related to God. Ok. Now Paul has to touch on these things or at least he feels that he does. And so he approaches them from the basis of their philosophy and also on the basis of their idolatry. So the speech here has three basic sections. Number one is this that the God, you see this unknown God that he begins with is Lord that he doesn't need a temple. But you have to understand that they were standing, they were standing in a place that was surrounded by temples. Now, he not only doesn't need a temple that in the strictest sense, he doesn't even need a ritual of any kind in the worship of it. The second thing that he touches on is that man is God's creation and that man needs God. You see that begins to smack right against the epicureanspretty hard. The third thing that he touches on is that man and God are related and therefore idolatry is irrelevant. Not only irrelevant, it's downright voice. Ok. Now, Athens had been the cultural center of the world that by the time that the Apostle Paul got there, it was living on its reputation. I'll tell you how small it had become by the time the Apostle Paul there got there in comparison to. Well, I'll just tell you this at the time of the Apostle Paul, it was very likely that the population of Athens was only about 10,000 people, whereas the population of Corinth was 700,000. I mean, it was a major city, but Athens was nothing more than a village. But it was a village with a tremendous reputation and tremendous buildings in it. You know, even today, you can see the glory of Athens. It was once Athens, but by the time the Apostle Paul got there, the place was practically a ghost town filled with these, with this magnificent statuary and buildings, marble everywhere that it was living on its reputation. A little bit of background about Athens. It was founded by a man named Theseus and he was supposed to have s slain, slew the Minotaur. Did you ever hear of the Minotaur island of Crete? And also he conquered the Amazons, the Amazons, those famous women warriors at any rate, he named it in honor of the goddess Athena. And it reached its peak under Pericles who ruled from 595 all 495 to 429 66 year reign by Pericles. And it was during Pericles last 15 years before he died, that most of the magnificence of Athens was built all that marble buildings, you know, the Parthenon and so forth. Now, it attracted intellectuals from all over the world. And in fact, it attained most of its eminence at the expense of all of its allies. There was a tremendous brain drain going on for several 100 years and all these brains you see were coming into Athens because of the reputation that it, that it earned under pericles. But gradually this began to agitate, irritate the other cities that were in league with, with Athens and eventually a war erupted. It lasted for about 25 years called the Peloponnesian war in which many of the cities that were formerly associated with Athens sided with. Sparta. Sparta is in south central Archaea and Athens was up in the eastern and northern part of, of Achaia, but Sparta won the war and Sparta and its allies won the war. And Athens began to go into quite a long period of decline when 338 Philip I I of Macedon conquered it. And but all he succeeded in doing and conquering it was to spread its culture all over the world because his son Alexander the great and then went on his conquering binge and he took Athenian culture with him wherever he went. And but Athens itself was still going downhill. In 130 46 the Romans conquered it and they loved everything Greek and so they spread it even further. And even though Rome was the great city in the Roman Empire, they continued to funnel a great deal of their say, intellectual wealth into Athens. And it continued to be the philosophical and cultural center of the Roman world. However, it was going down very fast. And so by the time the Apostle Paul came on the scene, it had lost its wealth, it had lost its empire and only had a population of about 10,000 people. So Paul was confronted with a, with a veritable forest of idols and temples. And so that got his dander up. And so he decided to speak to these people. He challenged them and they brought him then verse 20 you are bringing some strange things to our ears. Therefore, we want to know what these things mean for all the Athenians and the foreigners who were there were there, spent their time and nothing else. But either to tell or to hear some new thing that tells you a lot. There were not very many people working. You can't exist very long when there is nobody working. Verse 22 then Paul stood in the midst of the AOP paus and said, men of Athens, I perceive that in all things, you are very religious. Well, he was surrounded by idols and, and temples. Now the AOP Aus was the council or assembly of Ares Ares is the Greek equivalent of the Roman God Mars. And so they held their council on the hill of are at the top of the hill or Mars hill. And this is where they normally held a court for the operations of the city. Now, this does not appear to be any kind of a legal proceeding at all. But rather an opportunity given to Paul to explain the message to those who are in control of affairs to determine whether or not he would have access to preaching in the city. So though it was not important in the way of being a legal proceeding, it was important that if he was going to do any kind of work there, why it was necessary for him to have their permission to do that? OK, verse 23. For as I was passing through and considering the objects of your worship, I found an altar with the inscription to the unknown God. Now, the Greeks were pretty superstitious. And I guess the reason was that they had any kind of a statue like this was that just in case there was a God that they missed, they wouldn't offend him anyway, because there was an altar for Him. Therefore, the one whom you worship without knowing Him, him, I proclaim to you. So Paul is going to preach to them beginning in what he feels will be a common ground. They do not know the God that he's worshiping. And so it's almost like this is an altar to the unknown God, the God that he is worshiping. It's not really, but he wants to begin with something that they can relate to. Verse 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. Now he's talking here, of course about God the Creator, but he is employing words that would fit right into the Greek speaking world, something that they were kind of familiar with. And his first ploy is to let them know that this unknown God is so great. He could not be contained in a temple. Now, what this has to do with is concerning the nature of the God that Paul is worship worshiping. Now, you have to understand that it is very likely that all we have here is the essence, the outline of what the Apostle Paul said. We do not have the whole message and it is very likely that he filled in here with a great deal of material in order to make more specifically clear exactly what it was, it was that he was getting at, but it gives us the sense he is talking here. Now at the beginning of his message about the nature of God, now, he could compare that very easily to the nature of those idols which were dead. Well, his God is alive. He made everything he was not created. He is creator. OK. That's the approach at the beginning. Nor is he worshiped with men's hands. Something that a that a man could make God has no need of supply of being supplied with anything that man can do with his hands. That's part of his nature as though he needed an anything since he gives to all life breath and all things. Now see they had to care for their gods. They probably had to chase the pigeons off. They probably had to wash them, keep them all polished up. You see that our God, he cares for us and he has made from one blood, every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth and has determined their pre appointed times and the bounds of their habitation. Now, verse 26 is, is important from another area. And that is he was getting at a belief that the Greeks had and that is that they originated from the soil of Greece. See that was their idea. And Paul is straightening that up. No, that's not true. You came from Adam and Eve just like everybody else that couple that, that this God created, not only that this God is in control of history, the Greeks with all of their wisdom felt that they were in control of things. And if they determine, you know, when nations would rise and fall and it would be determined by the intelligence, you know, the intellect of men and our ability to control technology. No, it's God who does those things and that there are divinely appointed periods for nations to flourish. And God is also the one that sets their boundaries and when God is finished using them, then they sink from the scene and other nations rise and God's purpose is carrying through showing the power of God to determine the destiny, not only of individuals, but also of nations. Now verse 27 shows a purpose so that they should seek the Lord in hope that they might grope for him and find him though. He is not far from each from each one of us. Now, he is showing them that what God did in verse 26 in the way that he created the families of men in the way that he created and brings to power, nations and peoples and set their boundaries, that God did it in such a way so that there would be a witness that mankind would be able to seek him, that even Paul admits that they are groping for him, that it's a mystery that it's not a mystery any longer. See, because Paul is there revealing this God and now he is telling these people, you do not have to grope for him anymore. The mystery is revealed. He's not far from each one of us for in Him. We live and move and have our being as also some of your own poets have said, where we are also his offspring. Now, both of those were quotes from Greek poets. Now, they did not apply at all to God, the Creator, but rather they applied to Zeus that Paul knew enough of their poetry to lift the line out and apply it to the true God. Verse 29. Also in verse 28 you see, he is showing a relationship between God and men and it was something that they could not deny because their own history showed it, I should say honestly or truthfully deny. We can deny anything that we want to verse 29. Therefore, since we are the offspring of God, that was another quote from a poet of theirs, he's continuing to show this relationship and we are not divine offspring, but we are in God's image and likeness. We ought not to think that the divine nature is like gold or silver or stone or something shaped by art and man's devising. Now, if they were thinking that would have been a real thrust right to the heart because there he was standing in the midst of this forest of idols and he was telling them, look, you dumb idiots, you're supposed to be so smart. Those things can't breathe, they can't talk to you. They're not writing, you know, epistles to you at all. They're not teaching you the way to go. You have to care for them and yet you're supposed to be so smart and yet you're bowing down to something that you have to make with your own hands and carry from place to place. I can see why they get upset if he really expounded on thisand drew it a lot clearer than it is actually here. Verse 30. Truly, these times of ignorance, oh, you're the smart men. All these intellects got overlooked, but now commands men everywhere to repent. Well, he's saying that God has made some allowances in the past that he's not going to be doing now because he is appointed a day. This is why we can't dilly dally Iran. There is a sense of urgency in what Paul is saying here, a sense of imminent because he is appointed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by the man whom he has ordained, meaning Jesus Christ. So he is saying there is a day of judgment going to be conducted by God's agent. Let me erase from the dead. As the next line says, he has given assurance of this to all by raising him from the dead. And when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some marked while others said, we will hear you again on this matter. Now, this is interesting in light of the doctrine of the immortality of the soul. The Greeks believed in the immortality of the soul, but he did not approach them from that standpoint because man is not immortal, that would not have been true. They believed in reincarnation, some of them did. He did not approach them from that standpoint at all because that's not true either that he approached them from the resurrection of the dead and that they objected to because they had never heard of such a thing or if they had, they did not believe that it was possible to be done. You see, could not get past the ignorance. It was produced by the misconceptions of the past. And so Paul departed from among them. So they had nothing but scorn them. Now to them, the body was evil, a dualistic approach to things and they could not perceive of a bodily resurrection in which a body would be pure verse 34. However, some men joined him and believed and among them was the insi the areopagite oppo. Now that means that he was a part of the council, the consul of the city fathers there that we are hearing what he had to say and he believed, and a woman named Damaris and others with them. So some were convicted. But we find in chapter 18 verse one that after these things, Paul departed from Athens. So apparently the Apostle Paul did not receive permission to preach in Athens. And on, he went so on to current, I think what we will do here is we will just give you a little bit of a background of it. And then the next time we will come back and start in verse one. Now, Corinth was undoubtedly the most important of the gentile cities that that Paul visited on his evangelistic campaigns. Now, eventually he got to Rome and Rome was the city. But Paul's evangelistic campaigns, there were very limited because he was in prison or he was under house arrest. What might be a better way of putting it for two years while he was there and then he was released and apparently went on to other places. So his first imprisonment there, he did not do anything except see people at home. The next time he was there, he was put to death. So Corinth stands as the most important city that the Apostle Paul ever went to, to conduct any of his evangelistic campaigns. Now, it had a very long history and where it was situated, it was kind of right in the center of everything that was Greek. Now, its history stretches all the way back to the eighth century BC. Long before Athens, a couple of 100 years before Athens. And even then, it boasted a population of 200,000 free men and 500,000 slaves, men and women. It was a, it was quite a place. However, by the fifth century BC, it began to decline and its decline was precipitated by the rise of Athens. It began to drain away many of the people who were formerly in Corinth and some of the other cities around there. And it took away much of the strength of the leadership that was there. However, in that Peloponnesian war that I mentioned to you that took place and began in 431 and went on to 404 Corinth sided with Sparta and they were victorious. However, it was disastrous for both Sparta and Corinth. And the decline continued in 338 just like Athens, it was defeated by Philip the second. And he began to build it up though. And once again, it became the leading city in the area. In 196 the Romans came through and they captured it. And about 50 years later, the Corinthians led a revolt against Rome. And that was a no, nothe Romans defeated them and they absolutely leveled the city. They plowed it under, scraped it into the sea. But it's a hard place to keep down. And the reason it was so hard to keep down is because it was so strategically located. And so Julius Caesar and let's see, when was it, it was about 46 BC. He decreed that it should be rebuilt. Two years later, the construction began and by 27 BC, it was the capital of Achaia. Achaia was the southern part of what is today Greece. Now in Paul's time, it had a population of about 200,000 people which makes it 20 times larger than, than Athens was, it was a commercial center. It's right in the middle of everything there, roads leading into it. It was not too far from the ocean. And as a result of that, why it was a commercial city had a very large population of Jews and very wealthy. Now, along with the wealth went a great deal of decadence as wellThe decadence was mostly in the area of sexual immorality and Corinth was known throughout the ancient world by the term to Corinthian eyes, which me, which meant to be sexually immoral. Now, it was the center of worship for the goddess Aphrodite. Aphrodite. I guess it is. And in her temple there, there were 100 not 101,000 sacred prostitutes. Can you imagine that? 100,000 of them? And they were sacred, which is interesting. And this temple sat on the highest spot in the city. Of course, the high place, there were also temples there to the God Melhart, which is interesting. That was the the God of the Phoenicians. And he was the God of sailors, a commercial center. There were a lot of them there. Also, there was a, a temple to the God Apollo and a temple to the God se Lapis who was the the God of, of healing. It was also the site of the pan Hellenic which means all Greek is me in games similar to the OlympicsThe only thing was these were held every two years. And it's interesting that Paul in first Corinthians nine uses a, an athletic metaphor that he undoubtedly got from the Izan Games. Now, in first Corinthians two, we are going to go there just briefly. First Corinthians two to provide a little bit more background in verse one, it says, and I brethren when I came to you did not come with excellence of speech or of wisdom declaring to you the testimony of God for I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified and I was with you in weakness in fear and in much trembling. Now you might remember the vision back there in chapter 16 that he was directed to go to Macedon, but he went there and things did not go too well. In Philippi, he was beaten and jailed and he had to leave the city, Thessalonica. He left the people in trouble. He did not get beaten there or anything but Jason, you know, had to post a bond for him. And so he left the church there in trouble in be the next stop. He had to leave because things were beginning to heat up because the people, the Jews had arrived from the Thessalonica. Then in Athens probably maybe the the most difficult of all to take because he was treated there with scorn and contempt and just given a, a polite dismissal from the city. I did not even have the opportunity to, to do much preaching there. And I would say that the Apostle Paul by the time he got to Corinth was pretty dejected. That's why I I read that there. He came in weakness with fear and trembling undoubtedly here he was going to one of the greatest cities of the Roman Empire. And he was wondering what worse thing could happen here. Everything is going bad. Why had God allowed matters to fall out so badly? He was undoubtedly sick, you know, emotionally sick with anxiety and depression. Now, in addition to that, he was probably still suffering from the effects of the beating that he took in Philippi. And this also could have contributed to his depression. And it might have been that it was here that he was praying so fervently that God would remove the thorn in his flesh because that too was written to the Corinthians second Corinthians in chapter 12. So that's the background. You have a man for whom everything seems to be going wrong. And he is on the verge of preaching in the most important city that he has been to. Yet, anxiety, depression, feelings of weakness. How are things going to turn out here? Well, we will stop right there and we will pick it up the next time.

JWR/aws/drm

 

 

Sermon Topics

False Gospels

Jesus Christ's Return

Life after Death

Repentance

Resurrection

The Gospel

The Kingdom of God