FROM ATHENS TO CORINTH

CITY GATES BAPTIST CHURCH 31/7/2016

[Referencing ACTS 17:15 to 18:11]

ACTS 17:16-21

16While Paul was waiting for[Silas and Timothy] in Athens, he was deeply distressed to see that the city was full of idols. 17So he argued in the synagogue with the Jews and the devout persons, and also in the marketplace every day with those who happened to be there.18Also some Epicurean and Stoic philosophers debated with him. Some said, "What does this babbler want to say?" Others said, "He seems to be a proclaimer of foreign divinities." (This was because he was telling the good news about Jesus and the resurrection.) 19So they took him and brought him to the Areopagus and asked him, "May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? 20It sounds rather strange to us, so we would like to know what it means." 21Now all the Athenians and the foreigners living there would spend their time in nothing but telling or hearing something new.

BACKGROUND OF ATHENS

Paul’s time in Athens needs to be understood in the context and culture of the city itself, but also in the knowledge and understanding of the history of the city.

In 46 BC, the whole of Greece, under the name of Achaia, was transformed into a Roman province.

In 27 BC that Roman province that was once Greece was then divided into two separate provinces: Macedonia and Achaia.

Athens and Corinth were both in the province of Achaia, and today Athens is the capital of modern-day Greece.

In Paul’s day, Athens had lost some of its grandeur, but it still remained the symbol of the great philosophers of popular opinion who had graced the city in generations past.

Athens had been the place where Socrates, Plato and Aristotle had shone in debate and philosophical arguments.

Furthermore, from an aesthetic and religious standpoint, Athens was unrivalled for its exquisite architecture, art and statues.

On the Acropolis (the elevated part of a Greek city) was the Parthenon, which was the temple of Athene (the city’s patron goddess), and it had been built in 447 BC.

PAUL’S REACTION

No wonder, then, that Paul reacted to what he saw in the city:

ACTS 17:16

While Paul was waiting for[Silas and Timothy] in Athens, he was deeply distressed to see that the city was full of idols.

When Paul saw the idols – the pagan architecture, art and statues in Athens – he was “deeply distressed” (NRSV).

Luke uses the Greek word ‘paroxynomai’ for Paul’s reaction at seeing the city so full of so many kinds of idols.

  • This word ‘paroxynomai’ has been defined as “to be provoked or upset at someone or something involving severe emotional concern.”
  • To put it plainly, Paul was enraged when he saw all the idols.

ACTS 17:17

So [Paul] argued in the synagogue with the Jews and the devout persons, and also in the marketplace every day with those who happened to be there.

  • The word that Luke uses for ‘argued’ is ‘dialegomai’, which would have involved Paul proclaiming his truth but then leaving room for discussion afterwards.
  • The ‘marketplace’that Paul spoke at was the ‘agora’, the main public place in the city, for it was adorned with public buildings and colonnades.
  • The ‘agora’ was the economic, political, and cultural heart of the city, and was the place in which Socrates had argued and debated in days long before.

The city of Athens was steeped in the practice of philosophical and academic discussion and argument, and when Paul spoke there he used exactly the same method that Socrates had once used.

The people that Paul debated and discussed with were experienced philosophers who were both well-educatedand very upper class people who held great sway in the city.

Since any religion or philosophy are poles apart from a relationship with God through Christ, it is not surprising that the experienced philosophers did not understand what Paul was talking about.

PAUL AT THE AREOPAGUS

ACTS 17:18,19

18Also some Epicurean and Stoic philosophers debated with him. Some said, "What does this babbler want to say?" Others said, "He seems to be a proclaimer of foreign divinities." (This was because he was telling the good news about Jesus and the resurrection.) 19So they took[Paul] and brought him to the Areopagus…

The accusation brought against Paul in verse 18 was similar to the charge that had been brought against Socrates himself long before.

  • The accusation against Socrates resulted in his being taken to the Areopagus and there he was condemned to death – could the same thing be about to happen to Paul as he too was taken to the Areopagus?

The Areopagus was the main administrative body and the chief court of Athens.

  • Paul may have been taken into the council itself to be put on trial, or he may only have been taken to the location of the hill after which the council was named.

When Paul stood in front of the Areopagus, he used language that would have been both somewhat confrontational and rather challenging for those who heard him.

  • Paul debated in exactly the same way that the Areopagus would have expected, and that they would have reacted to.

ACTS 17:34

34But some of them joined him and became believers, including Dionysius the Areopagite and a woman named Damaris, and others with them.

Paul’s philosophical arguments produced a few believers in that hotbed of debate and discussion, and Paul’s methodology was entirely appropriate for such a place.

  • Paul would not have got a hearing in Athens in any other way.

Paul spoke in the synagogue, the marketplace and the Areopagus with people who would have recognized his way of arguing and debating and accepted his approach as valid and worth consideration.

  • In other words, Paul’s approach to academics was to be himself academic in his philosophical argument and debate – and that was something that Paul was both very good at doing and very experienced at doing.

PAUL AT CORINTH

After Athens, Paul’s next stop was Corinth – and there he did things quite differently from Athens, because the methods of his approach in Athens would have been totally out of place and utterly ineffective in Corinth.

  • Paul himself recounted to the Corinthians how he came to them…

1 CORINTHIANS 2:1-5

When I came to you, brothers and sisters, I did not come proclaiming the mystery of God to you in lofty words or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified. And I came to you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling. My speech and my proclamation were not with plausible words of wisdom, but with a demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith might rest not on human wisdom but on the power of God.

Paul’s new approach to the Gentiles in Corinth began with God’s acts of kindness to the people through the power of the Holy Spirit.

Paul’s new approach to Gentiles produced quite different fruit in Corinth than his earlier academic approach had done in Athens, as Luke observed and recorded...

ACTS 18:5-9

When Silas and Timothy arrived from Macedonia, Paul was occupied with proclaiming the word, testifying to the Jews that the Messiah was Jesus. When they opposed and reviled him, in protest he shook the dust from his clothes and said to them, "Your blood be on your own heads! I am innocent. From now on I will go to the Gentiles." Then he left the synagogue and went to the house of a man named Titius Justus, a worshipper of God; his house was next door to the synagogue. Crispus, the official of the synagogue, became a believer in the Lord, together with all his household; and manyof the Corinthians who heard Paul became believers and were baptized.

Unlike in Athens, Luke tells us that manyin Corinth became believers, rather than just some as was the case in Athens.

Furthermore, the acts of kindness in the power of the Holy Spirit that God did in Corinth had transformed people’s lives there, but there had been no such transformation in Athens.

How do we know?

ACTS 17:34

34But some of them joined HIM and became believers, including Dionysius the Areopagite and a woman named Damaris, and others with them.

  • Because in Athens those who believed joined PAUL.
  • Because in Corinththose who believed were baptised, but back in Athens, there was no mention of the few that believed being baptised.

Philosophical or theological argument rarely leads to transformed lives.

What matters is not philosophical or theological opinion, but that people’s lives are being transformed.

CGBC

A few people in our society love philosophical argument and debate, but most people do notmeaningfully engage in that way.

Furthermore, even amongst people who do love to debate and discusssuch philosophical argument and debate very rarely results in transformed lives.

  • For the vast majority of the people in the communities that we inhabit, even the best philosophical arguments that Christians can managewould be widely regarded as being no different to any other philosophical argument that is on offer.

Exactly the same is true of preaching.

  • For the vast majority of the people in the communities that we inhabit, even the best preaching that Christians can manage would be widely regarded as being no different to any other preaching that is on offer.

If our words are not solidly backed up in our experience and spoken in the power of the Holy Spirit, then our words have no value.

  • For example, if we are to preach that Christ is the healer, then we must have experienced his healing ourselves and also be ready to bring the healer to the people.
  • If we are to say that there is freedom in Christ, then we must be living in the freedom of Christ and be ready to bring the deliverer to the people.

For far too long and far too often in Christian circles, preaching about Christ has really been nothing more than philosophical argument, because the words were not accompanied by and backed up by the power of the Holy Spirit through whom lives are changed.

  • If our words are not changing people’s lives, then we should be silent.

I will remind you all of something I raised a few weeks ago.

MATTHEW 9:37,38

37Then Jesus said to his disciples, "The harvest is plentiful, but the labourers are few; 38therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out labourers into his harvest."

If what you do in a harvest field is reap, why is virtually all evangelism based in sowing?

As both an individual Christian and as an elder of City Gates Baptist Church, I share with you my firm conviction that true evangelism must be in the power of the Holy Spirit and it must be our strategic response to the work of the Holy Spirit.

  • Why?

Because the word of God is living and active, and true evangelism in the power of the Holy Spirit will always change people’s lives through what God does and says.

Changed lives are the best preaching that there can ever be, and that is why testimony is so powerful.

We need to be making disciples by the power of the Holy Spirit.

We need to be appointing elders by the power of the Holy Spirit.

We need to be telling the stories of our lives by the power of the Holy Spirit.

We need to see lives being changed by the power of the Holy Spirit in the communities in which we live and breathe and have our being.

People’s lives can be changed through the outworked power of the Holy Spirit – and there is no other way.

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