Acts 17:1-17:34
Last week, we read that Paul and his party were in Philippi, where things were quite eventful, to say the least. We talked about how Paul cast out a demon from a slave girl who made money for her owners by being a kind of “oracle,” or truth-teller. Rather than thanking Paul, they were quite upset and had Paul and his party badly beaten and thrown into jail. Once in jail, a great earthquake (or was it angels?) released their bonds, and Paul made a friend for life with the jailor, who along with his family became followers of Jesus.
When they had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where there was a Jewish synagogue. As his custom was, Paul went into the synagogue, and on three Sabbath days he reasoned with them from the Scriptures, explaining and proving that the Christ had to suffer and rise from the dead. "This Jesus I am proclaiming to you is the Christ," he said. Some of the Jews were persuaded and joined Paul and Silas, as did a large number of God-fearing Greeks and not a few prominent women. – Acts 17:1-4
Compared to the events in Philippi, things (so far) were going quite well (and quite peacefully) in Thessalonica. Many were coming to the faith, some Jews and many God-fearing Gentiles. Paul’s message was targeted to those who kept the Law and who knew the Old Testament – he explained how these Scriptures pointed to Jesus as the Christ, or Messiah.
But the Jews were jealous; so they rounded up some bad characters from the marketplace, formed a mob and started a riot in the city. They rushed to Jason's house in search of Paul and Silas in order to bring them out to the crowd. But when they did not find them, they dragged Jason and some other brothers before the city officials, shouting: "These men who have caused trouble all over the world have now come here, and Jason has welcomed them into his house. They are all defying Caesar's decrees, saying that there is another king, one called Jesus." When they heard this, the crowd and the city officials were thrown into turmoil. Then they made Jason and the others post bond and let them go. – Acts 17:5-9
Things were going so well that it says that some Jews were jealous. They were watching their congregation beginning to lose respect for the leadership and instead devote themselves to Paul, because his words were words of Life. People were discovering living relationships with their Creator, freedom in Christ, and the leading of the Holy Spirit. In contrast to a rule book that nobody could keep, hypocrisy, and dead religion, there was no contest. Not that Paul viewed it as a contest. But the Jews did. They were losing, and they were jealous.
Look carefully here at what they did. They intended to accuse Paul and Silas of causing a riot. (They couldn’t find them, so they took Jason, the person at whose home they were staying.) But who actually caused the riot? They did! They did this so that the officials would be sufficiently bothered to get involved – a religious dispute was probably not worth worrying about, particularly when it came from the Jews, who didn’t worship the right gods anyway. But a riot was more serious.
Their accusation about another king is deceptive as well, although it does show that they were paying a little attention to what Paul and Silas were saying. This is classic dirty politics. There is a hint of truth in what they said, just enough to make it complicated for Paul to explain. But Paul had never argued against the authority of Caesar. This reminds me of Jesus’ saying, “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.” (Matt. 22:21)
The passage says that they made Jason and the others post bond and then let them go. The implication was that this was a warning – if there was any more trouble, it would get much more serious.
As soon as it was night, the brothers sent Paul and Silas away to Berea. On arriving there, they went to the Jewish synagogue. Now the Bereans were of more noble character than the Thessalonians, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true. Many of the Jews believed, as did also a number of prominent Greek women and many Greek men. – Acts 17:10-12
So Paul and Silas left and went to Berea. Here, the Jewish leadership was humble, and many of them believed, as well as many Greeks.
To be a Christian, you don’t need to check your brain at the door. The Bereans were skeptics, in the good sense of the word. As Paul made claims about how the Old Testament pointed to Chist, they checked it out. Note that they didn’t each have a Bible at home – this is long, long before that would become a reality. They were getting together as a group, probably after meeting with Paul, and looked up the verses themselves. Paul had an astounding memory of Scripture (helped by the Holy Spirit) and I can imagine how in rapid succession he would pull out all kinds of verses from various books of the Old Testament to support a particular point. Later, I can picture the Bereans in a room, bunches of scrolls open to various places, as they checked out verse after verse after verse, seeing that Paul was right.
I said they were a good kind of skeptic – what do I mean? Well, it also says they received the message with great eagerness – they didn’t have their own agendas, nor did they let their pride get in the way of hearing what Paul had to say (unlike in Thessalonica). They were humble skeptics. We should be the same. When we hear things on radio, or TV, or read them in the internet, or even when you hear me talk, let the Scriptures be the final authority. If an interpretation or claim seems foreign to you, consider it, but don’t accept it without checking against Scripture. When the claim isn’t based on a particular scripture, but is more general, and you don’t know whether to believe it, what should you do? Asking others is a great place to start.
Going back to our passage, it appears Paul and Silas had a place where they could stay for a while and really build into these new believers. Perhaps the whole city could be saved!
When the Jews in Thessalonica learned that Paul was preaching the word of God at Berea, they went there too, agitating the crowds and stirring them up. The brothers immediately sent Paul to the coast, but Silas and Timothy stayed at Berea. The men who escorted Paul brought him to Athens and then left with instructions for Silas and Timothy to join him as soon as possible. –Acts 17:13-15
Isn’t that awful? The troublemakers of Thessalonica came to Berea! Didn’t they have something else they needed to do? So the believers sent off Paul. Do you notice it is always Paul who seems to be the one who has to leave? He was the party’s lightning rod. He would speak boldly, which was good, but it drew the wrath of the enemies of the gospel.
If you look at the map from last week you can see how Thessalonica and Berea are close together, but Athens is far away. Quite far away. They probably went by ship. No chance that the Thessalonian troublemakers would follow him here.
While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he was greatly distressed to see that the city was full of idols. So he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the God-fearing Greeks, as well as in the marketplace day by day with those who happened to be there. – Acts 17:16-17
So here is Paul, left alone in Athens. What does he do? He goes sightseeing, just like a tourist today. What did he see? Athens, in a political sense, was a city past its prime. The Greek world had become the Roman world now. But Athens was an ancient city, filled with man-made marvels. There were amazing temples, libraries, other buildings – and idols, statues of gods and goddesses. There were lots of idols. According to Petronius, it was easier to find a god in Athens than a man. Historians estimate that there were 30,000 idols in Athens. When we see them today, we think of them as just statues. But to the Athenians, they were much more than that. When you made a statue in the image of a particular god, that god would in some sense inhabit that statue, and you were to worship it by bringing it sacrifices to keep the god happy.
I find it interesting that a thing someone made could become a source of bondage to others – even to the person who made it. If you define an idol in this way, as a thing you create or use that then enslaves you, what kinds of things are idols in our world today? Almost anything can become an idol. Money, appearance, drugs, video games – anything.
How did Paul feel walking around and seeing all these idols? He was distressed. The RSV says “His spirit was provoked.” “This is terrible! These people are enslaved! They need to hear the good news of Jesus Christ, the good news that brings freedom from bondage!” He wasn’t provoked the way a Pharisee would be. They also would reject idols, but their attitude would be, “Stupid people. The masses. What can you expect? They’re not chosen, like we are.” No, Paul had just met this people, but he had love for them – the love of Christ. He saw the eternal implications – like Jesus, he had compassion on them, because he saw they were like sheep without a shepherd. This is how we should be when we look around our Athens.
So what did Paul do? What he always does. He shared the gospel. First he went to the synagogue. But he also went to the Agora, the marketplace, the busiest place in town. Crowds of people were buying and selling things here. Paul was seeking any who would listen and telling them about Jesus.
A group of Epicurean and Stoic philosophers began to dispute with him. Some of them asked, "What is this babbler trying to say?" Others remarked, "He seems to be advocating foreign gods." They said this because Paul was preaching the good news about Jesus and the resurrection. – Acts 17:18
Now Athens was much like a modern university town. The most important philosophers all did their thing in Athens – people like Aristotle, Plato. At the time of Paul it was still the preferred hangout for academic types. Two groups in particular were mentioned here.
The Epicureans were basically atheists. The gods, if they existed, were so remote and detached that you might as well live as if they didn’t exist. They were materialists, denied life after death, and basically lived for the present. They would say, live life to the fullest now, for tomorrow you may die.
The Stoics were more like modern pantheists. They saw god in everything – in a tree, a rock, in the air, in water. Their god was more like “the force” in Star Wars. And in fact their philosophy for living was much like the things Yoda would say – don’t get too attached to anyone, don’t let your emotions rule you, take whatever comes to you and do your best. Neither the Epicureans nor the Stoics thought much of the masses, the people devoted to their various gods.
Whoever said “What is this babbler trying to say?” used quite a put-down; the Greek word for babbler is literally a seed-pecker, meaning a small insignificant bird. The implication was that Paul was not able to grasp the deep philosophies of the day and instead could only blurt out little “seeds” about some god or other. The “foreign gods” quote shows that the person who said this was trying to fit Paul’s God as yet another one of the many gods in the world.
Then they took him and brought him to a meeting of the Areopagus, where they said to him, "May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? You are bringing some strange ideas to our ears, and we want to know what they mean." (All the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there spent their time doing nothing but talking about and listening to the latest ideas.) - Acts 17:19-21
What happened? Paul was taken by the philosophers to one of their meetings. Luke writes a summary of these people that drips with sarcasm. They were always talking and listening to the latest ideas. For some reason I picture Edna in The Incredibles when I read this. “Pooh, pooh, darling! Those are old ideas. We only want the new.”
Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: "Men of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. Now what you worship as something unknown I am going to proclaim to you. – Acts 17:22-23
What an opening! He begins by looking for common ground. This is difficult given the mix of Epicureans, Stoics, and idol worshipers. His choice of words for saying they were religious is very interesting – he uses god-fearers, but not theos-fearers (Theos is the one true God) but daimon-fearers, from which we get the word Demon.
"The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands. And He is not served by human hands, as if He needed anything, because He Himself gives all men life and breath and everything else. – Acts 17:24-25
I can imagine Paul pointing to the Parthenon as he said the part about temples. The Parthenon, on a high hill, was visible throughout Athens. The picture at the top of this blog entry shows the Parthenon. It was supposedly the home of Athena, the very goddess that the city was named for!
To paraphrase this: (1) The One who made us does not need us to make a home for Him. (2) The One who gives us life does not need us to give Him things. I would say that people who think otherwise live out “Self Theology” – God needs me!
From one man He made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and He determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. God did this so that men would seek Him and perhaps reach out for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us. 'For in Him we live and move and have our being.' As some of your own poets have said, 'We are His offspring.' – Acts 17:26-28
To continue the paraphrase: (3) God is sovereign and purposeful on earth. (4) God wants men to seek Him and find Him. The Greek gods often could care less about people – they meddled in human affairs only when seemingly bored or jealous. They did not want men to find them, so they stayed far off on Mount Olympus. What a contrast to the truth that Paul is sharing!
The word “For” in “For in Him we live and move…” might be better translated “Yet.” What Paul is saying here goes against “Worm theology.” What is worm theology? It is an emphasis on “We are worms. We are nothings.” No – we are made in the image of God. It is true that, apart from God, we can do nothing of value, but God has made us with potential to do good, if we submit our lives to Him. He has given us desires to create, to improve things, to achieve new things, because those attributes are attributes of God Himself. It is interesting that Paul here uses Greek poets to make his point!
What would a modern day equivalent of this be? Perhaps using the words of a modern rock song. Or quoting a line from a popular movie. It is OK to do this, if it helps you to share the gospel.
"Therefore since we are God's offspring, we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone—an image made by man's design and skill. In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to all men by raising him from the dead." – Acts 17:29-31
To continue the paraphrase: (5) You degrade yourselves when you make worthless idols. (6) God will judge you through Jesus, whom He resurrected.
When they heard about the resurrection of the dead, some of them sneered, but others said, "We want to hear you again on this subject." At that, Paul left the Council. A few men became followers of Paul and believed. Among them was Dionysius, a member of the Areopagus, also a woman named Damaris, and a number of others. – Acts 17:32-34
How was the message received? Some received it and some did not. Praise God for the ones who did! They will spend eternity with Jesus.
When I think about applications of this passage, I see two broad areas. The first is an application in evangelism. Do you think like Paul? Are you motivated by love? Or when you see obviously lost people, do you think like a Pharisee, thanking God you are not like them? Are you torn-up inside when you see others living for idols, dead to Christ? Will you be like Paul and speak to those you see? The Holy Spirit will help you! God can change your heart, if you will pray.
The second is an even more personal application. Do you live as if these 6 facts are true? Do you live out “self theology”? Or do you live under “worm theology”? Do you really believe God desires a closer relationship with you? Is the problem that deep down you don’t really want a close relationship with Him? If so, you may be loving idols, things you don’t want to give up that you know God does not approve of, more than you love Him. Do you understand that you degrade yourself when you do this? God will ultimately judge such behavior through Jesus. If I am describing you, let go of the idol, whatever it is. God is better. He is more satisfying. He is all-satisfying.
I used to believe that people sometimes go through “desert experiences,” periods of time where God doesn’t seem to be close. Now I am not so sure such experiences are real. At least some of the time, and probably most of the time, and maybe all of the time, the real problem is that we are keeping Him away. He longs for a deep relationship with us! It is possible that sometimes He becomes distant so that it will ultimately improve that relationship, but I don’t think it is common that He does that. At least in my own life, I see that my supposed desert experiences were really more like Jonah experiences. I was trying to go the opposite direction that God wanted me to go.
We closed with some extended time in prayer, including a time of silent reflection on whether Christ really is the supreme desire of each of our hearts.
When they had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where there was a Jewish synagogue. As his custom was, Paul went into the synagogue, and on three Sabbath days he reasoned with them from the Scriptures, explaining and proving that the Christ had to suffer and rise from the dead. "This Jesus I am proclaiming to you is the Christ," he said. Some of the Jews were persuaded and joined Paul and Silas, as did a large number of God-fearing Greeks and not a few prominent women. – Acts 17:1-4
Compared to the events in Philippi, things (so far) were going quite well (and quite peacefully) in Thessalonica. Many were coming to the faith, some Jews and many God-fearing Gentiles. Paul’s message was targeted to those who kept the Law and who knew the Old Testament – he explained how these Scriptures pointed to Jesus as the Christ, or Messiah.
But the Jews were jealous; so they rounded up some bad characters from the marketplace, formed a mob and started a riot in the city. They rushed to Jason's house in search of Paul and Silas in order to bring them out to the crowd. But when they did not find them, they dragged Jason and some other brothers before the city officials, shouting: "These men who have caused trouble all over the world have now come here, and Jason has welcomed them into his house. They are all defying Caesar's decrees, saying that there is another king, one called Jesus." When they heard this, the crowd and the city officials were thrown into turmoil. Then they made Jason and the others post bond and let them go. – Acts 17:5-9
Things were going so well that it says that some Jews were jealous. They were watching their congregation beginning to lose respect for the leadership and instead devote themselves to Paul, because his words were words of Life. People were discovering living relationships with their Creator, freedom in Christ, and the leading of the Holy Spirit. In contrast to a rule book that nobody could keep, hypocrisy, and dead religion, there was no contest. Not that Paul viewed it as a contest. But the Jews did. They were losing, and they were jealous.
Look carefully here at what they did. They intended to accuse Paul and Silas of causing a riot. (They couldn’t find them, so they took Jason, the person at whose home they were staying.) But who actually caused the riot? They did! They did this so that the officials would be sufficiently bothered to get involved – a religious dispute was probably not worth worrying about, particularly when it came from the Jews, who didn’t worship the right gods anyway. But a riot was more serious.
Their accusation about another king is deceptive as well, although it does show that they were paying a little attention to what Paul and Silas were saying. This is classic dirty politics. There is a hint of truth in what they said, just enough to make it complicated for Paul to explain. But Paul had never argued against the authority of Caesar. This reminds me of Jesus’ saying, “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.” (Matt. 22:21)
The passage says that they made Jason and the others post bond and then let them go. The implication was that this was a warning – if there was any more trouble, it would get much more serious.
As soon as it was night, the brothers sent Paul and Silas away to Berea. On arriving there, they went to the Jewish synagogue. Now the Bereans were of more noble character than the Thessalonians, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true. Many of the Jews believed, as did also a number of prominent Greek women and many Greek men. – Acts 17:10-12
So Paul and Silas left and went to Berea. Here, the Jewish leadership was humble, and many of them believed, as well as many Greeks.
To be a Christian, you don’t need to check your brain at the door. The Bereans were skeptics, in the good sense of the word. As Paul made claims about how the Old Testament pointed to Chist, they checked it out. Note that they didn’t each have a Bible at home – this is long, long before that would become a reality. They were getting together as a group, probably after meeting with Paul, and looked up the verses themselves. Paul had an astounding memory of Scripture (helped by the Holy Spirit) and I can imagine how in rapid succession he would pull out all kinds of verses from various books of the Old Testament to support a particular point. Later, I can picture the Bereans in a room, bunches of scrolls open to various places, as they checked out verse after verse after verse, seeing that Paul was right.
I said they were a good kind of skeptic – what do I mean? Well, it also says they received the message with great eagerness – they didn’t have their own agendas, nor did they let their pride get in the way of hearing what Paul had to say (unlike in Thessalonica). They were humble skeptics. We should be the same. When we hear things on radio, or TV, or read them in the internet, or even when you hear me talk, let the Scriptures be the final authority. If an interpretation or claim seems foreign to you, consider it, but don’t accept it without checking against Scripture. When the claim isn’t based on a particular scripture, but is more general, and you don’t know whether to believe it, what should you do? Asking others is a great place to start.
Going back to our passage, it appears Paul and Silas had a place where they could stay for a while and really build into these new believers. Perhaps the whole city could be saved!
When the Jews in Thessalonica learned that Paul was preaching the word of God at Berea, they went there too, agitating the crowds and stirring them up. The brothers immediately sent Paul to the coast, but Silas and Timothy stayed at Berea. The men who escorted Paul brought him to Athens and then left with instructions for Silas and Timothy to join him as soon as possible. –Acts 17:13-15
Isn’t that awful? The troublemakers of Thessalonica came to Berea! Didn’t they have something else they needed to do? So the believers sent off Paul. Do you notice it is always Paul who seems to be the one who has to leave? He was the party’s lightning rod. He would speak boldly, which was good, but it drew the wrath of the enemies of the gospel.
If you look at the map from last week you can see how Thessalonica and Berea are close together, but Athens is far away. Quite far away. They probably went by ship. No chance that the Thessalonian troublemakers would follow him here.
While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he was greatly distressed to see that the city was full of idols. So he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the God-fearing Greeks, as well as in the marketplace day by day with those who happened to be there. – Acts 17:16-17
So here is Paul, left alone in Athens. What does he do? He goes sightseeing, just like a tourist today. What did he see? Athens, in a political sense, was a city past its prime. The Greek world had become the Roman world now. But Athens was an ancient city, filled with man-made marvels. There were amazing temples, libraries, other buildings – and idols, statues of gods and goddesses. There were lots of idols. According to Petronius, it was easier to find a god in Athens than a man. Historians estimate that there were 30,000 idols in Athens. When we see them today, we think of them as just statues. But to the Athenians, they were much more than that. When you made a statue in the image of a particular god, that god would in some sense inhabit that statue, and you were to worship it by bringing it sacrifices to keep the god happy.
I find it interesting that a thing someone made could become a source of bondage to others – even to the person who made it. If you define an idol in this way, as a thing you create or use that then enslaves you, what kinds of things are idols in our world today? Almost anything can become an idol. Money, appearance, drugs, video games – anything.
How did Paul feel walking around and seeing all these idols? He was distressed. The RSV says “His spirit was provoked.” “This is terrible! These people are enslaved! They need to hear the good news of Jesus Christ, the good news that brings freedom from bondage!” He wasn’t provoked the way a Pharisee would be. They also would reject idols, but their attitude would be, “Stupid people. The masses. What can you expect? They’re not chosen, like we are.” No, Paul had just met this people, but he had love for them – the love of Christ. He saw the eternal implications – like Jesus, he had compassion on them, because he saw they were like sheep without a shepherd. This is how we should be when we look around our Athens.
So what did Paul do? What he always does. He shared the gospel. First he went to the synagogue. But he also went to the Agora, the marketplace, the busiest place in town. Crowds of people were buying and selling things here. Paul was seeking any who would listen and telling them about Jesus.
A group of Epicurean and Stoic philosophers began to dispute with him. Some of them asked, "What is this babbler trying to say?" Others remarked, "He seems to be advocating foreign gods." They said this because Paul was preaching the good news about Jesus and the resurrection. – Acts 17:18
Now Athens was much like a modern university town. The most important philosophers all did their thing in Athens – people like Aristotle, Plato. At the time of Paul it was still the preferred hangout for academic types. Two groups in particular were mentioned here.
The Epicureans were basically atheists. The gods, if they existed, were so remote and detached that you might as well live as if they didn’t exist. They were materialists, denied life after death, and basically lived for the present. They would say, live life to the fullest now, for tomorrow you may die.
The Stoics were more like modern pantheists. They saw god in everything – in a tree, a rock, in the air, in water. Their god was more like “the force” in Star Wars. And in fact their philosophy for living was much like the things Yoda would say – don’t get too attached to anyone, don’t let your emotions rule you, take whatever comes to you and do your best. Neither the Epicureans nor the Stoics thought much of the masses, the people devoted to their various gods.
Whoever said “What is this babbler trying to say?” used quite a put-down; the Greek word for babbler is literally a seed-pecker, meaning a small insignificant bird. The implication was that Paul was not able to grasp the deep philosophies of the day and instead could only blurt out little “seeds” about some god or other. The “foreign gods” quote shows that the person who said this was trying to fit Paul’s God as yet another one of the many gods in the world.
Then they took him and brought him to a meeting of the Areopagus, where they said to him, "May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? You are bringing some strange ideas to our ears, and we want to know what they mean." (All the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there spent their time doing nothing but talking about and listening to the latest ideas.) - Acts 17:19-21
What happened? Paul was taken by the philosophers to one of their meetings. Luke writes a summary of these people that drips with sarcasm. They were always talking and listening to the latest ideas. For some reason I picture Edna in The Incredibles when I read this. “Pooh, pooh, darling! Those are old ideas. We only want the new.”
Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: "Men of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. Now what you worship as something unknown I am going to proclaim to you. – Acts 17:22-23
What an opening! He begins by looking for common ground. This is difficult given the mix of Epicureans, Stoics, and idol worshipers. His choice of words for saying they were religious is very interesting – he uses god-fearers, but not theos-fearers (Theos is the one true God) but daimon-fearers, from which we get the word Demon.
"The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands. And He is not served by human hands, as if He needed anything, because He Himself gives all men life and breath and everything else. – Acts 17:24-25
I can imagine Paul pointing to the Parthenon as he said the part about temples. The Parthenon, on a high hill, was visible throughout Athens. The picture at the top of this blog entry shows the Parthenon. It was supposedly the home of Athena, the very goddess that the city was named for!
To paraphrase this: (1) The One who made us does not need us to make a home for Him. (2) The One who gives us life does not need us to give Him things. I would say that people who think otherwise live out “Self Theology” – God needs me!
From one man He made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and He determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. God did this so that men would seek Him and perhaps reach out for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us. 'For in Him we live and move and have our being.' As some of your own poets have said, 'We are His offspring.' – Acts 17:26-28
To continue the paraphrase: (3) God is sovereign and purposeful on earth. (4) God wants men to seek Him and find Him. The Greek gods often could care less about people – they meddled in human affairs only when seemingly bored or jealous. They did not want men to find them, so they stayed far off on Mount Olympus. What a contrast to the truth that Paul is sharing!
The word “For” in “For in Him we live and move…” might be better translated “Yet.” What Paul is saying here goes against “Worm theology.” What is worm theology? It is an emphasis on “We are worms. We are nothings.” No – we are made in the image of God. It is true that, apart from God, we can do nothing of value, but God has made us with potential to do good, if we submit our lives to Him. He has given us desires to create, to improve things, to achieve new things, because those attributes are attributes of God Himself. It is interesting that Paul here uses Greek poets to make his point!
What would a modern day equivalent of this be? Perhaps using the words of a modern rock song. Or quoting a line from a popular movie. It is OK to do this, if it helps you to share the gospel.
"Therefore since we are God's offspring, we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone—an image made by man's design and skill. In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to all men by raising him from the dead." – Acts 17:29-31
To continue the paraphrase: (5) You degrade yourselves when you make worthless idols. (6) God will judge you through Jesus, whom He resurrected.
When they heard about the resurrection of the dead, some of them sneered, but others said, "We want to hear you again on this subject." At that, Paul left the Council. A few men became followers of Paul and believed. Among them was Dionysius, a member of the Areopagus, also a woman named Damaris, and a number of others. – Acts 17:32-34
How was the message received? Some received it and some did not. Praise God for the ones who did! They will spend eternity with Jesus.
When I think about applications of this passage, I see two broad areas. The first is an application in evangelism. Do you think like Paul? Are you motivated by love? Or when you see obviously lost people, do you think like a Pharisee, thanking God you are not like them? Are you torn-up inside when you see others living for idols, dead to Christ? Will you be like Paul and speak to those you see? The Holy Spirit will help you! God can change your heart, if you will pray.
The second is an even more personal application. Do you live as if these 6 facts are true? Do you live out “self theology”? Or do you live under “worm theology”? Do you really believe God desires a closer relationship with you? Is the problem that deep down you don’t really want a close relationship with Him? If so, you may be loving idols, things you don’t want to give up that you know God does not approve of, more than you love Him. Do you understand that you degrade yourself when you do this? God will ultimately judge such behavior through Jesus. If I am describing you, let go of the idol, whatever it is. God is better. He is more satisfying. He is all-satisfying.
I used to believe that people sometimes go through “desert experiences,” periods of time where God doesn’t seem to be close. Now I am not so sure such experiences are real. At least some of the time, and probably most of the time, and maybe all of the time, the real problem is that we are keeping Him away. He longs for a deep relationship with us! It is possible that sometimes He becomes distant so that it will ultimately improve that relationship, but I don’t think it is common that He does that. At least in my own life, I see that my supposed desert experiences were really more like Jonah experiences. I was trying to go the opposite direction that God wanted me to go.
We closed with some extended time in prayer, including a time of silent reflection on whether Christ really is the supreme desire of each of our hearts.
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