About this sermon
A Morning Instruction class on Paul’s address to the Areopagus in Acts 17. Paul proclaims the unknown God as the Creator who needs nothing from human hands, in whom we live and move and have our being, and who commands all people to repent because he will judge the world by the man he raised from the dead. Paul does not argue for the resurrection as a bare fact; it makes sense only within the Christian worldview. Revelation is his starting point, and he shatters the Athenians’ worldview by proclaiming creation, resurrection, and judgment.
Sermon transcript
Okay, we have a lot to cover, so we’re gonna go a bit quick here. I’m gonna turn to Acts chapter 17. I’m gonna read 16 through 21. Now, while Paul was waiting for them at Athens, his spirit was being provoked within him as he was observing the city full of idols.
So he was reasoning in the synagogue with the Jews and the God fearing Gentiles. and in the marketplace every day with those who happened to be present. And also some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers were conversing with him. Some were saying, what would this idle babbler wish to say? Others, he seems to be a proclaimer of strange deities because he was preaching Jesus and the resurrection.
And they took him and brought him to the Areopagus saying, May we know what this new teaching is which you are proclaiming For you are bringing some strange things to our ears So we want to know what these things mean for all the Athenians and the strangers Visiting there used to spend their time in nothing other than telling or hearing something new Honestly, we we ought to let’s keep going let’s finish at 31 so 20 starting at 22 then I was gonna do this in two parts, but it’s best to do it in one. So Paul stood in the midst of the Areopagus and said, men of Athens, I observe that you are very religious in all respects. For while I was passing through and examining the objects of your worship, I also found an altar with this inscription, to an unknown God. Therefore, what you worship in ignorance, this I proclaim to you.
The God who made the world and all things in it, since he is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all people life and breath and all things. And he made from one man every nation of mankind, to live on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their habitation, that they would seek God, if perhaps they might grope for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. For in him we live and move and exist, as even some of your own poets have said, for we also are his children. Being then the children of God, we ought not to think that the divine nature is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and thought of man.
Therefore, having overlooked the times of ignorance, God is now declaring to men that all people everywhere should repent, because he has fixed a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness through a man whom he has appointed, having furnished proof to all men by raising him from the dead.”
Well, that’s some good preaching. As we said last week, The Apostle Paul is on missionary furlough and he sees a city full of idols. People are worshipping false gods. And he is provoked in himself. Now, one thing we talked about last week, I want to re-emphasize it. There are people that think that the Apostle Paul fails here. As we talked about last week, he succeeds. there are other people that think that the Apostle Paul is trying to reach some sort of common ground with his opponents and we want to dispute that as well. This is a massive undertaking and he is seeking to smash their worldviews. He is challenging them at every single point. Why is he challenging them?
Because he’s He is visibly changed, like emotionally. His face, you would have been able to see it. This city is full of idols. Some people, like some of the comedians and people of that day, would say that it’s easier to find an idol than a man in this city. He understands that all people are inherently religious.
Paul’s sermon right here is really the unpacking of his 13 letters, not his 14 letters, his 13 letters. Okay? Romans chapter 1 makes it very clear that all people are religious. It’s not the case that there are some people who are religious and some people are not.
Some people, they’re religious, they go to church on Sunday, and other people, they just sleep in because they go to the bar on Saturday night. Everybody’s religious. Everybody is worshipping something, or someone, or some time, whether it be the past, whether it be the future. They’re worshipping something. Everybody is religious. And why is he provoked?
Because, Romans 1.20, that these people have no excuse for their idolatry.
Romans 1.20. Man is inalienably religious, and Paul could not be silent about this. So where does he start? Verse 17, he starts in the synagogue. And so he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the God-fearing Gentiles. He starts off by aiming at the educated audience, and he wants to educate his audience, not seeking common ground. He says he is proclaiming the gospel in the synagogue.
That’s the first place you want to go to. And what do they say? Well, we look, there are Epicurean verse 18, and stoic philosophers who are there. And what do they say? What would this idle babbler wish to say? They’re not being nice to Paul here. They’re not at this point saying, we want to understand. We want to hear you out. You know what they’re calling him when it says idle babbler?
What does this seed picker have to say? When they say seed picker, it doesn’t mean anything to us. But there were a type of sparrow, a gutter sparrow, that would be picking in the dirt or in the trash for seeds. And so what they’re saying is, what is this seed picker? What is this gutter sparrow?
What is this peddler of secondhand bits of philosophical pseudo philosophy? And what is he saying? What is this intellectual scavenger talking about? This unoriginal idiot. That’s what they’re saying. That’s what’s packed into seed picker. That’s what’s packed into that kind of a word. Now why is it that they think that he is such a fool? Because they don’t get it, or at least they don’t want to.
He seems to be a proclaimer of strange deities because he was proclaiming Jesus and the resurrection. They think that he is proclaiming one God, Jesus, and another God, S, resurrection. There’s a masculine word, a feminine word, and what do a lot of the non-Christian religions not so much These days, but you know, out in the boonies and deep parts where there’s not a whole lot of civilization, they think that, they’ll think that one God has sex with another type of God. I mean, there are ancient Near Eastern myths that thought that the sky had sex with the ground and that’s how we come about. I mean, it’s very sexual. They’re thinking, at least they’re seeming to say, that he’s got strange deities. Jesus and the resurrection, two different gods. And why is it that they don’t get it?
Because 1 Corinthians 1.18, the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it is the wisdom of God.
To us who are being saved, 1 Corinthians 1.20, we say, where is the disputer? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? And we know that he has made foolish the wisdom of this world. And how has he?
By the resurrection. We’re gonna get to that. in a moment. Paul rejects, totally on the outset, he rejects their views in order to debate with them and to educate them. He recognizes no commonality, no neutrality with them, no common ground whatsoever.
His content is Jesus and his content is the resurrection. So first he’s there, he’s in the synagogue, then where is he taken? He’s taken to the Areopagus, verse 19. And they took him and brought him to the Areopagus, saying, may we know what this new teaching is which you are proclaiming? So they take him to a more formal body.
This was a small but powerful body, probably of 30 people. These would have been former office bearers in the city of Athens, kind of functioning as the local Supreme Court. And to be a civil magistrate, to rule in that day, guess what you needed to be? A philosopher. You needed to know philosophy in order to rule. Otherwise, you won’t know how to argue. So they’re just requesting information. They’re a little bit more kind to him. But he is probably answering formal charges. This would be similar to the body that tried Socrates and other people. Yes, question. More than likely, yes, this is.
Yes, but he but he’s like, you know him hey lock me up as long as you don’t lock my mouth up Let me preach and he’ll preach to the the Supreme Court of that city And what does what does he proclaim as I said before Jesus and the resurrection a 18? Excuse me 18 Jesus and the resurrection is what he preached there Now, notice that the resurrection must be accepted and interpreted in a wider philosophical context, and that the unregenerate system of thought has to be placed in antithetical contrast to the Christian thought.
I didn’t bring any markers. David, can you go get the markers, please? I can’t believe that. So, there’s a remnant of a circle here. We’ve got a circle and a circle. We’ve got our worldview and their worldview. We’ve got the Stoic or Epicurean and we’ve got the Christian worldview. We want to set those up and compare and contrast those. Now, Van Til writes of this, this discussion about the resurrection that is coming. Let’s just skip down to 30 and 31.
He says, Therefore, having overlooked the times of ignorance, God is now declaring to men that all people everywhere should repent, because he has fixed a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness. Thank you. through a man whom he has appointed, having furnished proof to all men by raising him from the dead.” You notice how the Apostle Paul takes the resurrection as a given. He takes that as a fact that’s already That’s a done deal.
He’s not trying to prove it. He could, if he wants, he could say, hey, some people saw it, as he said, 1 Corinthians 15. Some people saw it, and you can go talk to them. Some have fallen asleep, that is, they’re dead, but some are still around, you can go talk to them. He would be glad to prove it. He could give reasons if he wants to say, the apostles have no reason to lie. Nobody ever died for a lie. No one’s going to be a martyr for a lie. He could do that.
But then what do you get? You just get the bare fact of the resurrection. Just hang that out there. Here’s just this brute fact, this bare fact, this uninterpreted fact. Resurrection. Is that going to do anything? No. The resurrection only makes sense within the Christian worldview. Within the Christian worldview. Hard to see? Not West Virginia. OK? Worldview. Just make sure. Worldview.
It makes perfect sense, as we’ve talked about in the past week. We have a God who’s true. He is revealing God in general revelation. He’s revealing himself to us every minute of the day. He is revealing himself to us in the Bible. He revealed himself to us prophets and dreams and all these things and we think that in our worldview prophecy makes perfect sense, the spirit giving us the word, the same spirit giving us the resurrection of Christ. We have a coherent worldview here. It makes perfect sense.
Van Til says, it takes the fact of the resurrection to see its proper framework. And it takes the framework to see the fact of the resurrection. The two are accepted on the authority of scripture alone and by the regenerating work of the spirit. We can say, how do I understand my worldview? By understanding the resurrection. Well, how do I understand the resurrection? By understanding my worldview. These two are equally ultimate, or we could say, they interpret one another. Okay? It’s like a web of belief, a web in a good sense. I mean, why?
We understand how spiritual worldviews function systematically, where, listen, let’s just say that I deny that the Bible’s inherent, okay? I don’t believe the Bible is true. And let’s just say I’m, take the liberal view. The Bible isn’t true in what it says. Is that going to affect how I understand my doctrine of Christ? It is, because how do I know that Jesus was divine? Well, I have an inerrant. Oh. I don’t have an inerrant. It’s the system stays, it hangs, or it falls together, OK? It’s all together, it all hangs, it’s a system of thought. Now, without the proper theological context, the resurrection would simply be a monstrosity or a freak of nature, an absurd resuscitation of a corpse. Now, when we talked last week, let’s do Epicureans.
Real briefly Real briefly and y’all have received a piece of paper that talks about that. They’re the different opponents This I represents Sense experience this is a scale of perception, and then this is reality. Reality’s out there. Remember, some people weren’t here. Think of the Matrix, if you saw the Matrix. For Neo, what appears to be there, the world, was not really the world, because the real world was out there somewhere. He was living in a created reality. So for the Epicurean then, reality is falling atoms. Falling atoms. Falling atoms. They have the appearance of people and places and things.
If Paul just comes to the Epicurean means we can say let’s just say resurrection without interpreting what that means guess what they’re gonna say there’s an appearance maybe but what is that the Adams just swerved something strange happened no big deal Paul, so what? So a guy rose from the dead. The atoms swerved, ultimate reality, just changed, a freak of nature happened. So you have the appearance of it, but this is, appearance is not reality, this is reality, beyond the veil of what you’re experiencing, what you’re seeing, what you’re touching. So if he just argues for the resurrection, they’re gonna say, eh, no big deal, weird stuff happens. So how’s he gonna reach them?
He must interpret the resurrection while he proclaims it. It can’t just be a fact that’s just hung out there. It has to come when he proclaims it, he must explain it, and that’s exactly what he does. 30 and 31, therefore having overlooked the times of ignorance, God is now declaring to men that all people everywhere should repent because he has fixed a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness through a man whom he has appointed, having furnished proof to all men by raising him from the dead. Now, if you’re listening to Paul, as I think as an American, you’re going to say, Well, you just begged the question, Paul. You’re assuming that the resurrection is true, and I’m not willing to grant that.
I think what he’s going to say is, you have an irrational worldview. Mine makes sense. Mine is coherent system, in one sense. It is coherent insofar as it coheres with God’s worldview, or God’s view. Your worldview is irrational because you can’t make sense of experiences. It ultimately just doesn’t work out. The resurrection comes in the preaching of Paul interpreted. Jesus has been raised. Therefore, God is angry at you unless you repent. That’s what he’s saying.
Pure and simple. They don’t need just a little bit of info. They need a wholesale change in their viewpoints, in their outlook. Yes. good question I appreciate I appreciate that question Where do you think they came up with this? I don’t think like that. Understood? OK.
They’re trying to make sense out of the world. And it doesn’t fully make sense. in unrighteousness. So they’re going to build up a philosophical system that will try to account for what they believe and what they see. They’re trying to figure, to bring these two things together. You don’t come up with just falling atoms and appearances just for the fun of it. This is, they’re doing the best they can to make sense of it.
Let’s look at their world view and just punch holes in it. Epicurean beliefs. Let’s look at what is irrational about this world view. Let’s just start here. It’s been irrational that these two that appearances and reality, they don’t cohere. That’s a big problem. That’s a big problem for us, because that’s not what we believe.
But if you, say, deceive yourself, well, if we want to just apply the pressure and help them to see how they’re irrational, I mean, they’re not thinking that there’s a problem. I mean, some of them are. some of us lie awake at night trying to work out the anomalies in our world view. Some of us have done that until you become a Calvinist. We have these anomalies that we say, this appears through over here, and this appears through over here, and how can these two things make sense together?
One of them must go. Do I get rid of freedom, or do I get rid You see this as a problem. Appearance and reality just don’t cohere. I see that it’s a rush. So is that what you mean if you go down the list and you just say, OK. Yeah. We’re going to say, look at these Epicurean beliefs. The universe consists of eternities. Well, let’s just talk to an Epicurean about that.
Well, how do you know that? How do you know that? You’ve not seen them, you’ve not experienced that. Say, I mean, you have a blind faith commitment to atoms that are falling. You might push that, push them in that sense. I’m sorry, you believe in myths? I believe a man rose from the dead, and you believe atoms are falling, and that’s what composes ultimate reality? Yes, question. I’m not sure if that’s a serious thought, but are you familiar with the psychologist Carl Jung? I’ve heard it pronounced Hume. He probed the secret desires of man.
And of course, one desire that came up was that we would not, death would not be the end of everything. We would be reborn, be resurrected. And then it’s also Adonis, that was supposed to be the god who died, you know, at the time two years later, but then he comes up and is brave again. So some people might argue that this was just, this was based on a secret desire we all had. and not be the end of everything we could get up and go against.
But also, I saw recently, heard on the news about, or looked, no, it was on the internet, some Jewish scholar, he thought he had discovered that before Christ, there was a claim to be a messiah, and he did rise from the dead. It’s on the old inscription on the tomb. Well, all this stuff might be secret desire of ours, The way it doesn’t bother me is because I feel if Jesus Christ’s resurrection were just a myth, it would have died out by all these years, and probably today we don’t know much about it or much about it, where it has the opposite in the case of Jesus Christ’s place.
He gives the power of the blessing, you see. It comes in a tree, and all the birds here. Well, Christianity is spread all over the world, and it keeps growing. on the first part about people who like carl hughes and others who would say this is not there’s something more God put eternity in man’s heart. Non-Christian, Christian man, everybody has eternity in their heart. They want to live forever.
I would say, well, thank you, non-gay guy, to these psychologists. Thank you for confirming what we already knew. That’s what I would say. I honestly didn’t need you to tell me that, but I’ve got Solomon. I’ll sit on Solomon’s porch. and take his wisdom all day over yours. But hey, thanks for just confirming that.
As far as the second part, I appreciate what you’re saying about the mustard seed and it growing and growing and growing, but I would fear that if we make that argument that, if you say, if it were false, then it would not have spread and been successful as it has.
I would say, well, I think Muhammad’s dreams in the night were utter acid drops or drug. He was either on drugs or he was lying. I think the whole thing was a sham of Islam. Satanic. Yeah, there were satanic verses in the Bible. Remember the 80s, you know what I’m talking about, right? Salman Rushdie. In fact, all of the verses in the Quran are satanic. All right? But it’s, I mean, 14 centuries we’re going on at this big lie.
So I appreciate what you’re saying, and it is true that Jesus said, starts as a mustard seed, starts as 12 men, one of them who’s an apostate, and just 3,000 people in one day on the day of Pentecost. It grows and it grows. It fills the whole earth. However, I wouldn’t use that as proof that it is true, because there are lots of successful religions, and they’re complete lies from hell.
But we ought to look real briefly at the Epicureans. We’ve got about 14 minutes. The irrationality of the Epicurean worldview Now, knowledge comes from sense perception. Knowledge comes from sense perception. How? Sense perception only happens on this side of the veil. If knowledge only happens… So you say, you don’t know that.
Given your assumptions, you say, there are falling atoms. That’s a fact over here, or an assumption of their worldview. And there’s another fact over here, or an assumption of their worldview. And that is, atoms are falling. And here’s sense perception gives us knowledge.
These two can’t come together. They cancel one another out. And so, Reformed and OPC apologetics and Antonian apologetics is just to enter into the non-Christian’s worldview. And kind of like, enter it into like a submarine. You know, you’ve got the little scope that looks around. You’re just examining their worldview and saying, oh, Contradiction there and there.
Got it. And then you just press it. You press it. You press it. And you say, your worldview, contradiction. Mine, no contradiction. And we just go back and forth, comparing. And here’s the beautiful thing about this. The Christian worldview doesn’t have these issues, doesn’t have the problems.
There are things that we don’t understand, but we say, They are naturalists they deny immortality and had no need for for fear of death I don’t fear death No, you couldn’t say that while you’re in your twenties and you’re just kicking back in your nice Greek sandals, eating grapes in the pink of health, and you’re just following a philosopher because you’re kind of a little privileged and you’re just batting around ideas. But when you’re on your deathbed, if you’re so great, so given that opportunity, which some are, some are not, we’ll see about that. Whatever gods there might be, make no difference to mankind. How do you think they took what Paul says?
I mean, this is like a big tree, you know, the big things that they were around, a castle he’s battering around. He’s knocking down long-lasting pleasure was the goal of life. Since no afterlife is expected, focus on this life. Ultimately, the only long-term pleasure is tranquility, some good cheese, a little nice wine. Try to get away from disturbing passions, pains, and fears. What do you think happens when difficult things happen in their life. You can’t hold up to this.
There’s nothing to fear in God. Paul has something else to say. They’re antagonistic to theology. appeal to reason over superstition. Paul is calling them superstitious. He comes to them and he says, I see that you’re all very religious. Which, it’s kind of a double-edged sword. Is he complimenting us? Or is he insulting us? And it’s like, well, we’ve got to see. what he’s going to say to let us know. Is he insulting us? Is he complimenting us?
He’s not allowed to compliment people at the Areopagus. You’re not allowed to do that. You’re not allowed to flatter people. But he’s not fully insulting them, but he’s really just unleashing the theology from his 13 letters. He’s saying, you are religious, and you are culpably ignorant. That seems paradoxical in and of itself. You are culpably ignorant. You’re guilty. though you’re ignorant, because you don’t know God, in one sense, but you do know God, and you are pressing it down, you’re trying to hide it.
You are like a kid with a balloon in a swimming pool, trying to press it down, press it down, and it’s fighting its way up, and you’re pressing it down more and more. So, the biblical apologetic. Let me just summarize it in five points. The unbeliever and the believer’s mindsets are contrary systems. They’re contrary systems of thought. They represent a clash of total attitude and assumptions. That’s one. Two, the basic commitments of the unbeliever produce only ignorance and foolishness.
Their thought is, as Paul says in 1 Timothy 6.20, we’ll hear about that next week, their thought is vain babblings and a knowledge falsely so-called.
The disputers of this age have been made foolish, 1 Corinthians 1.20. By contrast, the Christian takes revelational authority as his starting point and controlling factor of reasoning. Why is it that Paul just takes the resurrection as an assumption, it’s already done, doesn’t need to be argued for? Because revelation is true. God revealed it, therefore, there’s no disputing with it. The proof, we could say, the proof of the Christian worldview is that if you deny it, you will be irrational.
Your whole worldview, will be a mass of contradictions. We’re gonna see more about that next week. It’s gonna be fun. Take revelational authority as our starting point. Paul’s writings also establish that because all men have a clear knowledge of God from general revelation, the unbelievers’ suppression of the truth results in culpable ignorance. We’ve talked about that. Suppression of unrighteousness. First Corinthians 119.
And then five. Given all these things, we must set one world view against the other. We can… Why don’t we stop there? We’ve got five minutes. We’ll just preview what we’re gonna talk about next week. We’re gonna listen to some of that debate. There we learn how to… debate against an atheist. And it’s very interesting, the method that is used. Hopefully it won’t surprise us. Next week, we’re going to talk about the Bonson-Stein debate. Now this is what happens. Greg Bonson was an Orthodox Presbyterian pastor.
And he was close to the University of California at Irvine. And this atheist comes to that campus. As, I don’t know, I went to a secular university. There was somebody every week, something, advertising their political views or their We even had the Westboro Baptist Church guy come once. I didn’t see him, but I mean, all kinds of weird stuff. It’s a state university, so you gotta have a free speech area. So the atheist, this is back in the 80s, actually.
His name is Gordon Stein. and he has a PhD in biology and he says, he lays down his work as a scientist and he says, I think that atheism is a good thing and I’m gonna make a ministry of atheism, really. So he goes to college campuses and he’s telling people, hey, it’s real great, there’s no God. Life is wonderful. All the things you do, you get the credit for it. and you don’t have to deal with all this theological debris, all this garbage out there. That’s who he is. Gordon Stein, PhD, lays that down. He is a anti-theist.
A member of Greg Wonson’s church walks up to him and says, hey, you should debate a real, like Christian apologists, not just college kids who are still trying to figure these things out for themselves. Pick on someone your own size. Well, Gordon Stein said, well, I’ll debate any Christian anywhere. And in his mind, he’s thinking, I’m just gonna beat up on some Christian and just going to advance my career of atheism.
Well, it just so happened that the guy who challenged him to debate with a Christian was a member of Greg Monson’s church. And he actually ends up becoming the moderator of the debate because he’s a ranked speaker himself. He went on to be a lawyer. He actually edited some Christian books. Christian brother.
So they get into this debate, and Gordon Stein, he’s thinking, all I do need to do is be the spoiler. So for 15 minutes, the opening statement, all he says is, Christians for the last almost 2,000 years have had certain arguments for their belief in God.
They have argued for it. and they’ve all failed. Okay? Piece of cake. He says, let’s just take one, for example, what’s called a cosmological argument. He’s trying to be simple because he doesn’t have a lot of time, but he says, everything has a cause. The world is a thing. it has a cause, and God is that cause. Good enough? Seems reasonable enough, just on its head. I mean, this argument has a strong history in Aristotle, and Aquinas, and other people, Christians have made this argument. And he just thinks he’s going to be the spoiler, and say, oh, well if everything has a cause, then the world has a cause, then God has a cause.
Not good. So, done with the cosmological argument. There are other arguments that he goes through, and we don’t have time to go through them today, but he’s just thinking, all I need to do is knock down all the arguments that have been made, and I need to, then I’ll win, and life will be good, Basically, I think he had the view that he’s going to be what Richard Dawkins has become. Pop atheist.
Writing books, on TV, on the radio, beating up Christians all over the place, left and right. This guy does not know what’s about to hit him. It is huge. Honestly, there is no reason to be intellectually intimidated or pushed around by anyone who is a non-Christian. There isn’t.
If we understand Vatilian apologetics, if we understand our Bible, the system of thought, that we could say, the system of thought which composes our catechism, It’s a systematic way of thinking. We need to think systematically. Okay, we are at 1040, and that is the end. So, thank you for being a good audience. Everyone’s paying very good attention. Let’s pray and prepare our hearts for worship in about 20 minutes.
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