Study #56: Few of the pagan Greeks of Athens believed in Christ (Acts 17:16

Study #56: Few of the pagan Greeks of Athens believed in Christ (Acts 17:16 - 34)

The Golden Ratio outline of Acts Chapter 2.2:

Acts, Chapter 2.2: The Gentiles and Jews of Greece violently opposed the efforts of Paul and Silas to plant churches (15:36 - 18:22)

§Unique Introduction: The missionary ministry of Paul is transformed with a new partner, Silas, and a new helper, Timothy (15:36 - 16:5)

¶Opposite Paul and Barnabas go their separate ways because of a disagreement over John Mark (15:36 - 41)

¶Opposite Paul, Silas, and Timothy delivered the decrees of the assembly at Jerusalem to the new Gentile assemblies (16:1 - 5)

§Complement Body: Paul and his missionary team were imprisoned in Philippi and barely escaped a riot in Thessalonica (16:6 - 17:34)

¶Unique The Holy Spirit opened a door to establish a new assembly in Philippi of Greece (16:6 - 15)

¶Complement Paul and Silas were imprisoned by the Roman authorities in Philippi over a false charge (16:16 - 40)

¶Complement The Jews of Thessalonica disrupted the church-planting efforts of Paul and Silas in Thessalonica with a riot (17:1 - 9)

¶Opposite Many of the noble Jews of Berea believed in Christ (17:10 - 15)

¶Opposite Few of the pagan Greeks of Athens believed in Christ (17:16 - 34)

§Complement Conclusion: The Lord opened a door for Paul in Corinth; and another in Ephesus, on his way home to Antioch (18:1 - 22)

¶Complement The Lord blessed Paul’s missionary efforts in the Greek city of Corinth for eighteen months (18:1 - 11)

¶Complement Paul returned to the assembly at Antioch after stopping at a synagogue in Ephesus (18:12 - 22)

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We continue our study of Acts Chapter 2.2 with the fifth paragraph of the Body Section.

¶Opposite Few of the pagan Greeks of Athens believed in Christ (17:16 - 34)

Opposite Now while Paul waited for them at Athens, his spirit was stirred in him, when he saw the city wholly given to idolatry; therefore he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the religious persons, and in the market daily with them that met with him.

Opposite Then certain philosophers of the Epicureans, and of the Stoics, encountered him; and some said, “What will this seed-picker say?” And others said, “He seems to be a proclaimer of strange gods”, because he preached to them Jesus, and the resurrection. And they took him, and brought him to Areopagus, saying, “May we know what this new doctrine is, whereof you speak? For you bring certain strange things to our ears; therefore we would like to know what these things mean.” (For all the Athenians and strangers who were there spent their time in nothing else, but either to tell, or to hear something new.)

Complement Then Paul stood in the midst of Mars’ hill, and said, “You men of Athens, I perceive that in all things you are very religious: for as I passed by, and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription, ‘TO THE UNKNOWN GOD.’ Therefore whom you ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you.

Complement God that made the world and all things in it (seeing that he is Lord of Heaven and earth) does not dwell in Temples made with hands; neither is worshiped with men’s hands (as though he needed anything, seeing he gives to all life, and breath, and all things). And he has made of one blood all nations of men to dwell on all the face of the earth; and he has determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation, that they should seek the Lord (if perhaps they might feel after him, and find him, though he is not far from every one of us): for in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, ‘For we are also his offspring.’ Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we should not think that the Godhead is like gold, silver, or stone, sculptured by art and man’s imagination. And the times of this ignorance God overlooked, but now commands all men everywhere to repent, because he has appointed a Day, in which he will judge the world in righteousness by that Man whom he has ordained; of which he has given assurance to all men, in that he has raised him from the dead.”

Unique And when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked; and others said, “We will hear you again of this matter.” So Paul departed from among them. Nevertheless certain men joined with him, and believed; among whom was Dionysius the Areopagite, a woman named Damaris, and others with them.

The Golden Ratio design of the subparagraphs and the theme of paragraph 5 is the opposite of paragraph 4:

¶Opposite UCC-OO Many of the noble Jews of Berea believed in Christ (Acts 17:10 - 15)

¶Opposite OO-CCU Few of the pagan Greeks of Athens believed in Christ (Acts 17:16 - 34)

Comments: Athens was a much different city than Berea, where Paul found a synagogue of the Jews that diligently read their Hebrew Bible every day and wanted to learn more about the one true God, Jehovah.

Athens was a thoroughly pagan city, filled with altars to false gods and idols. The Greeks also spent a lot of their time in discussing philosophy and opinions, because at that time, Athens was the center of learning in Greece. Corinth was the political capital, but Athens was the capital of the philosophers and educators.

I cannot do full justice to this important paragraph in this short study, so I will only make a few points:

1) The Epicureans were similar to the hedonists of our day: eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die! They were atheists and did not believe in God or in future judgment after death. They did not worship any god or God, because their god was themselves. Do whatever they want without limit. People were no better than a dog or a pig. This is the same philosophy as communism and socialism.

2) The Stoics were pantheists: they believed that all material things were God; in other words, God was in the trees, the grass, the sky, the earth. Today we call them worshipers of nature: “Mother Earth” etc. The environmental movement in the United States is full of people with this belief system.

So when Paul preached his sermon on Mars hill or Areopagus, his audience listened to him, but their hearts were very hard towards the Gospel! Athens was not a place where the Gospel would prosper and grow as in other places.

3) His short sermon made several important points:

a___The one true God is our Creator; and He is invisible and cannot be worshipped with our hands. The false gods in the pagan temples were given food to eat as offerings; but this is impossible since a Spirit does not need physical food. The one true God is Spirit, not flesh. Jesus is unique, because He is both God and sinless man in one Person: the perfect fusion of God our Creator with the flesh of Man.

Idolatry is an attempt to bring the one true God down to Earth and make Him something that we can control. “An idol is fixed in one place, so once you leave the idol, it cannot do anything to you” is the idea. That makes man more powerful than the idol god, which is why it is wickedness, and why God hates idolatry! God destroyed ancient Israel with the armies of Assyria and Babylon for that same reason: they had turned away from Jehovah to worship idols; and this is abhorrent to the one true God!

Whether it is an idol of Mary or Peter or one of the saints or an idol of Apollo or Diana, it makes no difference; an idol is an idol is an idol, and God hates it, because it makes man believe that he is more powerful than God, which is false!

“And God spoke all these words, saying, “I am Jehovah your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery: you shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make you any carved image, nor any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow yourself down to them, nor serve them: for I, Jehovah your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children until the third and fourth generation of them that hate me.” Exodus 20:1-5.

“For so it was, that the children of Israel had sinned against Jehovah their God, which had brought them up out of the land of Egypt, from under the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt, and had feared other gods, and walked in the statutes of the heathen, whom Jehovah cast out from before the children of Israel, and of the kings of Israel, which they had made. And the children of Israel did secretly those things that were not right against Jehovah their God, and they built themselves high places in all their cities, from the tower of the watchmen to the fortified city. And they set up for themselves images and statues of Asherah in every high hill, and under every green tree; and there they burned incense in all the high places, as the heathen did whom Jehovah carried away before them. And they did wicked things to provoke Jehovah to anger: for they served idols, of which Jehovah had said to them, “You shall not do this thing.” Yet Jehovah testified against Israel, and against Judah, by all the prophets, and by all the seers, saying, “Turn from your evil ways, and keep my Commandments and my Statutes, according to all the Law which I commanded your fathers, and which I sent to you by my servants the prophets.”

Notwithstanding they would not listen, but hardened their necks, like the neck of their fathers, that did not believe in Jehovah their God. And they rejected his Statutes, and his Covenant that he made with their fathers, and his Testimonies that he testified against them; and they followed vanity, and became vain, and went after the heathen that were round about them, concerning whom Jehovah had charged them, that they should not do like them. And they left all the Commandments of Jehovah their God, and made themselves molten images, even two calves, and made an image of Asherah, and worshiped all the constellations of the zodiac, and served Baal. And they caused their sons and their daughters to pass through the fire, and used divination and witchcraft, and sold themselves to do evil in the sight of Jehovah, to provoke him to anger. Therefore Jehovah was very angry with Israel, and removed them out of his sight; there was none left but the tribe of Judah only.” 2 Kings 17:7-18

The popes changed the names of the old idols of the Roman empire to Mary, Peter and other saints; but they are still same evil idols!

b___All humanity came from a single man, Adam: “he has made of one blood all nations of men to dwell on all the face of the earth.” In other words, every human has the same blood and can procreate and have children with one another, because we are all from the same original family: Adam and Eve. It doesn’t matter if your skin color is black, yellow, brown, or white: we are all the offspring of Adam and Eve, who were created by God in the Garden of Eden; thus, we are the offspring of God.

If the theory of evolution were true, we would not be able to do that. Different species cannot procreate with each other without outside help.

This also proves that racism is senseless and stupid, because the Bible teaches that is only one human race, not many races. The theory of evolution teaches that humans arose from apes and lower forms of life. Darwin taught that blacks were a lower form of life who hadn’t yet evolved to the level of white people; and Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood believed that black people were like weeds and should be killed. This is the real story behind the theory of evolution that liberals don’t like to talk about today!

The Holy Bible teaches that all races are co-equal and stand on the same ground before God as sinners who need to be saved. One preacher said, “It’s not about skin, it’s about sin!” So true.

However, that does not make us CHILDREN of God! Jesus said, “You must be born again!” John 3:3-5. That means that we must repent of our sins and receive Jesus Christ as our personal Savior; then, our sins will be forgiven, and ONLY THEN we will become children of God.

Galatians 3:26 “for you are all the children of God BY FAITH IN CHRIST JESUS.”

c___Philosophy is also a road that leads to a dead end! Plato, Aristotle, and all of the philosophers of Greece had no answers to the ultimate questions of Who is God? What am I? Why am I here? Where am I going? What happens after death? They did not believe the Holy Bible, so they all went to Hell! But when we repent of our sins and receive Jesus Christ as our personal Savior, all of those questions are answered forever! Then you will know the one true God in Person, and his Name is Jesus Christ!

I Corinthians 1:18-25: “for the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness, but to us who are saved it is the power of God: for it is written, “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent.”

Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this world? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this Age? For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom did not know God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after philosophical wisdom; but we preach Christ crucified: to the Jews a stumblingblock, and to the Greeks foolishness; but to them who are called (both Jews and Greeks), Christ is both the power of God and the wisdom of God, because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.”

d___One day in our future, Jesus Christ will judge the entire human race! “And the times of this ignorance God overlooked, but now commands all men everywhere to repent, because he has appointed a Day, in which he will judge the world in righteousness by that Man whom he has ordained; of which he has given assurance to all men, in that he has raised him from the dead.” Acts 17:30-31

Are you like one of these hedonists of ancient Athens? Your entire life is devoted to seeking pleasure from smoking pot, injecting heroin or some other narcotic, or going to the strip club or to the bars to get drunk. I used to be like that: I was once a drug addict and an alcoholic almost 40 years ago. But I could not find any happiness in the bottle or the marijuana! It always left me with emptiness and hopelessness. The only goal in life was to get drunk or to get high again, because I couldn’t stand the emptiness in my soul without the drugs.

But I when I heard the Gospel of Jesus Christ, that God had come to Earth to be born of a Virgin, He lived a perfect, sinless life for 33 years, and He willingly went to the cross of Calvary for me, to die for my sins and the sins of the whole world; was buried and rose again from the dead on the third day, victorious over sin, Hell and the grave; all because I was a sinner and God wanted me to repent of my sins, and come to Him so that He could forgive me and make me his child and bless me for my entire life and give me a future and a blessed hope in Heaven forever!

Then I wanted to be saved, and I did receive Jesus Christ as my Savior about August 30, 1982. My life has never been the same, praise the Lord! Thank you, Lord Jesus, for loving me and dying for my sins, and rising again, so that I and anyone who comes to you for salvation might be saved! Amen!

Friend, if you would like to know the one true God, then you must first know Jesus Christ as your personal Savior from sin. Here is a prayer that you can use to be born again and become a child of the King of kings and Lord of lords, Jesus Christ:

“Lord Jesus, I know that I have sinned against YOU. I am no good, and you are righteous! I believe that you died on the cross for my sins, you were buried, and you rose again from the dead on the third day. I want you to come into my life and be my Lord and Savior. Please come into my heart right now. Forgive me for all my sins, and save my soul. In the mighty Name of Jesus, I pray, Amen!”

If you have turned from your sins and accepted Jesus Christ as your Lord and only Savior from sin, please message me through Facebook and let me know that you have done that, so that I can pray for you and rejoice with you in what God has done in your life. Amen.