Monday after Populus Sion, The Second Sunday in Advent
Posted on December 9, 2019 by under
Scripture: Acts 17:16-34 (NKJV)
17:16 Now while Paul waited for them at Athens, his spirit was provoked within him when he saw that the city was given over to idols. 17 Therefore he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and with the Gentile worshipers, and in the marketplace daily with those who happened to be there. 18 Then certain Epicurean and Stoic philosophers encountered him. And some said, “What does this babbler want to say?”
Others said, “He seems to be a proclaimer of foreign gods,” because he preached to them Jesus and the resurrection.
19 And they took him and brought him to the Areopagus, saying, “May we know what this new doctrine is of which you speak? 20 For you are bringing some strange things to our ears. Therefore we want to know what these things mean.” 21 For all the Athenians and the foreigners who were there spent their time in nothing else but either to tell or to hear some new thing.
22 Then Paul stood in the midst of the Areopagus and said, “Men of Athens, I perceive that in all things you are very religious; 23 for as I was passing through and considering the objects of your worship, I even found an altar with this inscription:
TO THE UNKNOWN GOD
Therefore, the One whom you worship without knowing, Him I proclaim to you: 24 God, who made the world and everything in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands. 25 Nor is He worshiped with men’s hands, as though He needed anything, since He gives to all life, breath, and all things. 26 And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings, 27 so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; 28 for in Him we live and move and have our being, as also some of your own poets have said, ‘For we are also His offspring.’ 29 Therefore, since we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold or silver or stone, something shaped by art and man’s devising. 30 Truly, these times of ignorance God overlooked, but now commands all men everywhere to repent, 31 because He has appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by the Man whom He has ordained. He has given assurance of this to all by raising Him from the dead.”
32 And when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked, while others said, “We will hear you again on this matter.” 33 So Paul departed from among them. 34 However, some men joined him and believed, among them Dionysius the Areopagite, a woman named Damaris, and others with them.
Devotion
Athens was a great and glorious city. It had its greatest days some five hundred years earlier, but it was still marvelous for its art and architecture, its philosophy and literature. It must have been an impressive place to see at that time. But as with any great and beautiful scene, if it is dominated by unbelief and false religion, it leaves a sour taste in one’s mouth. Like the national cathedral in Washington, or the Uppsala cathedral in Sweden; as beautiful as they are, they are spoiled.
Perhaps Paul toured the great city when he first got there, as any of us would. He saw all the beauty of the city, but noticed that it was virtually smothered in idols. The Roman satirist, Petronius, said, “in Athens it was easier to find a god than a man.” Paul’s “spirit was provoked within him” by what he saw. That is, he abhorred the idolatry he saw. His spirit was stirred to jealousy, jealousy for God’s name. He was disturbed and revolted by the lies and the darkness that masqueraded as truth and glory. Are we ever distressed to see the idolatry in our own cities? Paul did not see the various expressions of religion as equally valid. He didn’t look at the Greek Olympian gods as “just the Greek way of expressing the essence of truth.” Jesus did not take up residence in one of the temples of Athens. Jesus was above every other god.
We pray: Stir up our hearts, O Lord, to make ready the way of Thine only-begotten Son, so that by His coming we may be enabled to serve Thee with pure minds; through the same Jesus Christ, Thy Son, our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with Thee and the Holy Ghost, ever one God, world without end. Amen.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
