Acts 17: 22-31
Paul's sermon on Mars Hill, the Areopagus.
V. 22 So Paul stood in the midst of the Areopagus and said, "Men of Athens, I observe that you are very religious in all respects.
This was a high compliment to the people.
V. 23 "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.
He was going to tell them about the God they don't know yet.
Vs. 24-25 "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;
God is too big to be able to live in a building. And He is the Source of everything.
V. 26 "And He made from one man every Nation of Mankind
From Adam, the father of the whole Human Race.
to live on all the face of the Earth, having determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their habitation,
God is sovereign in having each people live in the portion of the Earth He determined they would live: Orientals in the East, Negroid people in Africa, Caucasian people in the West, and Middle-Easterners in the middle of them all.
V. 27 "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;
(Jesus lived in the center of the inhabitable Earth, in Jerusalem. He is Savior of us all, everyone all around the center is called to come to Him.)
V. 28 "For in Him we live and move and exist,
We are God's imagination, so we have our being inside His thoughts; if He were not thinking about us, we wouldn't exist!
"As even some of your own poets have said, 'For we also are His children.'
Some of the Greek philosophers came to the conclusion that we are from God, as though He had a family of human children. He did make us in His image, after His likeness (Genesis 1:26-27).
V.29 "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.
Paul is indulging these Greeks in saying that all human-kind are God's children, to make the point that God is not less than Mankind, as if made of Earth's elements by the craft of Human intelligence; He is way above all that.
V. 30 "Therefore having overlooked the times of ignorance, God is now declaring to man that all people everywhere should repent,
He's saying that they have no more excuse; now is the time for everybody to listen up and be turning their attitudes and thinking processes around to turn away from all the ideas and things and actions and lifestyles that draw us away from God and His ways and the great Salvation He has provided for us all.
V. 31 "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."
Here is where Paul is introducing these Greeks to Jesus. They invite him to stay and teach them some more, and some of them joined him and became believers.
Paul has given us a good overview of how to witness to people who have never known God: Start from where they are coming from and draw them into the story of Redemption. Paul said that he wanted to be all things to all people so that by all means he would be able to bring some to salvation (I Corinthians 9:22).
As Christians we all should be able to give our personal testimony of how God drew us to Himself (Revelation 12:11), to be ready to share with anyone who asks us why we have hope in this hopeless world, or can be cheerful in the middle of the problem we're facing, or maintain joy in our sorrow (I Peter 3:15).
Paul told Timothy, who was a young pastor, to also do the work of an evangelist (II Timothy 4:5), even though he wasn't gifted to be an evangelist, but a pastor. So whatever our spiritual gift may be, each of us needs to also present the Gospel to everyone who is willing to listen.
I hope that you have been reading this continuing blog, and that it has been able to help you know why you believe the way you do, and to back it up with God's Word. To be able to explain these deep truths in a simple way that can be understood by the hearer.
I want everyone to know my wonderful God. He loves everything and everyone He made as Creator. And He is not willing that any should perish, but that all would come to know Him and His great Salvation through repentance and faith.
Even so, come, Lord Jesus!
