The Unknown God: The Gospel at the Areopagus (Acts 17:16-34)

Join hosts Denise and Kyla as they examine the gospel sermon delivered by Paul to the Athenians. What can we learn about evangelism from this passage? What does it mean for us to be described as the "offspring" of God? And why is the location of this sermon so significant?

Plus, listen as we share our best (and worst!) travel stories! All this and more in this exciting new episode!

Transcript

SPEAKER_05 1:12

Shalom and welcome back to another episode of Good Fruit. Good Root. I'm your host, Kyla. And I'm your host, Denise. And we're very excited to be back with you once again. We're recording quite a few episodes in rapid succession here. Yes, we are. So it is Friday today. We just released an episode today that we recorded two days ago. Now we're recording this episode and we will be recording yet another episode tomorrow. Yes. Because for it's for a good reason. Drew, the youngest of the babies in our family, is having her first birthday this coming week. And so you'll be traveling in order to be able to attend as Nana at her birthday. And I will be making the trek also, but not as soon as y'all hang back. I'll feel the pulpit here and then I'll travel down just for the party and right back. So lots, lots of travel going on and also lots of really good discussions here on the pod. So all things considered, I feel like if we were going to have to record multiple episodes very quickly, these are really good episodes to be having to record in such a short amount of time because not that we haven't studied, because we have, but these are topics that I feel like at the drop of a hat off the cuff we could discuss in pretty great detail.

SPEAKER_01 2:25

I agree. Yeah. So how are you doing today? I'm doing pretty good. Pretty good? Pretty good. Yeah. I'm I'm recuperating.

SPEAKER_02 2:32

Um still. Still, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:34

You're gonna be recuperating for the rest of your life. For the rest of my life. Okay. But uh I f I feel better today than I did um yesterday. Better today than yesterday. Better today. Yeah, again. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 2:46

Uh and hopefully even better tomorrow. Yeah. Do you think that you can catch up on sleep? Or do you think that once you've missed sleep, it's it's just gone?

SPEAKER_01 2:57

I think once you've missed sleep, it's just gone.

SPEAKER_05 2:59

I agree. I agree. I think that our bodies do their best, but I I don't think I think once you've missed out on rest, it's it's not coming back around. Yeah. Yeah. So I also do you agree with the phenomenon? I think this is like medically proven, but that your body is operating on the sleep that you got like three nights prior.

SPEAKER_01 3:21

Yes, I agree.

SPEAKER_05 3:22

I do. I do too. I do too, because I can go without sleep and be fine for a day or two, but eventually I'm gonna hit that brick wall. And so interestingly, with all the travel that we did last week, I hit my brick wall. I think it was Monday night. Uh-huh. So yeah, I do think that I don't think that you see the effects immediately of lack of sleep, but they do catch up with you.

SPEAKER_01 3:45

Well, like yesterday, I was I couldn't believe how tired I felt yesterday. And I slept good the night before. But yesterday afternoon, it was like I literally hit a brick wall.

SPEAKER_04 3:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:56

And so that would have that would make sense. It would be in keeping with with that uh vein of thought that three days later you feel it. Three days later. Now people will want some context there. We'll give it another day.

SPEAKER_05 4:11

That you played that CD so constantly when I was in kindergarten. Is that the age I'll probably and every day dropping me off at Lynn Lastinger that that song was playing? That's what it feels like in my memory at least.

SPEAKER_01 4:26

Because I was teaching that song to the choir at the time, and it it had some tricky parts to it. And so I was listening to it and trying to come up with creative ways to get the choir to hit some of the places just right. So we're always listening to it.

SPEAKER_05 4:41

Yeah. Shout out the Union Grove choir circa 2003. That was that was a good choir. It was a really good choir. So you are up for God wink of the week, and you wouldn't tip me off as to what you were going to say, only that you had one. So what is your God wink of the week?

SPEAKER_01 4:58

My God wink of the week came from the lips of Lindy.

SPEAKER_02 5:03

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 5:04

Okay. And it was um while I was down in Georgia, and it was the day of the funeral, and when I had gotten down to Adele and got to see her, she was so excited to see Nana. And then later she and I were riding together, and she was in the back seat in her car seat, and I'm up there driving, and just out of the blue. I mean, I'm exhausted, I've I'm spent, and just out of the blue. I get, I love you, Nana. And I said, Oh, baby, I love you too. And I then went on to tell her, I said, Baby, you're so sweet. She said, I sure am.

SPEAKER_05 5:44

And she is, she's right.

SPEAKER_01 5:47

But um, just the unsolicited, innocent expression that fell from Lindy's lips. And I hadn't, I didn't have to do anything. There was no expectation. It was just she was with me and she loved me. And that reminded me of of our father and how he loves us so much and he just wants us to be with him. And so in that moment, I I literally teared up because of the joy I felt because Lindy just wanted to be in my presence. And then, of course, I naturally thought of our heavenly father and how he wants us in his presence, and so out of the mouths of babes.

SPEAKER_05 6:28

That's right, and especially out of the mouth of Lindy.

SPEAKER_01 6:30

Yes, Lindy, because she'll say, I'm feral.

SPEAKER_05 6:33

She is, she is feral, but she's so sweet. And not the hijack, not the hijack or godwink of the week. But as much as Lindy loves you, let's make it very clear. That's right, that's right. No, it's incredible the little moments that you have when you're around small children like that, because we've said this before in conversation with one another, but it's almost like the veil of the supernatural is so flimsy for little ones like that. Like they're just so hyper aware and hyper-attuned to things of the spirit, but also to emotional intelligence and awareness. And so when when kids can sense something and like seek to be generous and to meet your need, it's it's just so sweet. And so some of my absolute favorite moments ever in my life are me driving and Cooper in the backseat and the conversations that we've been able to have and just the unprompted wisdom that he spouted off, you know, as a small child. And so it it's always incredible when you get to experience something shared by by a small child, and you you as an adult understand the spiritual gravity of what they've just shared.

SPEAKER_01 7:54

So I can't wait to hear Drew's.

SPEAKER_05 7:56

There's no telling. Um, we'll check back in in a couple of years and see what Drew's personality has developed to be like. So that was that was a good conversation. Did you like it? Yes, it made me miss my baby more though. Okay, so before we dive in to our biblical topic, uh thematically, we're gonna set the stage for the topic by asking a few little questions here. Okay. So all of these questions pertain to travel. Okay. Uh to travel, to destinations, to things of that nature. So I'm gonna I'm gonna prompt you and let you go first, but we'll each share our answers on these. So the first question that I have for you is what is your least favorite place that you have ever visited?

SPEAKER_01 8:42

My least favorite place that I have ever visited. Well, this one's kind of uh tricky to me because I've got a couple of answers, but I think the the one I'm gonna go with is uh Cozumel. And I know people um listening will be like, why in the world would you say Cozumel? Probably the time that I visited Cozumel, it was um back uh, let's see, late 80s. And so took a cruise, got off the ship in Cozumel, the beach was beautiful, went into the uh town, the living area and the shops, that was nice, but I went one street behind the shops, and when I did and saw the poverty and how poor the people were, like you it was literally just feet away from what looked like something that was just so pristine and so nice, and so seeing the um the Americanized portion of Cosmel and just you know you could spit a watermelon seed distance and there was there's the poverty and and the children and uh it just I just wept. And so I would say that's probably my my least favorite place that I ever visited.

SPEAKER_05 10:02

So so it's not Cosmel itself, it's nothing to do with like the geography or the hospitality, it's everything to do with the dissonance and the inequality.

SPEAKER_01 10:14

Exactly. That's exactly what it what it would be.

SPEAKER_05 10:17

Okay. You gave a very serious answer. I'm gonna give a little bit more of a light-hearted answer here because I I didn't know how to answer this question at first, because you know, you you don't want to offend a place or a group of people in saying this. And I was going to be less hyper-specific than this, but then we were conversing before we started recording, and we realized that there is an answer that we can share. And so if you are an inhabitant of the town that I'm about to name, please know I'm extending my deepest apologies, both that I am offending you and that you have to frequent the establishment I'm about to name. But my least favorite place that I have ever visited is the Walmart of Summiton, Alabama. It is like entering an episode of the Twilight Zone. Deliverance. It is, it feels like it's where they film deliverance, even though here's what's crazy. Both you and I, at different points in our lives, have lived in the location where they film deliverance. Yes, we do. We have literally lived at the inspiration and filming locations of deliverance. And yet, the most deliverance-esque place I've ever been is the Summiton, Alabama, Walmart. And so I feel like I need to provide just a little bit of context here. Uh my Aunt Pam, your Aunt Pam as well, uh, she passed away in New Year's 2015, going into 2016. Yes. And during the period where she was battling breast cancer, and we we knew that we were closing in on the the end of her life, our entire family basically relocated to Summiton, Alabama. It happened to be uh Christmas break. So uh I was out of school. It was my senior year of high school. And so me, Michael, you, dad, mom all, lean-lean, and then all of Aunt Pam's children and the grandchildren that she had at the time, like everyone was living in the parsonage in Summiton, Alabama, right? Right. And so you if you if you had already have that like emotional destabilizing factor in in the background of this visit to Summiton in general, and then you add on top of it just the disorganization of the Walmart. I have never in my life stepped in a Walmart and felt like I had no idea where anything was. Right. Because they all followed the same general layout, but this one, this one, everything was opposite and Cadywampus. I mean, it was it was messed up. And the clientele did not do anything to make make the atmosphere better. It almost like if there was a creepy aspect to it. As a young girl being in there, I did not enjoy being in there. Um, and I will additionally say this is the only Walmart in my entire life that I have ever gone to in my pajamas. Like I am the type of person, you know, I was raised by my mom who, you know, always give Jesus your best in how you dress, like how you dress is an act of worship. Um and I'm not saying that I've always lived up to that, but whenever I go out in public, I really try to make my mom proud in how I present myself. I didn't care at the Summiton Walmart. I went in a pajama onesie. Granted it was granted it was a Darth Vader pajama onesie, but that is how I went to the Summiton Walmart, which should tell you just how how the standards of that facility were.

SPEAKER_01 13:52

Exactly. And that's I remember thinking when I go in this Walmart, I need to be packing.

SPEAKER_05 13:57

Yeah, yeah, literally. Literally. So that's why that's my least favorite place I've ever seen.

SPEAKER_01 14:02

That's where you told me about your acceptance to George Washington University. Was in the parking lot.

SPEAKER_05 14:07

Maybe there's a little bit of positivity at the summit in Walmart. That's true.

SPEAKER_01 14:10

That's not too much. You're the hairy pool in uh no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

SPEAKER_05 14:15

We're not. There's so many things we could list here. Wow, we gotta move on. Okay. Um, where is the place that you would most like to visit?

SPEAKER_01 14:24

Okay, I think I'll be serious on this one.

SPEAKER_05 14:27

You're gonna be serious on all of them.

SPEAKER_01 14:28

I'm gonna be silly on all of them.

SPEAKER_05 14:30

It's fine. Go ahead.

SPEAKER_01 14:30

I'll be silly, but um the place that I want to visit the most. I heard a a uh camp meeting speaker one year and he was preaching about visiting this place. And I've always wanted to visit um Israel, Jerusalem, the holy city, and the holy, I mean the holy land, holy sites. But this just really s struck stuck out to me. I would love to visit the jail cell where Paul was held and where he wrote so much of the New Testament.

SPEAKER_05 15:01

So share, share what the camp meeting speaker said that has always stuck with you because it always stuck with me also. And I thought this was really neat because I was really young during this service, and you and I were not sitting together during this service. And afterwards, when we like reconvened to like ride home together, and I like I said, I was probably 10.

SPEAKER_01 15:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 15:22

Um, but when we got in the car, both of us were just so struck by this part of the like uh out of you know, the hour-long sermon, both of us seized on this one anecdote. And I thought that was so neat that we shared this experience, even though we weren't sitting near each other. We had no idea that the other was responding similarly. But why what what was the anecdote that he shared that made you want to visit this place so much?

SPEAKER_01 15:45

Well, of course, he described um in in detail the um descent into the cell, the jail cell. And then I mean the speaker maybe he's five feet. No, I'm not gonna call his name, but he's probably about five six or five seven. But he pointed out how he had to stoop over to enter this cell. And but he described the overwhelming presence of God that he felt there, and how chills ran up and down his spine um just by stepping into that, that it was just like a holy, sacred place, and he was over overwhelmed with that. I think it was something that he didn't really anticipate. You know, I said earlier, I'd like to visit the um holy sites, and you anticipate these feelings about visiting there, but I don't think he had any uh idea of inclination of what he was going to experience when he stepped into, when he stooped into it, is what I should say. But it was the overwhelming presence of God in that place.

SPEAKER_05 16:56

What always stood out to me of what he shared was yes, the the palpable, tangible presence that still resides there even nearly 2,000 years later. But the thing that always stood out to me is he shared that the tour guide told him, and I I haven't validated this information, but this is what was shared from the pulpit by this particular speaker. He said that his tour guide told him that while Paul was held in this cell in Rome, that they had to change the guard that was watching over him every 15 minutes. That's true. And the speaker asked, Well, why every 15 minutes? And the tour guide said, That's how long it took him to convert them.

SPEAKER_01 17:39

That's right. That that stood out to me.

SPEAKER_05 17:42

That always has that has always stuck with me. All right, so yours is the holding cell of Paul. I will give a thematically similar answer, okay? Okay. Mine's a little bit less serious. Obviously, my ultimate travel destination is the Holy Land. As you said, like I want to visit the sites of these Old Testament stories so so much. I've I've always wanted to. I have had two trips planned, uh-huh, and both times world events have made it such that I could not in good conscience go. And and could not safely go either. But hopefully in my lifetime, there will be a time where I am able to visit the Holy Land, the Levant, the ancient near East that is no longer ancient, obviously, and be able to see these sites. But until that is a thing that I can safely and in good conscience aspire to do, for now I'll say that my travel destination that I would most like to visit is the holding cell of Anne Boleyn.

SPEAKER_01 18:45

Really?

SPEAKER_05 18:45

Yes, which is in the Tower of London. So I have always wanted to visit London. Jessica, if you're listening, you were supposed to take me to London when I graduated from my undergrad, and we still have not gone. So please let's actually go on that trip, even though it's a few years late at this point. But uh, no, I've always wanted to visit the Tower of London because I mean it's the holding cell of a lot of important historical figures, but most importantly for me is Anne Boleyn. If you don't know, Anne Boleyn is one of my all-time three favorite human beings that has ever existed, uh, as far as historical figures go. And one of the reasons I want to visit this cell is it, it's if you believe that she wrote um some poems that have been attributed to her, this is where she wrote them. Like I said, if you believe that she wrote them. Um but most pressing for me is there's a carving on the wall in her cell that depicts a falcon standing atop and crushing a pomegranate. And I have always wanted to see this because this is, you know, what she spent her last hours doing, allegedly, is etching this into the wall. And what's so significant about it is the crest of the Boleyn family was a falcon, and the crest of Catherine of Aragon was a pomegranate. So even going to death, she was gloating over the fact that, you know, she had trampled Catherine of Aragon underfoot, which I just think is so interesting that that like echoes throughout all of history because she etched this into a wall in her dying moment. So so I would like to, or in the moments leading up to her death. So I would like to visit the Tower of London. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 20:23

I'd like to go there with you.

SPEAKER_05 20:25

All right, we'll plan that trip. I'll go with you to the holding cell of Paul if you go to me with the holding cell of animal. All right, next one. What is your best or favorite travel story?

SPEAKER_01 20:36

My best or favorite travel story? Okay. Um one year we had traveled to um Tampa. And we had, I believe we went to Disney that trip. And we were traveling back, and of course it was Thanksgiving weekend, and all of Florida was gridlocked in traffic with traffic. We took back roads, we did all kinds of stuff. We even have a picture of us stopping by the side of the road and giving a thumbs up. I can't remember what the sign said. Do you remember that? Yeah, vaguely. Okay, because it was a day that was so miserable because the traffic was so slow that we had to do anything we could to make the trip better and to have fun. And so I can't remember right now how many hours it took for us to get just across the Georgia line. But when we crossed the Georgia line on Interstate 75 at Exit 13, is one of our favorite places, which is Wild Adventures theme park, and we had seasoned tickets.

SPEAKER_05 21:41

Shout out Dolly Parton.

SPEAKER_01 21:43

And we had we had seasoned tickets, and so we just did something that was spontaneous and fun. We took that exit, shot down to Wild Adventures, entered the park, and rode a couple of our favorite rides, and just had I mean, it was after that day. It was just like the icing on the cake. And we we had those few moments of fun. And then we jumped back in the car and drove the 50 miles home. And so I think you enjoyed that.

SPEAKER_05 22:10

I did. That is such a vivid memory in my childhood. And I'll tell you what's funny. I don't remember the traffic. I don't remember being miserable. I don't remember the long day. All I remember is how exciting and fun it was to spontaneously just go to Wild Adventures. And so, I mean, it worked out so perfectly that you and dad and your wallets had all of our admission passes because we always had year-long passes to Wild Adventures. And I think that that was one of, you know, when you're a kid, you don't really fully understand how the world works, uh-huh. Or that the adults around you are just big kids.

SPEAKER_02 22:44

You know.

SPEAKER_05 22:45

And so I think up until that point in my childhood, because I was what, like seven or eight when we did this, like in my brain, I just assumed that things like worked on a schedule. And so this momentary decision, like this decision that was made in a moment of you and dad being like, let's just hop off and go to wild adventures. That I think was my introduction to spontaneity, like to the fact that the adults around me could just make decisions that could be fun and could seemingly come out of nowhere. And so, yeah, we went and we rode my two, still to the same, my two favorite rides in the park. We rode the boomerang and we rode the rattler. That's right. And got right back in the car and went home. And that was just so incredible to be like, because also in my brain, Wild Adventures was like such an undertaking. Like we had to go spend all day there. So, like the reality of I can go scan my admission card and go ride two rides and then go home. Like that was just it was really neat.

SPEAKER_02 23:40

It was, it was. I I love that.

SPEAKER_05 23:43

So my best or favorite travel story, that that is a really good one. And if you hadn't taken that one, that might have been in the running for mine. But I have uh an amusing travel story, which is we went on a cruise when I was like 11 or 12. Um, and our whole our family went, it was me, you, Michael, Mama, and Granny Pam. Um, shout out, Granny Pam. You're not listening to this, but if you were, shout out. Um, but we went on this cruise and I had never experienced seasickness in my life. But the first day of the cruise, I got horribly ill. And I couldn't figure it out because, like I said, I'd never experienced seasickness before. And we ended up finding out after the fact that it was a virus that I had, but I was vomiting, I was unwell, and so I just sat in the room for the whole first day of this cruise and you know, back and forth to the restroom vomiting. And luckily for me, wait, I must have been 13. I was 13 because Thor had just come out, and there was a television in the room that like there were like four channels, and they played like recent films on a loop, and then one of the channels was playing Thor. So I watched Thor as whatever the duration of Thor is that can be watched in a 24-hour span. I watched Thor that many times. So, guesstimation, I watched Thor 12 and a half times or something. And so, which is fine because I loved Thor and Natalie Portman's in it, so it was a win-win. But uh the next day, I woke up and I was well because the virus had run its course through my system and I was ready to go. And the entire rest of the ship came down with the virus that day. And so day two of this cruise, I'm not exaggerating, like you can back me up on this. I was the only person out on the cruise ship. Like they even like put it, they sent an announcement out throughout the day that the all the crew members were back in their rooms. Like no one was out because the everyone had come down with this virus, and then we were in really choppy water, so it was making it way worse. And so, like, they recommended that everyone just chill in their cabins, but I had already been locked in the cabin for a whole day, so I was raring to go. And so I'm up on the Lido deck. I'm the only person trying to swim, I'm the only person in line for the ice cream. Like it felt like something out of a movie. I had an entire cruise ship to myself, and I had the best day ever. So that's one of my best travel stories. Not to throw you under the bus.

SPEAKER_01 26:21

Well, I'm I know you're going to.

SPEAKER_05 26:23

But we do a we do have a very iconic mother-daughter interaction on that day because as I said, I'm 13. So I think you were a little hesitant to just let me run free. Yes, I was. So you drug yourself up to the deck that had all of the like unlimited food. And so I'm I'm chowing down on French fries and ice cream, and I'm just talking your ear off because the entire day before I'd had no social interaction. I've been locked in a room. And so all my social energy was pent up and it was all coming out on you. And I mean, I'm just yapping, probably about Thor, if I had to guess. And you looked at me. I'm so sick. You looked at me, your 13-year-old beloved daughter, and you said, Kyla, if you don't shut up, I'm going to throw up, and I'm gonna make sure that I do it on you. I'm so sorry. It's okay. I've forgiven you. With much therapy, I have worked through that. Thank God for therapy. Yes. All right, and my last question before we dive into our biblical text today. What is your favorite place that you have ever visited?

SPEAKER_01 27:35

Okay, my favorite place. This this one's kind of oh, I've gone back and forth trying to figure this one out. I love my visit uh to Colorado. Okay. And um I really think I'm gonna go with Pike's Peak.

unknown 27:53

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 27:54

Because um I was asked to do a women's conference in Colorado, and Kyla and Kyle w traveled with me. And so we got experience like the Garden of the Gods and different stuff. And one day, one morning we were taken up up Pikes Peak, and um when we left the when we left uh Colorado Springs, it was in the 40s, maybe low 50s, and we ascended Pikes Peak and the temperature dropped, and when we got out of Pikes Peak, we stepped out in knee-deep, almost thigh deep snow. But um just standing on top of Pike's Peak and looking down over the the beauty of the everything below us. We were above the clouds. We were the snow was beautiful, the clouds were beautiful, and of course, that's where uh old beautiful for spacious guys for amber waves of grain was written. And when we stood there, um you could see how and I can't even think of who wrote it right now, but how that the beauty of that place, um, she took it and she painted it with words. And so just standing there in that uh it was just a majestic place, a beautiful place. And uh it also gave me the perspective of how things, how differently things look from a high place when you have a vision from a high place. So I'm gonna go with Pikes Peak.

SPEAKER_05 29:24

Yeah, I really, really enjoyed Pikes Peak also. I'll say something about being that high, there there was a spiritual component to it. Because I was a junior in high school when we went, and it's not that like I wasn't already on my faith or anything. I experienced salvation at six years old and began walking with Jesus Christ then. But at that point in my life, I don't like I I didn't as readily open my mouth and scripture flow out as I do now because I was a kid, you know, and I had a lot of distractions as most teenagers do and everything. But stepping out on Pike's Peak, the the first thing that came to my mind was scripture being up there because it was like this is like this there's a spiritual component to being up this high, to being this that removed from earth. Yes. Uh and so my first thought was scripture. Uh-huh. My second thought was holy cow, this looks like Bespin from Star Wars. This looks like Cloud City. And my third thought was, where are the donuts? And we found them. We found the donuts and we chowed down on those things. They were really, really good. So, yes, Pikes Peak is an excellent choice. My choice is also an area of higher ground.

SPEAKER_01 30:42

Okay.

SPEAKER_05 30:42

And my choice is the location of the biblical narrative we're going to be discussing today. My choice is the Areopagus. And so I will I will share more specific details about my trip to the Areopagus and about the words that I pinned the night of my visit to the Areopagus, but just to set the scene, the Areopagus is a location in Athens, Greece. Um, it is just below the Parthenon, um, and it is a hilltop within the city of Athens. And so I studied abroad in Greece for a summer uh during my undergraduate degree pursuits, and I had always wanted to visit the area of Pagus because from a very young age, Act 17, specifically the portion of the chapter that deals with Paul in Athens, has been one of my favorite parts of scripture. Like I don't even remember when I first read this, but I've always loved this. You have. And it's especially Act 17, 28. That's always been one of my favorite scriptures. And so when I got the opportunity to study abroad in Greece, there were a lot of different locations that I was excited to get to see in person. The Parthenon, Delphi, Santorini, all of these places. But number one on my list with a bullet was the Area Pagus. And so I shared that with the professor who oversaw the study abroad excursion. Shout out Mark Rurkowski, my absolute favorite professor that I ever had, which is really, really high praise. Yeah, it is. Because, I mean, Rolston, Erica Brown, Orion Zakai, I mean, I could go Jenna Weissman-Josley, like I could go on and on with the professors that have had an indelible impact on my life. But Mark Rurkowski was something special. He goes in a category entirely his own. And I'm sure that he'll come up in other conversations that we have throughout this podcast. But he had heard me say that I wanted to visit the area of Pegasus and it wasn't on our itinerary for the trip. And so one evening, uh, we were based out of Athens in the study of abroad group, but we would travel like throughout the country of Greece. Like we would spent, we spent like a few days on Santorini. We spent um a few days like in different locations throughout the Peloponnese, like just different places. And one day we had taken a bus to Delphi, and we spent the whole day at Delphi, and like we hiked and we did all of these things. We visited like the Olympic training grounds, we visited the ruins of the Temple of Apollo there. And so we we were busing back to Athens, and Mark Rukowski came to me. I love that he's full name every time, but he hasn't because there were multiple other marks on this trip. But he came to me and he was like, Hey, we're gonna get back in time for sunset. Would you like to go watch the sunset from the area of Pagus? And it just meant so much to me that he knew that that was something I wanted, and so he went out of. I know he had to be exhausted. I mean, he'd been in charge of 20 kids at all these various locations for a whole day. I was tired, I know he had to be tired, but he was like, I know that this is important, do you? I know you said you wanted to do this. This is the one night that we have a free evening. Would you like to go do that? And I was like, absolutely. So we opened it up for the whole class if anyone else wanted to go with us. Only one other person, aptly also named Mark, decided to go with us. Everyone else was exhausted, wanted to stay in their rooms. And so Mark, Mark, and I walked through Athens and we visited the Area Pagus and we watched the sunset from there. And to this day, it's a background image that I keep on my phone and on my watch because like a photo of the Area Pagus and the sunset in the distance, because it was just genuinely one of the greatest experiences of my life to get to get to stand in the place where Paul delivered the gospel message to an entire nation of people, the place where Christ was preached first in the nation of Greece, um, and to the people of Athens. And so to get to stand there and to watch a beautiful sunset. And then the cherry on top of the experience was Mark Rurkowski asked, So why was this so important to you? Uh-huh. And I got to share with him. So I got to stand on the Area Pagus and I got to proclaim the gospel to someone.

SPEAKER_02 34:58

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_05 34:58

And it just was such a great moment of spiritual connection with the Apostle Paul to be like, I'm standing in the same place, I'm sharing the same message. And 2,000 years later, Jesus Christ crucified and resurrected is still being preached in this location. And it was beautiful. Yeah, it was it was such a beautiful thing. And then we, after the sunset, after I shared, and and he was so responsive to the significance that this held for me, which was really incredible because Mark Rakowski is not a professing Christian. He's he's I don't know if he personally identifies as an atheist or an agnostic, but the reception that he gave me in sharing that was so warm and generous. And then we walked the streets of Athens again. We found a local place with live music to get dinner, and I just got to talk to him even more about why this was so important to me. And then we went back to the rooms and we went to sleep, and it just that is probably one of the greatest evenings of my life.

SPEAKER_01 35:53

And when you got back from the shrimp and told me about it, I was just blown away that that you had that opportunity. But one thing I want to say about Mark Rakowski is I believe that your deep faith is something that was a testament to him in your your relationship and the time you you were with him because he knew that you were somebody who believed and had a belief system and you knew why you believed it. And so I can't imagine the impact that that moment had on him, and so impactful on you, but I know it had to be very impactful on him.

SPEAKER_05 36:30

Yeah, I I I believe that it was that it was significant for him too. So I miss him. I need to reach out to him, and I I need to do that soon. All right, so now that I've set the stage, now that I've shared my personal experience with this location, if you're gonna follow along with us, our main text today is from Acts chapter 17. It will be verses 16 through 34. So from verse 16, which begins uh the narrative of Paul in Athens through to the conclusion of the chapter. So I'll read it for us, and then I'll ask you, as I always do, what jumps out to you. And this is one of those narratives that I mean there's pretty much everything in here we can discuss at greater length. So we'll we'll sort that out as we go. But beginning at verse 16, it says, Now, while Paul was waiting for them in Athens, his spirit was being provoked within him as he observed that the city was 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 some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers as well were conversing with him. Some were saying, What could this scavenger of tidbits want 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. Now all the Athenians and the strangers visiting there used to spend their time in nothing other than telling or hearing something new. So Paul stood in the midst of the Areopagus and said, Men of Athens, I see 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 everything in it, since he is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made by 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 feel around 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, it is just as your poets have said, we are his offspring. Therefore, since we are the descendants of God, we ought not to think that the divine nature is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by human skill and thought. So having overlooked the times of ignorance, God is now proclaiming to mankind that all people everywhere are to repent, because he has set a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness, through a man whom he has appointed, having furnished proof to all people by raising him from the dead. Now when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some began to scoff, but others said, We shall hear from you again concerning this. So Paul went out from among them, but some men joined him and believed, among them who among whom also was Dionysius, the Areopagite, and a woman named Demaris, and others with them. All right, so that's the narrative of Paul in Athens. As I said, there's no shortage of material here. We could literally dissect every individual sentence and verse in here, I'm pretty sure.

SPEAKER_01 40:19

Yes, we could.

SPEAKER_05 40:19

But I'll I'll leave it up to you to pick our starting point. What is the first thing that jumps out at you?

SPEAKER_01 40:26

Uh one of the uh first things that I've underlined here is that um when Paul when it says now while Paul waited for them in Athens, I'm in verse 16. His spirit was provoked within him. Okay, there was uh when he saw the city, when he when he saw that the city was given over titles. Now, prior to this, Paul keeps getting kicked out of everywhere. Yeah, you know, and so knowing what's happened prior to this in this chapter and how he's just you know he keeps get being sent away for he was sent away from Thessalonica, and then then he he lands in Greece, and he's he's here in Athens, and um you would think he would be seeking to kind of rest or still away for a little while. Okay. And Paul may that may have been the desire of his flesh, but as as he's there, there's something within him. It says his spirit was provoked within him when he saw the idols and when he saw that the city was given over to idols. And so that's that's the first thing that that I have.

SPEAKER_05 41:38

Yeah, it it immediately jumps out at me that Paul is provoked by the spirit, but it also jumps out at me what he does because of that provocation. Yes. Because provoked is typically one of those words that maybe carries a negative or tempestuous connotation to it.

SPEAKER_02 41:55

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_05 41:56

So Paul is being provoked by the spirit because the city is full of idols. Most of us, or maybe I shouldn't say most, but a great many of evangelical Christians think that the response to idolatry has to be anger or indignation. And I'm sure that maybe there was a degree of indignation somewhere within Paul, but the way that Paul approached the way that Paul approached the people was to reason with them. Not it doesn't say argue. It doesn't say, it doesn't say that he approached them in a right temper or a fury. It says that he goes to the marketplace every day and has open conversations with them. How many more people could we bring to the sincere revelation of Jesus Christ if we would just openly talk to them about him and not seek to argue, not seek it on the basis of I'm disproving everything that you claim to believe. I'm just gonna tell you what I know to be truth. That's true. And that is Jesus Christ and his resurrection. Because Paul, and we haven't gotten there yet, and we'll probably spend more time with it further down. But notice Paul doesn't spend time decrying the other 12 idols or the other 12 altars. He says, I'm gonna focus on this 13th that says to the unknown God. Yes. And what you've been worshiping in ignorance, I will introduce to you by name. It is Jesus Christ. Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_01 43:19

Exactly.

SPEAKER_05 43:20

And so I find that so interesting because so many of us think that in order to convert someone or in order to evangelize to someone, we have to attack their wrong thinking.

SPEAKER_02 43:33

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_05 43:34

But Paul is not concerned with attacking their wrong thinking, he's just concerned with introducing them to truthful thinking.

SPEAKER_01 43:41

That's right. Um sometimes we our approach or an approach that we've seen a lot of is almost like you have to offend the person. And once you offend them, there's no reaching them. But Paul and his wisdom here, he meets them on common ground. Okay. And when we get into when he actually starts speaking, okay, um, he doesn't he doesn't start off with uh you are wrong. He starts off actually with a compliment. He's you know, he's like, you know, you're very religious. So let me talk to you. But but Paul by scholars has even been criticized because he didn't use enough scripture in this. Okay, those people couldn't relate to to scripture. Paul meant he knew the culture, he had spent time in the city, he had gotten acquainted with um, you know, with the people, with their idols and that kind of stuff. And he didn't, you know, some today would just step out and say, You're worshiping idols and you're wrong, and but he found a way to connect with the people where they were. And he did it by opening even with a with a compliment to them. And so that I think this place right here, we could learn so much about personal uh evangelism. And event, you know, he's like we found out he spent time with the people, he spent time talking to to the Jews and the Gentile worshippers, and then people began to question, you know, who who is this babbler? What's he got to say? But when he when he spoke, he spoke, um I think he spoke with grace, he spoke truth. I think he spoke it in love. I really do.

SPEAKER_05 45:35

Yeah, I I I agree. One thing that jumps out at me because of a personal experience I've had is the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers. The reason I'm pointing that out, number one, I the reason I studied abroad in Greece was to study philosophy. And so I think that it's you know very interesting and fitting that here we get specific mention of the philosophers that Paul is reasoning with. But the reason that I'm pointing this out is uh at Bible Quiz a few years ago, there was a question that was like, which philosophers did Paul reason with? And the answer was Epicurean and Stoic. And we had a gentleman coming in who was going to read the questions for this one session because the acting quizmaster had to be somewhere else. And so they sent, this was before I assumed the role as quizmaster, but they sent the gentleman who was going to be reading the questions to me to ask me, like, if there was anything he needed to be aware of. And I was like, well, question one on the next set, the answer is Epicurean and Stoic philosophers. So I would just go ahead and be rehearsing that one in your brain because you don't want to mispronounce those words in front of these quizzers. And I wasn't trying to be haughty or anything in saying that, but I knew if I had been handed a binder and that was the very first answer, because pronunciation is very important in Bible quiz. You don't want to throw the kids off by saying something in a way that they are not used to hearing it. So every time I see that verse, I think about that of the time I had to look at this gentleman and say, Yeah, Epicurean and Stoic philosophers is the first thing you're gonna have to say on this stage. So you might want to practice that one. Uh I also really love the title Scavenger of Tidbits. Uh-huh. I think that's funny. I obviously it's a little bit of an insult coming from the Greeks because what they mean by that terminology is like this person who's not well educated, who's just gathering tidbits of knowledge and scavenging for them and then like forging them together to create something. But I think it's kind of I think it's a neat turn of phrase. I might start calling myself a scavenger of tidbits, because aren't we all? None of us, none of us ever arrive at being fully enlightened. Uh-huh. So I I like that.

SPEAKER_01 47:37

In the New King James, it's babbler, but I personally prefer the New American standard.

SPEAKER_05 47:41

The scavenger of tidbits. Yes. Um, so this is when, you know, that they say he seems to be a proclaimer of strange deities because he was preaching Jesus and the resurrection.

SPEAKER_02 47:52

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_05 47:52

And then they take him to the Areopagus. Right. Yeah. So well, what's the next thing that stands out to you here?

SPEAKER_01 48:00

Verse 20. Okay. Uh for you are bringing some strange things to our ears. You know, um, they're they're pointing out this is this is something new and it's something strange. Can I go into verse 21? Because that that kind of helps with what I'm talking about here. It says, for all the Athenians and the foreigners who were there spent their time in nothing else but either uh to tell or to hear some new things. So that's what their days were spent to hear and tell of new things. And so they're singing, for you are bringing some strange things to our ears. This is this is something new. It's something that's different, it's something that we've never heard about. Um the you know, one who is resurrected. And so I just I got this picture of these people just sitting around trying to hear and tell things, you know. And I I and that kind of helps us as we uh understanding that as we move into his message, because that's what Paul does. He tries to bring to them, you know, a a new thing.

SPEAKER_05 49:08

And so uh what a difference in society. That's what we know that these people are first and foremost concerned with thinking and thinking deeply, and that their reaction when they hear something strange and something foreign is tell me more about that. Let me genuinely consider that because that's in such stark opposition to so many people in today's society. When we hear something strange, our hackles go up and we become hesitant and we we don't want to hear anymore. And I think that a large part of that is insecurity in our beliefs.

SPEAKER_03 49:47

Insecurity and fear.

SPEAKER_05 49:48

We don't we don't know that our convictions are strong enough to withstand an onslaught of something different. And my belief has always been that if I can't hear something contrary or something different, then my belief is not strong enough. Exactly. Right? I I need to know that this is rooted enough that the winds of something different are not gonna uproot it. Right. Right. But I also think that there are things that it's good to change your mind about. There are things that it's okay to reconsider. Right. And so I never want to be a person that's so hidebound that when I hear something strange or foreign, I want to turn my ears off to it. I want to be someone who who's willing to take in new information and to analyze and synthesize that information and then reevaluate and determine how how do I believe.

SPEAKER_01 50:43

Right.

SPEAKER_05 50:44

Because, you know, we we've said this many times to each other, but if we're continually being conformed to the image of Christ, we should be changing every day. That's right. And every day I I experience a new revelation of him, of his love, of his mission. And if I'm experiencing a new revelation, things should be changing.

SPEAKER_01 51:02

That's right.

SPEAKER_05 51:03

I can't be static, I can't be stagnant. And so I I love that this is how these people existed. When they heard something strange or four and they said, wait, tell me more about that. Because it's so it's so opposite of what we would do now.

SPEAKER_01 51:19

Yeah, I I wonder what it would be like to exist in such a world where you could exchange ideas and not get so protective over the things that that you feel must be right.

SPEAKER_05 51:30

So I I've already mentioned her once today, but anytime I'm I'm thinking about this concept of listening to things that are maybe different than what you would be inclined to believe. I always think about Natalie Portman because I will never forget during the Black Lives Matter protest and kind of the inception of the widespread uh defund the police movement. She wrote an Instagram caption about how when she first heard people say defund the police, her hackles went up. And she was like, I don't, I don't know that I agree with that. I don't know that I like that. I'm not trying to put words in her mouth, but she she did say that like she got defensive when she first heard it because she was she there were so many questions that sprang to her mind. But then she realized that throughout her life she has begun to recognize that that's normally a good sign. Yeah. When your hackles go up, she said it's not an excuse to cower behind them and say, I'm not gonna consider this. It's in fact should should be inspiration to push you towards thinking about the thing. Right. Anything that makes you defensive, you need to investigate further because you need to question why you got defensive and you need to consider that alternative point of view. And I have found that so important in life. Ever, I mean, like it was something that I was aware of prior to her saying it, but the way that she phrased it.

SPEAKER_02 53:04

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_05 53:04

And of course, she's someone who I'm very likely to listen to. So hearing her or reading her words on that and how eloquently she described it, and like I said, I'm butchering it right now and how I'm presenting it, I'm sure. But the idea of anything that raises your walls immediately, you actually now have a person a personal responsibility to lower your walls enough to actually consider it and to recognize why it provoked that reaction.

SPEAKER_01 53:32

Oh, I I 100% agree. And you and I have had this conversation before is in spiritual matters, okay, a lot of the a lot of times things that are truly of the spirit will offend the flesh. The flesh will rise up against things that are truly from God because human nature and the flesh is is not in line with the word of God and with the spirit of God. And so anytime, this is I I learned this years ago. Anytime I hear something, and maybe a minister is bringing the word or I'm listening to a teach teaching, and it kind of challenges me, it provokes me, okay, is what it does. It provokes me, then I know that's an area that I need to go spend time with in his word and in his spirit because it's my flesh that's offended, but my spirit is what needs to um to come into alignment and find out if this is something that I've I've been spiritually wrong in or I have taken a wrong belief here. And I am more changed by that, you know, when I hear something and it, I'm like, mm, I don't know about that. But then then I go and I find out there was there that that was truth, and I had never had that revelation of that truth. And so he brings the light of revelation to that, and then I'm changed.

SPEAKER_05 54:56

I yes, you're exactly right. And as you were saying that, what what was turning over in my mind was too often people make the assumption that provocation is a bad thing, uh-huh. That if you're being provoked, it must be negative. But here we see that it was the spirit of God that was provoking Paul. And so so often when we feel provoked, when we feel something stirring, we think, oh, this must be a bad thing.

SPEAKER_02 55:27

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_05 55:28

Right. This must be, and and because of it be us assuming it's a bad thing, we try to just like shut down. But the reality is if we'll examine why we're being provoked, then it can lead, I mean, this Paul's provocation leads to him being able to have this conversation with the Athenians. Right. And so we need to lean into that provocation because just because just because it's an uncomfortable or unnatural sensation doesn't mean that it's not from God. That's right. Sometimes the movement of God does make us uncomfortable. And that's that's a good thing because it inspires transformation. Right. So all right, are we ready to move into Paul's actual sermon? Yes, let's do that. All right. So we're beginning at verse 22. This is where he begins to actually speak in the midst of the Area Pagus. He offers the compliment that you've already pointed out. Men of Athens, I see that you are very religious in all respects. So like he's acknowledging, I see that you have a reverence for the supernatural, for the things that are extraordinary that cannot be explained by human means. Um, so again, yes, he's starting with a compliment. He's acknowledging something that they are doing well. Um, and then this is where he gets into the discussion of the unknown God, right? So, what's the next thing that jumps out at you here?

SPEAKER_01 56:46

The next thing that jumps out at me, um jealousy. That the question, the as you've you've already um pointed out, the 13th God. Okay. And so Paul says, here, let me let me give you an answer. Therefore, the one whom you worship without knowing him, I want to tell you about him. I want to introduce you to him. I want to proclaim, I want, I want to settle this question for you that he's not unknown. He's he's somebody who can who really wants to be known by you. And so that that of course steps out at me. Do you have anything you want to say about that?

SPEAKER_05 57:33

I've just I've all from from being a small child first encountering this passage, I've always loved the the the inscription to the unknown God. Uh-huh. And as you said, you know, what Paul says, what you've worshipped in ignorance, this I proclaim to you, right? And so I like the idea that Paul is positing almost that they've already been worshiping Jesus. Uh-huh. Like they've already been worshiping Yahweh. The I the idea that by seeking something greater than themselves, they've been very close to already connecting with him. And I I like that. I think that again, you know, Paul meets them on some common ground. He finds a way to not assert that they've been wrong, yes, but to extend truth to them. And so I've I've just always really, really enjoyed that this is his approach, that this is how he begins speaking to the people of Athens. Um, and then because I do think that a lot of us as human beings, a lot of people before they profess a Christian faith, they are worshiping God in ignorance. Right.

SPEAKER_02 58:39

I do too.

SPEAKER_05 58:40

Because I genuinely believe that what makes us a living being is the Spirit of God abiding within us, right? That God breathes his breath into the human at creation. And so by virtue of us being human, we have a piece of God within us, right? And that's what gives us a consciousness, is what separates us from all the other created beings. And so every human being, as they move through their life, at some point is engaging in worship. They just might be ignorant of it. Right. Right? That we're always communing with the divine in some way. We just might be ignorant of it. And so I love that this is how Paul approaches them here. Is he saying, You've been doing it in ignorance. Let me enlighten you as to who it is uh-huh that you've been seeking communion with. Right.

SPEAKER_01 59:25

And and I love that I love that approach. I do because um he doesn't you you just said this, he does not point out you've been wrong. He points out the the good, the fact that you have been seeking, and the the fact you know that you are religious. And then he goes to speaking to s about something that they they can see and they know. He introduces this this God is the creator. And so let me tell you about him. He made the world, he made everything in it. And since he is Lord of heaven and earth, he doesn't dwell in temples made with men's hands because everybody tried to confine the Jews, every the the Jewish people, everybody tried to confine God or the gods that they worshipped to a to a temple, to a to a physical location. To a physical location, yes.

SPEAKER_05 1:00:21

So yeah, and it's it's very richly ironic, and I'm I'm gonna talk about this point in greater detail near the close of this episode, but in the midst of Athens to say God who made the world and everything in it does not dwell in temples made by human hands as though he needed anything, right? Because we're in the midst of the city that has the greatest temple ever designed, or the most famous, most prominent, and I'll talk more about that in a moment, but but to come into a society that prides itself on its construction of temples and sacred places to these deities that they proclaim to worship, and to say here, that's not what the desire of God is, right? And that God doesn't dwell in these temples made with human hands, he actually dwells in us, which is a point that Paul somewhat subtly makes in the next verse. But before we get there, he says, Nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, right? To say that God is not served by human hands, because again, we have to contextually understand this, right? That the Greeks, one of their chief forms of worship was to construct and to create, right? What could be what could pull you into greater alignment with the creator than to create, right? And so that's why the Greeks are known for such incredible feats of architecture and of art and of sculpture and all, you know, all of these incredible creative pursuits that truly, you know, began or reached their highest peak and zenith within Greek society, right? And so this was a form of worship for the Greeks to use their hands, right, to make something. And I I'll never forget uh on the trip in Greece, one of my favorite, one of my favorite things was we were visiting this, must have been at Delphi, so it would have been the same, the same day, um, because we saw the chariot, the charioteer of Delphi, which is a very famous sculpture that's been remarkably preserved um from the time of its creation until now. And I remember our our tour guide was was showing us the sculpture, and it's now it's just basically a statue. But originally it was within a chariot, right? It's the charioteer, but the chariot doesn't exist anymore, and so now you have a very clear view of the charioteer's feet.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:06

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_05 1:03:07

And his feet are so delicately carved, like each individual toe, like there's detailing to every aspect of his feet. And our tour guide asked us, he was like, you know, originally there was a chariot, so human eyes would only see, you know, from his thigh up. Why do you think that there's so much intimate detail woven into his feet? And we all just kind of sat there and none of us could really answer. And then he told us, he was like, because the purpose of designing this was not for human eyes, it was for divine eyes. And the idea was that the gods would see that which was not visible to humans, that every aspect of it had to be lovingly and painstakingly created because every aspect of it was going to be perceived by the gods. And I often think about how differently we as Christians would approach every aspect of our lives if we had that view. Right. If we took that perspective of every aspect of everything I do, even the things that will never be visible, right? The work that I'm putting in privately. It's it's all an act of worship and it all is visible to the eyes of the divine, right? God sees every aspect of it. And so I just I think that that's such a beautiful sentiment that even the hidden things, nothing's hidden to God. And so, and to consecrate everything that you do with your hands, with your mouth, with your feet as acts of worship. Because the reality is they are acts of worship because they're not needed. And that's what this verse is saying. Like, God doesn't need anything. And this is a point I made on Wednesday night, that so many humans want to be needed, right? But the reality is God doesn't need us, uh-huh, but God wants us. That's right. And there's beauty in that, that he's sovereign, he could do whatever he needed or desired to do without us. But he chooses to use us, us imperfect vessels, because he desires relationship with us so much that that supersedes the reality that he doesn't need us. And so Paul points that out here that God does not need us since he gives life to all people, since he gives to all people life, breath, and all things. So this goes back to the point I was making about we all have the breath of God within us. We all have the ruach of God, the wind, the spirit of God within us. And so Paul's acknowledging here that he gave to all people life, breath, and All things. So he breathed into all people in order to make us a living being. So God doesn't dwell in these temples that you pride yourself on being able to create with your hands. God dwells within your very body.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:13

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_05 1:06:14

That's where he seeks to dwell because he breathed life into you. So the spirit of God isn't in the Parthenon. The Spirit of God isn't in the temple of Apollo at Delphi. The Spirit of God is in you. That's what makes you a living being.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:33

And then from that, uh he goes on to break down how he 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. There's so much, there's so much depth in in that verse that um that from one blood, meaning Adam here, okay, that he he created every nation. God's mindful. This this God isn't limited to one place, one people, one area. Because think about um the people of Athens, their their point of reference, their context is just Athens, okay. But this great God who created all of this, okay, he's not limited to a temple, okay, and he he has created every nation of men to dwell on the face of the earth. He's created all peoples and he's determined their pre-appointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings. Um, that's just just speaks to his awesomeness and his power and the expanse of our great God, 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 of them. I love that verse.

SPEAKER_05 1:08:02

I do too. I want to go back to verse 26 because as you as you're talking about like the expansive, you know, uh infinite nature of God, you know, this is placing him in contrast to the Olympians. Yes. Right? Because the belief is the Olympians live on Mount Olympus.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:21

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_05 1:08:22

Right? The Olympians, their their work and their movement is fairly concentrated to, you know, the Hellenized world, right? And so to say that, you know, first off, God created all of us. You know, God made the world and everything in it, right? That's not that's not a fact that can be attributed to Zeus. Zeus didn't create every human being, he didn't breathe life into every human being. And Zeus is not omniscient, yeah, and he's not omnipresent. Like he's a being who is confined and restricted by certain limitations, right? As are all of the Olympians. And so the fact that Paul is politely asserting the differences between the gods that are that have inscribed altars here at the Area Pagus versus the God that he's proclaiming to them, right? He's he's pointing out these differences, and he's doing so in a way that's not attacking them, it's just glorifying the God that he does serve, right? And so he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on the face of the earth, right? So he he created one human, and then that one human is the origin point of all of humanity, uh-huh, having determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their habitation. So I love this too because it's it's drawing a kinship between Paul and the Athenians, right? Seemingly on the surface, these people don't have anything in common, right? They're from different nations, and the div the division of nations is very stark at this point in time in the world, right? So Paul being a Jew and these being Greeks, they don't share a commonality of background, right? But Paul is saying, actually, we come from the same common ancestor. We're brothers, yes, right? We might you might not readily recognize that, but the same God created us, and we actually are descended from the exact same bloodline. So he's drawing this commonality between him and the Greeks. And then he's just established God as so infinite and vast and omniscient, omnipresent, you know. And now he says, but God is aware of every single one of us, our appointed times and our habitation. Right. Right. So as vast and infinite as he is, he's also personally invested and intimate with each of us. Right? As great and big as he is, he concentrates on you so intensely that he knows when you're gonna be born, when you're gonna get married, when you're gonna have children, when you're gonna perish from this earth. And he has pre-established your nationality, where you're gonna be raised, the places you're gonna live. God is aware of that intimately as it pertains to you individually. This great infinite vast god is personally invested and intimate with you.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:25

Exactly. And um I'm gonna ask you a question. Okay. Um do you I I just I'm gonna make a statement first. Okay, go ahead. It's incredible to me how Paul, as he's breaking this this down, and he and he's bringing it from one man to to the to the one man Christ. We'll see that in just a moment. But instead of just saying naming their gods and saying these are wrong and that, you know, his approach is so intellectual.

SPEAKER_05 1:12:08

Yes, because they're intellectuals.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:10

You know, his that's what this his whole explanation, you can tell that Paul considered all things before he began to speak to the Athenians, okay? And Paul, what an interesting thing is he was the messenger to the Gentiles. But in scripture, you only find two sermons to the Gentiles that Paul preached. Well, I think the other one was in Lystra, and uh, it's only like two verses. The second sermon that Paul preached to the Gentiles is right here. And this approach that he uses is uh it's intellectual, but it's so spiritual. It's bringing such revelation and illumination. And um I'm just I've read this so many times, but as we're breaking it down today, I'm just kind of overwhelmed with um how he met them as they were, where they were. You know, Paul was the one that wrote, I become all things to all men, that I mean by you know, when by all means within some, you know. And I I I know that scripture and I'm seeing it in the sermon, you know. And I I just I just wanted to um just point out and ask ask you, and and the the answer is obvious. Yes, he's bringing this approach because he's dealing with people who are thinkers who are who are intellectual. And God invites us all to be thinkers and to um to even come to him, and we talked about this recently, and think with him and reason with him, okay. And that's that's the that's what Paul is doing here. He's he's bringing enlightenment and reasoning to these people, okay. And then the fact that he has pointed out, he reaches all nations, he reaches all of this, but he knows every detail about your life. And and so, and then then um I love that next the next part. Yeah, can I can I interject before we get it?

SPEAKER_05 1:14:16

No, you're good. Um, I just think that you're you're exactly right. And Paul here is approaching the Athenians on the basis to which they can be receptive. Yes. Right? He's approaching them in the way that they can receive. And I I thought about it when it said, you know, that he was reasoning with them in the marketplace. That, you know, we we recited the verse from Isaiah a couple episodes ago where come let us reason together.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:46

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_05 1:14:46

Right. Reasoning is what brings us into relationship, and reasoning is what is what in Isaiah, you know, takes what is crimson and makes it white as not. Uh-huh. Right. And so I absolutely think that there's that the fact that reasoning is used here and reasoning is the word used there. I don't think that's by any accident. And I think that Paul here, by speaking to the Athenians in a way that can connect with them and can be received by them, then he's typifying the the method of Jesus Christ.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:21

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_05 1:15:22

Because Jesus and God himself, like they reach us on an individual basis, right? The way that Yahweh is revealed to you might be differently than the way he's revealed to me. And they're both true and they're both his his actual nature, but God appeals to us on individual basis, right? God, God knows what we can connect with. Yes, God knows what we need to receive. And so it reminds me of the manna in the wilderness. You know, we we talked in my Hebrew class extensively about the fact that the manna historically is believed to have tasted like and physically represented whatever each consumer needed.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:05

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_05 1:16:06

Right. So to the elderly, it was hardy. To the young, it was sweet.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:11

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_05 1:16:11

Right. And that's how the spirit of God and the revelation of God appears to each of us. And so Paul meets the Athenians with what they need and with what they are prepared to receive.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:21

Right.

SPEAKER_05 1:16:22

So now verse 27. That they would seek God if perhaps they might feel around for him and find him, though he is not far from each of us. You've been rearing to get to this one, so you you go ahead and talk about it.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:39

I just I love it because in the hope that they might grope is what um what I'm I'm reading here, that they might grope for him, seek him out, search him out. He can be searched out. He longs to be searched out, he longs to be known. And I I I like the picture, the picture of of groping, because you know, we we grope in the darkness to find light, and we grope in the darkness to find truth. And uh the um and that they might in that in the darkness and in that that they will find him because he is not far from each one of us. And this is this is elementary but sometimes I think we forget how close God is to everyone. Absolutely. We look sometimes we look at people and we we think that he is so far removed from them, but he is so close to each one of us. That's what's jumping out at me today, right, right there is we have a tendency to put God in a box and think he's just close to a certain stereotypical person, you know, or whatever, but he is near to each one, each person that has his breath, each person that he has given life to, each person, you know, that um that he has created. He's he's near to each one of us. And he won he longs to be found. When you seek me with all of your heart, you shall find me. And that's what Paul's saying right here. You know, um, so that's why I was getting excited.

SPEAKER_05 1:18:26

Yeah, no, I get so excited about this verse. I love this verse, and it it conjures the same imagery for me as you were just describing of my version in the NASV says that they would seek God if perhaps they might feel around for him and find him. And the image that I have in my brain is the lights being off and it just being complete darkness because when it's complete darkness, you you stumble and you reach out and you use your hands to feel, right? And that's the image that I have here of the human being that's being described, which is every single one of us, that at some point we all are in darkness.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:00

Yes.

SPEAKER_05 1:19:01

And we're we're just stumbling. And I love the way that here it makes so clear that the manner in which we approach him is not important, uh-huh. Right. Because so many people want the approach to look a specific way, right? It's almost it's putting the cart before the horse, but a lot of people have this idea that you have to come to God in a specific way.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:26

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_05 1:19:27

Right. And the reality is he doesn't care how you come, just that you come. That's right. And so it's okay if if you're stumbling blindly, it's okay if you know you're using your hands to feel around because you can't be expected to walk in light before light has dawned in your life. That's right. And so your pursuit, it can be messy, it can be sloppy. In fact, it it's going to be. Initially, it's going to be messy and it's going to be sloppy, and that's okay. He invites you anyhow. And then, as you pointed out, and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. Even while we're in darkness, light is standing right there waiting on us. It doesn't matter what we've done, doesn't matter where we've been, doesn't matter who we've been. He's right there waiting on us. And there's nothing we can do to negate his nearness. His nearness is not based on us or our deserving, thank goodness, because we don't deserve it, right? But he's still near to each of us. And I wish the Christians could grasp that, that he's near to you prior to you encountering him and recognizing him. And then he continues to be near to you no matter what you do.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:38

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_05 1:20:38

There's nothing I can do to send him away from me. He doesn't forsake, he doesn't flee. He's always right there. And it doesn't matter how sloppy or messy my walk is, he's still near to me.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:51

Uh-huh. Exactly. And uh I remember, I wish right now you were speaking one Sunday, and uh it may have been past your appreciation last year. And I right now I can't remember exactly what you said, but I I was like, how many people have lived thinking that stepping into the the wrong environment or um just accidentally even going someplace that you and a place that you wouldn't normally go, and they think that God immediately retreats from them and is gone from them, and then they have to work to try to get God to come near them again. If God was near you before while you were groping in the darkness, God is not going to immediately flee. He's still he's still gonna be near you, and he's gonna be in you.

SPEAKER_05 1:21:48

So and not only is he not going to immediately flee, he's never going to flee.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:53

That's right. But but our thinking is that's that's the way our thinking is in error. And if if I know so many people who can't who can't relax and enjoy their relationship with God because they're in bondage to the thought that he's just gonna leave them. They have not learned the nature and the character of God.

SPEAKER_05 1:22:12

I I thought that way as a kid and as a teenager, and that's well, that's one thing that I think it's important that like I be honest about because I feel like people hear me discuss scripture and they think that like I've just lived with this immense revelation of the nature of God my entire life. The reality is, I mean, I'm I'm a modern American evangelical Christian who was raised as a pastor's kid in a southern conservative environment. There's so much that I've had to unlearn. There's so much that I've had to unpack. There's so much, I know some people don't like this word, but there's a lot that I've had to deconstruct. And that has not been easy work. And there are times where I still wrestle with what I once thought to be truth, and I have now recognized is actually not supported scripturally at all. But I thought that if I went certain places or I did certain things, that the spirit of God was gonna flee from me. And the fact of the matter is the spirit of God is what makes me a living conscious being. That's right. It can't flee from me. It's innate, it's intrinsic. And God doesn't do that. Like that's not in his nature. And I can remember quite vividly being uh in discipleship now in a D now program, and our Bible study leader said something about, you know, God being near us or something, and I raised the point. I was like, well, not if I'm doing something I'm not supposed to do. And she, you know, she she refuted what I said, but she did it like so gently and calmly. And I, as a teenager, like was fully ready to debate her. And now here I am all these years later, you know, avidly preaching what she what she asserted to me so gently and kindly. And I think it's really important that I be open and honest about the fact that I have continually had to be transformed by the revelation of scripture.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:10

Right.

SPEAKER_05 1:24:10

Like I did not have it all right. I thought that that's how God operated. And I'm so glad that it's not. Yes. But it took a lot of a lot of deconstruction for me to get to this point.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:22

Most most of my uh journey as an adult has been a lot about I unlearning is is how I would dis would describe it. Because I lived with the fear that he was gonna leave me.

SPEAKER_05 1:24:40

And so um But perfect love casts out fear. I know. So if we accept the perfection of his love, we shouldn't be afraid of anything.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:49

But but you you know what brought a lot of that thinking around is taking a scriptures, cherry-picking scriptures and taking them out of context and not looking and not examining them in uh I can remember Ray Dawson preaching a sermon years ago, and it's one that I I probably go back to more than any other. It was having a proper view of the authority and the one in authority, having a proper view of God. When you have a proper view of God, then you understand his character and you understand his nature, and you understand that he is not one. I mean, we we say, I will never leave you nor forsake you, I'll go with you all the way until the end of the age. But we live much of our lives expecting expecting him to leave us and forsake us. And that's just that's one of the basic promises. I will not leave you, I will not forsake you. And so um, anyway, he's near every one of us. Even the ones on the remote islands that still hadn't heard the gospel, he's near them.

SPEAKER_05 1:25:54

Absolutely. There's yep. And you know, I I love what you said about we get a preconceived notion about the type of person that he's near. But if we could accept that the person who gets on our last nerve, the person who we have nothing in common with, the person who some of us are committed to trying to deprive that group of rights, uh-huh, God is near them.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:16

Yes, he is.

SPEAKER_05 1:26:17

That just that would transform so much. All right, so the next verse is one of my absolute favorite verses in all scripture. For in him we live and move and have our being, just as your poets have said, we are his offspring. Now, I do plan to return to this at the close of the episode in just a little while here and really spend some time with this one, but I did want to ask you your thoughts on the case.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:41

Um it's one of my favorites, okay, but it's also one that's usually not quoted in its entirety.

SPEAKER_05 1:26:49

Thank you. Everyone leaves out the second clause, which I think is the more important.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:54

And just about everybody can quote for in him we live and move and have our being. And that is so important. That is, I mean, I'm not taking away from the importance of that and how imperative it is, but for in him we live and move and have our being. It's everything is in him because of him. In him we we exist, we live, we have our existence and we move. And then it says again, and we have our being. Our life is in him, our movement. And uh one of the things I think part of the movement that it's talking about here is a reference back to the the verse, um, let's see, where it says they grope for him and they find him. I think that movement, it's in him that we grope for him. It's in him that we find him. Okay, and then we have our existence. We have we have our being. And then, as also some of your poets have said, for we are also his offspring. I'm gonna leave that to you because I know you have uh I I love the way you break this down, and I'm I'm gonna leave that to Leave that for you.

SPEAKER_05 1:28:01

So something that you actually pointed out as we were preparing to record, you asked me about this verse specifically, and the verbs that are used in it, or the the specific descriptions of what it is that is in him. You you pointed out the distinctions there. In him we live, in whom him we move, and in him we have our being. Right. And I think that this goes thematically along with the things we've been saying that in him we we find our living being, like our existence because he breathed his spirit and his life into us, right? So we are alive because we are in him and because he is in us. Right. Right. So in him we we are alive. In him we move, right? In him we undertake action. In him we are we are vital. We're not still or stagnant, right? Right. And in him we have our being. In him, we simply abide. We simply exist and breathe him in, right? And so I think that it's really important that all three of those individually are pointed out here because a lot of times people either get caught up on the action and the movement or people get caught up on the stillness and simple existence. And the fact is that it's in him that we do all of the above, right? There's not there's no part of our living that is not in him. So I think that that's that's really important. The offspring portion, you're so right, that so many people skip over it and it irks me like nothing else. I mean, I generally speaking, probably my greatest pet peeve, even though conversationally, if you ask me my greatest pet peeve, I'm gonna tell you it's people going in the exit and out the entrance at Walmart. That drives me absolutely sad. Because it's a simple posted rule. If you can't follow that, you can't be a functioning member of society. It's so simple and straightforward. And I think it says a lot about our society that so many people are just like, no, I'm not gonna do that and do whatever they want. And that's what causes like chaos in the entrance of Walmart. So that's that's what I'll I'll claim is my biggest pet peeve. But if I were to like really examine it and be entirely honest, my biggest pet peeve is when people decontextualize scripture. I can't stand it when people don't adequately explain why this is said, to whom it's said, how it's said, but it we just quote it as if, you know, universally it can be understood without context. That's just not true of most scriptures. But to take it a step further, it irks me even more when people quote a portion of a scripture as if it is the entirety of scripture. And the reason I got so specific there is my favorite verse of scripture is 1 Peter 1, 6 through 8a. So I acknowledge that I'm cutting a statement in half by only doing the A portion of 1 Peter 1, 8, right? I believe that there are contexts within that is within which that is okay, right? If thematically it can make sense, even though you're not quoting the entirety of the verse. But this verse, uh-huh, you have to have the second clause to understand the purpose and point of this verse. Like you just don't, you don't get what Paul is saying if you don't quote, even as your poets have said we are his offspring. That's the point of this verse. And so it drives me bonkers when people leave that off. And people have done it in this church. I've heard people stand up and recite just the first portion, and I'm like, no, you have to give me, give me the second statement here. So I, like I said, we'll unpack that. Uh when I I'm gonna read, as I said earlier, some words that I pinned the night that I visited the area of Pagus, and it will address the offspring portion of this verse. But before I do that, because that's one of the two ending points I want to make to this episode, we'll continue on chronologically throughout the sermon here. And so now we get to where Paul says, Therefore, since we are the descendants of God, we ought not to think that the divine nature is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by human skill and thought. So having overlooked the times of ignorance, God is now proclaiming to mankind that all people everywhere are to repent, because he has set a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness through a man whom he has appointed, having furnished proof to all people by raising him from the dead. So this is the conclusion of the sermon that Paul is offering here. What jumps out at you here?

SPEAKER_01 1:32:43

Well, um the fact that uh he says he says the divine nature, the the divinity there. Um, you know, we we're God's offspring. We ought not to think that the divine divine nature is like a metal, like it's it's not like something of earth, it's not something um like silver or gold or something that's shaped, something that man can take and make it into something. The divine nature cannot be made, cannot be handled by man physically. It's something that must be discerned, it's something that must be within. And um, we you had already talked about how much the art and the framing and the shaping of things meant to to the people of this culture. And this is this is when Paul's bringing it, bringing the message home. He's landing the plane here is what we like to say, because the the divine nature is nothing like the gold or the silver, okay. And it's it's not something that can be devised, it's not something that that can be manipulated, it's not something that can be reshaped. And so he addressed ignorance earlier, okay. So he says, truly, these times of ignorance God has overlooked. But now it's time. Now it's time to repent. And he's but he's not he's not saying this. Um, I don't hear any anger. I don't hear any, you know, um, it's it's like he's he's brought his argument, he has reasoned with them, and now he's saying, okay, it's time to do something with what I've shared with you, and it's time to do something here. And so I love the way, I love the way the sermon is shaped. I love the way uh Paul's presentation here to me is sterling. It's um it's incredible, and he's bringing it down to, you know, there's this man. This man that that God appointed, this God, the unknown God, the one I've been explaining to you, he he had he appointed this man, he ordained him, and he's given assurance by raising him from the dead. And you know, when you start talking raising from the dead, you know, people um the the people they heard this and it was something that they had never heard before. And so I just I just love the framing of of this the whole message, but right here when Paul brings it to it, he brings it to a to a conclusion. He brings it to this, now you've got to do something with what you have heard. Now what are you gonna do with it?

SPEAKER_05 1:35:18

Speaking of landing the plane, let's give credit for how concise Paul's sermon here is. Yes. We could never we could never. Um, but as as you pointed out, uh Paul, Paul emphasizing, you know, we're we're children, we're offspring, we're descendants of God. So therefore, we can't think of the divine nature as being gold or silver or stone, an image formed by human skill or thought. Right. I think it's so important that he points out it's not formed by human skill, right? As as you just said, I spent some time earlier describing the emphasis on the arts and creation and sculpting and all of these things in in this culture. And so Paul's saying, like, God isn't finite and tangible in the ways that stone and gems and gold and marble are, right? And he's you have carved things and called them gods. That that's not how the divine nature really exists. Right. And so it's not formed by your human skill, but it's also not formed by your human thought. See, we've made it very clear throughout discussing the sermon that thought is such an important and integral part of the Greek society, right? That these are philosophers, they spend all of their time thinking. And God can appeal to us through thought, but God is not formed by thought. Right. And so the fact that Paul makes sure to point that out, again, he's politely saying, these are the things that you've gotten wrong, right? And he's he's not attacking them, he's not being angry, he's not even saying these are the things you've gotten wrong. He's just asserting truth and allowing the truth to refute what they have had wrong. And so God is not limited because he's not formed by your skill, he's also not formed by your thought. And then again, yes, he points out the times of ignorance. And I love that the ending point of Paul's sermon is the man Jesus Christ. I do too, right? This is this is this is what it all amounts to, this man. And yes, he says, you know, you you need to repent because he set a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness through a man whom he has appointed, right? And and I don't think that the emphasis is judgment, the emphasis is who is going to be doing the judging, which is Jesus, right? And Paul has appealed to them here through reason, through, as we said, a manner that they can receive. But the reality is if they will accept this revelation and come to know Jesus, they'll understand that judgment isn't the point, that the righteous judge is the point, right? And so, yes, that Paul ends on Jesus and specifically the resurrection of Jesus, because that is the proof of all that he's said. And he knows that these philosophers, that these thinkers, that these Athenians, they're going to require proof. They're not a people that are moved by anecdotal or experiential evidence. They're a people that need true empirical factual evidence. Right. And so Paul points to the resurrection and he says, this is the proof that this man has been exalted by God, that he is God, and that he will judge the earth. And then because of the news of the resurrection, some people scoff because this this is what's so incomprehensible.

SPEAKER_02 1:38:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:38:42

Right? The news of the resurrection of the dead. Like, this is beyond their capacity for understanding. As lofty of thinkers as they are, this is beyond them. Right. And so some scoff, but some say, we need to hear more about this. Right. So, so some their hackles go so far up at this point that they're like, I can't touch this. This I can't I can't even begin to consider this because it's so beyond my capacity for understanding. But there are some that say, no, I need to hear more about this. And there are even some who are converted and become believers in this because of this sermon.

SPEAKER_01 1:39:17

Right. Well, and one thing I I love about Paul here is he presents it, he presents it as truth, he presents Christ, he presents the resurrection. And like you said, some people say, I'm not gonna hear it, but some people say I want to hear more. But Paul didn't try to do too much. Okay, Paul was confident in the message, that he didn't try to uh he presented the message and left it with the people. Okay, and I think it's Paul who writes, you know, that some plant, some water, and God gives the increase. And so in this instance, in this sermon, Paul planted, okay, he he planted the gospel, and some of them went ahead and let that seed be watered, and God gave an increase, okay? But Paul knew he had done what he was supposed to do, he put it out there, and now it's up to the people. And so many times we won't just present the gospel and leave it. We we want to try to work it and we want to see the result. All of you know, Paul probably would have loved seen everyone fall on their knees and profess Jesus Christ as Lord. Okay. But that didn't happen. But Paul could rest in that. He had done what he was supposed to do. Sometimes we don't do what we're supposed to do because we're we're afraid of the results, okay, that they may not be what we're looking for. I think that's another thing we need to learn from Paul. Present the message, present it in love, present it in truth, present it to your audience, know who you're speaking to, and leave it, leave it there.

SPEAKER_05 1:40:58

And in trust that God and the spirit will empower the right person to come along and water.

SPEAKER_01 1:41:03

That's right.

SPEAKER_05 1:41:04

Right? We don't we don't have to be the one to plant, to water, to prune, to do every aspect of it. Because, you know, Paul said, I planted Apollos watered. God gave the increase. Right. Right. So it's okay, it's okay to to partner with others in the presentation of the gospel.

SPEAKER_01 1:41:22

The r the result does not rest on us, it rests in him.

SPEAKER_05 1:41:26

Right. Because all things are in him, which brings us back to the verse that I want to emphasize here. I've I have two remaining points that have to be made in discussing this passage, and they're they're my favorite points, so that's why I've saved them until the end. But I said that I would share some words that I pinned the night that I watched the sunset from the Areopagus, and so these are words that I wrote in 2018, uh, and I'll share them now. It says, Today I fulfilled a deeply personal pilgrimage by visiting the Areopagus of Athens. This is the place where Paul delivered the gospel to the Greeks, using the altar to the unknown God as an opening to describe Yahweh to them. In Acts 17, we find Paul's sermon, and then I included the verses that we've already read here today, but again I'll say the key verse, verse 28, for in him we live and move and have our being, just as your own poets have said, we are his offspring. Then I wrote, as someone who has spent the past few days in temples made with hands, I am so unbelievably grateful that our God does not dwell in such places, but instead he resides within each and every one of his children. Acts 17, 28 has always been one of my favorite scriptures. It describes the incredibly intimate relationship we as his chief creation are blessed to have with our God. He is not a distant deity like the gods of Greek mythology. He is near to all of us and desires a personal connection with each of his children. It is in him that we find our livelihood. It is in him that we have movement and motion. It is in him that we find our very being, and finding our being in him means striving to become more and more like him each and every day. However, my favorite component of this verse has always been the latter half, which many ministers omit when quoting it. For just as your poets have said, we are his offspring. This single sentence reveals so much about our relationship with our heavenly father. One of the most awesome aspects of Greek mythology, as written by the poets, is the inclusion of heroes or demigods. These heroes were believed to be the offspring of one of the Olympian gods, meaning they had a predisposition toward the skill of their godly parent. Children of Athena were wise, children of Aphrodite were loving, children of Zeus were strong. What I love so much about this scripture is how clear it makes our position as children of God. That's a phrase we in the church nonchalantly toss around quite often without thinking about the implications. To the Athenians, being told they were the an offspring of a God meant that they literally were the child of that God. That fact made them believe that they were endowed with greatness and special favor. It wasn't just some random epithet or title, it was their entire identity. Like the Athenians, we today are each the offspring of Almighty God. We are endowed with greatness and special favor. If we find our identity in him, we can do great and mighty things far surpassing the heroes of ancient Greece. We are as directly the children of God as the Greek heroes were believed to have been the children of the Olympians. How awesome is it that we are the offspring of a God who encompasses all of the qualities of wise and loving and strong. He is also merciful and just in so many things that the Olympian gods continuously failed to be. If we could accept this simple truth, that we are truly the offspring of Almighty God, and it is within him that we find our being, think of all that we could accomplish for the kingdom.

unknown 1:44:59

Wow.

SPEAKER_05 1:45:00

I just, I, this is why it irks me so much when people leave off the offspring part, because contextually it's the most important portion.

SPEAKER_02 1:45:08

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_05 1:45:08

Because he's speaking, Paul is speaking to an audience who genuinely believes that they could be fathered or mothered by a member of the Olympian council. Right. That that immediacy, that intimacy, that direct relation. Why do we not have that perspective when we view ourselves in relation to God? Right. That we are his children, we are his offspring. And because of that, we're endowed with certain predispositions. His spirit is within us, and his spirit endows us and empowers us to be wise, to be loving, to be strong, to be all of these amazing qualities that are within the nature of our God.

SPEAKER_01 1:45:48

Uh-huh. And you know what jumps out at me? Um, because verse 28 ends with, as you've already said, for we are also his offspring. Verse 29 begins with, therefore, since we are the offspring of God. And so many biblical teachers, you know, they'll say, when it says therefore, you need to find out what it's there for.

SPEAKER_04 1:46:14

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:46:14

So it ends with offspring, and it says, then, since we are the offspring. I mean, Paul took how many things in here in this passage did he did he say the same thing back to back? We are his offspring, therefore, since we are his offspring. This, this, that alone, with it mentioned twice in a therefore in the middle, okay, that lets you know this is the the linchpin. This is the this is what is so important. And that's what that audience had to hear. That's what they, that's what they could identify with. But we so many times, uh teaching, taking things out of context, the things the way we were brought up so many times, we fail to understand that we are the offspring of God.

SPEAKER_05 1:47:03

And the therefore is saying that because we are his offspring, therefore, we can understand the divine message. That's right. Right? We can understand and relate to his nature because it's our nature, because we're his children. Uh-huh. Right. That's right. And so I I will never understand why people don't recite that portion of the scripture. Because, like you said, I feel like it's the linchpin of the entire sermon. Yes, it is. It's it is intimacy with God put on full display. And it is also revealing how we should be reflective of his nature because we are his offspring, we're his children. That's right. So, so I love that scripture. I love, I love the connection to Greek mythology because, of course, that's a very impassioned interest that I have. But I'm surprised you hadn't talked about Percy J. Yeah, I know. Well, that's that's that's the thing. Like, you know, as much as Annabeth is a representation of Athena, as much as Percy is a representation of Poseidon, like we have that with the divine nature. We have that with God Himself. We are his children and his representation and his reflection. Right. So, yes, obviously, like me pulling out children of Athena or wise, children of Aphrodite are loving, children of Zeus are strong, you know, that's inspired a little bit by Hercules, but primarily by the characterizations in the Percy Jackson books. So before we completely get off the rails here, though, and I just start talking about Percy Jackson at great length, there's one final point that I have to make. And this might be my favorite point to make in discussing this chapter and this portion of scripture, because this is context that I feel like is lost on a modern audience in many ways. Like because people aren't familiar with the geography and the history of the Areopagus, this gets overlooked. Um but this I love this, but the significance of the location where Paul is delivering this sermon cannot be overstated because Paul goes to the Areopagus, and as I've said, it is a hilltop in the shadow of the Parthenon. So let's emphasize that for a moment. That Paul is standing in the very shadow of the most awesome, incredible, beautiful temple ever made by human hands. Right? The temple that has withstood the test of time, perhaps best of all, right? It's I said when I got the opportunity to study abroad in Greece, I was like, I get to see the Parthenon, right? Everyone knows the beauty and the awe of the Parthenon. But in the shadow of that temple, Paul asserts that our God does not dwell in temples made with human hands. So he goes to the Athenians, who are named because of their relation and worship of the goddess Athena, and he's standing in the shadow of Athena's. Greatest temple, and he's saying, I know you guys spent so much time and energy and effort building that, but that's not where God abides, right? As beautiful and as intricately detailed as that is, that's not the desire of my God. His abiding place and his desire is you, is your very body. You are his temple. That's right. Right. And as painstakingly and intimately and intricately as that temple was designed, you were designed so much more painstakingly, so much more intimately, so much more intricately, right? The time, energy, and effort that humans put into that, God put into you. You are his temple, and his desire for you is greater than the desire for that temple, right? And it's just so striking and powerful to me that Paul is standing in the shadow of the greatest temple ever designed. And he's saying, actually, there's a temple that's greater. And it's you. You are the place where the Holy Spirit of God abides, and you have more beauty and radiance to you than that temple does. And I just like, that's one of those things that until you go to Athens and you stand there and you see the proximity, most people just don't grasp. But it's it's so beautiful and powerful and compelling to me that Paul is asserting, yes, look at that, look right there. God does not dwell there, God dwells in you. You are so much more than that temple. So that that stands out to me about the location of where it is that Paul is presenting this. But second there, secondly, perhaps even more importantly, the Areopagus served a specific purpose in ancient Athens. The Areopagus, sometimes called Mars Hill, because it's the Areopagus, because it is the place of Aries. Aries is the root of the Arioportion of the title. Aries Roman equivalent is Mars, Mars Hill. So that's why it's Mars Hill or the Areopagus. Mars, Aries is the god of war, right? The god of wrath, the god of destruction, the god of war. And so this hill was known in ancient Athens as the location for homicide or murder trials. This was the place where criminals would be brought up on charges in Athens that were going to lead to them being dealt the death penalty. If you were a person imprisoned and brought to trial on Mars Hill, if you were found guilty at the Area of Pagus, you were being sentenced to death. And I just think that there's nothing more beautiful or powerful than the fact that the Apostle Paul, when he goes to Athens, goes and stands on Murderer's Hill, Mars Hill, the place where people are imprisoned for the worst kind of guilt, and the place where people are sentenced to death, and it is there that he proclaims life. It is there that he proclaims liberty and deliverance. He says it doesn't matter what you're guilty of, it doesn't matter what penalty or punishment you are deserving of. Here I proclaim to you that there is a man, Jesus Christ, who was the Son of God and has been exalted. And in his resurrection, he has made a way for life and liberty for every single one of us. Even those of you who are standing trial here. He has made a way for liberty and life even for you. In the place of death, Paul delivers the message of life. And the message of life is the man Jesus Christ. And I just think that that's so beautiful. I like there are so many things in scripture that I sit back in awe of, but this is perhaps one that just ministers to me the most, right? That that Paul goes to the place of the condemned and he preaches the gospel. Right. Because those are the people who need it most. That's whom the gospel is for. It's for all of us. But that he proclaims life in the place of death. Like I just, there are very few things that cause more excitement in my spirit than this. Wow.

SPEAKER_01 1:54:36

That's um that's mind-boggling. Okay. Um that he would go to a place and to a people that needed the message the most. And you know, we were all condemned. We're all condemned. We all we all deserve death. And we've all been liberated by this precious man, Jesus Christ. Okay. But a lot of us wouldn't take the message to the place that Paul did, even though that's a physical picture of what has happened to each one of us. He has taken us from death to life. And it's in him that we live. It's in him that we move. It's in him that we exist and have our being. And we are his offspring.

SPEAKER_05 1:55:34

We we are his children. And I think also that this reinforces the fact that the final point that Paul made in the sermon was about the judgment of Jesus Christ. Right. Because he's he's proclaiming to people in a in a place of judgment. He's saying ultimately this judgment doesn't matter. You who are imprisoned, this is this judgment doesn't have final say over you because there is a righteous judge who judges in love and in truth and in justice. And whatever it is that the world has proclaimed, whatever it is that the world may have condemned you for, the final say is at the judgment seat of Christ, which is also a seat of mercy.

SPEAKER_01 1:56:15

Uh-huh. It is. It is.

SPEAKER_05 1:56:18

Wow. Anything else here that you think that we really need to mention before we close?

SPEAKER_01 1:56:25

No, I don't I don't I think we have pretty much covered this. And I th I don't I can't think of a better point to to exit with. I just I really I really can't.

SPEAKER_05 1:56:38

Okay. Well, I'm up for priceless pulpit. And I happen to have a priceless pulpit that's somewhat fitting with this. It's actually fitting in light of the recent episodes that we've done and then the discussion that we've had today. Uh so my priceless pulpit is a story from when I was a children's pastor at Life Gate, I had a student named Isaiah. I had actually two separate students named Isaiah, both of whom have provided plenty of material. So both Isaiahs will be popping up in Priceless Pulpit at different points. But this Isaiah was the older of the two. He was 10 years old uh when this when this happened. Uh but on a particular Sunday morning, I'd been dealing with the story of Jacob for a few different weeks. And I reached the point where Jacob was now marrying Rachel and Leah in reverse order, of course. He marries Leah and then he marries Rachel. And I kind of was trying to, no, I I have a rule. I never want to teach anything factually inaccurate, so I always present the truth of scripture, even if that truth might prompt some difficult conversations, right? But at the same time, you know, when you're dealing with an audience of three-year-olds through 13-year-olds, you know, there are certain conversations that don't necessarily need to be had in front of the entirety of the group. So I was somewhat trying to just like chug along because I didn't want the kids to seize on two points. I didn't want them to seize first on the fact that Jacob had multiple wives, because, you know, then we got to discuss that. And secondly, I didn't want them to seize on the fact that Jacob married his cousins, right? Because Rachel and Leah are the daughters of his uncle. So that's those are his first cousins. Pretty close familial relation there. So, like I said, I wasn't going to not read the entirety of the scripture, but I also was like, all right, hopefully I can get through this, right? Of course, I could not. But as soon as you get in your mind as a children's minister that you might be able to get past a point, you can go ahead and conclude that you're gonna, that's what the kids are gonna seize on. So of course, like I get I get just absolutely flogged with a million questions of what in the world? Why does he have multiple wives? Why is he marrying his cousins? Like, that's weird. I don't like that. And so, like, all this commentary coming from the kids. And then Isaiah spoke up, and he just goes, I mean, I feel like it's not that weird because it's just like Zeus marrying his sister, right? And when you have a 10-year-old just out of nowhere be like, I think it's fine because I mean the Greek myths were even more messed up. So, and I'm like, you know what? Thank you, Isaiah. Thank you. Also, first of all, how do you know that? What have you been reading? Presumably, maybe Percy Jackson, I don't know. But that just that always has stuck with me that Isaiah was like, you know what, Jacob's not even doing what he's doing, it's not that bad. The Greeks, the Greeks had it worse. So I thought that that was that was really, really funny. It was validated because Zeus had married his sister. So it was okay that Jacob married his cousins. I was like, let's not even get into how many women Zeus had relations with, because then that will make Jacob look like a saint in comparison as well. So yeah, shout out to the yeah, yeah, that's a good one. It's topical. So we are here at the conclusion of this recording. We get to record again probably tomorrow. So, but you guys will not be hearing from us until next week. The next episode will be coming out next Friday. We hope that you'll return and journey with us through scripture again. Then until then, this has been good fruit, good root. Shalom, you can see that we're gonna go.