Sermon from February 29, 2004
Some day, you and I have to talk at length about religious pluralism. There is a sense in which it is true to say that America is a Christian nation; but as the late Yale professor of Church history, Sidney Ahlstrom, pointed out, every known variety of religious community has found a home in the United States (The Religious History of the American People). In the past two decades several of them have established themselves as a presence to be reckoned with.

At the same time cultural attitudes toward religious plurality have undergone an important shift. Robert Netland of Trinity Seminary outside Chicago puts it this way. “At its heart is the conviction that sincere and morally respectable people simply cannot be mistaken about basic religious beliefs, especially when such beliefs and practices have beneficial effects for the participants,” (Encountering Religious Pluralism, 14).

In other words a Buddhist, Muslim, Christian and Caribbean Voodoo practitioner are all right in what they believe and practice, as long as they are sincere and benefit from their religious experience. As I said, some day, you and I have to talk at length about religious pluralism. Just so there is no mistake, let me say as clearly as I can, “I don’t agree with that. This congregation doesn’t agree with that.” We can and ought to be courteous to those who disagree with us. We can and ought to give them a fair hearing. But in the end, if they have the hardihood to disagree with us, then we must say that they are dreadfully mistaken about reality.

Since we have to postpone that long talk about religious pluralism, it might be helpful today to lay some groundwork for that future conversation. Acts 17 offers an opportunity to do that, because it presents the Apostle Paul in a confrontation with the religious pluralism of his day. We have a front row seat to witness how he addressed the issue. Let’s see what we can learn from him.

Success and Failure on the Greek Peninsula
In the first four verses we meet again a familiar cast of characters. When they had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where there was, again in God’s providence, a Jewish synagogue. As his custom was everywhere he went, Paul took advantage of God’s provision and went into the synagogue, and on three Sabbath days he reasoned with them from the Scriptures, explaining and proving that the Christ had to suffer and rise from the dead. “This Jesus I am proclaiming to you is the Christ, the long-expected Messiah” he said. Some of the Jews, as Paul hoped, were persuaded and joined Paul and Silas, as did a large number of God-fearing Greeks – those Gentile hangers-on to Judaism – and among them not a few prominent women.

But, says verse five, the Jews were jealous; so they rounded up some bad characters from the marketplace, formed a mob and started a riot in the city. They rushed to Jason's house in search of Paul and Silas in order to bring them out to the crowd.

Here we need to stop and address an issue that is probably long overdue. Verse five says, the Jews were jealous. I have asked you many times to try to hear certain passages with Jewish ears of the first century. Now, I would like to ask you to hear something with Jewish ears of the 21st century.

The biblical expression, the Jews, is inflammatory to many Jewish people today, because it sounds like a blanket condemnation of all Jews for the death of Christ in particular or for the persecution of Christians. Verse five sounds like that: the Jews were jealous.

Was Luke just being careless, or did the phrase the Jews have a less inflammatory meaning in Bible times? I believe it had a less inflammatory meaning. For example, here in Acts 17 it can’t mean all Jews. Verse four has just said that some of the Jews were persuaded and joined Paul and Silas. But there is another reason.

Look with me at 1 Corinthians 10:32. Do not cause anyone to stumble, whether Jews, Greeks or the church of God. Within a Jewish worldview of the first century there were two categories of people: Jews and the rest of the world, Gentiles. Within a Christian worldview of the first century there were three categories of people: Jews, Gentiles and a new category of humanity, the Church, made up of Jews and Gentiles who believed in Jesus.

I’d like to propose to you that when the New Testament says, the Jews, it is not a blaming expression. It is a demographic term that simply describes a major player in the early history of Christianity. This is an important understanding that we do well to keep in mind so as not to offend Jews unnecessarily. Maybe by God’s grace this understanding could pave the way for less strained relations between Christians and Jews.

Meanwhile, back in Thessalonica an entirely new accusation is hurled at Christians. Look at the middle of verse six. “These men who have caused trouble all over the world have now come here, and Jason has welcomed them into his house. They are all defying Caesar's decrees, saying that there is another king, one called Jesus.” Those Christians seem like a dangerous lot. According to many Jews, they threatened Moses, and now, according to some Gentiles, they threatened Caesar. Verse ten: As soon as it was night, the brothers sent Paul and Silas away to Berea.

In many churches you will find a Berean Sunday School class. Verse 11 will explain why that is so. On arriving there, they went to the Jewish synagogue. Now the Bereans were of more noble character than the Thessalonians, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true. The word noble means that they were open-minded enough to examine the scriptures and test what Paul said. Berean Sunday School classes want to be known as people, who are willing to study the Bible with a mind open to its message.

In Berea many of the Jews believed, as did also a number of prominent Greek women and many Greek men. Then, trouble-makers from Thessalonica came and agitated the crowds against Paul. Silas and Timothy were allowed to stay, but Paul had to go. Love him or hate him, Paul was a man to be reckoned with. Verse 15: The men who escorted Paul brought him to Athens and then left with instructions for Silas and Timothy to join him as soon as possible.

Paul in Athens
As more and more people in our country become less and less religious, we should find Paul’s strategy in Athens to be more and more instructive. It begins in verse 16 with an understandable Jewish and Christian response to what he saw in Athens. While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he was greatly distressed to see that the city was full of idols. Paul would remember the long and painful centuries it took Israel to renounce idolatry. Now it was everywhere Paul went. The obstacles posed to the gospel by entrenched idol worship must have seemed insurmountable.

He found a familiar safe haven. Verse 17: So he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the God-fearing Greeks, as well as in the marketplace day by day with those who happened to be there. But he drew the attention of a decidedly non-synagogue crowd. Verse 18: A group of Epicurean and Stoic philosophers began to dispute with him. Some of them asked, “What is this babbler trying to say?” There is no respect for Paul there. He had no credentials as far as they were concerned. And nothing prepared him for the gross misunderstanding that happened next.

Others remarked, “He seems to be advocating foreign gods.” Gods, how could they accuse a Jew of advocating gods? The next statement explains. They said this because Paul was preaching the good news about Jesus and the resurrection.

Several years ago, a young woman, named Stacey, and her family came to BVBC. As I talked to her one day, I learned that Stacey was a nickname. Her real name is Anastasis, a name given by Greek parents to their daughter. The word anastasis is the Greek word for resurrection. The crowd Paul was speaking to was so unfamiliar with Jewish and Christian terminology that when they heard Paul talking about anastasis, they thought he was talking about a Greek goddess in addition to talking about the god Jesus.

These new gods, Jesus and Anastasis, piqued their interest, and since they had nothing better to do, verse 19 says that then they took him and brought him to a meeting of the Areopagus (a town council that screened new religious ideas), where they said to him, “May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? You are bringing some strange ideas to our ears, and we want to know what they mean.” (All the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there spent their time doing nothing but talking about and listening to the latest ideas.) It sounds like an ancient Athenian version of a TV talk show.

Paul’s Sermon in Athens
As we saw in chapter 14, Paul does not quote Jewish scriptures, nor does he berate the Athenians for their idolatry. He strikes a positive note in verses 22-23. Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: “Men of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD.” He took that opening they gave him and said, “Now what you worship as something unknown I am going to proclaim to you."  

He doesn’t begin by identifying Him as the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. He doesn’t talk about Jesus. Instead, he talks about God the Creator and begins the subversion of all idolatry. “The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands. And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else.” A lot of people are comfortable talking about God and uncomfortable talking about Jesus. That doesn’t mean we never talk about Jesus, but we begin where they are comfortable. And notice where Paul goes next in verses 26-27.

“From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us.” The Creator is not far from each one of us. That’s a reassuring note made more reassuring by what comes next.

“‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’ Therefore since we are God's offspring, we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone – an image made by man's design and skill.” Not only does Paul not quote the Old Testament, he quotes pagan poets to make his point. In doing so, he begins to undermine the credibility of idolatry. “Men and women are the offspring of the Creator God. Isn’t it demeaning to use idols to portray such a God? Isn’t it demeaning to us? Haven’t you lost your way with all these idols?”

The Pastoral Center of Gravity
Then, Paul drives home his point with the mercy of God and the new situation with Jesus. “In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent.” Just like that, God overlooked the generations of idolatry that covered the earth like an overcast sky? What did Paul mean that God overlooked all that? Let me say five things about that.

1) God overlooked the ignorance of the Gentile world by not destroying it.

2) God overlooked the ignorance of the Gentile world by making Himself available to people within that world. Remember verse 27: God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. The Creator never stops caring for His wandering creation.

3) Romans one makes it clear that the Gentile world paid a terrible price for its idolatry. For example, Romans 1:28 says, Since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done.

4) Neither here in Acts 17 nor anywhere else does Paul teach or even speculate about the eternal destiny of that idolatrous world. Neither should we. I really think we evangelicals need a little more humility in our pronouncements about who is going to heaven and who is going to hell. Jesus is the only way, but we are not the Judge.

5) The missionary task of the Church is to announce to every person on the planet that a new situation now faces humanity that requires repentance from the old ways. Paul puts it this way in verse 31. “For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to all men by raising him from the dead.” You don’t want to be on His bad side on that day.

So, how did the council respond? When they heard about the resurrection of the dead, some of them sneered, but others said, “We want to hear you again on this subject.” At that, Paul left the Council. A few men became followers of Paul and believed. Among them was Dionysius, a member of the Areopagus, also a woman named Damaris, and a number of others.

Do you believe the apostle’s message? Man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgment (Heb. 9:27). The Church is the community of people that believes that Jesus was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many people and will bring salvation to those who are trusting Him to vindicate them on the Day of Judgment.

The new world order began at the resurrection of Jesus. If you don’t believe, believe now in Jesus. If you believe but have never openly declared your belief, declare it openly in Christian baptism. The salvation He provides begins now with liberation from the sins that hold us in bondage and culminates in vindication at the last day.