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In Christ, Mark
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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.
Then they took him and brought him to a meeting of the Areopagus, 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 would like 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.)
Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: “People 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. So you are ignorant of the very thing you worship—and this is what I am going to proclaim to you.”
Acts 17:19-23
This ends today’s reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.
In part one of this two part devotional series, we saw where Paul had moved on from Berea to Athens and as he walked through the city, he became alarmed at what he witnessed. For all over the city, he found idols for gods (lower case “g”) that the people were worshiping. It was quickly obvious that devotion was being misplaced as the people placed their faith in non-existent spiritual entities and inanimate physical objects. Through our study, we saw where this was one of the dangers of idolatry, willingly choosing to turn away from the one true God who had the power to exact righteous anger out of jealousy on anyone who was disloyal to Him.
And so Paul, more than concerned for the people’s wellbeing before a resentful God, took to the synagogue and marketplace day after day, attempting to reason with the people and convince them to repent and turn to God for salvation through His Son Jesus. His efforts garnered reaction for we read where the curiosity of some Epicurian and Stoic philosophers was piqued over Paul advocating what they perceived as foreign gods while hearing the Gospel concerning Jesus’ life and resurrection.
And so the philosophers brought Paul before the Areopagus, a council of Greek elders who requested Paul to speak saying:
“May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? You are bringing some strange ideas to our ears, and we would like to know what they mean.”
The scriptures make sure we know that this consideration and discussion of new ideas was central to the Athenian culture and so there should be no surprise of the Areopagus invitation to speak.
And so Paul, never one to pass up an opportunity to tell others about Jesus, begins a sermon that will run through most of the remainder of chapter 17. He begins by complementing the Athenians saying:
“People 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. So you are ignorant of the very thing you worship—and this is what I am going to proclaim to you.”
What does Paul want to proclaim?
We’re going to look at that tomorrow but before we get there, we can’t overlook another danger found in idolatry. For when people worship non-existent spiritual beings and/or inanimate physical objects, then end up never knowing the only real God, the God who made them and gave them the ability to think and reason in the first place, the only God who can act and exact judgment on any and all living things on earth.
Think about how terrible it would be for someone to have their first experience with God through His punishment. A person would never been able to know the loving, caring side of their God because they chose not to seek Him, placing their trust in other things. As famous pastor Jonathan Edwards once wrote that it would be dreadful for any sinner to fall into the hands of an angry God.
Idolism places a person in that position. Let’s learn from the scriptures and make sure we are placing our trust and allegiance in God and God alone, a God who should be far from unknown by anyone.
Amen.
In Christ,
Mark
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