Tuesday 30 May 2017

Psalm: Psalm 16

Background

After leaving Philippi, Paul, Silas and Timothy travelled on toThessalonica and then Beroea, making converts and establishingchurches in both places, but also causing riots, to the extent thatPaul had to be taken away to Athens (Acts17:1-15). It is strange that Paul was surprised to find suchwidespread worship of the gods of classical mythology, since Athenshad for so many centuries been the heart of the Greek civilisationand, by Paul's own time, was an important intellectual and culturalcentre of the Roman Empire. Yet the wide range of religious cultsand philosophical schools co-existing in the city seems to havegiven it a spirit of great openness and enquiry. Perhaps thiscontext resonates with our own culture, in which interest inspirituality in myriad forms is increasing exponentially and alarge number of people are open to discussion about spiritualthings.

Unlike other cities where Paul was met with hostility, in Athenshe seems to have encountered nothing worse than some ridicule, andalso great interest, as he was invited to speak at the Areopagus,the court of the city-state, but also a venue for public debate.Here, with consummate skill, Paul demonstrated his understanding ofthe need to adapt his message to his audience and delivered atour-de-force of preaching to the 'spiritual but not religious'.His strategy was essentially to speak in terms familiar to theAthenians and to identify beliefs held in common, before moving tospecifically Christian claims. Totally absent are any references toJewish salvation history or the life and work of Jesus Christ. TheAthenians worked on a philosophical level, and so Paul pitched hismessage accordingly.

He began by praising the piety of the Athenians (verse 22) andtheir willingness to worship "an unknown god" (v. 23): God wasalready at work amongst them! Paul saw his task as simply to namethat which they were already experiencing. This is consistent withPaul's own articulation of his theology in his letters, when heurges believers to 'become what they already are'. He then began todescribe God as creator and Lord (v. 24), in terms familiar to theGreeks, whose chief god, Zeus, was commonly thought of as a creatorand king. But Paul reasons from this shared belief that the God whois cosmic Creator neither needs, nor can be confined by, anythinghumans can create, thus invalidating the practice of worshippingidols (verses 24-25).

The belief that God created humanity from one ancestor was alsoshared with the Greeks, though Paul adds the idea that humans werecreated for relationship with God (verse 27) and in a masterstrokehe appeals to Greek poets to support this more controversialassertion. Epimenides was a 6th-century BC philosopher-poet, whowrote "In him we live and move and have our being" (v. 28). Paulalso quoted from Aratus, a 3rd-century BC Cilician poet, who said,"For we too are his offspring" (v. 28). Paul uses thisstatement to argue that God is a living God, who can never beadequately represented by lifeless images or objects, howeverbeautiful (verse 29).

Only in the last sentence of his speech does Paul turn todistinctively Christian content, introducing the ideas ofrepentance, divine judgement and, most shockingly resurrection(verse 30-31). But even then he does not even mention the name ofJesus Christ.

Luke tells us that Paul's strategy was successful, since manywanted to know more and some joined him and became believersstraight away (verses 32-34).

To Ponder

• What can we learn from Paul about how to share our faith withthose who are 'spiritual but not religious'?

• Have you ever witnessed God already at work amongst people whodid not yet know God's name? What happened? And what did you learnfrom it?

• What impact does it make when you 'meet people where theyare'?