Being curious

Scott Harman January 25, 2024 2 1

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Acts 17: 16-28 (NIVUK)

16 While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he was greatly distressed to see that the city was full of idols. 17 So he reasoned in the synagogue with both Jews and God-fearing Greeks, as well as in the market-place day by day with those who happened to be there. 18 A group of Epicurean and Stoic philosophers began to debate with him. Some of them asked, ‘What is this babbler trying to say?’ Others remarked, ‘He seems to be advocating foreign gods.’ They said this because Paul was preaching the good news about Jesus and the resurrection. 19 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? 20 You are bringing some strange ideas to our ears, and we would like to know what they mean.’ 21 (All the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there spent their time doing nothing but talking about and listening to the latest ideas.)

22 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. 23 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.

24 ‘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 human hands. 25 And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else. 26 From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. 27 God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us. 28 “For in him we live and move and have our being.” As some of your own poets have said, “We are his offspring.”

Today’s passage starts out with a lot of identifying labels. Paul, a believer in Jesus, is in Athens at a time not long after the resurrection of Jesus. In just the first few verses of the passage the following groups are mentioned: Jews, Greeks, Stoics, and Epicureans. Later we also get Athenians mentioned. Then notice what people thought Paul was doing by talking about Jesus and the resurrection, “he seems to be advocating foreign gods.”

What does that mean?

It means that in the worldviews of the Ancient Near East, and Ancient Mediterranean, different groups of people had their own specific gods. People generally had the view that Jews had their god, Greeks had their gods, Athenians had Athena, etc. What’s Paul doing, they wondered? He is advocating foreign gods. We haven’t heard about this god. Whose god is this god? Must be a god of foreign people. Surely not our god. We are Jews, Greeks, Stoics, Epicureans, Athenians, etc.  

Isn’t it fascinating how often we put our labels before our beliefs? Where does that lead us? If I’m a part of this group, and this group believes this thing, then I believe it too. To say nothing of whatever that belief may be, or whether it is true, or whether it is good, or if it fits in with anything else I might believe. 

Paul’s message is actually so radically different from this segregated worldview. He goes on to tell the curious among all the people from all the different groups that there is a God that transcends all our human labels. “The God who made the world and everything in it does not live in Temples made by human hands.” So much so that Paul regards all his hearers as, “God’s offspring.”

God’s Children.

Not Jews, Greeks, Stoics, Epicureans, rich, poor, Scots, English, Irish, Americans, Southerners, Northerners, educated, uneducated. . . 

God’s Children.

Prayer:

Dear God we proclaim that you are the God that made the world and everything in it! You do not live in temples built by human hands. You give us life and breath, and we live and breathe and have our being in you. We reach out to you!

Today, empower us to see our neighbours as God’s children, no matter what other labels the world might place on them. No matter if our neighbours know it or not, may we see them as your precious children, for whom you died on the cross paying an immeasurable price for their salvation.  

Amen!