Acts 17:16-34
Dear RTB’ers,
Paul’s second missionary journey continued, Athens.
OK, the critical me coming out…, with repentance! In the past I have criticized Paul’s preaching in Athens (today’s reading). Yes, who am I to criticize Paul??!!! Moving on…
Paul’s sermons to date (and Peter’s and Phillip’s) have been “kerygmatic”: […the preaching of the gospel of Christ, especially in the manner of the early church. (www.dictionary.com/browse/kerygmatic)] Today’s sermon has very little of that. All that we see of “the Gospel” in today’s sermon is a call to repentance, a couple of pronouns, a Man reference, and the resurrection of that Man: The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now He commands all people everywhere to repent, because He has fixed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by a Man whom He has appointed; and of this He has given assurance to all by raising Him from the dead. (vv. 30-31) Except for his mention of idols, much of Paul’s sermon has to do with the physical world – creation and nationalities and philosophies. So in the past I have observed that Paul wrote letters to the Galatians, the Philippians, the Thessalonians, the Corinthians, and the Ephesians – places where he had preached and had converts, but no letters to Athens. That is, I had surmised, his preaching fell on deaf ears in Athens because it was not kerygmatic.
But I was wrong!! As was his custom, Paul first preached in the synagogue and in the marketplace. At the end of today’s reading we see the converts: But some men joined him and believed, among whom also were Dionysius the Areopagite and a woman named Damaris and others with them. (v. 34) That is, his preaching in the synagogue and the marketplace and the Areopagus (Dionysius was an Areopagite) had its impact – to draw some men and women to belief and to draw the philosopher crowd to want to hear more. All along I have focused on his “Mars Hill” (Areopagus) speech and not his prior preaching. So, in fact, Paul had been preaching the Gospel, probably daily in the synagogue and marketplace, and when he preached about creation to the Mars Hill crowd, he was speaking to them with reference to where they were – he connected to their surroundings so as to get their attention. And after his speaking, they wanted to hear more! (v. 32b) I’m sure that Paul had more to say about Jesus that is not recorded by Luke, but the point is made – we need to reach people “where they are”. Start by relating to them in where they are or in what they’re doing and move the conversation along. The Holy Spirit will take care of the rest. As I have said many times before, “Walk the walk and talk the talk.” We can do this!!
Blessings!