Acts 17:16-31
While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he was deeply distressed to see that the city was full of idols. So he argued in the synagogue with the Jews and the devout persons and also in the marketplace every day with those who happened to be there. Also some Epicurean and Stoic philosophers debated with him. Some said, “What does this pretentious babbler want to say?” Others said, “He seems to be a proclaimer of foreign divinities.” (This was because he was telling the good news about Jesus and the resurrection.) So they took him and brought him to the Areopagus and asked him, “May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? It sounds rather strange to us, so we would like to know what it means.” Now all the Athenians and the foreigners living there would spend their time in nothing but telling or hearing something new. Then Paul stood in front of the Areopagus and said, “Athenians, I see how extremely spiritual you are in every way. For as I went through the city and looked carefully at the objects of your worship, I found among them an altar with the inscription, ‘To an unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. The God who made the world and everything in it, he who is Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in shrines made by human hands, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mortals life and breath and all things. From one ancestor[b] he made all peoples to inhabit the whole earth, and he allotted the times of their existence and the boundaries of the places where they would live, so that they would search for God[c] and perhaps fumble about for him and find him—though indeed he is not far from each one of us. For ‘In him we live and move and have our being’; as even some of your own poets have said, ‘For we, too, are his offspring.’ “Since we are God’s offspring, we ought not to think that the deity is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of mortals. While God has overlooked the times of human ignorance, now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will have the world judged in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed, and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.” Acts 17:16-31 (NRSVUE)
Even more.
Paul arrives in Athens ahead of his colleagues, Timothy and Silas, and does not patiently wait. Instead, he explores, finding many idols in the city, showing him that people in Athens had many options for God and gods.
Rather than preach with fire and brimstone, Paul opts for finding some common ground. “I see how extremely spiritual you are in every way,” he begins his preaching to the Athenians in verse 22. Paul identifies with their desire for spirituality and their want to acknowledge the divine.
Then, without discounting their beliefs, he shows them that God is even more. Paul proclaims to them that their true God is not contained in shrines or objects, nor does God need human service. Rather, it is God who benevolently gives. God gives life. God gives mercy. God gives assurance to us. We sometimes foolishly think faith is about us assuring God that we are doing the right things, but Paul so gently reminds us that it is we, who have been created by God, who look to God for assurance.
In Jesus, we receive that assurance! That God is near. That in the one in whom we live and move and have our being, we have even more. We have mercy and life that cannot be contained but is, simply, given, that we might live. Even more! Thanks be to God.
Questions for Reflection:
- Are there ways in which your view of God is keeping you stuck?
- What assurance do you need right now?
- How is God surprising you by showing you that God is even more than you think and know?
Prayer:
Gracious God, your work is bigger than we can know. Yet, in Jesus, you give us a glimpse of your kingdom and the assurance of our salvation. Help us to walk by faith and live as we have been called: yours. Amen.
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