Though I want to spend a majority of our time tonight exhorting us on to preparation for the task of evangelism, I want to start out by asking all of us a question. It is a question that I have asked myself much this week after studying this chapter, and I think our answer to this question will shape how it is that we go about things.
The question is, do you really love Jesus Christ even as much as you love those people around you tonight? Or, let me ask another question that should reveal our answer to the first. Do you find yourself angered and hurt when you see someone who does something good, deserves praise, and yet is looked over while praise goes to another? Maybe you are thinking of your favorite professor whom nobody seems to recognize, or your favorite sports star who is always looked over in his profession, or someone you know who works behind the scenes, holds up everything, and yet is never in the spotlight. Does that cause pain and hurt as you see him or her looked over and another receiving his or her due praise?
It does for me because people I know such as these find a special place in my heart. Personally, I can think of some people like this, and I love them. And because of that, it hurts me deeply and makes me want to campaign for public recognition on their behalf.
Well then, bringing this full-circle, do we ever feel that way about God? For I have identified that the reason we would feel that way about people is because we love them and want them to get their due praise. Thus, it would make sense that if we never feel this way about God that it is because we don’t love him, even as much as we may love our friends.
It may be because we think of God as some foreign idea that occupies our thoughts so that he isn’t an intimate friend to us. Maybe it is because we go about fulfilling the greatest command—to love our Lord with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength—by doing things and forget that it requires affection from our hearts.
Whatever may be the source, if we do not love God, then to strive to have the motivation and passion that we have seen in Paul throughout the book of Acts will be like running in place; it won’t get you anywhere. I say that because I am convinced from the book of Philippians and one verse tonight that the great motivation for Paul giving his life to advance the gospel was a genuine love for his Lord Jesus Christ.
And because you have already heard (and are going to continue to hear) me preach through the book of Philippians, I will simply point to the one verse in this passage to support my thought.
In chapter 17, Paul had preached in Thessalonica and Berea, and found himself waiting in Athens for Silas and Timothy to join him, for they had stayed a while in Berea. So as Paul was waiting in Athens, he began to walk around and look at the city. This is where Paul’s heart is revealed. Luke writes, “Now while Paul was waiting for them [Silas and Timothy] at Athens, his spirit was being provoked within him as he was beholding the city full of idols” (v. 16).
This word translated “provoked” is a word that means “to stimulate, irritate, provoke, or rouse to anger.” The only other place where we see it in the New Testament is in 1 Corinthians 13 as Paul writes that love is “not easily angered” (13:5). But I do not think that he was sinfully angry, but rather I think what he saw provoked in him a very godly emotion. For this same word is used in the Septuagint (the Greek translation of the Old Testament) regularly of Yahweh. “In particular” it is used “of his reaction to idolatry” (see note 1).
Therefore, I would assume that it would mean the same thing in Paul’s reaction to idolatry in this city. But why was God “provoked to anger” (or however one would translate it)? It was for the honor and glory of his name. God was provoked by the idolatry because it was challenging the honor of his name. This emotion is often called “jealousy” in the Scripture.
It is not the kind of jealousy that we have when someone threatens to be better than us, for that is sinful. It is the kind of jealousy that exists when someone comes into the picture who has no right to be there. For example, it is the kind of jealousy that comes when a third party tries to work his or her way into your marriage. That is godly, righteous jealousy. In fact, not to be jealous here shows a lack of allegiance to your spouse.
This is what happened with Paul, I believe, in verse 16. He was provoked to jealousy within himself as he observed the idolatry. As he saw the idols, it “aroused within him deep stirrings of jealousy for the Name of God, as he saw human beings so depraved as to be giving to idols the honour and glory which were due to the one, living, and true God” (see note 2).
Why did Paul react this way?
I think there is only one answer. He knew that our Lord had a right to all men’s allegiance everywhere, and because he loved God a godly jealousy began to stir within his spirit on behalf of the name of the Lord.
That is why Paul was passionate about advancing the gospel. He loved God so much that he couldn’t stand to think that men were not giving him his rightful allegiance. And even to look at these idols stirred this emotion within him. They provoked him to jealousy.
That is why it is so important to deal with the first and greatest commandment (to love your God) each day before you focus on anything else. Make that your primary concern, for out of this love will flow your good works and therein will your Father be glorified.
However, as you are stirred to this emotion as you see the idolatry going on all around us, how do you begin? How do we begin to take the gospel to the people of our world?
Paul gives us insight into that as well. And it is an aspect of this that I want to stress tonight. It is an aspect that is often neglected. Therefore, let me highlight an aim that we need to make our own in order to take the gospel into these places. And then I will give you two warnings in light of striving after this. This aim and two warnings are in no way exhaustive, but (as I said) this is often neglected as we strive after advancing the gospel, and that is why I mention this one tonight.
Know the culture and philosophy of the people to whom you are speaking.
This is often neglected as we say boldly, “Well, it is just the gospel that is the power to salvation, not philosophy.” Well, that is right, but understanding the culture and philosophy of the people with whom we want to share the gospel is crucial.
Paul knew this of the people to whom he spoke. When he spoke to the Jews in the synagogue in Acts 13, he started with the fact that God was actively working throughout Israel’s history. Now, why would he do this? He did this because to the Jews, their history was their life. So if you cannot present your message as the fulfillment of their history—beginning with their father, Abraham—then you don’t have a message.
However, when Paul got to the biblically illiterate Greeks of Lystra, did he start in the same place? No. He identifies God with what they know, saying that he was the one “Who made the heaven and the earth and the sea, and all that is in them” and as the God who gave “rains from heaven and fruitful seasons” (14:15-17).
They would not have cared a bit about Israel’s history. They would not have cared a bit about the Old Testament. But they knew that there was a world around them and that it came from somewhere. They knew that they were not able to control the rain, but that something caused it to fall. And they knew that they were not responsible for the harvest, but that something worked to make their crops grow. Therefore, that is where Paul started.
Finally, in Athens, where Paul is dealing with Epicurean and Stoic philosophers, he started with what they knew. He had seen among all their idols a statue that was addressed, “TO AN UNKNOWN GOD.” He told them that it was this God whom they did not know that he wanted to speak to them about.
And in his argument of the gospel, he even quoted their own poets. He knew the philosophical idea of the Stoics and Epicureans. In the same way, we need to know the philosophy of the people to whom we are ministering and their culture. For unless we know this, we do not know where to make the cuts.
As I use that phrase, I see a picture in my mind of a surgeon who is getting ready to perform surgery. He has his scalpel in hand and he is ready to make his first cut. But unless he knows where the problem is, he will not know where to start. He is a skilled individual who can help others, but he doesn’t know where the cuts need to be made.
In the same way, we have the power of God to salvation. We have the message of the gospel, but we need to know where to make the cuts.
John knew where to make them. In the philosophy of his day, there was this idea that the supreme end or good of the world was God. Though they didn’t recognize our God—the only God. However, this God was one who transcended all things. And the wisdom of God was known as Logos. And there was a thought in that day known as gnosticism which agreed with this, greatly stressing the transcendence of God. In fact, they said that God was so much above us and so separate from the world, that the world itself was evil. All matter was evil.
So when they explained the existence of the world, they would say that some spiritual host sneaked off one day and made the world apart from the Logos. The world was an accident. It wasn’t supposed to happen, and it was evil.
So when John starts his gospel, he deals with these people. And, man, does he know where to make the cuts! He begins, writing, “In the beginning was the Logos, and the Logos was with God, and the Logos was God. He was in the beginning with God” (John 1:1-2). Now, up to this point, he has probably grabbed their attention. They could hang with this. John knew what he was talking about. But then he caught them (as a fish hanging too close to the hook) and said, “All things came into being by Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being” (1:3).
They couldn’t handle that. No way would God be responsible for creating matter! But then in verse 14, he presses it even farther. He writes, “And the Logos became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we behold His glory.” That was the difference between what they understood as God and the real God. He knew it. He lured them in, and he cut right into their hearts with the message of Christ.
Not only was matter not evil, but God himself had become flesh. He would continue cutting in 1 John as he started that letter writing, “What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have beheld and our hand handled …” (1:1). He was going to make sure that they caught the fact that God had taken on flesh. He knew where the cuts needed to be made.
And so did Paul, for although he quoted their own poets, he made sure they knew that chance wasn’t the reason for creation (as the Epicureans thought) or that God existed within things (as the Stoics thought). Rather, he proclaimed to them “The God who made the world and all things in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth [and] does not dwell in temples made with hands, neither is He served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since He Himself gives to all life and breath and all things” (17:24-25).
We need to learn the culture and philosophy of our world. To be a believer is not to be equated with the cessation of thought and learning. G.K. Chesterton wrote in 1908 in his book Orthodoxy, “Just as one generation could prevent the very existence of the next generation, by all entering a monastery or jumping into the sea, so one set of thinkers can in some degree prevent further thinking by teaching the next generation that there is no validity in any human thought” (see note 3).
I fear that we have done that in the church. And I think the reason we have made this mistake is because we have forgotten that all truth belongs to God. Everything that has been made has been made by him, and for him, and to him. So if we stumble upon truth in thought, then we have not come up with it, God is only allowing us to see a little bit of what he knows already.
We do not need to fear any learning. For the Scripture is true and any truth we discover outside of it will only conform to what we already know in it. That is why all of life should be worship, whether we are in class, at work, in leisure activity, or at church. For all things—whether we eat or drink—are to be done to the glory of God. Learn philosophy and science and other disciplines so that you may point man to that which is behind all truth—the truth, the creator, our Lord—Jesus Christ.
However, in this, let me leave you with two exhortations or warnings.
1. Ultimately, let your aim in sharing be the gospel—the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ—or you have failed to share that which is the power to eternal life.
Notice Paul in Acts 13. He ends the chronicling of Israel’s history saying, “And we preach to you the good news of the promise made to the fathers, that God has fulfilled his promise to our children in that he raised up Jesus ... He raised Him up from the dead, no more to return to decay” (13:32-34). “Therefore let it be known to you, brethren, that through Him forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you, and through Him everyone who believes is freed from all things from which you could not be freed through the Law of Moses” (13:38-39).
And here in our passage tonight, He ends saying, “Therefore having overlooked the times of ignorance, God is now declaring that all men everywhere should repent, because He has fixed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness through a Man whom He has appointed, having furnished proof to all men by raising Him from the dead” (17:30-31). He preached the gospel. It was the ultimate aim of everything else he said.
2. Know and study the Scripture continually.
The Bereans whom we read of tonight, can be an example for us to follow. Paul shared with them the gospel, but they would go home and study the Scripture to make sure he was correct.
Brothers and sisters, the Christian faith can stand up against anything. Nothing can come and knock it off its feet. The gates of hell will never prevail against he church. However, we must know the word in order to build our life on the rock. You will stand as a strong tree in so far as you are rooted deeply in the word.
Know the culture and philosophy of the world, preach the gospel, and stay grounded in the word. And by his grace men will turn from their idolatry to give Christ his due allegiance, for the sake of his glory. Amen.