“The City of Athens” from the lesson series Grab Your Passport, April 2021
our Scripture
While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he was greatly distressed to see that the city was full of idols.
| Acts 17:16-34 ESV | |||
| NIV
Acts 17:1-9 NIV |
NASB
Acts 17:1-9 NASB |
NLT
Acts 17:1-9 NLT |
MESSAGE
Acts 17:1-9 MESSAGE |
Other Scripture references:
Acts 18:1
1 Thessalonians 3:1
our Lessons
The brothers brought Paul from Berea to Athens (Acts 17:15), hoping to give Paul a moment of safety and a chance to rest and breathe. The distance from Berea to Athens is about 100 miles. Today in a car going 50 MPH it would take about 2 hours and between 4 and 5 gallons of gas. Two hours of time, $10 of fuel.
On foot, across rugged terrain, the journey might take ten days. Paul anxiously waits for Silas and Timothy, but it is uncertain how long their presence will be necessary in Berea. So Paul waits in Athens.
Ever been far from home, waiting?
Sometimes it isn’t a matter of distance. You can be next door and feel far from home. You feel a little out of place. Things are just not comfortable. It seems as if you do not know the customs. You don’t comprehend the jargon. It is almost as if you don’t speak the language.
Do you ever feel that way about the culture and the world that you live in?
A Different World
As Paul wandered around the city of Athens, waiting for his friends, I wonder if he just felt far from home. Not far from Tarsus, his birthplace. Not even far from Antioch or Jerusalem. I wonder if he just thought that Athens was far from the Father’s home.
Paul doesn’t say much about his stop at Athens, except that he was there (1 Thessalonians 3:1). Along with the other tourists, Paul would have visited the Acropolis. Temples and shrines for the gods and goddesses line the way to the top of the hill. Peppered into the trip are marketplaces and monuments. All of the building structures paled in comparison to the Parthenon – the temple for the goddess Athena perched at the top of the mountain.
From its courtyards, the entire city and countryside could be seen in a panoramic 360 view. The city was a sprawling wonderland, filled with people who were misguided in their search for God, or, like Jonah, were consumed with running away from Him.
We know several schools of philosophy that were intrigued by Paul’s message. The Jewish community in Athens was intrigued by the application of Scripture which Paul made for the Messianic prophecies being fulfilled by Jesus. Epicureans and Stoics, quite opposite ends of the spectrum, pondered how Paul viewed God as real and involved in life. But almost every group would have been fascinated by the idea of a resurrection.
A Reasonable Faith
Like the Bereans, the Athenians wanted to hear the reasoning behind Paul’s words. When the gospel is presented to different cultures, three responses are usually present. All three can be seen in Athens. Some believed, some wanted to hear more, and others immediately write the message off as foolish babbling. The Greek word originally applied to the sound birds made as they were pecking up grain. Eventually the application included the sounds made by a worthless person. If we were capturing the idiom today, some would have been calling Paul “a bird brain.”
Paul carried his arguments before the Areopagus in Athens. The Athenians used the word (literally “the hill of Ares”) to describe the geographical location, but also to describe a council of about 100 scholars. Some have suggested that the council functioned as an “accrediting board” that tested those who would lecture “on the Hill.” Regardless, they served in some sort of official capacity and Paul’s presence and speech there was a significant event.
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