Acts 17: 22-32 Pointing to God
Can I tell you an incredibly sad thing? It is possible to be deeply religious and miss God. It is possible to have a really good time and drift from God. It is also possible to go through a tough time, like a pandemic and miss life altering discoveries to be made about God. When you hear this, your response should not be an anxious or depressed one. The question we should be asking is not how one can miss God but how can we find God, in a time such as this. Also: how can we help others to find God? Sometimes it is painful to watch how people are missing out on getting to know God better.
It must have been what Paul must have felt when he walked through Athens. Like a businessman has an eye out for the local economy and a doctor might have an eye out for health care, Paul walks through Athens as a person whose life has been deeply transformed by grace and faith. So, he has an eye out for worship. There is much to notice. The roman empire loved religion. One gets the sense that they had a “the-more-the-merrier” disposition when it came to religion. There were temples shrines and altars all over. Just as a case in point: In Ephesus they discovered an idol associated with the god Artemis. It was a kind of multi-breasted woman. They discovered a system in the statue through which milk was funneled to drip through the breasts, deceiving the worshippers into thinking that this god was alive and nourishing her followers with miraculous milk. These would be the kind of fraudulent gods Paul would have seen in Athens alongside temples where sexual orgies and corruption were in the order of the day. Having met the living Christ himself, Paul’s reaction to all this must have been a mixture of admiration for the devotion, repulsion at the deceit and sadness about the fate of the people without Christ.
And what made this story worth telling, is the way it ends in Acts 17. We read that Paul somehow managed to do something wonderful in an unlikely place. He somehow pointed these multi religious folk to Christ. And some of them, against many odds, came to Christ. In a city where so many other gods were visibly on offer at every corner, some opted for a God they could not see but mysteriously experienced as more real and true than the legion of other gods around them. What can we learn from Paul? How do we point people to God during this pandemic? How do we take care to not miss Him ourselves?
Point to God in tradition, history and culture
One of the ways to know God, is to look out for the way he operates in tradition, history and culture. Culture is the way a certain group of people act, collect, celebrate and mourn (simply put). Culture are to be seen in cultural artifacts. When Paul walked through this city, he paid attention to culture. Culture always has godly things in it that one could commend, and sad, not-so-good things one can frown at from a Christian perspective. Paul starts with what is good and affirms it. Let us take note of it. He also had reason to frown at all these lifeless gods, but he does see in them a hunger for God reflected. He also sees a way in which their acknowledged “unknown” god could lead them to the true God.
God is also to be found in tradition. Traditionalism is bad. It is the mindless repetition of rites and rituals our forefathers did without knowing the meaning of it. It is the clinging to form when you have long lost the content. But tradition is good. Traditionalism is the dead faith of the living, but tradition is the living faith of the dead. That is why Paul points to what their poets have written. He knows he is speaking into something that is still a source of inspiration to them. There is a reason we value old things, old, tried and trusted ways of doing things. It often points to how God lead those that have come before us and it then gives us helpful clues as to how we should serve God in our time.
Then Paul also links the content of his faith with the shared history of the people he wants to point to God. Paul basically makes two claims about God in history. That God is over and above history, meaning that His involvement and life exceeds our own. Secondly that God through Jesus came inside of history, that God intermingled his history with our history. Paul is basically showing his audience in Athens that God’s story incorporates their story.
Now this is what Paul did, but he did it many years ago. How do we apply this today? When it comes to culture, the one we are living in or the ones we are engaging with, it all starts by paying attention. Ask yourself what do people like and how do they do things. What are the most popular movies and magazine articles? What does it say about what people value? We tend to be very critical when we do this. It is easy to see the bad stuff like the hoarding of toilet paper. But do we also see, not only the good stuff but the grain of good that might be hiding in the bad? Because yes people are hoarding toilet paper but people also work on the front lines and stay at home even when their businesses suffer. And the people that hoard toilet paper are perhaps greedy, but they also want to take care for their families. Do we even notice these things or are we so part of it that we barely see them anymore?
When we engage with people, do we take into account, their history and traditions? Do we seek to understand where certain things we observe come from? I guess it is possible to tell a person about Jesus without knowing anything about his history but you will do it so much more effectively and personally, if you get to know that history first. They say a simple yet effective way to do this is to ask a person: “Where do you come from?” rather than just asking “what do you do for a living?”.
Let me summarize. If you love Jesus, you need to show deeper than surface level interest in people. People, all people, not just Christians have amazing life stories, traditions and cultural heritage. God was in that; it sometimes just needs to be pointed out. Do you pay attention? Can you tell me something interesting about even your friend’s history, traditions or culture of origin? Paul could even when it came to his enemies because the love of Jesus compelled him to. We see God better and we point to Him better when we develop a sensitivity to trace His subtle steps in Cultures, traditions and history.
Point to God in Scripture
Paul didn’t have the New Testament (he was still busy writing much of it!). But he did know the Old Testament, which was the only Bible at the time, intimately. The things he tells about God, how He created and doesn’t really lived in shrines, all has a Scriptural basis. Because to Paul what Scripture said carried authority. But notice something, he refers, repeats the truth of scripture without even telling the people he speaks to that he is quoting it. Why? Because Paul knows that even though it is true, Scripture does not carry the same weight and authority to the people he is speaking to. The value of Scripture, the fact that it has survived and outsell so many other books is that it speaks truth.
When I grew up, it was a way to impress people- if you showed them how well you could recite Biblical verses. One day my grandfather was talking about a Scripture passage that spoke about the handles of the Ark of the Covenant sticking out with a friend. They could not recall what passage it is from but I, 12 years old at the time, happen to study that passage for a Bible trivia competition, so I called out the verse. Both were greatly impressed and this story of my “amazing knowledge” of Scripture are told to this day by my now 91-year-old grandfather. I kind of took note of the attention this brought to me and memorised and cited scripture wherever I could since then.
You know what the problem with that was? It pointed people towards my own talents and abilities and not to God. People that know Scripture well often employ it to win their own selfish arguments and to end conversations, getting the last word in. Don’t get me wrong. It is a wonderful thing to know and apply and yes even to quote scripture. But you don’t have to say it is from Scripture and you probably shouldn’t say it is from Scripture if the person you talk to happen to be an unbeliever. People, especially people whose hearts have been prepared by God, have an ability to recognize and appreciate truth when it is communicated confidently and lovingly to them. We do read that some in Athens had. Don’t use it to win arguments or get godly support for your views. Use its truth to point people towards God, not towards you or even just towards Scripture itself. Keep in mind that through the period the church grew most rapidly, Christians didn’t even have a written New Testament. Most couldn’t even read! It was Scripture’s truths stated and lovingly lived that touch people’s hearts and won them over.
Point to God in Experience
A way in which people also connect with God or not, is through the experiences they have. Experiences could be collective, like more than 500 people having a vision of the risen Christ all at once as Paul records it elsewhere. But mostly, and especially in our time, God experiences are deeply personal experiences. A Person, have to trust you, before they even share such experiences with you. But they happen all the time. God likes to give people a very personal experience of who he is.
I recently read a book by a former drug addict that came to Christ after messing up. Still fresh into his recovery, he was a contestant in the popular Survivor series. It was held on the Maldives islands. He writes how participating in this competitions is much tougher than the cameras makes it look. He recalls how one day, he walked by the beach and craved beyond words…a chock chip cookie. He decided to pray and give God whatever is on his heart. This included telling God about his craving for a choc chip cookie. Just as he said amen, he saw a small blue packet in the water around his feet. He picked it up and it turned out to be a perfectly sealed…choc chip cookie. He writes that it was not so much the cookie but God’s timing and precision that utterly convinced him once more of his majesty and his love for Him. I wish there was time to ask everybody this morning to share similar moments in their life.
You see, we read that upon hearing his sermon, some people laughed, some said they would like to hear him out some more and others became followers. And then a few of those who became followers’ names are specifically mentioned. It is a way to provide proof of the account, but it is also a way to indicate that Paul’s message was accompanied by a deeply personal experience as the heard it. I like to think that these people didn’t feel like Paul spoke to them, but that God spoke to them personally, through Paul. We should trust God to personalize our efforts when it comes to the gospel’s good news. And we should learn to take God and his grace personally rather than taking the rejection (or adulation) of people personally.
Close
Let us summarize. We asked how we can avoid missing God during this time. Also how we can point others to Him. The short answer is by paying attention. To pay attention to the stages God’s like to play on, sometimes as lead actor, sometimes as a brilliant behind the scenes Director. These stages are Culture, tradition, history, Scripture and experience. Track how God acted here in your own life. Document it, journal about it, share it and celebrate it. Point out to others how you see traces of God’s work on these stages in their lives.
In our world and especially in Covid time there are so many things that point people’s gaze away from God. Let us be the small but brave minority that point it towards God with the courage and wisdom he equips us with.
Some will laugh at you. Others will want to hear more and others will join. Because He is risen, we can face it all! Jesus entered our lives. He is acting in history, tradition, He is the one Scripture is all about, He is the only way to God but he travels down a thousand ways to find each of us where we are.
Amen
Gabriel J Snyman May 10th 2020