Bible Guys Classics: Acts 17 Part 2

Well today is one of my favorite topics from the apostle Paul, who gives the sermon of all sermons. This message that he preaches. I heard a message probably twenty five years ago, radically changed my life, so changed the direction in my life. So he's Chris, I'm Jeff, and we're the Bible Guys. Well, Jeff, Yes, a few weeks ago, we did a segment throughout the entire week where it's called stump. The pastor yeah, yeah, those are fun. Yeah. People had sent in some questions and some comments, and so we took a few of those and sort of, you know, picked five of them throughout the week. Well, we're going to do that again this week. Oh cool. So every day this week we're going to take a question that people had sent in from our last segment. They'd send in questions. By the way, if you want to send in a question, please do so at info at Bible guys dot com. Right here. So anyway, so here is the first question. This is sent in by Alice L. We're going to have like a drum rule. Yeah, sure, why not. Here's the question. Do you believe that people who have already died are waiting in heaven waitings in quotes for those of us still living, I have started to wonder if perhaps the resurrection will bring us all there at once, meaning the same time. Not that people have to wait to get to heaven, but the nature of time is not understandable to us when one considers eternity, kind of like waking up after a long time but not realizing that time has passed because it sort of did not pass in your consciousness. Wow. So there it is. What a question. Well, I've actually heard this a lot. Yeah. Yeah, Hey. One thing I want to say is our listeners are really smart people. I don't know why they listen to us, but they do. Yeah, smart people. Man, that's a really thoughtful question. It is. Yeah. So the question is, you know, are people when they when they pass away, are they in some sort of like soul sleep slumber? Does every to get to have? And at the same time, I've once heard a pastor talk about and totally believes and supports the fact that like the criminal on the cross when it says, you know, Jesus looks at the criminal on the cross and says, today you'll be with me in paradise. And that's a great example because it's one of the only times where Jesus is speaking of eternity, and he uses the word today meaning no time in time, and and and then and then, and this person, uh said, well, we're going to get to Haven the same exact moment that the. Thief on the cross will so. But at the same time, I I sort of lean toward sat Corinthians, where it says to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. Christians chapter five, Chapter five, I think is six. He literally says in the King James, which is what you quoted? This what I wouldquote, to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. Paul was looking forward to the day that he's saying. At that point, he says, I really don't care if I die for the for the faith or I don't die for the faith, because if I'm still alive, I'm just gonna keep serving Jesus. If I die, I'm going to immediately be with him. That was his thing. So the question that she's asking is more of a semantical question, because what she's recognizing here is either way your experience would be you're dead and your immediately with Christ. Right but what happens in that intermediary thing, So her question really is more about time than it is about death. And I think that so the premise would be in what that pastor you were talking about, his premise would be the Bible says to a day is as a thousand years, one thousand years as a day, which is referencing the idea that God is outside of time, and which is one of the most extraordinary concepts that a book that was written two thousand years ago. Peter actually wrote those words. Who would have no concept of the idea that time can be sped up or slowed down, that time is variable. We didn't even know that till the twentieth century when Einstein put out the theory relativity. Then all of a sudden you beginn to realize, Okay, gravity can change time, speed can change time, distance changes time. So time is meliable, and God is the creator outside of time. So for him, yesterday, today, and forever it's the same. He never changes. So in that then he's not bound by time, and he's not experiencing time like we are. He's allowing time to play out, and then he intercedes in time moments. So I think that The bigger question is how does time work with God. God's outside of time. So that's why it's not an issue. And by the way, that's why the cross works two thousand years ago. Right, the sacrifice is available for me now in my time, but it's because it's happened and is happening in God's mind, right, all those things. So this is super complex. I think it's great. But I would say that the technical answer to her question is it's going to be the same experience for you, right that you are alive, then you die, you're present with the Lord according to the way Paul says. Because Paul wrote that for the purpose of comfort, that's exactly right. And so both views are comforting. Yeah, so in the goodness is either way we are comforted. Right, we don't have to worry about it. But which view do you lean toward? Do you lean toward? Do we all? Because you know, there's also the reference in the Bible where it talks about the resurrection of the bodies coming out of the graves or of the saints, and so you know, there's a lot. Of Yeah, I expect I agree with you on it. That you know, Paul, so many times when he talks about death, and when he talks about heaven, it's usually in response to questions being asked, so he's giving them as comforting things people are concerned or wondering about it. One, we just have to know God's going to take care of us. It's going to be okay if you've placed your faith in trust in Jesus Christ. Now if you haven't, the consequences are there's no more opportunity for repentance. So in this life, while you're breathing breath, you need to get right with God. But if you've trusted Christ is your savior, then from that point God is going to be good and he's going to do the right thing. I personally believe to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. And I think that those are individual experiences, not one big group experience. But he does talk about at the very end there is this group resurrection, and that's a whole other issue because now at that point, uh, there's the judgment after that, and that that's a different thing than what happens to your spirit. Yeah, and then also let's not forget that there are two references of some of Old Testament characters that went to heaven without dying. Yeah, yeah, yeah, right, So we have Enoch. And Elijah, right right? Or is it is Elijah Elijah? Yeah yeah, I was gonna say. I always get confused with Elijah and Elijah. Yeah, and their their buddies and they work together in the same spot in the Bible. So Elijah rides up and before us and oh yeah, Jason for us, that's a good way. That's the only way I passed any of my Bible college quizzes about Elijah. It's like thirty days has September, April, June, and November thirty one. So anyway, So the bottom line is is, you know, we have Enoch who just wasn't he he was, then he wasn't, and then we have a fiery chat with Elijah. Well, if truly the theory is that we're in some sort of soul slumber with our bodies, well that doesn't add up for Elijah or for Enoch. So so so I believe that that as time plays out, you know the the you know, the word in the Greek is chronos, which is linear time as it plays out for us. Uh, you know, I believe that there's evidence and references, especially in the Old Testament where they refer to people being you know, they've died and now they've gone to the Lord, and that seems to play out, uh in the chronos linear time. That's right, right, that's right. So God's not bound by cronos, right, but we are, and so he chooses to intervene or interact within the time we're in. Yeah, yeah, yep, So there's my answer. That's great, man, That what a good question. And for those of you that are still awake after that explanation, we're really glad you're still well. We think it's I mean, for a Monday, that's that's a heavy topic from Monday. But I think it's one of those little mind benders. And again I think we've already said most of the answers to Stumpy's pastor are we're not exactly sure? Yeah, yeah, well, which is why there, which is why there's some questions. Right, Yeah, but what a good what a good question, and it's fun. I'm glad that our listeners are thinkers. Right. It really speaks about Alice in the way that she's paying attention, So that's great. Well, hey, we are continuing in the life of Paul the beginning of the First Church the Book of Acts, and we paused in Acts, chapter seventeen, and now we're moving into a critical moment in Paul's style, in Paul's preaching, and we get to take a peek at how he deals with non Jewish people and how he presents the Gospel. We saw one time a while back how he did that. But most of the time up to this point, we're seeing him preach in synagogues and we're hearing him talk about Jesus is the Jewish Messiah. And then this one he pivots just a little bit. So let's just start in verse sixteen in chapter seventeen of the Book of Actses says, while Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he was deeply troubled by all the idols he saw everywhere in the city. He went to the synagogue to reason with the Jews and the god fearing gentiles, and he spoke daily in the public square to all who happened to be there. He also had a debate with some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers. When he told them about Jesus and his resurrection. They said, what's this babbler trying to say with these strange ideas he's picked up. Others said he seems to be preaching about some foreign gods. Then they took him to the High Council of the city. Come and tell us about this new teaching. They said, you're saying some rather strange things, and we want to know what it's all about. It should be explained that the all the Athenians, as well as the foreigners and Athens, seem to spend all their time discussing the latest ideas. So Paul, standing before the council, addressed them as follows. Men of Athens. I notice that you are very religious in every way. For as I was walking along, I saw your many shrines, and one of your altars had this inscription on it to an unknown god. This god, whom you worship without knowing, is the one I'm telling you about. He's the god who made the world and everything in it. And since he's Lord of heaven and earth, he doesn't live in man made temples, and human hands can't serve his needs, for he has no needs. He himself gives life and breadth to everything, and he satisfies every every need from one man. He created all the nations throughout the whole earth. He decided beforehand when they should rise and fall in me to determine their boundaries. His purpose was for the nations to seek after God and perhaps feel their way toward Him and find him, though he's not far from any one of us, for in him we live and move and exist. As some of your own poets have said, we are his offspring. And since this is true, we shouldn't think of God as an idol designed by craftsmen from gold or silver or stone. God overlooked people's ignorance about these things in earlier times, but now he commands everyone everywhere to repent of their sins and turn to him, for He has set a day for judging the world with justice by the man he has appointed. And he proved to everyone who this is by raising him from the dead. And when they heard Paul speak about the resurrection, then some laughed in contempt, but others said, we want to hear more about this later. That ended Paul's discussion with them, but some joined him and became believers. Among them were Dionysius, a member of the council, a woman named Demrus, and others with them. Yeah, what a cool one. So this is Paul at the Areopagus. Is what this is called, right? Yeah? Yeah, So that council that he's at is this council called the Areopagus. Yeah, And so Luke stayed back in Philippi while Paul, Silas and Timothy continued on. Remember they were in Thesalonika. Then when trouble rose in Thesalonika, they fled to Bria. Yes, when enemies from Thesalonika pursued them, they they Paul set sail for Athens. And and so there's a couple of different big categories of observations that I absolutely love about this this this passage, and and they're sort of like setting the stage type of things. It's not about Paul's message, it's about the awesomeness of the situation. So number one, it starts off by saying Paul was just waiting in Athens for his friends, and so he wasn't necessarily going to Athens for a destination to you know, who would have ever thought that he was going to preach this amazing message, you know up on the aero Opagus, you know, which is like a limestone type mountain. Is at Mars Hill, at Mars Hill, and the council the Areopagus met at Mars Hill. This is like a similar to the Roman form just a little bit. It's where ideas would be exchanged. All the smart leaders of the village in the town would come there to gather to talk about big ideas. Yeah. And by the way, I have a note here in my study Bible, and it says that the Epicureans and the Stoics. The Epicureans were actually more concerned with They believe that happiness was the most important thing in life, and the Stoics believe that intelligence and thinking was. So they were actually very very disciplined, and so they were actually you know, debating more intellectually. And so someone was about experience, Yeah, there was about thoughts and philosophy. Yeah, yeah cool. And so anyway, so the first observation is this is that Paul wasn't there on a mission necessarily. He was there waiting for his friend. That's what the scripture says. While he was there in Athens waiting for them, he was bothered. And what ended up happening is is like his spirit was stirred and then he saw an opportunity took advantage of it. So I think that the application of that is really rich for all of us, because sometimes we find ourselves in a place thinking that. It's there by accident. You know, we're just at this bus stop, we're at this restaurant, and you know, surely, surely nothing great is going to happen. And you know, with this interaction with this waiter that comes over and starts talking to us, you know, it's like, don't ever underestimate the moment where God places you strategically, and it may not be your mission to be there, but that's when great things happen when we least expect it. You know that they'll come up and surprise us. And then then the second thing is is that I love the fact that Paul is perfectly qualified to be the man in this situation. So think about all his qualifications, all his knowledge. Is there anybody else who could you know? Was it Luke? Is it is it Barnabas? No, these guys aren't qualified like Paul is, right, and he's a Roman citizen, and he's get so much intelligence, even quotes one of their own poets, right, And then how smart is it to say, let me. Let me tell you, I'm going to honor you. His his strategy. Anyway, I have more to say, but let's. Well, no, I love that and I don't need to talk. I was really riveted by what you were saying. The idea is I think that you're conveying Paul being perfectly designed for this. So he was a philosopher, yes he was. He was a Pharisee who rejected pleasure, right, right, So so he kind of leaned more on the Stoics than on the on the Epicurean side of things. But his culture was a debate culture. Anyways, he came from that kind of world, right. He was one of the most educated people. He was widely traveled, which would mean he'd have a broad worldview as opposed to a narrow worldview. And he was a Roman citizen from Tarsus, which is in that area that region. Right, He's not He's he's closer to home when he's in Athens than he would be when he was in Jerusalem. Right, So I think it's very intriguing to me. He's perfect and God will do that. You our listeners are perfectly designed to reach people around you that the rest of us would never be able to reach that's right, and so this was a divine appointment. Paul just didn't realize it. And I think we have lots of divine appointments that sometimes we don't realize what's happening. Yeah, God places you where you are for a reason. And by the way, there's another quick reference before we even get into Paul's message, and that is it says that he was speaking of the town square and other versions translated as the marketplace. So he was preaching the gospel, telling the good News of Christ, telling the story of Jesus in a public setting. And what's really interesting about that is that earlier it had said that, you know, he was preaching in synagogues, so you know, synagogues, it would be expected to preach, you know, the message of the good News and synagogues, but to have that same message, that same ministry in the marketplace is entirely different. And what I love about that is I believe, for you know, first and foremost, that the most effective ministry is that ministry that happens outside of church. And it's it's because it's unexpected, and it's like whoa, and it's like when when when somebody who's in your business. You know who in other words, like not in your business, like in your you know, in your story, but like who works in your business. In your office, in your office. When when they decide to bring religion or God or anything like that into that environment, it's it stands out, makes a lasting impression, way more than if you were to walk into church, because it's expected to hear something. Yeah, and he comes into this conversation without being a jerk, right right, He disagrees fundamentally. His view about their belief system is one hundred and eighty degrees. Yes, but he's not a jerk about it. He comes in and he says, men of Athens, I notice that you're very religious in every way. And then he compliments him. I'm recognizing your culture. I see how you're living your lives. And I noticed, of all these gods that you have, you have this one pedestal and it doesn't have an idol on and it just says to the unknown God, let me tell you about him. Right, so there's something missing in your life and I can introduce you. He has them already. Yeah, Yeah, he's hit. They're leaning in Yeah, because what's. This foreigner doing talking about our culture and our situation. R. Yeah, it was very very intelligent, very clever, which which basically. And he says, whom you worship without knowing? Right? He doesn't say you pagans, right, he doesn't say that. He says, you're intrigued by this god you don't even know. Let me tell you about it. I'll introduce him to you. And I love this idea. So then he not only does he do that, but then he begins to unpack it. This is the God who created everything. That's the beginning for somebody who has no concept of scripture, which is most of our culture today. Most of our culture doesn't know scripture, you know, twenty five years ago, a lot of our culture did. Fifty years ago, most of our culture and new scripture, and now they don't. So we're starting every time. What There's a God who created the world, and he made you, and he made you for a purpose. But we're sinners, we're separated from God. So God solved that. Right. This is kind of the is. The purpose of who we why we call ourselves the Bible. Guys, that's right, because some people might get the impression because we call ourselves the Bible, guys. We have to be super deep in theological. The Bible scholar guys. The Bible scholar guys, that's not our name. What's a couple of dudes like to talk about the Bible? Right? And so? So if our purpose is to bring literacy and basic understanding, and not only that, but the purpose of all scriptures application. That's right. So you know, there's not there's not you know. If the goal is just simply more depth and knowledge, then you can go somewhere else. But but for us, what we want to do is say, hey, let's talk about, you know, the Bible and what does it actually mean and everything else. So, by the way, I just want to say this too, when it comes down to reading the Bible and applying it in our lives, I really think that what you said a moment ago is more powerful. Then I want to breeze over it. You said, fifty years ago people knew the Bible. So there's this movie. It was remade with Elizabeth Hurley called Bedazzled. Do you remember this movie. No, she ended up with Brendan Frasier. She plays the devil and she comes up and she, you know, does this whole thing well, it was actually a remake Dudley Moore did in the seventies, so and it was actually really good and it was like super like. It was almost like Bruce Almighty, you know, Bruce Almighty could preach. Anyway, here's my point is that they were making biblical jokes in this nineteen seventies movie as if the audience, the regular secular audience. Would laugh. They were making all these references to the Old Testament. Well that's just like you know, the Seven Sins, the seven deadly sins. They are all laughing, and I'm thinking, who in culture today would ever understand even one tenth of these jokes, right, because we have lost biblical literacy, right, Yeah. Well that's happened substantially in our culture. So he doesn't say shame on you that you don't know these things. He just starts where they're at. He meets them where they're at, and then he leads them if we're going to lead people to Jesus, we have to go and meet with them first. And then he's not being critical of their culture. He's exposing to them. You know, you're missing something, and that's what they're saying. There's this unknown God I'm missing something. So then he said, let me introduce you to him. He begins taking them with the other but I love it he doesn't begin preaching at them from uh, you know, all these doom and gloom kind of things. Instead, like in this one, he goes, as some of your own poets have said, we're his offspring, and he's using their poetic culture, their artistic culture, right to go by the way your the heart of your culture says there's a God and where his offspring? Right right, So even your people are recognizing that, you know, So this would be like as bon Jovi said, right, this is what he's saying here, he's using the artists of their culture, the poets of their culture, to kind of prove that their people already kind to think that way. And what he didn't do is say, men of Athens, let me start off by saying you're all wrong. That's right, that's right. They'd be the equivalent of typing in all caps. Right, that's right, that's right. So he's using secular art here. He's using secular poets not as the proof of the message, but as proof of the need for the message, right right, This is what he's doing so he's not saying, see, gotcha, I prove that what he's saying is even your own people say, your offspring of the of the Creator. Well, now you need to know the Creator. And by the way, then he goes into the Creator sent a man and he died and rose again. Right, so this is this is where to save us. And some people were very intrigued by the resurrection, and they stayed on and Paul was able to unpack it even more and others were like, you're nuts, and they rejected. But this is one of the reasons why you know, you and I have we've talked before about we want to use any tool that is within culture that's not you know, immoral or unethical or illegal. We want to use those things to reach as many people for Jesus as possible. But it's not about the tool. It's about getting them to Jesus, which is how he ended. Right. He came to the point where he says he proved to everyone who this is by raising him from the dead. He takes him to the resurrection. He taches them to the core of the Gospel, and the unbelieved in something didn't. And there were many believers. Yeah, and so yeah, so he reached them, and not because he you know, wasn't relatable, and not because he threw everything in their face and he was completely, you know, a different person. He started off where they are and led them to Jesus. And one guy, Dionysius, he was a member of the Areopagus. So maybe this entire he comes to faith. Maybe this entire interaction was for that guy and the lady named Damarus and a few others, but the Bible names those two specifically. This whole interaction was for them, that's all. And sometimes we do things that where we use the tools that God's given us in culture or whatever, and it might not be for everybody in the room, but it might be for the Dionysius sitting in the room or the Dameris sitting in the room. And that's perfectly fine. That's perfectly fine. That's great. Well, that is a great place to end, and there's probably more to say about that. Yeah, we'll have to move on and we'll see you tomorrow on the Bible, guys,