Acts17 (witnessing)
ACTS 17 - ENCOURAGEMENTS FOR WITNESSING.
(1) It pleases the Lord for it is His top priority that others should
know the Gospel of salvation. His final words before ascending to heaven
were: 'Go (move out of your comfort zone, don’t wait for someone to come to
you, take the initiative), preach the Gospel to all creatures' (Mark 16:15).
(2) The Holy-Spirit is working with you as you witness whether you feel
Him or not (Acts 1:8).
He is sent TO us and then works THROUGH us: 'If I depart, I will send
Him to you. And when He has come (to you), He will convict the world of sin,
righteousness, and judgement' (John 16:7-8).
(3) God has already been working in the person’s life - even
those who seem furthest away from God. This is illustrated by a
story from ATHENS, a city steeped in false philosophy and religion.
It provides the historical background to Paul’s sermon on Mars Hill in
Acts 17.
They had lost the knowledge of the true eternal God and replaced it by idols
to many false gods (who were merely higher beings within this universe).
It was said that in Athens: ‘it is easier to find a god than a man.’
Even today many say they believe in God but if you ask what kind of God,
they don’t describe our God, but an impersonal force or mind. Replacing God, they fill their lives with idols to which they cling, but
find no true meaning.
1. A plague had struck the city of Athens, in 600BC, decimating the population.
2. They offered sacrifices to their 30,000 gods (more than any city they
collected gods from everywhere) to ask for deliverance - to no avail.
3. In desperation the elders sent messengers to summon a Greek hero called
Epi-men-edes. He came to Athens and they told him they had tried everything.
They begged his help.
4. He came up with a plan based on two premises.
Firstly: - there must be another God who did not consider himself represented
by one of the idols in Athens, but who was hopefully good and great enough
to stop the plague. They had to contact this ‘unknown God.’ But
they said: ‘we don’t KNOW Him or His NAME - how can we contact Him.’
Secondly: Any God, good and great enough to stop the plague is also
big enough to smile upon us in our ignorance, if we openly acknowledge our
ignorance and turn to Him.
5. Epi-men-edes then told them to bring a flock of sheep to Mars Hill (sacred
ground), of more than one colour (to give God a choice) and commanded the
flock to be released. Normally such sheep (if kept hungry overnight)
will begin to graze. He commanded the men to follow the sheep and called
on this God to cause the ones He wanted to be sacrificed to lie down (rather
than graze) in the spot He wanted them sacrificed. This would
be against the sheep’s nature so it would be a sign of this God’s willingness
to help. Miraculously a number of sheep did this.
6. Wherever the sheep laid down, they built ALTARS - inscribed to the UNKNOWN
GOD (thus humbly admitting their ignorance) and offered the sheep as a sacrifice.
7. All 3 Greek writers who tell us about this (Diogenes Laertius, Philostratus,
Pausanias) agree the plague was lifted at once. But Athens went back
to following many gods , but at least one altar was left on Mars Hill dedicated
to the UNKNOWN GOD.
600 years later in Acts 17, the apostle Paul came to Athens: 'While
Paul waited for them at Athens, his spirit was provoked within him when he
saw the city given over to idols (because idols draw people’s attention
away from the one True God). Therefore he reasoned in the synagogue
with the Jews and the Gentile worshipers, and in the marketplace daily with
those who happened to be there. Then certain Epicurean and Stoic philosophers
encountered him. Some said, 'What does this babbler want to say?' Others
said, 'He seems to be a proclaimer of foreign gods,' because he preached to
them Jesus and the resurrection. And they took him and brought him to the
Areopagus, saying, 'May we know what this new doctrine is of which you speak?
'For you are bringing some strange things to our ears. Therefore we want
to know what these things mean.' For all Athenians and the foreigners
who were there spent their time in nothing else but either to tell or to
hear some new thing (v16-21).
This is an example of how to witness to those who don’t even have a clear
idea of who God is. 'Then Paul stood in the midst of the Areopagus (on
Mars Hill!) and said, 'Men of Athens, I perceive that in all things you are
very religious; 'for as I was passing through and
considering the objects of your worship, I even found an altar with this
inscription: ‘TO THE UNKNOWN GOD.’ Therefore, the One whom you worship
without knowing, Him I proclaim to you' (v22,23).
Paul had done
his research on Athens and had discovered how God had already worked and communicated Himself to them. Then
in witnessing He built on that to build a bridge from the knowledge they
had to the Gospel as its fulfilment. This was a positive approach rather
than just tearing down their errors. Standing on the same hill, he
identified with their unknown God (whose existence they accepted), reminding
them of the events of 600BC, when this God revealed His great mercy and power
to them (even over death!). They had accused him of bringing in a foreign
god but Paul said: 'No, I want to tell you more about the God who has worked in your life before. He wants to reveal Himself
more fully to you. You have admitted your ignorance but I know Him,
you don’t have to be ignorant any more.' So, by relating the
gospel to a previous revelation of God Paul helped to open their hearts to
new truth.
He firstly announced He had some good and important news for them (v23).
Then he explained the true nature of God and from that revealed their sin
(idolatry): 'God, who made the world and everything in it, since He is
Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands. Nor is He worshiped with men's hands, as though He needed
anything, since He gives to all life, breath, and all things' (v24,25).
He explains that the GREATNESS of this unknown Creator God meant He could
not identify Himself with any idols (visual images which lower Him to the level of a created being). We have to start
here. He is the TRANSCENDANT CREATOR (separate from and above His Creation.
He is not part of creation (or a universal force). God is the personal Source
and Lord of all things, so we can’t bring Him down to our level, keep Him
in a Temple, or describe (limit) Him by an image.
'And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the
face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries
of their dwellings, so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for (seek) Him and find Him, though
He is not far from each one of us' (26,27).
He is SOVEREIGN
over all mankind, who are all equal under Him and who are created to worship Him. He designed this world of space and time for man (the
summit of His creation) to find and know Him. Thus He is also
IMMINENT (near to us). He is interested and involved in our lives and wants
us to find Him. He is not out of reach and if we seek we shall
find Him (Jer 29:11-13). We say: 'God loves you and has been working
in your life so that you might seek and find Him. You will find the true
God if you desire.'
Paul now establishes his points from their Greek writers, showing his bridge-building
method: 'for ‘in Him we live and move and have our being’ (this declaration
of God’s greatness and nearness is from Epimenedes himself -whom Paul called
a prophet in Titus1:12) as also some of your own poets have said,
‘For we are also His offspring' (we are created in the image of the
personal God with the ability to know Him). Therefore, since we are ‘the
offspring of God’, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold
or silver or stone, something shaped by art and man's devising' (v28,29).
Since God created man, God must be greater than man not lesser. It
is foolish to try and represent Him by a man-made image. His Divine Nature
is transcendant, above anything in creation. He is a Person, so to reduce
Him to an lifeless idol is sinful. He is not like some dumb idol, but
a God who speaks and reveals Himself. It was appropriate that the altar
to the unknown God had no image. We should expect this God to come close
to us and reveal Himself.
He did this before in Athens showing His power over death but they had continued
in idolatry but now He had revealed Himself supremely in Jesus Christ and
his resurrection, which removed all excuses: 'Truly, these times of ignorance
God overlooked (because of their ignorance God had not judged them for
idolatry but had even shown them mercy), but now He commands all men everywhere
to repent (from idolatry) because He has appointed a day on which
He will judge the world in righteousness by the Man (JESUS CHRIST) whom He
has ordained '(v30,31a). Since Christ, things have changed. Men
will be judged for rejecting Him. Ignorance is no longer an excuse for: 'He
has given assurance (proof) of this to all by raising Him from the dead'
(v31b).
In witnessing, realise God has already been speaking and working in their
life, even if it has been confused and covered by false ideas. If you
can locate this work of God (by asking and listening if they have ever been
aware of God) you can build on this, instead of coming across as telling
them something totally foreign. You are saying: ‘the same God
who already has been at work in your life because He loves you, wants you
to seek Him and find Him and I can tell you more about Him.’
Then describe the true God, encouraging them to seek Him, proclaiming His
Son Jesus Christ as His supreme revelation, risen from the dead and coming
soon to judge all men.