- The speaker discusses the importance of sharing the good news of Christ with others
- They emphasize the need to present the gospel in a way that is understandable to those who are not familiar with the Bible
- The speaker shares a personal experience of trying to present the gospel to a friend who was unfamiliar with the Bible and struggled to understand the references
- They look to the example of Paul in Acts 17, who presented the gospel to philosophers in Athens
- The speaker reads and discusses the passage from Acts 17:16-30, where Paul addresses the Athenians and explains the nature of God and the need for repentance
- Some of the Athenians respond positively to Paul's message and become followers of Christ.

- The speaker begins with a prayer, asking for guidance and strength to worship, serve, and share God's love.
- The sermon will be focused on understanding the spiritual condition, worldview, and response of the people in Athens.
- Athens was a culturally influential city known for its intellectualism and idolatry.
- The depth of idolatry in Athens deeply affected Paul, who was familiar with idolatry from his previous experiences.
- The people in Athens were constantly seeking new ideas and were easily deceived by them.
- Paul was deeply distressed by the idolatry in Athens and responded by sharing the gospel with everyone he encountered.
- The speaker encourages the audience to also understand the spiritual condition and worldview of their generation and not be insensitive to it.
- The Epicurean and Stoic philosophers debate with Paul and bring him to the Areopagus to learn more about his teachings.
- The Epicureans and Stoics focused on practical wisdom and having a good and prosperous life.

- The Stoics and Epicureans were two schools of thought that focused on self-control, moderation, and moral living.
- The Stoics believed in the existence of a Logos, a spirit permeating the world, and that humans could become gods by pursuing virtue.
- The Epicureans believed that the world was made up of atoms and there were no gods, and that the purpose of life was the pursuit of pleasure and happiness.
- These philosophies lacked a central focus on God.
- Paul, in his presentation of the gospel, draws from the philosophers' ideas to introduce the true God who is the creator of all things and does not need anything from humans.
- The true God is all-sufficient and our service to Him is to reflect His glory.

- The speaker discusses the uniqueness and incomparability of God, emphasizing His power, sovereignty, goodness, and close relationship with humanity.
- The response to the message of the resurrection varied, with some mocking, some wanting to hear more, and some believing.
- The speaker encourages the audience to faithfully share the gospel, even in difficult circumstances, and emphasizes that conversion is ultimately the work of God.
- A short presentation of the gospel is provided as an example for sharing with others.
- The speaker concludes by highlighting the good news of God's presence, control over the world, and care for His children, encouraging listeners to find encouragement in these truths and to pray for repentance and conversion.

- The speaker expresses gratitude for being chosen to convey the truth of God's grace to others.
- They acknowledge the challenges and resistance they face when presenting the gospel.
- They pray for the ability to present God's word in a simple and clear way.
- They recognize that only God can bring repentance and salvation to people's lives.
- They ask for God's power and grace to be evident as they share the word with others.
- The speaker prays for encouragement and strength for themselves and others as they go home.
- They end with a blessing for the listener to have a good day and be strengthened throughout the week.

- The speaker emphasizes the importance of sharing the good news of Christ and presenting the gospel in a way that is understandable to others.
- They discuss Paul's example in Acts 17, where he presented the gospel to philosophers in Athens.
- The speaker explores the spiritual condition and worldview of the people in Athens, known for their intellectualism and idolatry.
- They encourage the audience to understand the spiritual condition of their generation and not be insensitive to it.
- The speaker discusses the philosophies of the Epicureans and Stoics, and how Paul used their ideas to introduce the true God.
- They highlight the uniqueness and incomparability of God, and the varied responses to the message of the resurrection.
- The speaker encourages faithful sharing of the gospel, acknowledges challenges and resistance, and prays for God's power and grace in sharing His word.
- They express gratitude for the opportunity to convey God's grace, and pray for encouragement and strength for themselves and others.

Presenting the Gospel with Wisdom and Discernment Among the Philosophers  Acts 16: 17-34

I'll try to preach without trying to bother a lot with the echo until we get, anyway.

So it's a pleasure again for me to continue to look with you together on Act 17, the chapter that we started to look at last week.

And I hope that as we go through this chapter, we will still continue to be encouraged.

The main idea is that as believers and people who have given their life to Christ, we are compelled to also share the good news with other people.

And sometimes that can be very, very intimidating.

And last week, what I wanted to stress is that as we look into Acts chapter 17, and we look into Paul's life and the way that he goes on doing his ministry.

In fact, that can be an encouragement for us.

So we looked into chapter 1 to 15, to verse 1 to 15, and The main goal was that as we look into Paul preaching in Thessalonica and Berea, among the religious, meaning the Jews, those that are familiar with the word of God and with the God of Israel, God will use a language that they could understand.

So he would use the scriptures and go through the scriptures to try to prove that everything that was regarding the Messiah and conclude that Jesus Christ was the Messiah.

So his audience will very well be able to understand him.

And also I try to point out the importance for us to be good listeners, those that listen with the intent of actually going and examine and studying to then come to conclusions.

1 thing also that I wanted to say, and the good thing about the fact that you can preach a Sunday after another, it's like that you can come back again and stress out this point, is that the best place for us to learn to present the gospel is in fact in the gathering of the people of God.

We learn to present the gospel in our small groups as we study the Bible together.

We learn to present, to see what is in the gospel and to present it.

The gospel is in fact presented not only to those that are outside but as well as those that are inside.

Every Sunday as we gather together we are preaching the gospel to each other, encouraging each other in the truth of the gospel.

So today the message is how to present the gospel, present the gospel among those that are not so familiar now with the scripture and the Word of God.

So we will look to Paul presenting the gospel in Athens to those that were philosophers.

And my big idea today is that most of the time, most of our friends and people that we are surrounded with are not familiar with the language that we speak.

How can you, in fact, do that in the way that they understand what we're saying without having the same reference?

Like most of you, I do have colleagues, and most of my colleagues and friends are not Christian.

In fact, interestingly, in my efforts to trying to present the gospel to my friends, I took a time 1 day and went with a friend over a dinner.

We were having lunch together, And I wanted to present the gospel to him.

But I found that every time that I was trying to say something, I would cite the scriptures, the Bible says, the Bible says.

And my friend was kind of, you know, foreigners to the Bible, say, because his reference is not the Bible.

The Bible had no authority in his life, so the things that I will quote from the Bible were not very relevant for him.

And that's the scenario in which I find myself many times.

So by looking to how Paul addressed and goes in addressing the philosopher in Athens, I believe that we can have clues and encouragement that can help us to present the gospel.

Let's then start together by reading in Acts chapter 17 from verse 16 to 30.

While Paul was Waiting for them, meaning Timothy and Silas in Athens, he was greatly distressed to see that the city was full of idols.

So he reasoned in the synagogue with them, both the Jews and the God-fearing Greeks, as well in the marketplace, day by day, with those who happened to be there.

A group of Epicurean and Stoic philosophers began to debate with him.

Some of them asked, what is this blabberer trying to say?

Others remarked, he seemed to be advocating foreign gods.

They said this because Paul was preaching the good news about Jesus and the resurrection.

Then they took him and brought him to a meeting of the Areopagus, where they said to him, may we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting?

You are bringing some strange ideas to our ears, and we would like to know what they mean.

All the Athenians and the foreigners who live there spend their time doing nothing but talking about and listening to the latest new ideas.

But then stood in the meeting of the Arepagus and said, people of Aten, I see that in every way you are very religious, for as I walk around and looked carefully at your object of worship, I've even found an altar with the inscription to a known god.

So you are ignorant of the very things that you're worshipping.

And this is what I am going to proclaim to you.

The God who made the world and everything in it.

He's the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temple built by human hands and is not served by human hands as if he needed anything.

Rather, he himself gave everything, everyone life and breath and everything else.

From 1 man he made all the nations that they should inhabit the whole the whole earth and he marked out the appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands.

God did this so that they will seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he's not far from any 1 of us.

For in him we live and move and have our being.

As some of your own poets have said, we are his offspring.

Therefore, since we are God's offspring, we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image made by human design and skill.

In the past, God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent.

For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed.

He has given proof of this to everyone by raising him from the dead.

When they heard about the resurrection of the dead, some of them sneered.

But others said, we want to hear you again in this subject.

That Paul left the council, some of the people became followers of Paul and believed.

Among them was Dionysus, a member of the Areopagus, also a woman named Damaris, and a number of others.

Lord, again this morning, we just want to look to you, lift our eyes and our heart to you, the wonderful, the marvelous, the good God who was pleased to have his Word recorded for us so that through them we will gain wisdom, intelligence, understanding, and that we will learn to know really who you are.

You have said that your word is the food for our souls.

So we pray this morning that again, as we go through it and we look to it and ponder upon it, that Father, you will instruct us, that you will come and make your life, your word alive for us so that we will be strengthened and encouraged to worship you, to serve you, and even to share your love with other people.

We thank you again for being with us, for being among us, and for working in us and through us, through your Son Jesus Christ, we pray.

So for today, the outline of the sermon will be to try to catch the spiritual condition, and this will be from verse 16 to 17, to catch the worldview that surround us from verse 18 to 21, looking to the message of Paul from verse 22 to 31, the response that people will give to his message from verse 32 to 35, and then I will end with the concluding thoughts.

By catching the spiritual condition, I meant by that, trying to discern where people are spiritually.

What is what we read in verse 16 of the passage, While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he was grisly distressed to see that the city was full of idols.

So he reasoned in the synagogue with both the Jews and the God-fearing Greek, as well as in the marketplace day by day with those who he happened to be there.

Also verse 21, all the Athenian and the foreigners who live there spend their time doing nothing but talking about and listening to the latest idea.

So the city of Athens was a city that was well known for its cultural influence in the first world.

Very intellectual city, we have many schools of thoughts flourishing in Athens.

And in fact, it's interesting because that cultural influence even won over the Roman worldview that was in that time.

The Roman would adopt many of the ideas of the thinking of the Greek.

The language that was spoken, even though the word was dominated by Rome, was in Latin, but was still Greek.

So that's the situation of Athens, a very, very flourishing and cultural city, but also a city full of idols.

You know, we remember that when he was in Lystra, and he preached the gospel, and he healed somebody, the people came with a, a, how do you say it again, a calf, A cow.

They wanted to sacrifice that cow to Paul because they were seeing him and Barnabas as Zeus and and Hermes.

So Paul was very, very familiar with the environment, the world in which he was living, the idolatry that was most reality of most of the people of the world that wasn't influenced by Judaism.

The depth of idolatry in Athens was so high, so deep, so profound, that this seems to have moved Paul.

The Writer Pliny the Young says that it's identified about 73,000 gods, idols in Athens.

You will see representation of gods everywhere, on buildings, everywhere.

We even read that there was even an altar, or there will be altars with the statement to a non-god.

There were so concerned to please the gods that they didn't want to forget any god, even 1 that they don't know.

So they had some altars there so that people would be able to pay their allegiance, pay their respect to these gods.

But something also very interesting we learn from the passage is that the people would spend most of their time to look and to search for the last new, the last new idea that arrived.

They would spend their time talking and sharing and trying to understand and to get the new ideas.

It's so interesting that the Greek historian Thucydides says about the Athenians, he said that you are the best people at being deceived by something new, as it is said.

So that was very, very, the characteristic that we could see in Athens.

Paul was grieved in his soul by all this.

The word says that he was deeply distressed.

In some other translation, it said that he was provoked.

Some other would say that he was grieved by the situation.

What the passage is trying to make us understand is that seeing all this death and how adultery was permeated in the society, that did not left Paul untouched.

It didn't left Paul insensitive to that situation.

He was so sensibilized that he wanted to do something.

He would go and present the gospel day by day to everyone, to people you will find on the marketplace, on the public place, you will share the gospel.

So we need also to be able to catch What is the spiritual condition of our generation?

And be sure that we're not insensitive to it.

In fact, as I was thinking about and preparing, 1 of the questions that came into my mind, how could we characterize our generation?

How can we characterize Montreal, the city in which we are living?

What is the dominant influence that is over Montreal?

Because that dominant influence is also, we will find that also in the life of our friends and people that are surrounding us.

We need also to be able to catch the worldview.

It says in verse 18 to 21, A group of Epicurean and Stoic philosophers began to debate with him.

Some of them asked, what is this Babelos trying to say?

They said this because Paul was preaching the good news about Jesus Christ and the resurrections.

Then they took him and brought him to the meeting of the Areopagus, where they said to him, may we know what it is this new teaching that is that you are presenting?

You are bringing something strange, some strange idea to our ears, and we would like to know what they mean.

The name of the Areopagus was a place that was named after the god of war, Mars.

It was in fact translated, we can translate it, the heel of Mars.

So it was a place where the people would gather, the philosopher would gather, both a council of the city would gather.

So these people that Paul meet in the marketplace are some of these philosophers, the Epicurean and the Stoic.

They bring Paul among now the meeting of the Areopagus where also we intend to examine exactly what is this new teaching that Paul, in fact, is bringing in the public place.

We need to understand something a little bit about these people if we want to be able to understand the worldview that they hold.

Both the Epicurean and Stoic were from a school of philosophers.

Both of them were in opposition with the school of thoughts of Plato and Aristotle.

Both hold philosophy of life which was focusing of having a good and prosperous and a full life.

Practical wisdom was a core of their teaching.

Both schools favored the self-control and moderation and moral in living.

They really centered their thought and they think of their teaching on the satisfaction of the soul here in this earth.

But although they hold this worldview in general common, they had some differences between them.

The Stoic were founded by a man named Zeno, who was a philosopher who lived in 340 to 265 before Christ.

Zeno teaching was basically that the world was created by the elements, and that there was a Logos which was kind of the spirit that was permeating all the world.

In a sense, the Logos would be like a God that was permeating everything.

And human beings were participants of the logos.

And they have in themselves part of deity, so they could become themselves gods, too.

And their primary goal in life was virtue, we're looking to search for virtue.

Nothing in this world could help us to achieve a good life and a pleased, a satisfied life unless we live in a certain type of asceticism.

The Epicurean, on the other hand, believes that the world was nothing more than atoms and matters.

If there is no such thing as God, the world is created from the atom, from nothing.

That means also that since there is no God, human beings have no need to try to please the gods.

So the purpose of life was the search and the pursuit of pleasure and happiness.

But the happiness and the pleasure could only be achieved through the search of virtues.

These things, by themselves, are not that wrong because we understand that both of them are trying to look to what can make the soil flourish.

The thing is that they are all having a worldview without God as in the center.

What worldview can we identify in our generation today among the many people that we get in contact with?

Something that I want to stress out and to find is that when we look to these philosophies and these philosophers, they lived before Christ.

Many people followed them, trying to practice the life that they were preaching, they were presenting.

But they could not satisfy, respond to the needs of the human soul.

Christ came at the year 0, what is considered year 0, with his gospel saying, come unto me all you are weary and tired and I will give you rest.

Christ came with a stronger and a better proposal for life.

A teaching that we will see and will see brought a transformation in the world that this philosophy could not bring.

Paul was well aware of these philosophies.

In verse 22 and 33, we see that Paul starts to present the gospel to these people.

And as we look to how Paul present the gospel, something that is very interesting we can notice is that Paul is sensitive to this audience.

As I say, he understands part of a philosophy.

He understands part of a thinking, part of a worldview.

He understands that the excessive devotion to the gods shows in fact, the ignorance of the true God.

So he would present his gospel by drawing from what they are familiar with.

If we look to verse 22 to 31, we notice that he cites some of their philosophers.

He cite, for example, Epimetus and say, for in him we live and move and have our being.

He also cites another philosopher, Aristos, from the Stoic group, saying that we are his offspring.

So that shows that Paul was not foreigners to the ideas, to what they hold to.

And he start there to present in his presentation of his gospel.

The God who made the world and everything is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in the temple viewed by human hands and is not served by human hands as if he needed anything.

Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else.

From 1 man, he made all the nation that they should inhabit the whole world, and he marked out the appointed time in history and the boundaries of the lands.

You see, in his presentation of the gospel, he starts with God.

The problem in Athens and the people that he is meeting is the lack of knowledge of the true God.

They have many gods, but they don't know the real God.

So Paul aims to correct that wrong view, that wrong understanding.

From what is presented in the scriptures here, if you've noticed very well, there is no citation of the Hebrew scriptures.

Yet, the truth that it conveys through its preaching contains the truth of the Hebrew scriptures.

He presented then to present the real God.

God, the real God, is the creator of all things, and all things proceed from him.

For this is what the Lord said, he who created the heavens, he is God.

He who fashioned and made the earth, he founded it, He did not create it to be empty, but from it to be inhabited.

He says, I am the Lord, and there is no other.

The God, the true God, is all sufficient gods.

He does not need any man, any other creature to serve him or to provide for his need.

God in the contrary is the 1 who gives and provides everything to all creatures.

And that is the truth that is said in Psalm 58 to 15, I bring no charge against you Israel concerning your sacrifice or concerning your burnt offering which are ever before me.

I have no need of a bull of your stall or of a goat of your pens, for every animal of the forest is mine and the cattle on a thousand hill.

I know every bird in the mountains and the insect in the fields are mine.

If I were angry, I would not tell you, for the world is mine, and all that is in it.

Do I eat the flesh of the bull, or drink the blood of the goat?

Sacrifice thanks offering to God, fulfill your vows to the most high, and call on me in the day of trouble, and I will deliver you, and you will honor me.

That's the God that we have, that the God that is presented to us.

We don't serve God to respond to 1 of His needs.

Our service to him is to reflect the glory of who he is.

He cannot be equal to any living creature, nor any human work that we can build or make.

To whom would you compare me, says the Lord in Isaiah 40, 26 to 26.

Lift up your eyes and look to the heavens.

He who brings out the stary holes 1 by 1 and calls forth each 1 by his name because of his great power and mighty strength, no 1, none of them is missing.

He is sovereign, He is the 1 who decreed the divisions of the nations and determines their time.

This is what Paul proclaimed in verse 26.

And this truth is conveyed in Deuteronomy 32 verse 8, when the Mossad gave the nation their inheritance, when he divided all mankind, he set up boundaries for the people "'according to the number of the sons of Israel.'" God is good.

His goodness is revealed through his economy, the way that he rounds the world.

He's not distant, not indifferent to the fate of humanity as the Epicurean and Stoic would proclaim in their worldview.

The Lord is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth.

He fulfills the desire of those who fear him.

The righteous cries out and the Lord hears them.

He saves those who are crushed in spirit.

The righteous person may have many trouble, but the Lord delivers him from them all." This is from Psalm 36, 34.

He was indulgent to all the nation, despite the ignorance and failing to give him the praise and glory that is due to him.

But he's also a just judge, a God who will judge the world.

And this is what Paul says in verse 31, through the man that he has chosen, of which he has given proof by raising him from the dead.

That's the God, the true God, that Paul presents to the audience.

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