Church and world
Commentary
Perhaps no issues are more difficult in Christian preaching and teaching than the relationship of the church to the world. The church itself is in effect an anticultural group insofar as it represents a community of sisters and brothers connected by baptism while simultaneously living in the world where everything the church stands for is rejected. On the other hand, the set of values that keeps the world running stands in sharp contrast to what the church espouses to be determinative for its guidance and life together.
Yet clearly the New Testament will not allow the church to separate itself from the world on the basis of the challenges that confront us when we leave worship on Sunday mornings. On the contrary, the Incarnation of the Word of God demonstrates that the world is the stage on which we live out our baptismal identity and to which we bear our witness to the gospel.
Living in the world, confronting the world, understanding the world and how it thinks and functions in order to be credible witnesses are some of the issues we face in our lessons for this Sunday.
Acts 17:22-31
The seventeenth chapter of Acts reports the trouble Paul's preaching caused in some communities, particularly in those that had large Jewish synagogues. His first difficulty occurred in Thessalonica where he was accused of sedition against Caesar (vv. 6-7). From there they went to Beroea where, after some initial successes, Paul and his colleagues were hounded by the same people from Thessalonica (vv. 10-13). Some of the followers escorted Paul to Athens where he argued with both Jews and Greek philosophers (vv. 16-18). Accused of preaching foreign divinities because of his words about Jesus and the resurrection (a supposed deity named anastasis), Paul was taken before the Council on the Areopagus to explain his teaching before those who "spent their time in nothing except telling or hearing something new" (v. 21).
What he told the Council is the content of our pericope. Paul began his speech to the Greeks by pointing to a doctrine of creation, one on which his Jewish background and their Greek philosophies could agree somewhat. "The God who made the world and everything in it" resonates with such Old Testament texts as Genesis 1:1; 2:1; Exodus 20:11; Psalm 146:6; and Isaiah 42:5. His announcement that God "is not far from each one of us" sounds much like Psalm 145:18, Jeremiah 23:23, and Deuteronomy 30:11-14. Yet the Greeks could find in their own teachings such similar expressions, especially about the god Zeus. Indeed, Paul's words at verse 28, "For we too are his offspring," are a direct quotation from the Greek poet Aratus in a hymn to Zeus, the author of life.
In typical Pauline fashion a sharp distinction is drawn between the times before Christ came and now that he has come (see 2 Corinthians 5:16--6:2; Galatians 3:23-26). Here the times past are the periods of human ignorance that God has overlooked, and against those times "now he commands all people everywhere to repent" (v. 30).
Finally, in the last half of his final sentence Paul introduces Jesus Christ, not by name but as "a man whom he has appointed" (to judge the world in righteousness), and God assured this role by raising him from the dead. One might argue that Paul should have brought Christ and the gospel into play much sooner, and one would have expected Paul to do so. Indeed, in front of Jewish audiences he went straight to the point of the cross and resurrection. But considering his audience here, namely Greeks, his sermon started with the point at which his theology and theirs had something in common: creation. There might be a lesson here for all of us as we seek to announce the good news in this post-Christian world.
1 Peter 3:13-22
The author began in 3:8 to deal with the need for Christian unity, sympathy, love for one another, a tender heart, and a humble mind. He has been urging his readers not to repay evil with evil but with a blessing, for it is blessing that they will inherit.
The author's theme of suffering persecution at the hands of others continues here as he suggests that suffering "for righteousness' sake" brings blessings. The words are strongly reminiscent of Jesus' teaching in the Beatitude: "Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven" (Matthew 5:10). It is difficult, in fact, to imagine those words were not in the author's mind when the issue of persecution for the faith was the underlying motive for the writing of this epistle. This promised blessing of the kingdom enables the readers to face what they must without fear or intimidation and to "sanctify Christ as Lord." The early church's confession "Jesus is Lord" (see, above all, Romans 10:9) becomes the recommended response of Christians facing persecution, perhaps because his lordship is based on God's raising him from the dead, a hope they can expect for themselves beyond the suffering.
What follows in verses 18-19, possibly beyond to verse 22, appears to be an ancient Christian hymn that the author incorporates at this point in order to demonstrate the hope that is theirs due to the ministry, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus. The main points of this hymn are as follows: (1) Jesus also suffered as the readers have and will, except that his suffering was vicarious: "he suffered for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, in order to bring you to God" (v. 18); (2) Although he was put to death, he was alive in the spirit (the resurrected body), which enabled him to "preach" to those in Sheol, offering the gift of reconciliation with God even to those who had died long before him, that "they might live in the spirit like God" (4:6); (3) The mention of those who died beforehand leads all the way back to the time of Noah and the flood so that the author could speak of the eight persons who "were saved through water." This allusion to the ancient story leads to his point that "baptism, which this prefigured, now saves you." Recall that the letter has spoken several times of the readers as "exiles and aliens" because of their being "born anew" (1:3, 23) to a living hope; now he specifically uses the term "baptism" for this new birth that points them forward to resurrection with Jesus Christ.
John 14:15-21
Jesus continues the dialogue he began at 13:31 during supper with his disciples. He had just announced his going to prepare a place for his disciples and has indicated his oneness with the Father. He challenged his disciples to demonstrate their faith in him by doing the works that he did. Now the benefits and responsibilities of that faith are enumerated.
Our pericope is framed by Jesus' references to keeping his commandments. In verse 15 Jesus indicates that loving him means keeping his commandments. What are those commandments that disciples are to keep? In the Old Testament tradition God made promises to the people of Israel based on their obedience to commandments that had not yet been given: "If you obey my voice and keep my commandment, you shall be my treasured possession out of all the peoples" (Exodus 19:5). The commandment that God had in mind there are the Ten Words that will be announced to the people at 20:1-17. While not one of those commandments mentions the word "love," they all illustrate what it means to "love the Lord your God" (Deuteronomy 6:5) and to "love your neighbor as yourself" (Leviticus 19:18).
In our pericope, Jesus states the condition "If you love me." The previous paragraph indicates the intimate, even ontological, relationship between Father and Son, and so the commandment that Jesus leaves with his disciples is nothing other than the means by which they will demonstrate their love for the Father and the Son. The commandments, yet to be given, are really one: "that you love one another as I have loved you" (15:12). Jesus' love for the disciples, and indeed for the whole world, is expressed here in the Greek aorist tense, that is, a single act -- like a good old-fashioned photograph instead of a video -- and that act is nothing less than his sacrifice on the cross.
Loving Jesus means more than shouting it out in assemblies. It is loving one another in ways that elicit little public acclaim. It involves acts of mercy and justice and compassion. Loving one another as Jesus loved us can deter us in the pursuit of our own goals, hinder us from proving our own point in a conflict, even stop us in our tracks when we are so confident about being right. That kind of love for one another demonstrates that we love the Lord Jesus far more than the pious claims we make in order to exalt ourselves over those who commit the sins and offenses we like to harangue about.
At the conclusion of our pericope Jesus repeats his earlier statement that those who keep his commandments are those who love him. Now, however, he adds that those people will be the ones that both the Father and he will love. The saying raises an interesting question: Does God really love the whole world (John 3:16), or only those that love Jesus by loving one another?
Both sides of the question are true. God does love the whole world, and the proof of that pudding is splattered all over John's Gospel. Jesus is the Savior of the world (4:42). God sent Jesus into the world, and Jesus sends his disciples into the world (17:18). At the same time, John's Gospel focuses on the special relationship between the Father and the Son and the church. That intimacy brings both privileges and responsibilities, primary of which is loving one another.
Between the bookends of Jesus' emphasis on his commandments is, in fact, the description of that intimacy between Father, Son, and disciples and the means by which the intimacy will be continued following Jesus' departure. The entanglement of all three will become clear "on that day" when "you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you" (v. 20). "That day" is probably the day of resurrection and ascension when Jesus will return to the disciples after having gone to the Father, the day when Jesus will breathe on the disciples, making them new creatures filled with the Spirit, as well as missionaries in and to the world (John 20:19-31).
The Spirit is indeed the means by which the intimate entanglement will continue. Jesus promises that Spirit here. Calling the one to come "another Advocate," Jesus defines the Advocate as "the Spirit of truth." That Jesus became incarnate "full of grace and truth," that Jesus claimed to be "the truth," and that Jesus as the "truth" stood in front of Pilate when he wondered about it -- all indicate that the Spirit will continue to bring that same truth among the disciples and in the church for all time. Only those who have been given the gift of the Spirit will "know him" (v. 17), because he will "abide with you, and he will be among you" (RSV's and NRSV's "in you" is not helpful because the pronoun "you" in Greek is in the plural). The world "neither sees him or knows him" just as "the world did not know" the Word that was among them (1:10). The only chance for the world to "know" will occur through the preaching of the word by those whom Jesus will send into the world (17:20-24).
The Advocate promised here, the "one who stands beside another" as Jesus does at the seat of judgment (1 John 2:1), will, therefore, preserve the "truth" in the world and ensure the continued presence of Jesus with the disciples/the church. That enduring presence of Jesus will enable the disciples to keep Jesus' commandment to love one another.
Perhaps no other passage in the Bible stresses as clearly as this one that the intimacy between God the Father and God the Son is ours to share as the community of the Spirit. The abiding presence of the Triune God in the midst of the disciples of every age makes the community called the church.
FIRST LESSON FOCUS
By Elizabeth Achtemeier
Acts 17:22-31
There is a strange belief abroad in our land at the present time, the belief that we cannot know God. Such a belief rises partly from a feeling of awe before the divine -- the feeling that God is so unfathomable, so other, so beyond our feeble understanding that we cannot possibly experience who he truly is in all of his fullness and perfection. And perhaps that is the reason that the Athenians have erected that idol "to an unknown God" that Paul encounters when he visits their city. They know that there is a god beyond them, but they cannot define him or name him.
On the other hand, many persons use the fact that they cannot know God in his Being as an excuse for manufacturing their own gods and goddesses. And that was certainly true also of a lot of Athenians in Paul's time. They had a whole pantheon of deities, all presupposed from the ways and forces of the natural world about them. They built idols to those deities and filled the streets of Athens with them. Paul "saw that the city was full of idols," reads Acts 17:16. And Paul's "spirit was provoked within him."
Thus, when Paul argued in the synagogue and in the marketplace, proclaiming Jesus Christ risen from the dead, that piqued the curiosity of the intelligentsia in Athens, the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers. This was something new, and they loved new fads (17:21). They gathered frequently in the Areopagus, that section of the city where philosophical debates were carried on, and there they enjoyed hearing or telling about the latest novelty, including the latest deity. Maybe this new God that Paul was preaching about was another deity that they could add to their pantheon! They really didn't believe much in their manufactured gods. But they did want to be up on the latest religious developments. No one likes to be out of touch with what is going on.
The story presents us with a picture that could almost be a portrayal of our society, for if anything characterizes modern American society, it is the search for some sort of new religion. "I'm a searcher," someone will say, and that usually means they want to know about any new religion or deity that has been invented.
Our land is full of such supposed searchers. A lot of them, like the Athenians, have constructed their beliefs on the basis of the natural world, and so they have identified the mysterious and vital forces in nature with God. And we find the worship of a Mother Goddess, or of a great Primal Matrix, or of some ancient goddess of the Near East. Others have turned to transcendental meditation, or to some Eastern guru, or to the powers in a pyramid. Some follow astrology and see their lives dependent on the planets. Some follow a self-proclaimed savior, like Sun Myung Moon or the leader of Heaven's Gate. And not a few search for the goddess, the divine, the eternal spirit within themselves, making their inner being the locus of the divine. All peoples finally hunger for some sort of an Other, and every culture has its own form of religion. But our modern society at the present time presents a picture that is "full of idols."
In their curiosity about the new God that Paul seems to be proclaiming, the philosophers of Athens summon him to the Areopagus to tell them about it, and it is to their credit that they listen carefully to his words.
Paul wrote about himself in 1 Corinthians that his preaching was always "in weakness and in fear and trembling," "not in plausible words of wisdom" (1 Corinthians 1:3-4). Nevertheless, the speech that Acts portrays Paul as delivering to the learned Athenian crowd is a model of classical rhetoric. He shapes his approach very carefully in order to win over converts.
Paul begins his oration by flattering his audience -- he perceives that they are very religious -- and then he starts his argument with a fact that all of the philosophers know: They did not create themselves. So Paul begins his speech where his audience is. They and he agree. Logically, it follows then that if God created humans, God is more than human and cannot be served by human means. He cannot be represented in an idol and he does not live in shrines made by human hands. Nor does he need anything that is limited to the human sphere. After all, he even made the nations and gave them their allotted territories. So he should not be reduced to human proportions. Yet, he sustains all mortals alive and is not far from anyone, giving to them life and breath and everything. All human beings live and move and have their being in him, Paul says, quoting their own poetry to the learned listeners.
So it is ignorance to worship God in an idol, Paul continues. More than that, God is no longer unknown. Rather, he has revealed himself. He does not have to be imagined by the thoughts of mortals. He has made himself known. And because of that, he now calls all people to repent of their idolatry. For a while in human history, God overlooked human ignorance. But now that he has given the revelation of himself in Jesus Christ, everyone must put away their imagined gods.
How do we know that Jesus Christ is the revelation of God? Because Christ has been raised from the dead, Paul proclaims. And the risen Christ is coming in the future to judge the world rightly and in truth. Then all will be held accountable for their worship and their faith. Thus runs the content of Paul's speech.
At the heart of Paul's preaching is the testimony to the resurrection of our Lord. Indeed, that forms the central thrust of Paul's Christian message throughout his letters. Everything hangs on that resurrection testimony to the lordship of Jesus. "If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins" (1 Corinthians 15:17). Apart from the resurrection, there is no Christian faith.
The implication, of course, is that since we Christians are "Easter people," who have so recently celebrated the resurrection of our Lord, the time is now to put away all of our false gods and goddesses -- to repent and to turn our hearts and lives to Jesus Christ alone. No more worship of the forces of nature. No more following the stars or various gurus. No more giving of our attention to the latest religious fad. Indeed, no more giving our devotion to the material things of this world, or to our own self-fulfillment, or to our own ways and thoughts. No. God has made himself known in Jesus Christ. It is in him that we live and move and have our being. He alone is the revelation of the Father. And in him alone we can have life, abundant now and blessed to all eternity.
Yet clearly the New Testament will not allow the church to separate itself from the world on the basis of the challenges that confront us when we leave worship on Sunday mornings. On the contrary, the Incarnation of the Word of God demonstrates that the world is the stage on which we live out our baptismal identity and to which we bear our witness to the gospel.
Living in the world, confronting the world, understanding the world and how it thinks and functions in order to be credible witnesses are some of the issues we face in our lessons for this Sunday.
Acts 17:22-31
The seventeenth chapter of Acts reports the trouble Paul's preaching caused in some communities, particularly in those that had large Jewish synagogues. His first difficulty occurred in Thessalonica where he was accused of sedition against Caesar (vv. 6-7). From there they went to Beroea where, after some initial successes, Paul and his colleagues were hounded by the same people from Thessalonica (vv. 10-13). Some of the followers escorted Paul to Athens where he argued with both Jews and Greek philosophers (vv. 16-18). Accused of preaching foreign divinities because of his words about Jesus and the resurrection (a supposed deity named anastasis), Paul was taken before the Council on the Areopagus to explain his teaching before those who "spent their time in nothing except telling or hearing something new" (v. 21).
What he told the Council is the content of our pericope. Paul began his speech to the Greeks by pointing to a doctrine of creation, one on which his Jewish background and their Greek philosophies could agree somewhat. "The God who made the world and everything in it" resonates with such Old Testament texts as Genesis 1:1; 2:1; Exodus 20:11; Psalm 146:6; and Isaiah 42:5. His announcement that God "is not far from each one of us" sounds much like Psalm 145:18, Jeremiah 23:23, and Deuteronomy 30:11-14. Yet the Greeks could find in their own teachings such similar expressions, especially about the god Zeus. Indeed, Paul's words at verse 28, "For we too are his offspring," are a direct quotation from the Greek poet Aratus in a hymn to Zeus, the author of life.
In typical Pauline fashion a sharp distinction is drawn between the times before Christ came and now that he has come (see 2 Corinthians 5:16--6:2; Galatians 3:23-26). Here the times past are the periods of human ignorance that God has overlooked, and against those times "now he commands all people everywhere to repent" (v. 30).
Finally, in the last half of his final sentence Paul introduces Jesus Christ, not by name but as "a man whom he has appointed" (to judge the world in righteousness), and God assured this role by raising him from the dead. One might argue that Paul should have brought Christ and the gospel into play much sooner, and one would have expected Paul to do so. Indeed, in front of Jewish audiences he went straight to the point of the cross and resurrection. But considering his audience here, namely Greeks, his sermon started with the point at which his theology and theirs had something in common: creation. There might be a lesson here for all of us as we seek to announce the good news in this post-Christian world.
1 Peter 3:13-22
The author began in 3:8 to deal with the need for Christian unity, sympathy, love for one another, a tender heart, and a humble mind. He has been urging his readers not to repay evil with evil but with a blessing, for it is blessing that they will inherit.
The author's theme of suffering persecution at the hands of others continues here as he suggests that suffering "for righteousness' sake" brings blessings. The words are strongly reminiscent of Jesus' teaching in the Beatitude: "Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven" (Matthew 5:10). It is difficult, in fact, to imagine those words were not in the author's mind when the issue of persecution for the faith was the underlying motive for the writing of this epistle. This promised blessing of the kingdom enables the readers to face what they must without fear or intimidation and to "sanctify Christ as Lord." The early church's confession "Jesus is Lord" (see, above all, Romans 10:9) becomes the recommended response of Christians facing persecution, perhaps because his lordship is based on God's raising him from the dead, a hope they can expect for themselves beyond the suffering.
What follows in verses 18-19, possibly beyond to verse 22, appears to be an ancient Christian hymn that the author incorporates at this point in order to demonstrate the hope that is theirs due to the ministry, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus. The main points of this hymn are as follows: (1) Jesus also suffered as the readers have and will, except that his suffering was vicarious: "he suffered for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, in order to bring you to God" (v. 18); (2) Although he was put to death, he was alive in the spirit (the resurrected body), which enabled him to "preach" to those in Sheol, offering the gift of reconciliation with God even to those who had died long before him, that "they might live in the spirit like God" (4:6); (3) The mention of those who died beforehand leads all the way back to the time of Noah and the flood so that the author could speak of the eight persons who "were saved through water." This allusion to the ancient story leads to his point that "baptism, which this prefigured, now saves you." Recall that the letter has spoken several times of the readers as "exiles and aliens" because of their being "born anew" (1:3, 23) to a living hope; now he specifically uses the term "baptism" for this new birth that points them forward to resurrection with Jesus Christ.
John 14:15-21
Jesus continues the dialogue he began at 13:31 during supper with his disciples. He had just announced his going to prepare a place for his disciples and has indicated his oneness with the Father. He challenged his disciples to demonstrate their faith in him by doing the works that he did. Now the benefits and responsibilities of that faith are enumerated.
Our pericope is framed by Jesus' references to keeping his commandments. In verse 15 Jesus indicates that loving him means keeping his commandments. What are those commandments that disciples are to keep? In the Old Testament tradition God made promises to the people of Israel based on their obedience to commandments that had not yet been given: "If you obey my voice and keep my commandment, you shall be my treasured possession out of all the peoples" (Exodus 19:5). The commandment that God had in mind there are the Ten Words that will be announced to the people at 20:1-17. While not one of those commandments mentions the word "love," they all illustrate what it means to "love the Lord your God" (Deuteronomy 6:5) and to "love your neighbor as yourself" (Leviticus 19:18).
In our pericope, Jesus states the condition "If you love me." The previous paragraph indicates the intimate, even ontological, relationship between Father and Son, and so the commandment that Jesus leaves with his disciples is nothing other than the means by which they will demonstrate their love for the Father and the Son. The commandments, yet to be given, are really one: "that you love one another as I have loved you" (15:12). Jesus' love for the disciples, and indeed for the whole world, is expressed here in the Greek aorist tense, that is, a single act -- like a good old-fashioned photograph instead of a video -- and that act is nothing less than his sacrifice on the cross.
Loving Jesus means more than shouting it out in assemblies. It is loving one another in ways that elicit little public acclaim. It involves acts of mercy and justice and compassion. Loving one another as Jesus loved us can deter us in the pursuit of our own goals, hinder us from proving our own point in a conflict, even stop us in our tracks when we are so confident about being right. That kind of love for one another demonstrates that we love the Lord Jesus far more than the pious claims we make in order to exalt ourselves over those who commit the sins and offenses we like to harangue about.
At the conclusion of our pericope Jesus repeats his earlier statement that those who keep his commandments are those who love him. Now, however, he adds that those people will be the ones that both the Father and he will love. The saying raises an interesting question: Does God really love the whole world (John 3:16), or only those that love Jesus by loving one another?
Both sides of the question are true. God does love the whole world, and the proof of that pudding is splattered all over John's Gospel. Jesus is the Savior of the world (4:42). God sent Jesus into the world, and Jesus sends his disciples into the world (17:18). At the same time, John's Gospel focuses on the special relationship between the Father and the Son and the church. That intimacy brings both privileges and responsibilities, primary of which is loving one another.
Between the bookends of Jesus' emphasis on his commandments is, in fact, the description of that intimacy between Father, Son, and disciples and the means by which the intimacy will be continued following Jesus' departure. The entanglement of all three will become clear "on that day" when "you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you" (v. 20). "That day" is probably the day of resurrection and ascension when Jesus will return to the disciples after having gone to the Father, the day when Jesus will breathe on the disciples, making them new creatures filled with the Spirit, as well as missionaries in and to the world (John 20:19-31).
The Spirit is indeed the means by which the intimate entanglement will continue. Jesus promises that Spirit here. Calling the one to come "another Advocate," Jesus defines the Advocate as "the Spirit of truth." That Jesus became incarnate "full of grace and truth," that Jesus claimed to be "the truth," and that Jesus as the "truth" stood in front of Pilate when he wondered about it -- all indicate that the Spirit will continue to bring that same truth among the disciples and in the church for all time. Only those who have been given the gift of the Spirit will "know him" (v. 17), because he will "abide with you, and he will be among you" (RSV's and NRSV's "in you" is not helpful because the pronoun "you" in Greek is in the plural). The world "neither sees him or knows him" just as "the world did not know" the Word that was among them (1:10). The only chance for the world to "know" will occur through the preaching of the word by those whom Jesus will send into the world (17:20-24).
The Advocate promised here, the "one who stands beside another" as Jesus does at the seat of judgment (1 John 2:1), will, therefore, preserve the "truth" in the world and ensure the continued presence of Jesus with the disciples/the church. That enduring presence of Jesus will enable the disciples to keep Jesus' commandment to love one another.
Perhaps no other passage in the Bible stresses as clearly as this one that the intimacy between God the Father and God the Son is ours to share as the community of the Spirit. The abiding presence of the Triune God in the midst of the disciples of every age makes the community called the church.
FIRST LESSON FOCUS
By Elizabeth Achtemeier
Acts 17:22-31
There is a strange belief abroad in our land at the present time, the belief that we cannot know God. Such a belief rises partly from a feeling of awe before the divine -- the feeling that God is so unfathomable, so other, so beyond our feeble understanding that we cannot possibly experience who he truly is in all of his fullness and perfection. And perhaps that is the reason that the Athenians have erected that idol "to an unknown God" that Paul encounters when he visits their city. They know that there is a god beyond them, but they cannot define him or name him.
On the other hand, many persons use the fact that they cannot know God in his Being as an excuse for manufacturing their own gods and goddesses. And that was certainly true also of a lot of Athenians in Paul's time. They had a whole pantheon of deities, all presupposed from the ways and forces of the natural world about them. They built idols to those deities and filled the streets of Athens with them. Paul "saw that the city was full of idols," reads Acts 17:16. And Paul's "spirit was provoked within him."
Thus, when Paul argued in the synagogue and in the marketplace, proclaiming Jesus Christ risen from the dead, that piqued the curiosity of the intelligentsia in Athens, the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers. This was something new, and they loved new fads (17:21). They gathered frequently in the Areopagus, that section of the city where philosophical debates were carried on, and there they enjoyed hearing or telling about the latest novelty, including the latest deity. Maybe this new God that Paul was preaching about was another deity that they could add to their pantheon! They really didn't believe much in their manufactured gods. But they did want to be up on the latest religious developments. No one likes to be out of touch with what is going on.
The story presents us with a picture that could almost be a portrayal of our society, for if anything characterizes modern American society, it is the search for some sort of new religion. "I'm a searcher," someone will say, and that usually means they want to know about any new religion or deity that has been invented.
Our land is full of such supposed searchers. A lot of them, like the Athenians, have constructed their beliefs on the basis of the natural world, and so they have identified the mysterious and vital forces in nature with God. And we find the worship of a Mother Goddess, or of a great Primal Matrix, or of some ancient goddess of the Near East. Others have turned to transcendental meditation, or to some Eastern guru, or to the powers in a pyramid. Some follow astrology and see their lives dependent on the planets. Some follow a self-proclaimed savior, like Sun Myung Moon or the leader of Heaven's Gate. And not a few search for the goddess, the divine, the eternal spirit within themselves, making their inner being the locus of the divine. All peoples finally hunger for some sort of an Other, and every culture has its own form of religion. But our modern society at the present time presents a picture that is "full of idols."
In their curiosity about the new God that Paul seems to be proclaiming, the philosophers of Athens summon him to the Areopagus to tell them about it, and it is to their credit that they listen carefully to his words.
Paul wrote about himself in 1 Corinthians that his preaching was always "in weakness and in fear and trembling," "not in plausible words of wisdom" (1 Corinthians 1:3-4). Nevertheless, the speech that Acts portrays Paul as delivering to the learned Athenian crowd is a model of classical rhetoric. He shapes his approach very carefully in order to win over converts.
Paul begins his oration by flattering his audience -- he perceives that they are very religious -- and then he starts his argument with a fact that all of the philosophers know: They did not create themselves. So Paul begins his speech where his audience is. They and he agree. Logically, it follows then that if God created humans, God is more than human and cannot be served by human means. He cannot be represented in an idol and he does not live in shrines made by human hands. Nor does he need anything that is limited to the human sphere. After all, he even made the nations and gave them their allotted territories. So he should not be reduced to human proportions. Yet, he sustains all mortals alive and is not far from anyone, giving to them life and breath and everything. All human beings live and move and have their being in him, Paul says, quoting their own poetry to the learned listeners.
So it is ignorance to worship God in an idol, Paul continues. More than that, God is no longer unknown. Rather, he has revealed himself. He does not have to be imagined by the thoughts of mortals. He has made himself known. And because of that, he now calls all people to repent of their idolatry. For a while in human history, God overlooked human ignorance. But now that he has given the revelation of himself in Jesus Christ, everyone must put away their imagined gods.
How do we know that Jesus Christ is the revelation of God? Because Christ has been raised from the dead, Paul proclaims. And the risen Christ is coming in the future to judge the world rightly and in truth. Then all will be held accountable for their worship and their faith. Thus runs the content of Paul's speech.
At the heart of Paul's preaching is the testimony to the resurrection of our Lord. Indeed, that forms the central thrust of Paul's Christian message throughout his letters. Everything hangs on that resurrection testimony to the lordship of Jesus. "If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins" (1 Corinthians 15:17). Apart from the resurrection, there is no Christian faith.
The implication, of course, is that since we Christians are "Easter people," who have so recently celebrated the resurrection of our Lord, the time is now to put away all of our false gods and goddesses -- to repent and to turn our hearts and lives to Jesus Christ alone. No more worship of the forces of nature. No more following the stars or various gurus. No more giving of our attention to the latest religious fad. Indeed, no more giving our devotion to the material things of this world, or to our own self-fulfillment, or to our own ways and thoughts. No. God has made himself known in Jesus Christ. It is in him that we live and move and have our being. He alone is the revelation of the Father. And in him alone we can have life, abundant now and blessed to all eternity.
