Acts 17:16-34
Paul in Athens
16 While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he was greatly distressed to see that the city was full of idols. 17 So he reasoned in the synagogue with both Jews and God-fearing Greeks, as well as in the marketplace day by day with those who happened to be there.18 A group of Epicurean and Stoic philosophers began to debate with him. Some of them asked, “What is this babbler trying to say?” Others remarked, “He seems to be advocating foreign gods.” They said this because Paul was preaching the good news about Jesus and the resurrection. 19 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? 20 You are bringing some strange ideas to our ears, and we would like to know what they mean.” 21 (All the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there spent their time doing nothing but talking about and listening to the latest ideas.)
22 Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: “People of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. 23 For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: to an unknown god. So you are ignorant of the very thing you worship—and this is what I am going to proclaim to you.
24 “The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands. 25 And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else. 26 From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. 27 God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us. 28 ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’
29 “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. 30 In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. 31 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.”
32 When they heard about the resurrection of the dead, some of them sneered, but others said, “We want to hear you again on this subject.” 33 At that, Paul left the Council.34 Some of the people became followers of Paul and believed. Among them was Dionysius, a member of the Areopagus, also a woman named Damaris, and a number of others.
John 14:6-7
Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life
6 Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. 7 If you really know me, you will know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.”
Religion and our reality and realities are connected in life...Paul recognized that when he talked to others about God, he had to know some things about what they knew and did...When we went to Athens, he walked around the town and visited the different things in Athens, before meeting with the Athenians...So when he got to meet the different people of the city and speak to them, he knew about many of their likes and dislikes...He viewed their culture and what they had built...And the well read Paul knew what some of the Greek poets had written...He quotes their poets...Paul came to their town, and knew something about them...Paul was able to share some common ground with the people of Athens...But he was distressed that the city had been built around different idols...But, on the other hand, he was glad that the people by these idols, were in a another way very religious...Paul, when the opportunity arose, stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: “People of Athens!...I see that in every way you are very religious...For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: to an unknown god...So you are ignorant of the very thing you worship—and this is what I am going to proclaim to you...
Athens was a place of philosophy...The Athenians and Greece had many thinkers of the world...The question of God is a difficult one, back when Paul spoke two thousand years ago in Athens and even today...Maybe the Greeks unknown God was the One True God...Paul was going to bring their knowledge from this unknown god, to the known God, the God of Israel...The God of Israel is also the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob...The Athenians who believed Paul, would go from believing in an unknown god, to the One True God, who wants to be known...A God who took the Hebrews from slavery in Egypt to the Promised Land, that God years ago had promised Abraham years earlier...And Abraham's son Isaac followed the One True God, as did Isaac's son, Jacob...And Paul would introduce their minds and thinking to Jesus...He speaks to them of the One God who has set a day...This day is a day of judgment...And God has appointed this Man named Jesus, if it is fair to call Him a Man, to be our judge on that set day...And God has given us proof that this Man is the Appointed One, but raising Him from the dead...After Paul's sermon or talk, they could make up their own minds on the Truth, and what he had said...
For people to believe in these unknown and new ideas Paul was about to bring them, he saw the need for some common ground...Anyone listening to new ideas is better suited to listen, when the speaker knows something about those they are speaking to...And religion and reality needs to meet and Paul was good at bridging this gap...Religion is best when it is lived...And Paul lived and believed in God and Jesus, and spoke about Them very frequently...Paul lived God and Jesus after his conversion...Paul knew the Old Testament, and in its writings there is an Appointed One, who is also called the Anointed One, the Messiah...Paul had made the connection and had the belief that Jesus is the Appointed One and would tell these things to the Athenians...
If one believes that Jesus is Truth, then Truth is a Person...And Truth is universal...But even though Truth is Truth for everyone and Truth is universal, Truth is personal...That is why Paul knowing things about the Athenians was very good...Who can believe that Truth is a Person of Absolute Truth?...And Truth takes more than reality and facts to believe in...Truth takes faith...And some people cannot believe that some truths need faith to be believed...Some cannot see any truths in faith...Some need verification and sight and tangibility to believe in the things they cannot see...These people have a difficult time with faith and resurrection stories in their reality...Some believe that reality and the spiritual ideas of faith are a competition or in competition...And yet, the world and creation got here (somehow) and we have this Theory, and it is the Theory of the Big Bang that created the universe form randomness, or we have this belief of faith that God created the world...
The world is here and we have nature from this creation, no matter what one believes...Some people can see only science in nature, and others see both God and science in the nature of the created world...And while some will believe in nature through only scientific observations, there are those who see God very much in nature...And there are those who see Jesus as a part of this, and Paul talks about Him being the Appointed One...And if we believe this, we move away from reality and science and more towards faith...But the fact remains that there is this connection for many in God, nature, Jesus, and reality, and these Truths...Others will not see this connection...They see the Big Bang, evolution, and nature as science...That is their reality...And St. Luke wrote about these things to his friend Theophilus about the earthly life of Jesus, in his Gospel Book, and the Book of Acts...The two books are filled with many researched accounts of eyewitnesses, who believed these things about Him and that they are true and the Truth...And these two books would spread the words of this Remarkable Man named Jesus...
We are told by Luke that a few men became followers of Paul's ideas, and others did not, in a very unassuming way...Luke does not give us any feeling that the large majority of Greeks listening to Paul believed...Just that a few believed and others did not...And this is the way it is many years later...