Paul’s Sermon at Athens: Evidence of a Shepherd’s Heart

Summary: When Paul arrived in Athens, he was grieved over the rank idolatry of the city with its statues and temples dedicated to various gods and goddesses. He knew that the Gospel had to be proclaimed. Souls hung in the balance. This is the heart of a man of God and the example we need to follow today.

When Paul arrived in Athens to wait for Silas and Timothy to join him, he looked around the city and did not marvel at the beauty of the city’s temples or the culture or anything typical of a tourist’s curiosity. If he were to be classified as a “sightseer,” the sights he saw broke his heart because all he could really notice were the numerous altars to the varied gods and goddesses that had been a part of the Greek nation and former empire’s social and religious foundations. While the Athenians displayed a form of religious devotion and attention to ritual, they were spiritually lost and bound in the darkness of false belief that still plagues the world today.

The pastoral heart of the great lion of God truly hurt, not just for the Athenians but for his fellow Jews, and indeed, all who were lost in their sins who needed to hear of the freedom and grace of God given by Jesus Christ. Paul wanted the world to know of the love, mercy, and salvation that he himself had received on the Damascus Road through the risen Christ and the calling He placed on His former enemy to take His message to the Jew first, and then the Greek.

We see this concern and compassion for the lost modeled in our LORD as He saw the people of His own nation wandering in a desert of ritual and repetitious “worship” of the God of Israel without the love and devotion that He had asked of them over the centuries. The religious leaders had reduced the love for God and His Word to the point where the Sabbath itself had become a day of dread instead of rest due to the picky and near draconian penalties placed on the people for violating it.

When Jesus arrived on the scene, His preaching and teaching were not filled with the extras of man-made ritual and attention to rabbinical interpretations of the Scriptures, but were words of “Authority” that were the spiritual food and drink they had been missing for so long.

Let this be a lesson to all preachers who truly love and follow the Lord Jesus. Stay away from fads, trends, and worldly causes that sound noble but in reality, starve the flock of the good food of the Word of God. Do not preach the latest news or opinion from the denominational or political pundits, or try to be clever in your self-anointed “gift” of wit and yarn, but PREACH THE WORD (2 Tim. 4:1-5).

Whether people admit it or not, they are truly hungry for something that will give them assurance, comfort, and conviction and the wonderful news that God does love them and desires that they not perish and suffer in eternal torment. Preach that He has provided the ONLY way to real peace, escape from sin, and source of authentic forgiveness and mercy. Preach Jesus! Proclaim Jesus! Exalt Jesus! Never be swayed from the calling He has given you, fellow shepherd.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, this applies to you as well. Just because you see the same people, the same families, and the visitors who come to your place of worship and sit by you or near you and join in the songs, say prayers, and seem to pay attention to the sermon, never assume that they are saved and sealed in Christ. Those people who cross your paths during the week, such as friends, neighbors, coworkers, fellow students, and the strangers who might greet you, are all in the same predicament. They might be as lost as the garden-variety pagan that Paul witnessed in the streets and marketplaces of Athens, Corinth, Ephesus, and everywhere he ministered.

You do not have to have any special training or “call to ministry” to present the Gospel to people, and if you have been truly redeemed from your sins by the Lord Jesus, you have a story to tell. It may not be as dramatic as Paul’s, but, like him, you were lost and heading to eternal hell just as he was before Jesus transformed his life and purpose.

When we read of this encounter between Paul and the philosophers on Mars Hill, we might tend to overlook verses 16-18 of Acts 17, where Paul first reasoned with his fellow Jews in the synagogue before he ventured into the marketplaces and started preaching the Gospel to the Athenian citizens. This is an evangelism strategy that was modeled after Jesus’ prime mission, which was to reach out to the lost sheep of the house of Israel (Matt. 10:6). Paul did not take anything for granted when it came to preaching the Gospel to his own people first. They had been recipients of the promise of a Messiah by God (Isaiah 53:1-12) and affirmed through the prophets. Yet, many had rejected Jesus for this very claim because He did not fit their idea of the Deliverer and restorer of the nation.

Paul, no doubt, explained to them that the deliverance and freedom of their souls from sin was far more important than freedom from the bonds of Roman rule, and Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross did just that. His sinless blood was the perfect and final sacrifice for our rebellion and unrighteousness.

We cannot redeem or justify ourselves in the sight of God by our own means (Ephesians 2:8-9). The deity we make of ourselves cannot and will not accomplish that task whether we like it or not (Romans 3:10-18, 23). The work of Christ fulfilled that task for us, and all we have to do is to receive it by faith and surrender our lives to Him as Lord and Savior. We do not need to do anything or add anything extra to what Christ has done for us. When He said from the cross, “IT IS FINISHED!” we can take His word for it.

This is what Paul preached to His fellow Jews, and many had their eyes opened to the grace and mercy of Almighty God, and that message rings true for all who are lost, without hope, and without a guiding and loving shepherd to show them the way home. Jesus is our Good Shepherd, and He had given Paul and all of us who follow and love Him the same opportunity and honor. Paul told the Good News to those with whom he was familiar, then took it to the streets where the Greeks heard it and who then invited him to present this message to the philosophers and the curious that gathered on Mars Hill.

God opens the doors to encounters every day, and like Paul, we all have that opportunity to go to the Mars Hill of our city, state, and country with the message that Jesus is LORD, now and forever.

Thank You, LORD, for entrusting us with the message of new life in Christ. Make us like Paul and the early church, and instill within all of us the courage and desire to go, tell, and trust You to open the people’s eyes and hearts. Amen.

donaldwhitchard@gmail.com

www.realitycityreverend.com

– A primer for beginners/A reminder for waverers –

(with editing help by a sister in Christ, Lynda Janzen)

THE TEMPTATION AND EXPULSION: (Genesis 2–3:)

For hundreds of years, theologians and even detractors of the narrative have weighed up the woman’s role in the temptation story. Of course, her role is centrally important. She is the one who is seduced by the tempting serpent. And he, of course, is either Satan or speaks for him as his agent.

God had initially established His covenant with the man (2:15-17). And though she was not originally a part of that covenant, it was extended to include the woman (3:2-3). Did this make her more sensitive to the wiles of Har Shatan, whom we call ‘Satan’?

Is this why he chose to come at her rather than the man?

It could well have been so!

Genesis 3:1

“Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, ‘Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”

The serpent now has the woman ‘on the ropes.’ He beguiles her as he instills in her mind the concept of self-doubt. In today’s terminology, Satan is having a ‘deep and meaningful’ with her. And it might well be argued that in her yet unsophisticated state, devoid of worldliness that comes from the interplay of human-to-human exchange, she is ‘easy prey’ to the serpent’s beguilement and inherently evil nature. The woman is a natural victim even though she sins through her own complicity. In that alone, she must bear responsibility for her following actions.

Also raised within her mind is the pleasing possibility of a very favorable outcome from eating the forbidden fruit. Moreover, so her beguiler tells her, there will be no consequences, only the possibility of gain from her own deliberate action.

The woman immediately commences to dissemble, and when she answers Satan, she blurs the edges of the injunction God gave both her and the man.

Listen to her answer. Genesis 3:2-3

“And the woman said to the serpent, ‘We may eat the fruit of the trees of the garden; but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, ‘You shall not eat it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die.'”

In establishing the covenant with the man, God had been much more explicit. “And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, ‘Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die'” (Genesis 2:16-17).

Genesis 3:4-5

“Then the serpent said to the woman, ‘You will not surely die. For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.'”

As the woman digests what she has been told so far, Satan has struck again. He tells her, ‘Listen to me…you won’t die at all… you’ve been shilled…in fact, I’m telling you…only wonderful things are going to come to you once you eat this fruit.’

Satan has seized upon what he perceives as perhaps either her indecision or lack of understanding of the significance of the covenant between God and Adam and its extent to her, and of course, the temptation of a wonderful outcome.

He has her!

Genesis 3:6

“So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave to her husband with her, and he ate.”

She plucks the fruit and eats!

It will temporarily win the day for Satan.

It will almost lose the day for mankind for all eternity. And it would have were it not for the pity of God and His decision to eventually send His Son to atone for our sin.

Did she thus give it to Adam, her husband, to make him complicit in the act? Irrespective, that was the outcome.

Both of them are now guilty of breaking the covenant.

THE FALL:

The immediate outcome and the impact on all mankind to come:

Can we draw the conclusion that the man and woman then experienced at least two other emotions?

First: that arising directly out of their new knowledge of good and evil, they experience guilt. This is because their now-revealed knowledge of evil creates in their minds the belief that there is something amiss, something wrong with appearing naked in the presence of God!

Second: is it a stretch to say that now, also, they experienced shame? Are they not like children who have been caught doing something that their parents forbade? Children invariably show their guilt in such circumstances, and when the enormity of their actions are apparent, then immediately comes the shame, the sorrow, and the tears.

We can only conjecture!

Genesis 3:7-24)

“Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves. Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the LORD God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the LORD God among the trees of the garden” (vs 7-8).

THE SPECIAL RELATIONSHIP IS BROKEN:

What a relationship with God is described in verse 8! We can only yearn for and dream about its equal.

God is in the Garden. He, the Ancient of Days, is walking in the Garden in the cool of the day.

Whether visible or not, we are given the impression that God was with those made in His own image, and they were used to meeting with Him. Not in a fiery pillar or out of a burning bush. This description certainly does not demonstrate that these meetings are, until this stage, in anyway confrontational. They meet with God, though obviously with deference and respect, but are treated by Him as friends.

GOD THE FATHER AS FRIEND:

Does God have friends? Of course.

Both Abraham and King David are described so. What else would you expect from the most human of all human beings? He created the emotions of man as well as man’s physiological being. God created man in His own image.

Try and get your head around this!

And tragically, for us, that is now about to change dramatically!

IN CONSEQUENCE:

“Then the LORD God called to the man, ‘Where are you?’ He answered, ‘I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so, I hid'” (vs 9-10).

With his newly found knowledge of good and evil, the man has become aware of the possibility that God might view the exposure of his flesh as unseemly. And then, arising out of what they have done and their attempts to clothe themselves, they have become fearful of possible consequences – at the very least, causing God displeasure.

God speaks again:

“And he said, ‘Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?’ The man said, ‘The woman you put here with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it'” (vs 11-12).

Adam is pleading the ‘Fifth’!

“Then the LORD God said to the woman, ‘What is this you have done?‘” (v 13a).

The woman attempts to completely divert the blame.

“The woman said, ‘The serpent deceived me, and I ate'” (v 13b).

Here is another new type of reasoning tinged with untruth. Prior to eating the forbidden fruit, would either of them know the ramifications of deceit? And in attempting to place all the blame on Satan, she twists the implication of her own willingness to eat the fruit for the imagined gain that Satan has beguiled her with: “You will be as gods.” And so, she lies.

“So the LORD God said to the serpent, ‘Because you have done this, ‘Cursed are you above all livestock and all wild animals! You will crawl on your belly and you will eat dust all the days of your life. And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel'” (vs 14-15).

THE ALMOST ETERNAL REPERCUSSIONS OF THEIR SIN PASSES TO ALL FUTURE MANKIND:

“To the woman, He said, ‘I will make your pains in childbearing very severe; with painful labor you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you‘” (v 16).

To Adam, He said, ‘Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat from it,’ Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat food from it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return‘” (vs 17-19).

THE EXPULSION IS OUR LOSS UNLESS ‘WE’ CHOOSE TO BE RECONCILED:

And so, God took away from Adam his bountiful provision of plenty in the Garden. From here on, no ‘freebies.’ Whatever man eats, he will earn through his own sweat. Man will labor all his life for his daily bread, his survival only ensured by his own hands and not by a benevolent father.

At this point, Adam names his wife, and she becomes the mother of mankind (v 20).

Because they will soon be banished from the Garden where {we can only conjecture} it was so maintained as to have constant temperature with no sudden changing climatic conditions, God sees to it that they are more adequately clothed to protect them from the elements to which they will now be exposed.

“The LORD God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them” (v 21).

“And the LORD God said, ‘The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever'” (v 22).

Whatever God’s ultimate plan had been for the pair of them had they had not sinned by disobedience to His covenant, it has now been lost.

“So the LORD God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken. After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life” (vs 23-24).

My impression is that by placing a guard on the east entry to the Garden, and the flaming sword to guard the path to the ‘tree of life,’ the Garden was not destroyed. I am assuming that it exists in God’s care.

SUMMING UP:

We, as ‘fallen man,’ have never been granted insight as to why the Garden contained these two trees of infinite power!

Were they to be part of God’s future plan for this higher man?

Obviously, at this point, our Father did NOT want His new creation to become God-like. Unsophisticated as they were, still learning the extent of their own reach, to have so armed them could only have had even more tragic consequences. God does not appear, from the scriptural account, to have this in mind for His creation at this stage of their new existence.

Mankind now becomes a perfect foil for the wiles of Satan and the angels that sided with him against God, when expelled from Heaven and allowed to make the Earth their home. And though initially given watch over man (the ‘watchers,’ as described in the book of Enoch), their own descent into evil is eventually to get drastically worse.

As we confront the story of our fall from the grace of God, it is clearly the preamble for what is to follow down through the ages of man. Left to his own devices and prone to further sin, ‘fallen’ man will continually become victim to his newfound nature and to the knowledge of good and evil. Within this knowledge, he will wage constant war with himself and certainly with other men.

To be continued with Part III: Har Shatan and the Decline of Man.

Denis Bowden

denisjbowden@gmail.com