Acts 2:37-42; 17:16-34
37 Now when they heard this, they
were cut to the heart and said to Peter and to the other apostles,
"Brothers, what should we do?" 38 Peter said to them, "Repent,
and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ so that your sins
may be forgiven; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. 39 For the
promise is for you, for your children, and for all who are far away, everyone
whom the Lord our God calls to him." 40 And he testified with many other
arguments and exhorted them, saying, "Save yourselves from this corrupt
generation." 41 So those who welcomed his message were baptized, and that
day about three thousand persons were added. 42 They devoted themselves to the
apostles' teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.
…
16 While Paul was waiting for
them in Athens, he was deeply distressed to see that the city was full of
idols. 17 So he argued in the synagogue with the Jews and the devout persons,
and also in the marketplace every day with those who happened to be there. 18
Also some Epicurean and Stoic philosophers debated with him. Some said,
"What does this babbler want to say?" Others said, "He seems to
be a proclaimer of foreign divinities." (This was because he was telling
the good news about Jesus and the resurrection.) 19 So they took him and
brought him to the Areopagus and asked him, "May we know what this new
teaching is that you are presenting? 20 It sounds rather strange to us, so we
would like to know what it means." 21 Now all the Athenians and the foreigners
living there would spend their time in nothing but telling or hearing something
new. 22 Then Paul stood in front of the Areopagus and said, "Athenians, I
see how extremely religious you are in every way. 23 For as I went through the
city and looked carefully at the objects of your worship, I found among them an
altar with the inscription, ‘To an unknown god.' What therefore you worship as
unknown, this I proclaim to you. 24 The God who made the world and everything
in it, he who is Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in shrines made by
human hands, 25 nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything,
since he himself gives to all mortals life and breath and all things. 26 From
one ancestor he made all nations to inhabit the whole earth, and he allotted
the times of their existence and the boundaries of the places where they would
live, 27 so that they would search for God and perhaps grope for him and find
him—though indeed he is not far from each one of us. 28 For ‘In him we live and
move and have our being'; as even some of your own poets have said, ‘For we too
are his offspring.' 29 Since we are God's offspring, we ought not to think that
the deity is like gold, or silver, or stone, an image formed by the art and
imagination of mortals. 30 While God has overlooked the times of human
ignorance, now he commands all people everywhere to repent, 31 because he has
fixed a day on which he will have the world judged in righteousness by a man
whom he has appointed, and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him
from the dead." 32 When they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some
scoffed; but others said, "We will hear you again about this." 33 At
that point Paul left them. 34 But some of them joined him and became believers,
including Dionysius the Areopagite and a woman named Damaris, and others with
them.
On February 7, 1999 in a borrowed
building in Grand Rapids, Michigan, a small group of nervous Christians
gathered to hold the first worship service of a new church start. They had no
real idea what they were doing; they just knew they wanted to try something…different.
They didn’t advertise the service; in fact, the sign that someone had rented
for the front of the building was sent back. “People have to want to find us,” they said. Now, to
most church folks, such an approach to starting a church is nothing short of
crazy, but they took the chance. When that first Sunday morning came in
February, the leader of this new church was hurried to the triangle-shaped
windows in the front of the building to look out in the parking lot, and here is
his own recollection of what he saw: “Cars and people everywhere…there were
traffic jams in every direction; they had run out of chairs; and people were
giving up trying to get through the traffic and just pulling over on the side
of the road, parking, and walking the rest of the way. Chaos…There were well
over 1,000 people there the first Sunday.”[1]
Over one thousand people there the
first Sunday?! Well, as you can imagine, they tried to be realistic about the
situation, thinking perhaps this first Sunday was so well attended simply out
of curiosity. The next Sunday, however, there were even more people, and with
each week more and more people joined this new “thing”—this church. By that September
they were holding three services with some 4,000 people in attendance every
Sunday. Today, as we are gathered here in this room for worship, nearly 10,000
people (over several services) will gather for worship outside of Grand Rapids,
Michigan in a converted shopping mall called Mars Hill Bible Church.
If you could wind the clock of
Christian history back some two thousand years, back to the birth of Christ’s
Church, you may find a similar story to that of Mars Hill in Grand Rapids. In
the second chapter of Luke’s second volume called Acts, we hear the story of how the apostles gathered together in
one place on the day of Pentecost (the most popular of Jewish festivals in the
day) after the resurrection and ascension of Christ. It was while they were
gathered together in this one place that Acts 2:2 tells us there
was “a
sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house.” Tongues
of fire fell on each of them, and they began speaking in other languages as the
Holy Spirit filled them. It must have been some sight to see, because we’re
told later on in Acts 2:12 and 13 that “All were amazed and perplexed, saying to
one another, ‘What does this mean?’ But others sneered and said, ‘They are
filled with new wine.’”
It was in response to this
accusation of intoxication that Peter stands up with the other eleven apostles
and begins to preach to those who looked on this strange sight. Acts
2:14-36 records the words of Peter’s sermon (arguably the first in the
history of Christ’s Church) as he retells the story of Israel and how Jesus
came as the perfect fulfillment of that story, and in the passage we’ve read
here today (earlier in the service) we see the response to Peter’s words in verses 40-42: And he testified with many other arguments and exhorted them, saying,
"Save yourselves from this corrupt generation." So those who welcomed
his message were baptized, and that day about three thousand persons were
added. They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and fellowship, to the
breaking of bread and the prayers. Did you catch that in verse 41? “That day about three thousand persons were added.”
That must have been some sight in itself, to see three thousand people come to
faith in Christ in one church service, at the end of one sermon. I imagine the
founding members of Mars Hill Bible Church and those first apostles at
Pentecost must have felt the same way—overwhelmed and overjoyed to see such an
enormous response to the proclamation of the Good News of Christ.
Of course, that’s what we all want
isn’t it? We want to pull into a full parking lot on Sunday morning, walk into
a crowded sanctuary, and watch as countless people come forward during the
invitation to join the work of the Kingdom of God. We want to see our
attendance numbers rise, the church coffers fill, and the budget jump back in
the black. We want to see innumerable children, youth, and young people descend
on our church building every time the doors are open. We want to see
hundreds—thousands even—join this church. We want Pentecost! We are, however,
so often faced, not with the response of Pentecost, but with the reality of
Mars Hill—and not the one in Grand Rapids, Michigan. No, I’m talking about the
original Mars Hill, the Areopagus in Athens, Greece, the place where the
Apostle Paul experienced the harsh reality of a pluralistic society’s response
to the Good News of Jesus Christ.
But before we get to Paul’s story, let
me share with you another story, similar to the back story of the successful
mega-church in Grand Rapids, but with a slightly different result. You see, just
over a decade ago, several like-minded Christians gathered around a table in
the conference room of the Coffee Baptist Association in New Brockton, Alabama
(right where the buckle comes together on the Bible Belt). They gathered
together to pray and discuss the possibility of starting a new church. They prayed,
consulted professionals, did the research, and determined that there was a
growing area of Enterprise, Alabama that had no church within a radius of a few
miles, so as they prayed, they decided to begin the process of planting a
“church on the circle” (which later became the name of the church start).
They started with about a dozen
people meeting in various places as they became available, and before long the
church saw about one hundred people worshipping and laboring together as the
Church on the Circle. However, after having a revolving door of leadership and
a pastor who left them with the suggestion of disbanding and joining with
another dwindling congregation in the area, the Church on the Circle became of
church of two…not two-hundred…not two dozen…just TWO. As discouraging as such a
story may seem, these two individual took the words of Christ in Matthew
18:20 seriously: “For where two or three are gathered in my
name, I am there among them,” and they began praying again for God’s
direction. Today, as we are gathered in this place for worship, the Church on
the Circle is meeting in the auditorium of a local Christian academy with
around fifty worshippers. Even after a decade, these faithful followers of
Christ have not seen their version of Pentecost; they have not looked out the
windows to see the parking lot full and the seats overflowing, yet they
persevere in their faith in the Christ who calls them to worship and to the
work of the kingdom. They are living in the reality of Athens.
We first hear about Paul’s visit to
Athens in Acts 17:16, when the apostle arrives in the city alone, waiting
for Silas and Timothy, his co-laborers in the gospel. We hear in that verse
that, “While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he was deeply distressed to
see that the city was full of idols.” Athens has been a major
metropolitan center for centuries. In Paul’s day it was the capital of Attica
in the province of Achaia, the former capital of the Greek Empire, an ancient
center for the arts, learning and philosophy, home of Plato's Academy and
Aristotle's Lyceum.[2] The ancient Roman
philosopher Cicero made the claim that Athens was singularly responsible for
the reputation of Greece. It was a city not only filled with culture, but it
was a city overrun with temples to all sort of idols.[3]
Paul, with his heart troubled by the sight of such idolatry, took his
concerns to the local synagogues and even to the public markets where the
locals would often discuss and debate all manner of topics, including the gods
and various religions. Now, the locals in Athens (the Athenians) loved to hear
and discuss new things, and to them, Paul was the latest thing to breeze into
town. So after discussing the nature of Paul’s arrival in verse 18, they ushered
him to the Areopagus, Mars Hill, a popular place where trials were often held,
speeches given, and debates occurred. Once Paul had their attention he began in
verse
22 with what is easily the most rhetorically perfect speech in all of
the New Testament. Over ten verses, verses 22-31, Paul crafted an
explanation of the gospel that would make many modern-day apologists stand up
and applaud. He began with creation, pointing out how God is Creator and
therefore cannot be made by human hands. Paul quoted some of their own poets
and philosophers in order to make a contextual connection with his audience.
Paul spoke of their enigmatic temple to an unknown god and pointed out that
people are the groping offspring of God. Finally, masterfully, Paul wound his
rhetoric back to the truth of the gospel in verses 30 and 31: “While God has
overlooked the times of human ignorance, now he commands all people everywhere
to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will have the world judged in
righteousness by a man whom he has appointed, and of this he has given
assurance to all by raising him from the dead."
Now, after all of this, this wonderfully apologetic explanation of the
gospel to an eager audience in a mass metropolis, one would expect a picture
similar to Pentecost after Peter’s sermon. One would expect that the crowds
would clamor to Paul, eager to hear more about this God and the resurrection he
promises…but that doesn’t happen. No, Paul, despite his admirable attempt, saw
no mass conversion in Athens; he saw no great flood of faith, no numbers worth bragging
about or reporting. We heard in verses 32-34, “When they heard of the
resurrection of the dead, some scoffed; but others said, ‘We will hear you
again about this.’ At that point Paul left them. But some of them joined him
and became believers, including Dionysius the Areopagite and a woman named
Damaris, and others with them.” Paul received little more than a nod of
interest and a handful of converts, but he planted no church there in Athens.
Paul’s experience at Athens stands in stark contrast to Peter’s experience at
Pentecost, yet Paul’s experience ought to feel very familiar to us.
Like Paul in Athens, we are in the midst of an extremely pluralistic
culture. All around us, people worship at the various altars of our day:
consumerism, selfishness, luxury, and even patriotism. Our friends, families,
and neighbors are lured by the promises of this world, yet they are willing to
give at least a nod of approval to the God of creation and redemption (just as
the Athenians were willing to erect a temple to an unknown god). Even here in
the South, the Bible Belt, we are surrounded on all sides by competing
narratives with the gospel, yet we still long for, we still hope for, we are
still dissatisfied unless we see…Pentecost.
And that is where I think we can learn most from Paul’s story. While Paul
preached an immaculate message to a crowd eager to listen, the response he
received was minimal at best. Paul, however, did not give up on the gospel he
proclaimed. He did not see the lack of response as failure. He pressed on with
his mission, and would go on to start churches across the Roman Empire and make
plans to take the gospel as far west as Spain. Now, you and I, we gather in
this room week after week, some of you have been gathering in this room for years,
even decades, and we have yet to see anything like Peter’s experience at
Pentecost. No, in fact, it seems we are regularly faced with Paul’s experience
at Athens. But let us, like Paul, not lose hope in the gospel we proclaim. We
may never see the mass movement of Pentecost on this hill in Anniston, but that
just might not be what God has for us. We may indeed be called to simply be the
faithful, relatively few who gather in this place for worship and scatter into
our communities for the kingdom of Christ, living in the reality of Athens and
praying for our own version of Pentecost.
Let us be faithful in ministering here, where we are, in our own Athens.
Let us be faithful in praying for the ministries of our church, so that we may
see our own Pentecost. May each of us dedicate ourselves to the work God calls
us to right here, right now, so that we may see the kingdom of God grow in our
midst.
Let us pray.
