Culture Shock – 4/25/10
Sermon Series: Acts – Faith Explosion
Title: Culture shock
Text: Acts 17:16-21day
Introduction: Something about encountering a culture so different, so alien from the one that you are used to that you are left feeling off balance, confused, disoriented.
Transition: Let’s catch up to this passage a little bit from where we left off last week. Last week we were with Paul and his companions as they encountered some very different people in Philippi; Lydia, the Grecian slave girl who was inhabited by a demon, and the Philippian jailer and his family. You remember that the reason that Paul and his companions were in jail was because they were accused of sedition by the owners of the slave girl who had seen their money making machine vanish when the girl was no longer possessed. They told some lies to the magistrates who had Paul and Silas beaten and thrown into prison. Well the next morning they decide to let Paul and Silas go. When Paul gets word that he is freed he sends back word that as a Roman citizen his rights have been severely violated and he is not going anywhere until they show up and apologize for their actions. After this event they leave Philippi and travel west by Southwest and go through Amphipolis and Apollonia and then onto Thessalonica where they establish another new born congregation. After persecution erupts there from people who had traveled from Philippi then Paul and his companions travel on to Berea where another congregation is established. Paul leaves Silas and Timothy there in Berea and travels, probably by sea south down to Athens.
When Paul goes to Athens he is leaving Macedonia and going down into Greece. Athens, although it has decreased in stature from what it once was at this time is still the leading academic center of Greece. It also the city that displays
I. Encountering the Culture
a. Opening our Eyes – What is seen
i. Paul saw a “city that was full of idols” (v. 16)
1. It would have been very easy for Paul to have simply wondered around this magnificent city and gawked like a tourist. This ancient city of Athens would have been an incredible world to behold. The Acropolis – which dominated the landscape of the ancient city – was described by one ancient writer as “one vast composition of architecture and sculpture dedicated to the national glory and the gods.” The agora was a marketplace dominated by incredible stoas. The word used to describe the city says literally that it was smothered in idols. In the Parthenon was a 40 ft. tall ivory statue of Athena with a gleaming huge spear point that was visible on a sunny day up to 40 miles away. There were statues of the entire pantheon of Greek gods constructed out of gold, silver, marble, ivory, stone and brass. Ancient Athens was literally a feast for the eyes. It would have easy to simply tour and stare instead when he looked at the cultural center of Greece he was overcome with the spiritual aspects of the culture.
2. He saw a city that was honoring everything and everyone but God the creator of heaven and earth.
b. Opening our Hearts – What is felt
i. The text tells us that “his spirit was provoked inside of him.
1. The word which is used to describe Paul’s feeling is the same one which we get paroxysm – an epileptic fit. The verb used here also indicates that this feeling was something that Paul was experiencing over and over. As he was traveling through the city surveying all of the incredible sights that this culture had to offer he kept experiencing a continual settled reaction. Robertson says that this verb indicates that he was burning up with anger at it.
2. As Paul experienced this culture, this culture with its self inflated ideals and beliefs, that pretended to be the epitome of civilization but had no connection with their maker and designer, he was jealous for God.
3. Motivation for Mission
a. Obedience
b. Compassion
c. Jealousy for the Glory of God
II. Engaging the Culture
a. Engaging our mission
i. Through what we do
1. He engaged the culture where they worshipped.
a. “He reasoned in the synagogues with the Jews and the devout people.”
2. He engaged the culture where they lived.
a. “And in the marketplace every day with those who happened to be there.”
3. And where they learned.
a. He went along with the stoics and the epicureans to the Areopagus.
ii. Through what we say
1. The text indicates that some of these philosophers thought that he was babbler, others thought that he was a preacher of foreign divinities.
2. But even in this incredibly foreign culture the nature of his message was – “Jesus and the resurrection.”
III. Effective in engaging our culture
a. It takes courage
b. It takes confidence
