While Paul was waiting in Athens… 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. A group of Epicurean and Stoic philosophers began to debate with him. Some of them asked, “What is this babbler trying to say?”  – Acts 17:16-18

One of the reasons I often post here in response to our Men’s Bible Study is to help whatever we have learned take root and grow. I may prepare the lesson, but I am learning right along with everyone else. Add in the insight the guys offer along with the principle of “to teach is to learn” and you can see why I am always excited to be in church.

I learn as I prepare to teach; I learn when I am teaching; I continue to learn as I reflect.

This morning we talked about Acts 17 and Paul’s first few days in Athens. There is a lot in this story that is not just helpful but crucial as we think about communicating the Good News from Jesus in a world that is just as much of a challenge to reach – if not more so – today.

I say “more so” because today many people have become closed off to faith in Christ – even though what they’re rejecting is not Jesus but a misrepresentation. This makes it critically important that we tell the truth about the Good News in the way that we live and that we point people to Jesus rather than religion or politics or staking out ground in the culture wars.

You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts. – 2 Corinthians 3:3

In First Century Athens, Paul immediately engages the people he meets in conversation about faith. At the same time he also pays attention, taking care to understand who they are and where they are coming from.

I love the description of Athens as a place where people “spend their time doing nothing but talking about and listening to the latest ideas…” Not surprisingly, after Paul offers the Jesus message, all they can do is to say, “We would like to hear from you again….”

Is this an insatiable thirst for truth? Or more a kind of arrogance where, “We like what you have to offer but we’re going to pass because something better may just come along…”?

All these religions, all these impersonal and uncaring gods, all these philosophies, all these ideas and now the opportunity to move beyond the show going on inside their own heads and into a direct relationship with the Living God through Jesus.

But, “We have some other people to talk to… we’ll get back with you…”

It’s not the academic environment that is tripping them up, nor is it the thirst for knowledge. It’s the absence of humility. Jesus invites us to surrender ourselves and our own agenda and live in service of one another. Seek first God’s kingdom and everything else will fall into place.

“Seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us. ‘For in him we live and move and have our being,'” Paul says by way of encouragement. “As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring’” (vs 27-28)

But they are so impressed with themselves they are not wise enough to surrender their own egos and follow Jesus.

This is, I fear, where so many people find themselves today. So impressed with – and serving – their own egos that following Jesus isn’t even on the radar.

“Seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us.”

Go ahead, reach out – DEREK