Up Until Now, God Has Overlooked Your Lifestyle, But Not Any More
28 “ ‘In him we live and move and have our being’; as even some of your own poets have said, “ ‘For we are indeed his offspring.’ 29 Being then God’s offspring, we ought not to think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of man. 30 The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, 31 because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.”
Acts 17:28–31 ESV Read More
Paul has been talking to the Areopagus about the One True God in relation to the other ideas they have about gods. He is not served by human hands, He doesn’t live in a temple, He isn’t limited by boundaries. You can almost see all of them nodding their head as he goes through his argument. They would probably agree with his quote of their own people that “we are indeed His offspring” too.
Next Paul takes a logical turn. He relates the obvious about God and Man. If we are God’s offspring, and we aren’t made out of wood or stone or gold, then we shouldn’t believe that God is either. If we aren’t an art piece carved out of some substance by the work of a craftsman’s skill and imagination, we shouldn’t think that God is that way either. Paul then immediately gives that thinking a little backhanded encouragement. He basically says ”That was stupid and God has overlooked that thinking until now!” And then he tells them to think differently and repent.
Up until this point, everything in the conversation has been pretty reasonable. There has been an appeal to logic, historical art has been quoted, and compliments exchanged. This has been a good and classy discussion. The next two points Paul brings up are the things that really set the church apart in the early days, and they set Her apart today too.
God is going to judge the whole world based on faith in Jesus
God showed Jesus’ kingship by raising Him from the dead
This is again one of those scary and comforting at the same time statements. We’re doomed but God has provided a rescue. More than telling the Athenians any way to live or rules to change, Paul centered his presentation on Jesus. He walked them through a process of discerning who God was and that path led them straight to learning about Jesus.
Some reacted with mockery. Some wanted to hear more about it another time. Either that was a polite rejection or they need some time to consider this. It might be hard to turn from a life-long practice of thinking that Athena ruled from on top of a mountain somewhere. But some men and women joined Paul and believed in Christ. These people would go on to learn more about Jesus every day from Paul.
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