Sunday February 22, 2015 | Brianna Millett
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.
This week, Brianna Millett addresses how we are to respond to the “mixed signals” we get from the multitude of competing viewpoints in our modern world. How do we state our beliefs effectively? And what does the Bible teach about sharing the Gospel with unbelievers?
Our world presents us with a constant barrage of “mixed signals,” which can make it difficult to know which messages are true and which are off-track. How should we respond? How do we add our voice into the mixed messages out there? Do we get louder so our voice will be heard, or are we better off just keeping our viewpoints to ourselves?
The first thing we need to do is to dismantle our notion that we need to find the right dogma to defend. The Bible clearly shows that God has a better way to present His message, and it’s nothing new – God wants His children to love one another.
In Acts 17, we see that Paul was “deeply distressed” by all the idols that surrounded him when he was in Athens. Yet even in his distress, Paul didn’t try to convince the locals that their mixed signals were wrong by making his message louder or more forceful, nor did he remain quiet. Paul knew from personal experience that God is for people even when they’re off track, and that God meets people where they’re at, so Paul simply began to dialog and build respectful relationships with the locals. That, in turn, led to them inviting Paul to stand up and share his beliefs right in the epicenter of the philosophical culture of his day. And what Paul shared served to build a bridge by finding some commonalities between them rather than focusing only on differences, (“I see you’re very religious people…”). Paul was also then able to present the Gospel to them through their worldview. For example, Paul specifically used one of their pagan idols as a familiar frame of reference for them, from which they would be better able to understand the uniqueness of the God of Israel. Sure, some scoffed at Paul’s beliefs, but other Athenians became committed followers of Jesus that day.
Similarly, Jesus did not send his disciples out with instructions to use “my way or the highway” conversion tactics. Rather, He sent His disciples out to build relationships with lost and broken people. In one instance, Jesus sent 70 of his Jewish disciples, two by two, into Samaria. Samaria was a hostile place towards the Jews, but Jesus did not send them to confront the Samaritans – He sent them to love the Samaritans. He told them to bring peace into each house they entered, and when they found a house that welcomed them, they were to stay right there with that family. They were to eat what the family ate – meaning some mutuality and reciprocity was instructed, as building genuine relationships requires a two-way connection to be established. It was only after the bond of a caring relationship had begun that Jesus instructed his disciples to proclaim that the Kingdom of God had come to them.
So we find that when we serve one another and build loving relationships with each other, it is then that we will both see Jesus Christ in one another. And that is God’s plan that is free from mixed signals.