Finding a way to relate. Acts, no. 46

Can you Relate?

Sometimes you know you’re out of your league, so you keep your mouth shut. Sometimes. 

Seems that I use that word a lot these days…sometimes. In 2015, I went to Harvard Law School for a week of mediation training - dispute resolution and negotiating.1 There were about 45 of us in the class, (yes, taught by Harvard law professors), and probably 40 of us were attorneys. I met people from all over the world--hostage negotiators from Europe, the leader of the Free Hong Kong movement, a U.N. worker and attorneys from down under. The first two days, I dressed the part - black, navy, white and serious - and listened a lot. By Day 3, game over - wore my pink dress, contributed a lot more in discussion and even talked about Jesus at dinner to the hostage guys from Holland and Belgium. True.

And just maybe in June of 2015 in Cambridge, Mass., at a gathering at the Harvard Faculty Club, I found out I’m a little like Paul. Sometimes.

In Acts 17, we just read that Paul had to get out of Dodge again (Berea), so he went ahead of his ministry partners to Athens, the leading city of Ancient Greece. For hundreds of years, the Athenians had been known for their intellectual philosophizing. . . think Socrates, Plato and Aristotle. Arriving in the city, Paul was deeply disturbed by what he saw. Everywhere he looked, there were idols--on the one hand, it was evidence that the people were hungry for God, but clearly, they were spiritually empty. 

Paul reasoned in the synagogue first, then went to the marketplace and finally, he was brought to the Aeropagus, where the ruling council sat, wanting to know Paul’s strange new thinking and teaching. Paul was not intimidated by their erudite speech, (think pink dress), and jumped into the deep end of the pool. 

I love this message of Paul’s--frankly, it is brilliant! We can learn a tremendous amount from how and what he spoke, Acts chapter 17, 16-34.

link: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Acts 17.16-34&vers...

The backdrop for Paul's speech is breath-taking: on the Acropolis with the Parthenon looming large above. Pictured above is the rocky Areopagus, (the rock outcropping in the foreground) also called Mars Hill, the meeting place for the city's supreme court and council of elders. The name, Areopagus, was derived from Ares, the Greek god of war, and referred to both the place and the council that met there.

We will look at the first part of his message today and note how Paul identifies with the Athenians’ desire for spiritual meaning. Right out of the gate, he builds a bridge. 

“Men of Athens, I notice that you are very religious in every way, for as I was walking along I saw your many shrines. And one of your altars had this inscription on it: ‘To an Unknown God.’ This God, whom you worship without knowing, is the one I’m telling you about." [This is our purpose and delight--to tell people we know the God for which they are searching! Paul uses their own inscription to introduce Jesus to them--‘to the Unknown God.]

“He is the God who made the world and everything in it. Since he is Lord of heaven and earth, he doesn’t live in man-made temples, and human hands can’t serve his needs—for he has no needs. He himself gives life and breath to everything, and he satisfies every need. [Your attention, Friend-- we are living in a time where people are just as lost as the Athenians Paul was addressing! People are not just looking for hope, they are also looking for meaning, identity, purpose and fulfillment, and doing so in all the wrong places. Stop and consider how true that is! I spent most of my life in the San Francisco Bay Area and then 21 years in South Orange County, California--both meccas of hedonism. “If I have” or “if I get” or “if, this…then I will be satisfied."]

“His purpose was for the nations to seek after God and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him—though he is not far from any one of us. For in him we live and move and exist. As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’ And since this is true, we shouldn’t think of God as an idol designed by craftsmen from gold or silver or stone. [In Him we live and move and have our being. (NIV). Paul used a line from one of their own poets to make his point that it is in Almighty God alone, not any of the 30,000 pagan gods they worshipped, that we find ourselves and true life.]2 

brief segue: in verse 34, Luke mentions two people by name who believed the gospel message, Dionysius and Damaris, both unique names. Yesterday afternoon, I swung into a discount retail store to browse around. While in the store, a loud alarm kept going off, as people were endeavoring to exit the store - sensors not removed, I guess. When I passed the security guard who was checking bags, I commented to her, 'You must go home with such a headache! It is every few minutes that alarm sounds. Is it always like this?' She courteously responded. And then I felt the familiar alarm within 'offer to pray for her - right now' And so I asked her if I might do so. She smiled graciously and said 'why yes, you can.' So I did--I quietly prayed for her right there. After, we exchanged a few more words and I asked her name. Guess what her name was? First time I have met anyone by this name - Damaris.4 As I reread these verses and was writing this morning I thought, 'Who could make up such a thing? I met a Damaris yesterday, and now I am writing about one who became a Jesus follower almost 2000 years ago in Athens when Paul shared Jesus standing on a rock.' Again I will say: there is nothing like the adventure that is the Christian life!

Back to Paul - you just gotta love him! Moved by the spiritual darkness of the people of Athens, desirous that they would come to know Jesus Christ, he leads with his heart, guided by his mind, and an observation of their desire for spiritual connection. Finding a way to relate to them, he succinctly tells the Athenians what God had revealed to Jeremiah:

"You will seek me and find me when you search for me with all your heart."3 You see, God wants to be found by us. Not sometimes... all the time.

Life only makes sense in God. 

Freedom through Jesus Christ alone.

You rocked at the Areopagus, Paul,

all because you found a way to relate.

Thanks... thanks a lot. I wanna learn from you,

and I cannot wait to meet you one day.

Hey Paul, are you a coffee guy or do you prefer tea? hmmm.

Coffee or tea? Another touchpoint to relate.

RELATE - song by For King & Country, check out the lyrics!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BIHUYeFez00&list=RDBIHUYeFez00&a...

Connect first.

Christine

PastorWoman.net

1 - This Harvard training followed a week of mediation training at Northwestern University in Chicago. While learning a lot about solving disputes, I met the most fascinating people--probably the most interesting person was a Russian fine arts dealer--went to dinner with her and an attorney from Nantucket. O, the conversations we had!

2 - Acts 17.22b-29

3 - Jeremiah 29.13

4 - Damaris is hoping to get into a place to live next week; will you join me in praying she has enough money for the deposit??