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Acts 17:16-31
Now while Paul was waiting for them at Athens, his spirit was provoked within him as he saw that the city was full of idols. 17 So he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the devout persons, and in the marketplace every day with those who happened to be there. 18 Some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers also conversed with him. And some said, “What does this babbler wish to say?” Others said, “He seems to be a preacher of foreign divinities”—because he was preaching Jesus and the resurrection. 19 And they took him and brought him to the Areopagus, saying, “May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? 20 For you bring some strange things to our ears. We wish to know therefore what these things mean.” 21 Now all the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there would spend their time in nothing except telling or hearing something new.
22 So Paul, standing in the midst of the Areopagus, said: “Men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious. 23 For as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription: ‘To the unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. 24 The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, 25 nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. 26 And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, 27 that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually 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 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.”
Hidden Beauty | Tulum, Mexico | February 2024He became unglued. “These people come here and are trying to change our laws and the whole country!” I thought he was talking about foreign immigrants. But he was talking about people coming from California to Texas, and wanting to change things in Texas to be more like California – the very place they had come from. You can guess what I think about that – but that is not the issue at stake here. Nor is it my point.
In fact, the whole point is quite unrelated to people usurping our rights, or changing our culture. It is actually about the exact opposite. It’s about God bringing people to us, so that we can have an impact on them. This is not easy challenge. But it is our calling and commission. Our responsibility. God, Paul says, “made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him.”
It’s actually a two-way street. Not only is it our responsibility to reach out to others, but he puts people into places he has designed for them, so that they would reach out to him, and find him, and worship him, and acknowledge him as creator of all, and the one in whom we live and move and have our being.
My unglued friend who was railing against those Californians, might well have simply asked, “Do you have any idea why you are here in Texas?” They might say, “We decided to come here because we got jobs in Tesla, or Dell, or Samsung.” And to that we might say, “I believe there is another reason. A more important one.” Who knows where the conversation might go from there.
Paul’s witness intrigued the philosophers on Mars Hill. We’ll see where that went next week as we follow this story forward. But for now, suffice it to say that he used the opportunity at hand to share the Good News of Jesus, and pointing people to him who will judge the living and the dead.
David Bahn - Reflections 
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