TWFW: Paul at Mars Hill

I’m taking part in a new blog meme and I encourage you guys to join in! It’s hosted by Jean at Mohawk Valley Christians, a new blog; and it’s called The Word for Wednesday.

My Word for Wednesday is this:

Now while Paul waited for them at Athens, his spirit was provoked within him when he saw that the city was given over to idols. Therefore he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and with the Gentile worshipers, and in the marketplace daily with those who happened to be there. Then certain Epicurean and Stoic philosophers encountered him. And some said, “What does this babbler want to say?”
Others said, “He seems to be a proclaimer of foreign gods,” because he preached to them Jesus and the resurrection.

And they took him and brought him to the Areopagus, saying, “May we know what this new doctrine is of which you speak? For you are bringing some strange things to our ears. Therefore we want to know what these things mean.” For all the Athenians and the foreigners who were there spent their time in nothing else but either to tell or to hear some new thing.

Then Paul stood in the midst of the Areopagus and said, “Men of Athens, I perceive that in all things you are very religious; for as I was passing through and considering the objects of your worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO THE UNKNOWN GOD.

“Therefore, the One whom you worship without knowing, Him I proclaim to you:

“God, who made the world and everything in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands. Nor is He worshiped with men’s hands, as though He needed anything, since He gives to all life, breath, and all things. And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings, so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; for in Him we live and move and have our being, as also some of your own poets have said, ‘For we are also His offspring.’

“Therefore, since we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold or silver or stone, something shaped by art and man’s devising. Truly, these times of ignorance God overlooked, but now commands all men everywhere to repent, because He has appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by the Man whom He has ordained. He has given assurance of this to all by raising Him from the dead.”

And when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked, while others said, “We will hear you again on this matter.” So Paul departed from among them. However, some men joined him and believed, among them Dionysius the Areopagite, a woman named Damaris, and others with them.

Acts 17:22-34

Almost every evening at dinnertime, I say to the children, “Today I went to…” and I tell them where in the world I visited that day. Because I am a member of Entrecard, I have been exposed to a wide variety of people, nations, customs, and languages all around the world. It is amazing to virtually visit different places in the world! I tell my kids about where I went that day- about the Chinese New Year (telling my children “Gong Hai Fat Choi” for Chinese, or “Xing Nian Kwai Le” for Mandarin); telling them about Germany’s castles; describing Ireland’s rural pasturelands and stories about sheep shearing; praying for the Filipinos who suffer through terrible floods and mudslides, and so many other places and people.

And I wonder: do these people know the good news, that Jesus Christ has come, and will soon be back? Do they know the persecution that occurs in their country? Do they see Christians persecuted? What do these people think about every day?

So I am reminded of Paul the Apostle, when he strolled into Athens. He went to the busiest area in the city, the place where people went to hear all the news of the day- Mars Hill, at the Aeropagus. And he simply and clearly told them the gospel. Some sneered, some tolerated, and some followed. I suppose that is the work of the evangelist, summarized- a lot like the parable Jesus told about the sower of the seeds (Matthew 13). That sower had a 25% return rate when it came to “plants,” but really a 100% return rate for obeying God. Food for thought.

Anyway, that’s my Word for Wednesday. Check out Jean’s blog for more!

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