Latest / Reformed Thinking / Resident Aliens in Athens: Confronting Postmodern Paganism with the Sufficiency of Scripture

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Resident Aliens in Athens: Confronting Postmodern Paganism with the Sufficiency of Scripture · Reformed Thinking

0:00
Welcome to reform Thinking. You know, usually when we talk
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about diagnosing a problem. Like a medical issue or
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something. Let's see a medical issue.
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There's this built in expectation of just clean
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surgical precision. You fall off a ladder, you hurt
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your arm. You go to the hospital, The
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doctor puts you in an X-ray machine, pulls up that black and
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white image. The brake.
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Yeah, points to a jagged white line on the screen and says
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there is the brake, it's binary, it's visible, your arm is either
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broken or it's whole. And human beings, we crave that
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kind of binary diagnostic. Oh, for sure.
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We like categories to be neat, boundaries to be clear, and
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problems to be highly visible. It just, you know, gives us a
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sense of control. But then you step out of the
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hospital and into the world of cultural analysis, socio
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politics, global missions. Yeah, and X-ray machine is
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completely shattered. Completely.
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We're looking at a modern diagnostic landscape that is
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incredibly murky right now. The culture is presenting all
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these strange, contradictory symptoms that just defy the
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textbook predictions made over the last century.
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It's the definition of diagnostic Muddy Waters.
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I mean, the sociologists and philosophers of the 20th century
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made some very confident predictions about where human
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society was heading. And virtually all of them
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crashed into a wall of reality. Which sets up the mission of our
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conversation today. Right, so I want to talk to you,
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the listener directly for a second.
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Have you noticed how modern society, this hyper advanced
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technological world we live in, how it was supposed to become
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entirely secular? Scientifically driven.
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Yeah, scientifically driven. We were supposed to outgrow
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religion. And yet look around.
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Suddenly everyone is obsessed with astrology apps.
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Tarot card readings. Crystal healing and these
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intricate morning Wellness rituals that look, well, an
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awful lot like Pagan worship. The hunger for the supernatural
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hasn't disappeared, it's just mutated.
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And that mutation is the focal point of the material we are
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analyzing in this deep dive. Today, we're unpacking A
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fascinating set of writings specifically centering on
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missiologist Samuel Escobar's concept of the gospel moving
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from everywhere to everyone. And we're pairing his historical
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and missiological analysis with a rigorous expository breakdown
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of Acts Chapter 17. So our goal here is to map out
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this massive geopolitical shift in global missions.
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We're going to look really closely at the theological
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pitfalls that have swallowed up the modern mega church in its
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attempt to reach this changing culture.
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Yeah, the compromise. And then we want to extract the
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brilliant, uncompromising, apologetic strategy the apostle
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Paul used in ancient Athens so we can apply it to our current
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cultural moment. Because the collapse of cultural
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Christendom and the rise of this new postmodern paganism, it
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forces a hard return to the absolute sufficiency of
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Scripture. It really does, and the contrast
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between the Old World and the New World is striking.
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I mean, for generations, the baseline assumption of Western
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evangelicalism was that missions flowed in one distinct
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geographical direction. Right from the West to the rest.
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Yeah, it was viewed as a current running for the industrialized
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quote UN quote civilized W down to the Pagan rest of the world.
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The West was the sender, everyone else was the receiver.
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But the analysis we are reading makes it abundantly clear that
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paradigm is dead. Totally dead.
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The mission field is no longer a one way St., it is wildly
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multidirectional. To illustrate this, the author
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points to a very specific, highly visual event that
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occurred not too long ago. This is a great example.
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Yeah, picture a massive stadium in South America.
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It's a pregame soccer match between the national teams of
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Peru and Colombia. The television cameras are
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panning across the pitch, broadcasting to millions of
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viewers. And right there on the grass,
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they capture native shamans performing elaborate ancient
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religious sacrifices. They were making offerings to
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Pachamama, Mother Earth. Right on live television, they
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were attempting to secure a spiritual blessing for the
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national team. And what makes that scene so
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significant to our discussion is what was entirely absent from
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the field. The Catholic presence.
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Yes. In South America, which is
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historically a massive stronghold of institutional
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Roman Catholicism, there was number official Catholic
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presence leading a prayer. None.
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No Bishop, no priest offering a blessing?
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You might have seen a couple of players quickly crossing
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themselves, but the dominant public religious display was
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ancient indigenous paganism resurfacing right in the open
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air. It's a perfect snapshot of where
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we are. We're living simultaneously in a
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post Christian era and a postmodern era, right?
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But let's pause and define what that means, because the experts
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of the modern era got this completely wrong.
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If you look at the Titans of modern thought, people like Karl
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Marx, Friedrich Nietzsche, Sigmund Freud.
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The architects of the modern secular mind.
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Yeah, they all assume that scientific advancement in
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industrialization would act like an acid on the human brain.
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They believe it would dissolve the human craving for religion
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entirely. Marx famously believed religion
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was the opiate of the masses, right?
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Right. A coping mechanism for economic
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oppression that would simply vanish once wealth was
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redistributed. And then you have Freud.
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Freud viewed religion as an infantile illusion, a
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psychological crutch we would just discard as we matured.
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And Nietzsche, of course, announced the death of God,
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predicting that autonomous human reason would step in to fill the
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void. They operated on the myth of
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inevitable human progress. But they misunderstood human
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nature at a fundamental level. They thought we could just, you
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know, outgrow the need for the transcendent.
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Precisely, they fail to account for the biblical reality that
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humans are created as worshipping beings.
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Calvin's idol factory, yes. The human heart is an idol
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factory. It will continuously manufacture
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substitutes for the Creator. When people reject the true God,
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their craving for the divine doesn't just disappear, it
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attaches itself to created things.
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Their thinking becomes futile and their foolish hearts are
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darkened. So if the sociologists were
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wrong and the world is actually becoming more spiritual but less
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Christian. What does this mean for the
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average person sitting in a Pew in North America or Europe right
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now? It changes everything.
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To me, it suggests a complete reorientation of how we view our
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daily lives. The primary mission field is no
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longer a jungle on a distant continent.
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The frontier of missions is the local luxury shopping mall.
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It's the State University campus, and it's those glowing
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digital screens we hold in our hands for five hours a day.
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That is a critical realization. The battleground has shifted to
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our own backyards, and the texts we're examining point out the
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layout of a contemporary mega bookstore as a like a physical
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manifestation of this reality. Oh, this part of the source was
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fascinating. Yeah, if you walk into a major
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bookstore today and ask for the Christian theology section,
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you're going to find a tiny, sparse couple of shelves tucked
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away in a back corner, usually mixed in with general
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inspiration. Right.
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And then you turn around and that tiny section is completely
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dwarfed by towering, prominent displays dedicated to spiritism,
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Wicca, New Age, pantheism. Astrology guides and endless
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rows of manuals on consumeristic self cultivation.
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The culture is reading ravenously about the spiritual
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realm. Just not the biblical 1.
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Exactly. It makes me think of an analogy.
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The old model of missions was like a giant water tower
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supplying a whole town. The West was that massive water
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tower on the hill holding all the financial resources, the
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theological seminaries, the publishing houses.
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And it piped the water out to everyone else in the surrounding
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valleys. Right, but today that water
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tower has been decommissioned. The new model is like a global
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sprinkler system. I like that the what the gospel
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witness is shooting up from every direction, from the global
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S, from Asia, from Africa, hitting every spot including
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shooting back into the West. My question is, if the West is
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no longer the headquarters of Christianity, should we view the
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loss of our water tower as a tragedy to mourn or as an
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opportunity? We should view it as a necessary
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providential opportunity. OK, unpack that.
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Well, to understand why the water tower model sell apart, we
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have to look closely at the architectural history of the
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water tower itself. We have to analyze the concept
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of Christendom. Because that Western monopoly on
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cultural Christianity didn't just appear out of thin air, it
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had a very specific starting point.
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It did. The blueprint for Christendom
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was drawn up in the 4th century. Prior to that, Christianity was
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an illegal, frequently persecuted minority religion in
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the Roman Empire. Right, hiding in the catacombs.
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But then Emperor Constantine legalized Christianity with the
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Edict of Milan in 313 AD, and later in that same century,
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Emperor Theodosius I took it a massive step further and
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institutionalized it, making it the official mandatory state
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religion of the Empire. That is a massive paradigm
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shift. You go from hiding in catacombs
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to sitting in the halls of imperial power.
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And it created a massive hybrid entity.
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It forged 1/2 civil, half religious society.
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The prevailing assumption for the next 1500 years was that
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Christian authority covered the entirety of Western
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civilization. The Church in the state were
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inextricably linked. Inspiring laws, shaping social
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structures and dictating cultural norms.
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But our analysis brings in a sobering quote from the
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prominent historian Kenneth Scott Letteret.
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He studied this entire timeline and he observed that no
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civilization has actually ever incorporated the ideals of
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Christ. That observation is vital for
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understanding what Christendom actually created was a deeply
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compromised syncretism helps him The external finds of the
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religion, the holidays, the moral vocabulary, the
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architecture were preserved and often enforced by state
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coercion, but the actual regenerating work of the Holy
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Spirit was routinely sidelined. Let's breakdown the theological
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mechanics of why that happens. We can look at it through the
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lens of the Westminster Confession of Faith.
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Chapter 5 of the Confession outlines the doctrine of
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Providence. It teaches that God exercises
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sovereign, continuous Providence over all human history.
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The rise and fall of empires, the shifting of cultural
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boundaries, none of it is accidental.
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Therefore, the fall of Western Christendom is not a mistake.
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It is a divine purification process.
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It is God dismantling a system that was actually working
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against his intended design for the church, because when you
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have coerced state sponsored religion, you inevitably create
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a Society of nominal believers. People who are Christian in name
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only. Right.
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It creates converse through political convenience, social
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pressure, or outright legal mandate rather than through the
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sovereign grace of God. This directly violates the
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biblical doctrine of effectual calling, which is detailed in
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chapter X of the Confession. Can we unpack effectual calling
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for a second? I want to make sure you, the
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listener, really grasp the weight of this.
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If I try to force someone to be a Christian by passing a law,
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what is actually happening beneath the surface?
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To use a medical analogy, forcing outward religious
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compliance is like taking a patient who is flatlining A
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coma, dressing them up in a tailored suit, propping them up
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in a chair, and declaring them healthy.
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The outward appearance has changed, but the internal state
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is still deaf. Effectual calling teaches that
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humanity is spiritually dead. In sin, only the Holy Spirit can
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reach into a dead heart and impart new life, drawing that
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person effectively to Jesus Christ.
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So when the state enforces. Religion.
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You get the tailored suit, the outward conformity, but you
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bypass the need for inward regeneration.
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Which honestly brings a massive sense of relief to the current
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situation when you look at the collapse of cultural
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Christianity in the West. It feels scary at first, but by
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stripping the Church of its political privileges and those
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heavy colonial associations, the global missionary enterprise is
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actually freed. It is freed from the burden of
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exporting alien Western cultural habits along with the gospel.
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The author points to paragraph 10 of the Lausanne Covenant to
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back this up. Oh, right.
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The Lausanne Covenant is a major evangelical declaration on
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global missions, and paragraph 10 openly acknowledges this
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historical failure. For centuries, missions
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frequently exported an alien culture instead of focusing
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purely on biblical truth. Meaning missionaries would go to
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a tropical climate and insist the local converts wear heavy
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European wool suits to church. Yes, or they wood forest
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indigenous populations to sing specific European liturgies
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translated poorly rather than allowing them to worship the
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true God in their own cultural idiom.
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The local indigenous churches were frequently brought into a
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kind of cultural bondage to Western frameworks.
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The Gospel was wrapped in the flag of the ascending nation.
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Exactly. I want to pause and push back on
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this idea just a little bit. OK, I hear what you're saying
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about the theological problems of Christendom, but to a lot of
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people listening, the loss of cultural dominance feels like we
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are losing ground to the enemy. It feels like a retreat.
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Yeah, it feels terrifying to watch Christian morality
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disappear from the public square.
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Are you saying losing our home field advantage is actually a
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good thing? It is a painful thing,
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certainly. Losing social comfort is never
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easy. But is it a necessary purifying
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thing? Yes.
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It sounds a bit like a major corporation that has held a
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government sponsored monopoly for decades.
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That do you mean? Well, when you have a monopoly,
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you get lazy. Your product gets worse.
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Your customer service is terrible because you know people
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have no other choice. The state protects you, but then
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the government revokes the monopoly.
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Suddenly the subsidies are gone. Rivals enter the market.
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The business is terrified, but they're forced to trim the fat,
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innovate and actually make a good product again, rather than
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relying on steep protection to survive.
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That is a very apartment comparison.
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When you strip away the imperialistic associations, the
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cultural subsidies and the protection of colonial gunboats,
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the Church is forced to rely solely on the spiritual
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authority of her ascended. King, she could no longer rely
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on the local magistrate to enforce church attendance.
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The transition to a post Christian era is a purifying
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judgment on the compromises of Christendom.
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It burns away the wood, hay and stubble.
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OK, so if the monopoly is over and we are no longer the
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protected majority or the cultural standard bearers, who
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are we? What is our new identity in this
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landscape? Our identity is what the Apostle
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Peter describes as resident aliens or sojourners.
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Resident Aliens. That sounds like the title of a
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sci-fi movie, but it is actually the historical baseline for
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Christians. It is the normative sanctifying
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environment designed for the New Testament church.
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If you look at the first 3 centuries of church history, the
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early Christians did not expand their influence through
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legislative control or Supreme Court victories.
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No, they expanded as a marginalized, heavily persecuted
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cognitive minority. They were rescuing discarded
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infants from the trash heaps of Rome while the Empire mocked
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them. And Jesus was very clear about
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this expectation. He promised hatred from the
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world in John 15 Sandy saying If the world hates you, know that
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it has hated me before it hated you.
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We are definitely feeling that shift in the culture's attitude
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today. The ambient temperature has
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changed from mild annoyance to outright hostility.
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And if we're going to live as resident aliens, we need to
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understand the new landscape we're inhabiting.
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The analysis describes our current as a new postmodern
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paganism. Let's trace how we got here.
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Yeah, modernity made a massive promise.
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It promised a secular utopia built on science, reason and
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human rights. But that optimistic bubble burst
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violently in the 20th century. The horrors of totalitarianism,
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the sheer mechanized brutality of the Holocaust, the dropping
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of the atomic bomb. These events prove that advanced
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science and human reason do not cure the darkness in the human
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heart. They often just give it more
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efficient weapons. Modernity failed to deliver its
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utopia. And postmodernity is the
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resulting mood. It is the cynical hangover of
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that failure. Right.
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If reason and objective truth LED us to the gulag and the gas
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chambers, the postmodern mind says, then objective truth must
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be a lie. It represents A fierce revolt
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against absolute categories. It replaces objective reason
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with raw feelings, subjective lived experience, and
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unmitigated hedonism. The prevailing cultural liturgy
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is eat and drink for tomorrow we die.
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But beneath that loud, colorful party atmosphere, there is a
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crushing sense of existential dread.
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We are surrounded by unprecedented technological
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sophistication. We can communicate with anyone
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on the globe instantly. Yet modern individuals are like
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nomads roaming the earth looking for instant self realization.
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They are radically. Lonely because they are entirely
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disconnected from a true covenantal community.
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They're looking for vertical meaning in a horizontal world.
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Which perfectly illustrates the biblical diagnosis of the human
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condition found in the 1st chapter of Romans.
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Poles diagnosis. Yes, the Apostle Paul writes
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that humanity naturally suppresses the truth in
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unrighteousness. Because they refuse to
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acknowledge the incorruptible Creator.
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They exchange His glory for corruptible creaturely idols.
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They seek spiritual salvation in artificial material places.
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Our reading provides a brilliant, tangible illustration
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of this exact phenomenon. The author describes how the
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modern consumer economy has successfully turned luxury
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shopping centers into the new cathedral temples of this Pagan
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religion. Think about the architecture of
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a high end mall. It is designed to induce awe.
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The soaring glass ceilings, the pristine lighting, the ambient
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music. It functions psychologically the
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same way a medieval cathedral did.
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You walk in and the mannequins in the windows are the new
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patron Saints of beauty and success.
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You go to the cosmetics counter and it's selling you a tiny
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bottle of serum for $200, promising to stave off aging.
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It's essentially offering an artificial salvation from the
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decay of mortality. Exactly.
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And the checkout counter is the altar where you bring your
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sacrifice, your credit card to purchase a fleeting sense of
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identity and meaning. They are seeking an escape from
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the Curse of the Fall, attempting to purchase a
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reversal of death and insignificance through products.
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It's like a massive cultural sugar rush.
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Modern consumerism spikes your energy, gives you a quick hit of
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dopamine when you buy that new item, but an hour later you
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crash. And it leaves you absolutely
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starving for real sustaining nutrition.
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So here's the critical question. If the culture around us is
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starving for real community, real forgiveness and true
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meaning, how has the contemporary church tried to
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feed them? This is where the analysis
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becomes highly critical. Unfortunately, much of the
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contemporary church's response has been a massive theological
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capitulation. Instead of offering faithful
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biblical resistance to this consumer culture, a large
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segment of evangelicalism decided to mimic it.
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They adopted what missiologist Jim Pluteman astutely critiques
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as the factory paradigm of missions and church growth.
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The factory paradigm. Let's breakdown what Pluteman
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means by that. We're talking about the massive
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shift that occurred in the late 20th century, particularly with
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churches that pioneered the seeker sensitive movement.
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The analysis points directly to models popularized by
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megachurches like Saddleback and Willow Creek.
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According to Pluteman's critique, these models
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fundamentally redefine the nature of the Church.
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They stopped viewing the Church as the holy set apart Temple of
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the Living God. Instead, they began treating the
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Church as a commercial business entity that needed to be managed
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with corporate efficiency. Right.
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The unchurched person was no longer viewed primarily as a
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totally depraved Sinner needing resurrection.
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We reviewed as a consumer whose preferences needed to be
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satisfied. So if the consumer is
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intimidated by traditional worship, you change the worship.
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The critique highlights how this movement systematically stripped
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the Sunday gathering of historic liturgy, removed denominational
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markers, and severely watered down doctrinal depth to make the
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product more appealing to the target demographic.
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They replaced reverent expositional proclamation of
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scripture with theatrical entertainment, elaborate light
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shows, and therapeutic pop psychology Ted talks.
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The problem is this approach runs headlong into historic
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Reformed theology specifically, specifically the regulative
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principle of worship. Which is found in chapter text
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one of the Westminster Confession.
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Can you explain the mechanics of the regulative principle to
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someone who has never heard that term?
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Think of it like a strict prescription given by a master
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physician. The regulative principle
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dictates that God is sovereign over how He is to be approached.
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He makes the rules for his own worship.
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He is to be worshipped only in the ways he has explicitly
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prescribed in Scripture, namely the reading and preaching of the
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Word, prayer, the singing of psalms and hymns, and the
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administration of the sacraments.
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You're not allowed to add your own ingredients to the
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prescription just because you think they taste better.
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If the doctor gives you heart medication, you don't stir in
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chocolate syrup and glitter because it increases the
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marketability of the medicine you.
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Ruin the cure. Right in the Old Testament,
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Aaron's sons Nadab and Abihu decided to innovate God's
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worship by offering what the text calls strange fire.
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It was unauthorized worship, and it resulted in lethal divine
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judgment. Offering corporate marketing
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techniques and lighthearted entertainment in place of the
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pure, unfiltered preaching of the cross is offering strange
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fire before the Lord. And this theological compromise
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isn't just a Western phenomenon. The authors trace this critique
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into the Global South as well. Yeah, we're seeing the rapid
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rise of post denominational charismatic networks that are
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spreading A localized version of the prosperity gospel.
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It's the same consumeristic impulse, just with a different
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theological flavor. The prosperity gospel promises
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physical health and material wealth as guaranteed rights for
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the believer, entirely avoiding the biblical call to self
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denial, taking up the cross, and suffering for righteousness.
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Furthermore, you see charismatic figures in these networks making
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massive self aggrandizing claims.
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They claimed to hold modern day Apostolic offices, receiving
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direct new revelations from God. Which is a direct assault on the
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finality and absolute sufficiency of Scripture.
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It violates the Reformed cessationist view clearly stated
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in the very first chapter of the Westminster Confession.
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The confession affirms that the Canon of Scripture is closed.
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God's former ways of revealing his will to his people have
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ceased. We don't need new apostles
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because we have the completed Word of God.
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When leaders claim new revelation, they bind the
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consciences of their followers to their own authority rather
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than to Christ. It seems like the factory
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paradigm, whether it's the seeker sensitive model in the
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West or the prosperity model in the global South, is measuring
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success by the wrong metrics entirely.
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Oh, absolutely. They look at a spreadsheet and
22:51
see a crowd of 10,000 people and they declare it a massive
22:54
success based on attendance and entertainment value.
22:58
But true church growth is measured differently.
23:01
True church growth is measured by visible holiness in the
23:04
congregation, by rigorous doctrinal purity, and by the
23:08
faithful exercise of church discipline.
23:10
The factory paradigm reduces the miracle of spiritual formation
23:15
to super official, measurable outward behaviors.
23:18
It attempts to replace the sovereign, mysterious work of
23:21
the Holy Spirit in regenerating a dead heart with psychological
23:25
manipulation and slick marketing.
23:28
I'm going to step into the shoes of the devil's advocate for a
23:30
second because I know there are pastors listening who are
23:32
thinking, wait a minute, isn't the goal to get people in the
23:35
door? Right, the pragmatic argument.
23:37
Yeah, if we are fishing for men, shouldn't we use bait they
23:41
actually like? It's like changing the packaging
23:43
on a product so people will pick it up off the shelf.
23:46
If the core message stays the same, what does the packaging
23:49
matter? That is the most common defense,
23:51
but it relies on a flawed premise.
23:53
The gospel is not a commercial product to be managed, and the
23:57
church is not a retail store. The medium is the message.
24:01
When you alter the packaging to remove the offense of the cross,
24:04
you inevitably change the message itself.
24:07
If you invite people to a church by promising them a fun
24:10
therapeutic community that will help them achieve their personal
24:13
life goals, you have not preached the gospel.
24:16
You cannot offer a consumer friendly artificial salvation
24:20
and expect it to produce genuine tear stained repentance.
24:23
You end up winning them to the packaging, not to Christ.
24:26
So the seeker sensitive corporate model is a failure of
24:29
compromise. The prosperity model is a
24:32
failure of theology. Meanwhile, as the church
24:35
struggles with these internal compromises, the culture outside
24:38
is growing increasingly dominated by rival religions.
24:41
We aren't just dealing with polite secular agnosticism
24:44
anymore. No, the assumption was that
24:46
secularism would wipe the slate clean.
24:48
But secularism didn't wipe out old religions.
24:50
It just created a pluralistic vacuum.
24:53
If you walk through the capital cities of the West today,
24:55
London, Paris, Washington DC, the skylines are heavily dotted
24:59
with Islamic mosques and Hindu temples.
25:02
Islam in particular, has aggressively reemerged as a
25:05
primary geopolitical global rival to the Christian faith.
25:10
And what happens when a weakened consumer driven church suddenly
25:15
faces a multireligious onslaught and the aggressive spread of
25:19
secularism? We see a massive reactionary
25:22
movement. People get scared and they turn
25:25
to fundamentalisms. Our sources highlight this as a
25:28
major trap. It is a critical distinction we
25:31
must make. We must carefully distinguish
25:33
between true biblical orthodoxy and carnal political
25:38
fundamentalism. Orthodoxy is a joyful submission
25:41
to the truth of. Scripture, but in the West what
25:43
is often labeled as Protestant fundamentalism has degenerated
25:47
into an angry anti intellectual temperament.
25:49
Is driven by fear. It weds spiritual authority to
25:53
nationalistic politics and militaristic foreign policy.
25:56
It's the research of a crusader mentality.
25:58
People feel the culture slipping away, so they try to grab the
26:01
steering wheel of the state. They start confusing the
26:03
institutional church, which is the bride of Christ, with the
26:06
temporal political nation state. He wrapped the cross in the
26:09
national flag. Which is a severe violation of
26:11
the biblical doctrine of the two kingdoms outlined in chapter 23
26:14
of the Confession. God rules the world in 2
26:16
distinct ways. He rules the civil realm through
26:19
the magistrate, using the sword to maintain basic temporal
26:23
justice, but he rules the spiritual realm, the Church,
26:27
through His Word and spirit. The weapons of our warfare in
26:30
the Church are not carnal. We do not conquer human hearts
26:34
or nations for Christ through the ballot box, through
26:37
legislation, or through the sword.
26:38
We conquer through the foolishness of preaching.
26:41
The authors point out that the biblical text demands we
26:44
maintain an impartial, rigorous rejection of both extremes.
26:48
On the left hand, we have to reject the cowardly ecumenical
26:51
pluralism that softens the truth and says all religious paths are
26:55
valid attempts to reach God. But on the right hand, we must
26:58
equally reject the loveless, nationalistic aloofness of
27:02
political fundamentalism that treats the unbeliever as a
27:04
political enemy to be crushed rather than a captive to be
27:08
rescued. Both extremes are, in the end,
27:10
pragmatic attempts to secure power, safety and comfort
27:12
without actually relying on the absolute sufficiency of
27:15
scripture. Pluralism seeks safety through
27:17
compromise. Fundamentalism seeks safety
27:19
through political dominance. OK, this brings us to a massive
27:23
pivot point in our deep dive. If we reject the seeker
27:27
sensitive compromise that waters everything down and we reject
27:30
the angry political fundamentalist reaction that
27:34
tries to legislate morality. What is the middle path?
27:36
What does a purely biblical, uncompromising engagement look
27:40
like in a culture that is choking on rival idols?
27:44
To find that definitive biblical model, we have to close the
27:47
history books on the modern era. We need to walk backward in time
27:51
into the crowded, idle, filled streets of ancient Athens and do
27:55
a close analysis of Acts chapter 17.
27:57
Let's set the historical scene for you, the listener.
28:00
The year is roughly 51AD. The Apostle Paul is waiting in
28:03
Athens for his companions Silas and Timothy.
28:06
Athens is no longer the military superpower it once was.
28:09
No, but it is undeniably the intellectual, cultural and
28:12
philosophical capital of the ancient world.
28:15
It is the Oxford or Harvard of antiquity.
28:17
And the intellectual scene is dominated by two main
28:19
philosophical schools, the Epicureans and the Stoics.
28:22
We need to unpack these two groups because they perfectly
28:24
mirror our modern categories. The Epicureans were essentially
28:28
ancient materialists. They believed the universe was
28:31
just a random collision of atoms.
28:33
They were deists at best, believing the gods were distant
28:36
and uninvolved in human affairs. Therefore, they taught that the
28:40
highest good in life was the pursuit of tranquil pleasure and
28:44
the avoidance of pain. They're the ancient ancestors of
28:47
the modern secular materialists. Who says this life is all there
28:50
is? So maximize your comfort.
28:52
And then you have the Stoics the.
28:54
Stoics were pantheists. They believe that a divine
28:57
rationality, the Logos, permeated all of nature.
29:01
Everything was driven by strict, unalterable fate.
29:04
Their goal? Was to align their will with
29:06
this universal fate through severe self-discipline and the
29:09
suppression of emotion. They look a lot like the modern
29:12
spiritual but not religious crowd or people into New Age
29:15
determinism and manifesting. So Paul is walking through this
29:19
breathtaking city. It's an architectural marvel
29:22
full of majestic marble statues, temples and shrines.
29:25
And Luke, the author of Acts, records that as Paul looked at
29:27
all this beauty, his spirit was provoked within him.
29:31
The Greek word Luke uses there is paroxonetto.
29:33
Paroxonetto. Let's dig into the etymology of
29:36
that word, because it carries immense theological weight.
29:39
It's the root of our English word paroxysm.
29:41
Yes, which means a sudden, violent outburst of emotion.
29:45
It indicates A righteous anger, a deep visceral grief, and a
29:49
holy jealousy for the glory of God.
29:52
He isn't just mildly annoyed that the statues are blocking
29:54
the sidewalk. Not at all.
29:55
It is the exact same Greek word used in the Greek translation of
30:00
the Old Testament to describe God's blazing anger at Israel
30:04
when they built the golden calf in the wilderness.
30:07
So Paul isn't acting like an objective, sophisticated tourist
30:10
admiring Greek art. He isn't taking notes on their
30:14
architectural techniques. He is deeply cut to the heart,
30:17
grieved by the systematic robbery of God's glory.
30:20
He sees these brilliant people giving the worship that belongs
30:23
to the Creator to blocks of carved stone.
30:26
Which forces us to stop and ask a very difficult, piercing
30:29
diagnostic question of ourselves today.
30:32
Contrast Paul's holy grief with modern Christian reactions to
30:35
our culture. When Christians look at the
30:37
postmodern paganism around us, are they truly grieved by the
30:41
dishonor being done to God's name?
30:43
Or are they simply irritated that they have lost their
30:45
preferred social comfort and cultural privilege?
30:48
That is a devastating question. If our primary emotion is
30:52
irritation over losing our home field advantage, we will
30:55
inevitably turn to political fundamentalism to try and claw
30:59
that power back. We will fight for our own
31:01
rights. But if our primary emotion is a
31:03
holy grief for the glory of God, we will turn to evangelism.
31:07
We will fight for the souls of our neighbors.
31:09
And that is exactly the path Paul takes.
31:11
He channels that provocation into action.
31:14
He actively engages in two distinct spheres in the city,
31:18
the synagogue, which represents the religiously familiar ground.
31:21
And the marketplace, the agora, which is the publicly confused
31:24
secular arena. And in that public marketplace,
31:26
he encounters severe pushback. He's reasoning every day with
31:30
whoever happens to be there. And the elite philosophers hear
31:33
him. They mock him.
31:35
They call him a babbler, the Greek word that uses burmoligos.
31:38
Burmoligos. I love the literal translation
31:41
of this word. It literally means a small bird
31:44
that darts around picking up random scraps of seed from the
31:47
gutter. Yes, it was a highly derogatory
31:49
intellectual slur. In Athens, they were calling
31:52
Paul a scavenger. They were accusing him of being
31:55
a pseudo intellectual who picks up random scraps of
31:58
philosophical ideas without actually understanding any of
32:01
them and then tries to pass them off as his own wisdom.
32:04
It is the ancient equivalent of calling someone on a Wikipedia
32:07
skimmer. You know that person at a dinner
32:09
party who just regurgitates random facts they glanced at on
32:13
their phone in the bathroom, pretending to be an expert?
32:16
They looked at the Apostle Paul, the man who wrote Romans, and
32:20
dismissed the Gospel as foolish, uneducated nonsense.
32:23
Yet despite the intense intellectual snobbery and
32:26
mockery, Paul's relentless public reasoning gets their
32:30
attention. They realize he's talking about
32:32
a foreign deity. Specifically, he is preaching
32:35
about Jesus and the resurrection.
32:36
The Greek word Anastasis, which some Greeks mistakenly thought
32:40
was the name of the new goddess. Till they invite him to the
32:42
Areopagus. The Areopagus or Mars Hill.
32:45
This is the Supreme Court of Athens.
32:48
It is the Board of Education and the City Council all rolled into
32:52
one elite body. They bring him there and say,
32:55
may we know what this new teaching is that you were
32:57
presenting? And this leads to one of the
32:59
most brilliant, masterful theological addresses in
33:03
recorded history. Paul stands up in the middle of
33:06
this intimidating amphitheater of philosophers, and he begins
33:09
by pointing out a specific altar he noticed during his walk.
33:13
The altar had an inscription to the unknown God.
33:17
Notice his methodology here because it's crucial.
33:20
Historically, the Athenians were so superstitious that during
33:23
times of plague or famine they would erect these anonymous
33:27
altars. They wanted to ensure they
33:28
didn't accidentally offend any obscure local deity they might
33:32
have missed in their pantheon. Paul points to this monument of
33:35
their paranoia, but he does not validate their worship as saving
33:38
faith. He doesn't take the ecumenical
33:40
route and say you guys are already worshipping the true God
33:43
in your own special way, you just need a few more details to
33:46
complete the picture. Right, He doesn't flatter them.
33:48
He uses their own carved admission of ignorance to
33:52
introduce the true self revealing Creator.
33:56
He says, What therefore you worship as unknown.
33:58
This I proclaim to you. And then he immediately launches
34:01
into a declaration of God's acidity.
34:04
Acidity. This is the theological doctrine
34:06
of God's absolute self existence and complete independence from
34:09
His creation. Paul declares the God who made
34:12
the world and everything in it being Lord of heaven and earth,
34:15
does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human
34:18
hands as though he needed anything.
34:20
Let's use an analogy for a CD to make it stick.
34:23
Imagine a God who is like a household appliance.
34:25
If you unplug a lamp from the wall, the light goes out.
34:28
It depends on an external power source to function.
34:31
Pagan gods are like lamps. They need the sacrifices and the
34:34
temples of humanity to stay relevant and powerful.
34:37
But the biblical God is not a lamp.
34:39
He is the generator. He doesn't need to be plugged
34:41
into the universe to survive. He's the source of all energy,
34:44
life and breath. That is an excellent way to
34:47
conceptualize it. Paul's declaration of aseity
34:50
acts like a theological hammer. It directly refutes both the
34:54
Stoics, who erroneously identified God with the material
34:57
cosmos itself, and the Epicureans who thought the gods
35:00
were distant and unconcerned. Paul declares that God is both
35:04
distinct from creation and intimately involved in
35:07
sustaining it, giving life and breath to everything.
35:09
And then Paul makes a statement that completely demolishes the
35:12
pride of the Athenians. The Greeks were notoriously
35:15
ethnocentric. They believed they were
35:18
literally born from the soil of Attica, making them genetically
35:21
and culturally superior to all non Greeks whom they called
35:25
Barbarians. But Paul looks at them and
35:27
declares that God made all nations of mankind from one
35:30
single man. Think about the staggering
35:32
implications of that one sentence.
35:34
It completely demolishes racism, tribal pride, and the modern
35:38
secular myth that nations are just random historical accidents
35:41
resulting from evolutionary geography.
35:44
Paul asserts that our existence, our shared humanity, and our
35:47
exact geopolitical placement are entirely determined by his
35:51
sovereign divine decree. God allotted the periods and the
35:55
boundaries of their habitation. Here is where the sermon takes a
35:58
fascinating structural turn. Paul starts quoting their own
36:02
Pagan literature. He cites Epimeneties of Crete, a
36:05
philosopher from the 6th century BC who wrote in him.
36:09
We live and move and have our being.
36:11
And then he quotes Aratus, A Stoic poet from the 3rd century
36:14
BC who wrote for We are indeed his offspring.
36:17
He cites them, but we must be incredibly precise about what he
36:21
is doing. He is not endorsing their
36:23
pantheistic worldview. He is not saying Aratus was a
36:26
prophet. Wait, let me push back here on
36:28
behalf of the listener by quoting their own pop culture
36:31
and secular literature. Isn't Paul basically doing
36:33
exactly what the seeker sensitive pastors do?
36:35
We just criticized the Factory paradigm for using movie clips
36:38
and pop songs to build an audience.
36:40
How is Paul's use of EP amenities any different?
36:43
The motivation and the theological application are
36:45
completely different. The seeker sensitive model uses
36:49
cultural touchstones to entertain the audience, to make
36:51
them feel comfortable, and to dilute the offense of the
36:54
gospel. They are trying to show how cool
36:57
and relatable Christianity is. Paul, on the other hand, uses
37:01
their cultural vocabulary as a bridge to indict them of the sin
37:04
of idolatry. He is setting a logical trap.
37:07
Yes, he is demonstrating the reality of general revelation.
37:11
Even a Pagan culture totally devoid of scripture possesses
37:14
the suppressed, distorted knowledge of the true God
37:17
because the law is written on their hearts.
37:20
Paul uses their own poets to expose their logical
37:23
inconsistency. He is arguing if we are God's
37:26
offspring, as your own revered poet admits, then it is
37:29
completely irrational and insulting to think that the
37:31
divine nature is like a chunk of gold or silver fashioned by
37:34
human imagination. He doesn't affirm their culture,
37:37
he turns their own literature into a weapon to dismantle their
37:40
idols and establish the absolute supremacy of the creator.
37:43
He cuts off their escape routes. He has established who the true
37:47
God is, He has dismantled their false gods, and he is exposed
37:51
their ignorance. Now he stands at the precipice
37:53
of his address, and he delivers a climax that leaves absolutely
37:56
no room for philosophical neutrality.
37:59
Well announces that the times of ignorance are officially over.
38:02
God overlooked those former times in the sense of
38:05
withholding immediate final judgment.
38:07
But that era of patience has concluded.
38:10
No, God commands all people everywhere to repent.
38:13
It is vital to stress the vocabulary here.
38:15
This is not an invitation. Paul doesn't say God is offering
38:18
you a chance to upgrade your spiritual journey.
38:20
He doesn't say try Jesus, He will fix your marriage.
38:23
It is a universal, non negotiable command from a
38:26
sovereign king to lay down your arms and surrender.
38:29
And Paul provides A terrifying reason for this command.
38:32
He says God has fixed a specific day on which He will judge the
38:35
world in absolute righteousness, and this judgment will be
38:38
executed by a man whom he is appointed.
38:40
Furthermore, God has given objective historical assurance
38:44
of this reality to everyone by raising this man from the dead.
38:47
The resurrection. He brings it all down to the
38:49
empty tomb, and he presents the resurrection not as a comforting
38:52
spiritual metaphor about springtime and new beginnings.
38:56
It is the concrete, unyielding historical reality that
38:59
validates Jesus Christ as the supreme, inescapable judge of
39:03
the universe. It is the absolute proof of his
39:05
authority over every empire, every philosophical school, and
39:08
every individual soul. Paul preaches this incredibly
39:12
bold, uncompromising message. He lays it all out, creation,
39:16
prominence, human depravity, idolatry, the necessity of
39:20
repentance, the coming judgment and the bodily resurrection.
39:24
It is a masterpiece. So what is the aftermath?
39:26
Does the Intemper Supreme Court of Athens fall on their knees in
39:29
repentance and spark a citywide revival?
39:32
No, the response is fiercely divided.
39:34
Luke records that the reaction fell into 3 distinct categories.
39:38
First, when they hear of the physical resurrection of the
39:41
dead, some actively mock him. Because to the Greek
39:44
philosophical mind, the physical body was a prison.
39:46
The ultimate goal of death was for the pure soul to escape The
39:49
Dirty material body. The idea of a physical, bodily
39:53
resurrection was not just scientifically absurd to them,
39:56
it was philosophically repulsive.
39:58
Exactly. So they scoff.
40:00
The second category procrastinates.
40:02
They delay their decision saying we will hear you again about
40:05
this. They remain non committal,
40:07
treating the gospel as just another interesting topic for a
40:10
future debate club. But the third category, a chosen
40:13
few believe and join him. Luke specifically names
40:17
Dionysius the Areopagite, who was a member of that elite
40:21
court, and a prominent woman named Damaris, along with a few
40:24
others. This detail is incredibly
40:26
relieving for the modern Christian.
40:27
Think about it, if even the Apostle Paul operates rating
40:30
under the direct inspiration of the Holy Spirit, delivering a
40:33
perfectly contextualized, biblically flawless, courageous
40:36
sermon in the intellectual capital of the world did not get
40:40
a 100% conversion rate. Does that mean we need to stop
40:42
measuring our own witness by immediate visible success?
40:45
We must absolutely stop measuring our faithfulness by
40:48
applause, by massive crowd sizes, or by our ability to
40:51
achieve total cultural takeover. The gospel inherently divides
40:55
people. The external call of the gospel
40:57
reaches the ears of all who hear it.
40:59
But as Reformed theology rightly understands, it is only the
41:03
internal, effectual work of the Holy Spirit that grants a saving
41:06
response. We are called to the faithful
41:08
proclamation of the truth. God alone determines the size of
41:12
the. Harvest.
41:13
Which brings us perfectly to how we take this ancient blueprint
41:16
from Athens and apply it to our daily lives in this postmodern
41:20
Pagan world. The concept of the gospel,
41:22
traveling from everywhere to everyone, rests entirely upon
41:26
the sovereign authority of the Triune God.
41:29
It does not rest on the cleverness of our marketing
41:31
strategies, the attractiveness of our packaging, or our ability
41:35
to regain cultural dominance through political maneuvering.
41:38
We must categorically reject the pragmatic consumerism of the
41:41
factory paradigm. Instead, we must rely entirely
41:44
on what the Reformers called the ordinary means of grace, the
41:48
faithful, unapologetic exposition of the Word of God,
41:51
the right administration of the sacraments, and fervent prayer.
41:54
We must boldly proclaim the reality of the risen King
41:57
without shrinking back from the comfortable reality of coming
42:00
judgement. I want to leave you, the
42:02
listener, with a direct challenge to Mull over as you go
42:06
about your week. I want you to look closely at
42:09
the landscape of your own life. Look at your daily habits.
42:12
If the Apostle Paul walked through the itinerary of your
42:14
daily schedule, if he scrolled through the line items on your
42:18
bank statements, or if he analyzed your screen time
42:20
metrics on your phone, what would he find?
42:23
Would his spirit be provoked by the altars to modern idols he
42:26
discovered there? It is a painful but necessary
42:29
diagnostic check. We all need to identify our own
42:32
internal unknown gods, those altars we have quietly built to
42:36
the pursuit of comfort, to career advancement, to physical
42:40
pleasure, or to our own intellectual pride.
42:43
The X-ray machine might be broken when we look at the
42:45
culture at large. The world might be a confusing,
42:48
muddy mess of competing spiritualities.
42:50
But the Great Physician's diagnosis of the human heart
42:53
remains perfectly precise and unchanging.
42:55
We have to identify and abandoned those dead, empty
42:58
altars and find our true eternal security only in the finished
43:02
work of the risen Christ. Thanks for joining us on this
43:05
deep dive.