FROM INSPIRATION POINT

#14 The Message from Mars Hill

The first gospel message for the Jewish culture came from Mount Zion, but the first recorded gospel message aimed at the Greek culture came from Mars Hill. Athens was the center of Greek culture. Acts 17:21 says, "All the Athenians, and strangers that were there, liked to spend their time in nothing but talking about and listening to some new idea." This gives the appearance of the Greeks being very open minded. To say the least, they would not take some man and crucify him because they did not agree with him, but they would quickly ridicule any idea with which they did not agree.

The thrust of Paul's message to the Athenians did not refer to the prophets of the Old Testament, as Peter did on Pentecost, because Greeks were familiar with philosophers, not Jewish prophets. Any view of one God was unfamiliar to them for they recognized all gods. They had even built a shrine to "An unknown god" just in case they had failed to honor some deity. Paul referred to this "unknown God" and told them about the "God who made the world and all things therein, seeing that he was Lord of heaven and of earth." [Acts 17:24]

Athenians, like many people of our day, had trouble believing in anything that did not appeal to the five senses. Paul reminded them that one of their own philosophers had referred to a "God in whom we live and move and have our being, as one of your own poets [or philosophers] have said, 'we are indeed his offspring.'" He further related that this God would one day judge the world in righteousness by a man that he had ordained, "and has given assurance to all men in that he raised him from the dead." They listened to him up to the point of saying that someone was raised from the dead, but then they scoffed, but others said, "We will hear you again on this matter."

The Athenians scoffed at the idea of a resurrection, but with the knowledge of our scientific world today, resurrection is looking more possible than we have dreamed of being possible before. With everything else being out of control, the time is right for God to bring order and righteousness out of chaos.

-John Young