Back to the Blueprints
A Tale of Four Cities
Paul in Athens, Corinth, Ephesus, and Berea

May 30-31, 2009
Glenn W. McDonald
Acts 17-19

This message was preceded by a clip from the movie “Super Size Me,”
in which first grade children could easily recognize the face of
Ronald McDonald but could not identify a picture of Jesus.

God has designed our minds in such a way that they reflect whatever we bring before them. They hang on to what we continually put into them. McDonald’s is seriously committed to helping the children of America fall in love with Ronald McDonald. Therefore they teach, and teach, and teach – they use colors, and slogans, and snappy jingles, and big red shoes – to transform impressionable minds into customers for life.

It’s safe to say that most Christians are considerably more casual about helping people become disciples for life. What is a disciple? A disciple is a radically committed follower of Jesus – a lifelong learner or intentional imitator of everything that Jesus taught, and said, and did. It’s important to point out that discipleship is not graduate level Christianity. Fully orbed discipleship is God’s call to every one of us, no matter where we are in our spiritual journey. According to Jesus, the Good Life – the life that every one of us, deep down, hungers to experience – means being a disciple who makes other disciples.

And that kind of life is not going to happen by accident. It doesn’t come about all by itself. Here at ZPC we talk about the Six Marks of a Disciple – a half dozen realities that signify what it means to be sold out to Jesus. The second mark is a Mind Transformed by the Word. We will not be effective disciples of Jesus unless our minds are significantly retrained.

Such transformation requires continual exposure to the Bible – not just one or two hours a week, after which we launch ourselves confidently into the world. McDonald’s is a whole lot smarter than that. That’s why that they saturate us with the McDonald’s message and the gospel of French fries day after day after day – and they keep after us no matter how old we are.

This weekend we’re celebrating the fact that 67 young men and women have just completed their Youth Inquirers training and are becoming new members of this church. But that is not to be confused with some kind of spiritual finish line. They are just beginning the adventure of following Jesus for the rest of their lives. Down the road, what’s going to make the difference for these students? It will be whether or not they become relentless students of Scripture. That’s going to be the ultimate difference-maker for you and me, too.

We have to understand that at any given moment there are multiple versions of the Good Life available on the market. Their messages bombard us constantly. On any given day we might hear some bold new vision for living from friends, or family members, or co-workers – from Dr. Phil, Dr. Laura, Dr. Ruth, or Dr. Seuss. How can we decide who’s on target? American culture is like a smorgasbord of personal fulfillment options. Is it best to try a little bit of everything, or to bet your life that one of those options, more than the others, is fundamentally and uniquely expressive of what is true?

The philosopher Francis Schaeffer used an illustration of a book whose pages have been partially chopped off. Let’s say you find a book like this in your grandmother’s attic. You’ve still got the binding, and you have in your hands a little something from every page. You have access to part of the story – and you know that what you have is true – but almost none of the sentences that remain are complete. You wonder what this story is all about.

This is what it means to be a human being. We all know part of our story. We all have experienced hints, and fragments, and incomplete statements concerning the meaning of life. For instance: The world is a beautiful place. But it’s also filled with danger and uncertainty. The universe provides overwhelming evidence that it was designed. But the Designer doesn’t show his face. People can be gracious and kind and lay their lives down for you. But they can also be stupid and cruel and try to take your life away from you. We know that all of those statements are true. How in the world do they all fit together?

What we need is the rest of the story. We have to find the missing parts of these pages. Who can help us do that? We live in a time in which a great many serious-minded people have concluded that the missing parts will never be found, because they have never actually existed. Life is a joke. It is a meaningless story without a beginning or an end. So you can pretty much do whatever you want – but you should definitely stop wasting your time trying to figure out a puzzle that can never be solved.

The early Church, however, came into existence during a time when the search for the meaning of life was being hotly pursued in every corner of the Mediterranean world. The New Testament book of Acts tells the story of how the first Christians began to announce to the world that the missing pages had been found – and that they are all about a man named Jesus.

Since the beginning of this year we’ve been going back to the blueprints of those first days by steadily working our way through the book of Acts. Today we’re going to look at a rather sizeable chunk of the fifth book of the New Testament – three long chapters of Acts (numbers 17, 18, and 19) which describe the encounters of the apostle Paul with some of the most important cities of the ancient world. Each of those cities proclaimed a set of answers to the mystery of what it means to be alive, and thus what it means to pursue the Good Life. In each case Paul ended up launching a ministry to spread the Good News about Jesus. But these chapters also tell the story of a fourth city – actually, not much more than a village by comparison – which responded to Paul’s message in a uniquely different way that is still being celebrated today.

Let’s begin with the three primary cities in the order in which Paul visited them: Athens, Corinth and Ephesus. At this time in history, Athens, Corinth and Ephesus had a great deal in common. They were each sprawling metro areas, their populations roughly equivalent to that of Indianapolis. Each had a patron Greek goddess, and the identity of each community had been formed around the strengths and weaknesses of its particular mythological figure.

Paul first went to Athens. If you’re trying to imagine a contemporary equivalent, think Boston. Athens was a city with a rather high view of itself. The Good Life revolved around having the right opinions about everything. Athens was famous for its philosophers and its stunning marble temples on the Acropolis. Its civic leaders, to put it bluntly, were the stuffed shirts of the ancient world. The goddess to whom the entire city was dedicated was Athena – the Greek embodiment of wisdom. How would Paul fare against the self-described wisest people of his time?

Paul next traveled to Corinth, where the Good Life was centered around good times. Think Las Vegas. Any day we’re expecting archeologists to uncover a piece of marble that says, “What happens in Corinth, stays in Corinth.” Corinth was a bustling business center, a sailor’s town, and full-time Party Central. Its patron deity was Aphrodite, the goddess of love. One thousand cult prostitutes were employed at her temple, which was situated at the top of a high hill. At dusk they would come down into the city to ply their trade. It’s worth noting that whenever a Greek play included a character that was from Corinth, that actor or actress inevitably was portrayed as a drunk. How in the world will a straight-lace Jew like Paul function in an environment like Corinth?

Paul next crossed the Aegean Sea to the metropolis of Ephesus, which was a hotbed of diverse spiritualities. It was a modern city with wide marble avenues. Ephesus was dedicated to the worship of Artemis, the earth mother goddess, whose temple was one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. The Good Life included the easy availability of horoscopes, potions, magic spells and alternative lifestyles. Think San Francisco with Shirley Maclaine as mayor. What will Paul the Christian have to say to New Age groupies like this?

Let’s turn together to Acts chapter 17, where’s Paul’s big city mission work begins. We start at verse 16:

While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he was greatly distressed to see that the city was full of idols. So he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the God-fearing Greeks, as well as in the marketplace day by day with those who happened to be there. A group of Epicurean and Stoic philosophers began to dispute with him. Some of them asked, “What is this babbler trying to say?” Others remarked, “He seems to be advocating foreign gods.” They said this because Paul was preaching the good news about Jesus and the resurrection.

Paul goes right into the marketplace, trying to win a hearing for Jesus. But the local philosophers call him a “babbler.” Actually, the word in Greek is “seed-picker.” This is Athenian slang for someone who, like a bird, picks up bits and pieces of this and that and tries to patch together a new way of seeing things. Notice that they think Paul is not promoting God (singular), but gods (plural). They apparently believe he’s advocating a male god named Yesous (that would be Jesus) and a goddess named Anastasia (which comes from the Greek word for resurrection). So far this is not going very well.

Look at verse 19: “Then they took him and brought him to a meeting of the Areopagus, where they said to him, ‘May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? You are bringing some strange ideas to our ears, and we want to know what they mean.’ (All the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there spent their time doing nothing but talking about and listening to the latest ideas.)” This is Luke’s way of saying that Athens is a university town where the bull sessions never really end.

We don’t have the time today to explore all of the details of Paul’s presentation, but notice that he chooses not to be a fire and brimstone preacher. Instead he builds bridges, saying, in verse 27, “God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us.” Paul emphasizes the nearness of God, not his distance. Then look at the next sentence: “'For in him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’” What is Paul doing? He is quoting Epimenides, a pagan philosopher, along with a secular poet. Paul is not only up on local culture – he is willing to reach into the world of Athenian paganism and use it to support his case for Christ.

If we’re trying to make the case that Jesus is the ultimate definer of what is good and right, then we had better understand what Quentin Tarentino and Adam Lambert and the Rolling Stones and National Public Radio and Sonia Sotomayor and Lindsey Lohan have to say. OK, maybe we don’t need to hear from Lindsey Lohan.

So how do things go for Paul in Athens? This is a tough audience. Look at verse 32: “When they heard about the resurrection of the dead, some of them sneered, but others said, ‘We want to hear you again on this subject.’” Within a matter of days Paul heads down the road to Corinth, the party town. Surely this will be even thinner soil for establishing a Christian community. What’s amazing, however, is that the Corinthians turn to Jesus left and right. Acts 18:11 informs us that Paul stays for a year and a half, “teaching them the word of God.”

Later Paul will write these words to the new Christians in Corinth: “Brothers, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. [In other words, the Corinthian church did not have highbrow Athenians]. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong.” (I Corinthians 1:26-27)

What strategy does Paul adopt over in Ephesus? Let’s look at Acts 19, beginning in verse eight: “Paul entered the synagogue and spoke boldly for three months, arguing persuasively about the kingdom of God. But some of them became obstinate; they refused to believe and publicly maligned the Way. So Paul left them. He took the disciples with him and had discussions daily in the lecture hall of Tyrannus. This went on for two years, so that all the Jews and Greeks who lived in the province of Asia heard the word of the Lord.”

The outcome of Paul’s Ephesian strategy is remarkable. Acts 19:18 tells us, “Many of those who believed now came and openly confessed their evil deeds. A number who had practiced sorcery brought their scrolls together and burned them publicly. When they calculated the value of the scrolls [these would be their horoscopes and recipes for performing magic spells], the total came to fifty thousand drachmas. [In today’s money this would be about ten million dollars going up in smoke]. In this way the word of the Lord spread widely and grew in power.”

In summary, Paul stood in the presence of the smartest people of his time and said, “You’ve overlooked the most important aspect of reality.” Paul walked into the Party Zone and declared, “There is so much more to life than feeling good.” Paul sat down in the lounge of religious relativism and said, “Let me tell you about someone who claimed he was the Way and the Truth and the life.” Paul had the courage to declare to the Athenians and the Corinthians and the Ephesians that they had failed to solve the mystery of life because they hadn’t found the right missing pages.

But one other community got it right. Let’s turn back to chapter 17. On their way toward Athens, Paul and Silas have just had a narrow escape from religious opponents in the city of Thessalonica. Look at verse 10:

As soon as it was night, the brothers sent Paul and Silas away to Berea. On arriving there, they went to the Jewish synagogue. Now the Bereans were of more noble character than the Thessalonians, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true. Many of the Jews believed, as did also a number of prominent Greek women and many Greek men.

Today there are no tourists on the site of ancient Berea. There are no impressive ruins to explore. We know virtually nothing about this ancient town. But we do know that they were convinced that the answers to the riddles of life were going to be found on the pages of Scripture. They did their homework. With eagerness they compared what they knew of the Old Testament with what Paul and Silas were telling them. They did that day by day. And they came to believe that the story of Jesus was in fact the missing pages that everyone in human history has been seeking.

Today if someone calls you a Berean, you are being paid an extraordinary compliment. A Berean is someone who believes that the Bible provides the rest of the story. A Berean believes that God’s Word can be trusted. A Berean furthermore acts on that conviction by studying Scripture as a lifelong passion.

The Reveal survey we conducted last winter here at ZPC revealed that our church doesn’t have very many Bereans. There are plenty of us who seem to have experienced spiritual change that is merely paint deep – something that has happened on life’s surface – instead of stain deep. But God wants us all to go deeper. God calls us to have minds that are seriously transformed through continuing reflection on Scripture.

And nobody can do that for you.

You alone must make the decision to pursue God through his Word. In fact, many of you who filled out the Reveal survey fairly shouted, “Show us how to do this!” Well, here’s one plan. It’s a simple one. Monday is June 1. Are you willing to commit the summer months of June, July, and August to reading the letters of the apostle Paul and Hebrews? You can take one of these bookmarks to keep you on track. All you have to do is read one chapter a day. Next fall we’re going to be diving into Paul’s letters in some detail; this reading program is going to help all of us be ready to go.

Something else is going to happen this fall. God has given our church the gift of hosting the Monday evening gathering of Women’s Bible Study Fellowship. This is not only a huge privilege, but also an amazing opportunity to join one of the most in-depth and insightful Bible studies around. The men’s group gathers on the same night at another site. If you haven’t already done so, I urge you to consider joining BSF this fall.

When it comes to pursuing God’s Word, what’s at stake for all of us? What’s at stake is whether or not we’re going to have minds that are able and ready to engage God’s reality. There’s an old story – in all likelihood not true – about a young man who decided to attend seminary, and a rather liberal one at that. He father was incensed. “That’s the kind of school that will teach that miracles never happened. I just hope that when you come back, the parting of the Red Sea is still in your Bible!”

Three years later, when the young man returned, his father pounced on him: “So, is the parting of the Red Sea still in your Bible?” “Come on, Dad,” said the son, “the parting of the Red Sea isn’t even in your Bible.” “What do you mean by that?” asked the father. “I challenge you,” said the son, “to pick up your Bible right now and find that story.”

The father looked and looked, but without success. That’s when his son said, “Dad, the day before I left for seminary I cut Exodus chapter 14 out of your Bible. So tell me – what’s the difference between not believing a story in the Bible and not even knowing that that story is missing because your Bible is closed?”

Will you open your Bible?
Will you be a Berean?
Will you let God transform your heart and your mind through the power of his Word?