Acts 17:16-34 | in the Worldਨਮੂਨਾ

There’s a classic Christian adage that Christians are to be in the world, but not of the world. It’s an adaptation of something Jesus says, “I am coming to you now, but I say these things while I am still in the world, so that they may have the full measure of my joy within them. I have given them your word and the world has hated them, for they are not of the world any more than I am of the world. My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one. They are not of the world, even as I am not of it. Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world” (John 17:13-18, NIV; ital. ours).

In the world, but not of the world.

“The world” in John’s Gospel can refer to God’s entire creation, but often, it refers more specifically to God’s fallen creation, including fallen humanity, which is missing the mark on God.

This week brings us to Acts 17, to the city of Athens specifically, which in many ways was the Greek epicenter of worldliness. Perhaps not in the way we think of worldliness today (secular, debauched, or hedonistic). That certainly existed there too, but was far more prevalent in cities like Corinth. No, worldliness in the sense that their way of thinking didn’t properly account for God – at least not the one true God. Without being grounded in the one true God, their quest for knowledge and truth led to distortions of the truth, or at least question marks and dead-ends. Any worldview not rooted in the one true God is bound to lead to either distorted or agnostic views of who God is, and of reality.

Athens was a city that didn’t know God. Athens was a city full of idols. Even an altar “To an Unknown God.”

This is where we pick up the storyline – Paul in Athens in Acts 17.

We’ve seen from the start that King Jesus is looking to bring the hope and presence of his kingdom to the ends of the earth. Remember what he told his disciples? “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8, NIV).

The story of Acts is the story of that happening. We’ve seen it since Acts 2, with the gospel message spreading out more and more, even confronting competing powers and worldviews, and coming out on top.

But up until this point, it’s been primarily happening among the Jews. Even Paul, “the apostle to the Gentiles,” has been primarily going to the synagogues to spread the good news. The great irony of Acts (not to mention the rest of the New Testament, and of history) is that the very people who were meant to bring God’s truth and blessing to the rest of the world are the ones who are rejecting it, while the very people whom they were supposed to bring that truth and blessing to (the classic enemies of Israel, called “the nations”), are the very ones who are responding to it!

This trend has been growing, and comes to a head for Paul in Acts 13 when he says to the Jews who are rejecting him in one particular synagogue, “We had to speak the word of God to you first. Since you reject it and do not consider yourselves worthy of eternal life, we now turn to the Gentiles” (Acts 13:46, NIV).

Here in Athens, Paul is squarely among the Gentiles.

Today, read the account of what happened and how Paul shares the gospel with Gentiles. This week, we’ll dig into some insights as to how we as Christians can bring the gospel of Jesus into our world without being of it.