Giving an Answer - Part 10
New Testament Confrontations: Different Audiences, Different Approaches
1 Peter 3:15; Acts 2, 3, 14, 17
Open your Bibles with me to
Acts. We’re out of the Old Testament. There are some who claim that, “You can’t
really find apologetics in the Bible.” I’ve been going through showing the many
examples that we have.
We have to understand that
in giving an answer, what’s going on with a believer is that they’re speaking
from the foundation of truth. They’re speaking from the framework of one culture
talking to another
culture. Much like a missionary coming from one culture, for example, the
United States, or the culture of Great Britain, or the culture from South
America, going to a foreign country that speaks a different language, has a
different culture.
You have to think in terms
of that other culture—the target language, the target people. How will they
hear? How will they listen to what we are saying? When it comes to
communicating the gospel, things can get really garbled. A lot of times,
especially as we’re learning how to evangelize and to communicate the gospel,
we get stuck into certain sort of prescribed formats. Sometimes they work.
Sometimes we find something
really works for me, but it’s only going to work within a certain limited
audience. Because sometimes that limited audience is more prepared culturally
than, perhaps, another audience. Something that may work with somebody who has
grown up in a theistic environment where they’ve got some religious background
and knowledge of Christianity; maybe they don’t understand the gospel per se,
but they believe in God and they have something of a respect for the Bible.
Giving them the gospel is
not going to be anything like giving the gospel to somebody who is from a Stone
Age tribe in Irian Jaya who’s never heard anything about a monotheistic deity.
Their whole concept of a god has to do with ancestor spirits, or multiple gods,
and some sort of polytheistic system—something like that. Or, on the other
hand, talking with somebody who is a well-educated, university educated,
Master’s degree, PhD, who has heard nothing their whole life related to God,
Jesus; religion has always been viewed as some sort of superstition from the
masses. They have no idea, really, who Jesus is, or what the Bible is, or why
they should believe it.
You can’t use the same
approach with each group. One group may take a 10-minute conversation—they are
primed, they are ready. Another group may take 5 to 10 years of painstaking
conversation suggesting that they read this or read that. It takes different
forms for different people. We are going to see that tonight.
My progress over the last
few weeks has been to look at examples. This is what is called a biblical
theology approach, where you’re going through the text of Scripture; you’re not
just proof texting points, but you’re looking at the dialogue, looking at what
is said, why it’s said, what’s going on back and forth—things like that. That’s
what we’ve done.
We started with Genesis 1.
We went to Genesis 3. We went from there to the Exodus event, as God is
communicating to the god of Egypt, who is the Pharaoh, who thinks he’s the
incarnation of God, and that head-on confrontation between the Creator God of
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and the gods and goddesses of the Egyptians.
From there we went to that
great confrontation between Elijah and the priests of Baal and the Asherah. All
this is not too dissimilar from what we encounter today. We encounter people who are
completely consumed; they may not identify certain things in their life as gods
or goddesses, but functionally that’s what they have. So, when we’re talking
with them, we have to learn how to not beat them over the head or engage in
argumentation, but to try to ask questions.
One thing that I’ve pointed
out again and again is the importance of asking questions—for two reasons. One
is so you can really find out about the other person. It makes it a much more
personal conversation—building and developing a relationship with somebody.
But, also, it helps you to, through the right questions, get them to think more
conscientiously about why they
believe what they
believe, and does it really work for them.
As we saw with Elijah, he
demonstrates, on Mount Carmel with the confrontation with the priests of Baal,
that their system really didn’t work. When you tried to put the issues of life
on top of the foundation of Baalism, it cratered. Baal couldn’t answer the
prayer, couldn’t provide water, couldn’t provide lightning, couldn’t provide
that which it was claimed that he could provide.
We looked at the Old
Testament, came out with certain approaches and principles, and tonight I want
to go through some examples in Acts. The focus tonight is on New Testament
confrontations and challenges between divine viewpoint and human viewpoint,
looking at four examples in the Book of Acts, where we have different audiences
and different approaches.
This will be Acts chapter 2,
Acts chapter 3, Acts chapter 14, and Acts chapter 17, all in one hour! But
we’re just doing sort of a survey of these passages.
I pointed out in the
questions that I’m addressing is this fourth question:
4.
The Bible doesn’t use apologetics, why should we?
That typically comes from
people who are from a mystical orientation. In the past I’ve talked about the
different schools, the different strategies, in apologetics. You’ve got the
classical apologist who emphasizes reason as the point of common ground. You have
the evidentialist who looks at facts, or evidence, as the point of common
ground. You have the mystic.
Now how does mysticism
really develop within the history, especially of Western civilization—but it’s
true in other areas as well? This happened in Greco-Roman culture; then it was
paralleled at the end of the Middle Ages in the beginning of the Enlightenment.
You start with
rationalism—man’s reason. You have a very high view of man’s rational capacity.
Starting from first principles of reason alone, you can argue ultimate truth
based on a rigorous use of logic. But that has always collapsed, because,
sooner or later, you can’t get to eternal realities just on reason alone.
Then you have empiricism.
Same thing happens there. Well, after an attempt to find meaning through reason or
meaning through empiricism…
It’s hopeless; man can’t live on the basis of hopeless skepticism is if there is no truth.
He has to believe in something, so he just takes a mystical, irrational leap of
faith to believe something apart from all evidence—and that’s mysticism.
That’s what has happened in
terms of the development of a more subjective, mystical approach to the truth
of the Word. Because they’ve given up on evidentialism. Because somebody on the
other side always comes up with a better argument. So they just retreat into,
“Well, I just know Jesus saves because He saved me,” or “It works for me,” or
“How do you know Jesus lives? He lives within my heart.” Of course, they have
ways they try to justify that with Scripture. But, ultimately, that’s what
they’re doing—they’re divorcing biblical Christianity from the historical and
rational evidences.
Then, the fourth view is the
view that I think is the most consistent view, biblically, and that’s called
presuppositionalism. As we go through the Scripture, I have been pointing out
these differences and key principles.
So what we’ve seen in each
of these encounters in the Old Testament is that all the people that are being
approached have religious beliefs. They are suppressing, ultimately, their God
consciousness in unrighteousness.
1.
They are truth suppressors.
2.
They are not spiritually neutral.
They are not in a position
of pure objectivity, and so you can’t appeal to either reason—this is the view
of presuppositionalists—that the classical argument ultimately fails because
reason has been affected by the fall. You can’t appeal to reason and logic as
if it’s spiritually or ethically neutral.
Same thing with looking at
the facts. As soon as we look at facts, we tend to automatically interpret the
fact to understand it within our framework. If your framework is composed of
different forms of pagan ideals, then what happens is you reinterpret that fact
within your system. If you’re an evolutionist, you see a fossil in the Grand
Canyon and you immediately identify it. “Well, that is in this kind of rock
that’s in the Tapeats Sandstone, or Coconino, or something else.” And you say,
“That is so many millions of years old,” and that’s how we understand it. You
have immediately interpreted it; so it doesn’t exist as a raw fact. Facts,
logic aren’t spiritually neutral.
3.
We’ve seen that the purpose of all these confrontations is not to prove
somebody’s right; it is to bring somebody to a point of turning to God—what the Bible defines
as “repentance.” It is not emotional. It is a decision to accept the truth of
God’s existence and who God is and God’s terms for salvation.
4.
Questions are used, again and again, to expose unbelief and to challenge people
to obey, to bring people to a self-realization and a self-consciousness of
their own views.
5.
We’ve also seen that people are, to some degree, able to evaluate the evidence.
“The heavens declare the glory of God”,
and fallen man understands that it does; but they immediately began to twist
it, to turn it, to suppress it, and redefine it in unrighteousness. People are
able to evaluate the evidence despite their prior commitment to suppress truth,
but immediately they begin to reinterpret it.
6.
The evidence is not treated as neutral.
You can’t look at that, and
we’re going to see some examples. I want to do something fun; I thought I’d get
there tonight. It’s been interesting in this series. Every Wednesday afternoon
and Thursday morning I study for a lesson, and then I realize I’m not really
going to get there on Thursday night. I’ve got to do something before, so I get
ready for the next week and then I have to come back and backtrack.
But what I want to do next
week—and it’s already
posted this on the website—is that we’re going to have kind of a self-test.
These are always fun. I used to have seminary professors here and there. The
guys I really liked would come out and they would teach, for example, on the
Trinity. Then they would give us something and we didn’t know where it came
from. We would find out later it would come from a Unitarian theologian, or it
would come from a Jehovah’s Witness tract, or something like that—a
non-Trinitarian view of God, and we had to read it and then critique it. Or,
perhaps it was some liberal explaining God. These statements were always
written to sound as biblically orthodox as they could—without being biblically
orthodox. It was a great tool to teach us how to think and how to look for not
only what is said,
but to think about what’s not said, what’s overlooked.
One of the pastors in the
Friday morning group sent me a copy of the transcript of the three times in God’s Not Dead
that this young man, Josh Wheaton, presents his case for the existence of God.
Each of those helps us get a window of insight into these different approaches
to presenting an apologetic strategy. Different strategies are seen in his
presentations. So you can read it, you can look at it, you can think about it
between now and next week. Then, what I hope to do next week is we’ll either
play the video or read through the script. Then we’ll talk about what is going
on in this, because it sounds good. Especially because it’s a script for a
movie, you know right away it’s a Christian movie, so the Christian is going to
win at the end.
But I think they still did a
very good job. Even though there is always going to be a measure of
artificiality there, there’s always a basis of truth. In fact, if you’ve seen
it… How many people here have seen God’s Not Dead [I]? Several of you have seen
it. The professor makes some really outlandish, horrific, hostile statements.
He is so contemptuous and disrespectful of the student’s belief. You think,
“Nobody’s going to be like that.” At least I never saw anything like that. You
may not have ever seen anything like that.
But these statements are
based on 30 different court cases that were brought against professors and
universities for their hostility towards Christians. They are, as it were,
lifted from current events. These are based on things that have truly been said
and have actually happened in university classrooms. We will look at that, and
that’ll be a good way to train us to think about how we approach what we’re
doing.
7.
God uses historic facts and evidence to expose their sin and rebellion. It’s
not a matter of not using evidence; some people have gotten that idea from the
way presupposition was taught. It’s the way the evidence is used, and that’s important.
8.
Then the last point is to realize that no matter how well you make your case,
the reaction may be quite hostile.
There was a Man who lived
about 2,000 years ago; He made a perfect case for Jesus being the Son of God
and the Messiah. In fact, He had perfect evidence. They crucified Him. So just
because you make a perfect case and you have all your facts right and you have
all the answers right, ultimately, it’s an issue of volition.
That’s another reason that I
believe the presuppositional approach is superior, is because the other views,
in very subtle ways, seem to suggest that the problem is really they don’t have
enough facts. Whereas, what the Scripture says is not that they don’t have
enough facts. “The
heavens declare the glory of God.” The invisible attributes, the power and
majesty of God, are evident to them and within them, according to Romans 1:18–23. But they reject it. Not
because they don’t have enough evidence, but because they don’t like the evidence; they are
hostile to God. So, the reaction may be quite hostile.
Let’s get into some of the
things that we’re talking about. I want you to go to Acts chapter 2. Acts 2 is
Peter’s sermon on the Day of Pentecost, the birth of the church. The Day of
Pentecost on the Jewish calendar is in 10 days. Somebody told me yesterday or today
is the day of Ascension. That would be 40 days after the resurrection, and then
10 days later, so a week from Sunday is the Day of Pentecost.
On the Day of Pentecost when
the Holy Spirit descended on the disciples, you have a confrontation. Peter stands
up. Now, what I mean by “confrontation” is not a hot debate. It’s not getting
all upset and emotional. It’s just when one person is speaking truth to a group
that hasn’t accepted truth yet. There is a confrontation of ideas; they believe
one thing and another set of ideas is being presented.
We look at Acts 2:16–39.
Peter stands up. Notice that as he begins, he does not begin with a question.
He is speaking to a certain group that are there, men of Judea. They are
identified a little earlier in verse five. We read that, “… there were
dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men from every nation under heaven.”
That term “devout men” is
important. The Greek word is EULABES, which translates a couple of different
Hebrew words in the Septuagint. One of them is the word YIRAH, which means, “to
fear.” “The
fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” We know that “fear” there is
not “terror”; it is a sense of awe and respect with a tinge of fear of
retribution or divine justice.
That’s one idea in the
Hebrew that it translates. Another is the word chasah in the Hebrew which has the idea
also of a reverential fear, but it originally had the idea of trust, or seeking
refuge in something, and it came to be used for “honoring or giving devotion to
something, and to a deity.”
So that’s the idea here.
These are devout men. They respect God. They are positive. Many of them were
probably Old Testament saints. They just had not heard the gospel yet or heard
about Jesus, but they will be part of the 3,000 men that are saved on this
particular day, probably. This is the Day of Pentecost challenge.
Peter begins in verse 16 and
says, “But
this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel.” What we see here is that he
is speaking to unbelievers; the point of common ground is the Scripture.
Because the people to whom he is speaking have a high reverence for the
Scripture already. He doesn’t have to say anything to them about God.
When we get to Acts 14 and
Acts 17, we are going to see that Paul has to go back and talk about the God of
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as the Creator God. But Peter doesn’t have to
establish Who God is; they already understand who God is from the Old
Testament. They understand this is the Creator God Who “made the heavens and the earth, and the
seas, and all that is in them”. They understand that He is totally distinct
from creation. He doesn’t have to establish that.
They understand that God has
spoken. They understand they have the Word; they have the Torah. So, he can use
the Scripture as the absolute authority, quote it, and they will listen. The
first thing we see is that the Scripture is the common ground and is assumed to be
true in what he says, and he can quote the Scripture. He can assume that they
believe in God, that they know He exists, and that they have a concern for that
which is spiritual.
Remember, my point in the
previous slide [4] was that the people in the Old Testament that were being
communicated to all had a religious system. They are inherently religious; they
know God exists; that is Romans 1:18. Peter knows this. Peter knows exactly who
he is speaking with and that they have a good understanding because of their
background in studying the Old Testament.
Third, we see that he
appeals to evidence. As we look at what he says, he appeals to evidence, but he
does so within the framework of Scripture. He’s not bringing out evidence and
saying, “Can we trust the evidence?” He’s not putting God on trial. He is
presenting the evidence from the authority of Scripture.
Look down at verse 22. After
quoting from Joel to 2:28–31, he has a quote there towards the end, in Acts
2:19, “I will
show wonders in heaven above and signs on the earth beneath.” Then those
two words are picked up by Peter when he begins to talk about what the
Scripture says. In verse 22 he says, “Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth,
a Man attested by God to you by miracles, wonders, and signs which God did
through Him in your midst, as you yourselves also know.”
See, he’s appealing to
evidence. But he’s doing it within the total framework of Scripture where the
evidence is not being judged by the unbelieving mind. He’s presenting it from a
biblical framework, because they both share that common ground in Scripture.
The next thing we see is
that he cites further evidence. In Acts 2:23–24, he presents evidence that
they’ve just heard about or personally witnessed. Some of them may have seen
more of the crucifixion and resurrection than others, but there are some in
their midst who were probably eyewitnesses. Some have known people who were
eyewitnesses of the resurrection.
In verse 23 he says,
regarding Jesus, “Him, being delivered by the determined purpose and foreknowledge of
God, you have taken by lawless hands, have crucified, and put to death.” He’s
using the evidence to do what? Same thing that we’ve seen already—to expose
their sin and their guilt. The evidence that God quotes to Adam and Eve in the
garden was designed to expose their sin and their guilt. It’s not treated as
some sort of neutral evidence that they can evaluate on their own.
Then, in verse 24, he says, “Whom God raised
up.” Here’s the resurrection. Right here at the beginning he emphasizes
that He was put to death and God raised Him up. There’s no waffling; there’s no
debate; there’s no concern about that. He presents the reality of that
resurrection. “Whom
God raised up, having loosed the pains of death, because it was not possible
that He should be held by it.”
Then again, in verse 25, he
begins to quote from Scripture. He cites Psalm 16:8–11. This shows that area of
common ground and he is citing Scripture after Scripture. In verse 30 he says, “Therefore, being
a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him [that is, to
David] that of
the fruit of his body, according to the flesh, He would raise up the Christ
[the Messiah] to
sit on his throne, 31 he, foreseeing this, spoke concerning the resurrection of the Christ
[the Messiah, that is], that His soul was not left in Hades, nor did His flesh see corruption.”
This is from Psalm 16:8–11.
“This Jesus God has raised up.” Once again, it’s talking about the
resurrection. The fact of the resurrection runs all through this statement. In
verse 30, He would raise up the Christ to sit on his throne. Verse 31, His soul
wasn’t left in Hades, nor did He see corruption. Then, in verse 32, God had
raised Him up.
The next thing we see in the
way Peter presents this is that he takes them to Psalm 110:1. In Acts 2:34, “For David did not
ascend into the heavens, but he says himself: ‘The Lord said to my Lord, “Sit
at My right hand, 35 Till I make Your enemies Your footstool.” ’ ” Again
and again he goes to Scripture as that point of common ground.
What do we learn from this?
We learn some of the same principles we’ve already seen, that he assumes the
existence of God and the authority of Scripture. The point of common ground…
Peter, speaking to a biblically informed, scripturally knowledgeable audience,
quotes Scripture. They don’t debate it. That’s the point of common ground.
Sometimes when you’re
witnessing to somebody and they’ve grown up in a church or in an environment
where church and God and Christianity were respected, you can quote Scripture
and it means
something to them. What we will see when we get to Paul is that when he’s
talking to a pagan Gentile audience, he’s not quoting Scripture. He is telling
them what Scripture teaches, but he doesn’t quote the Scripture because they
don’t have, necessarily, that level of respect for the Scripture. They don’t
have the background; they’re not informed. He doesn’t start where Peter starts;
he starts with God as the Creator God. We will see this in Acts 14, Acts 17; it
is also true in other places.
We’ve seen many of those
same principles—assumption of God’s existence and authority of Scripture. The
challenge that’s presented there comes in Acts 2:38. “Then Peter said to them, ‘Repent, and let
every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission
[or forgiveness]
of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.’ ” The point is
to change their thinking from not accepting Jesus as Messiah to accepting Jesus
as Messiah. The point of the confrontation is always done in grace and humility
and is designed to bring people from unbelief to belief.
Evidence is used throughout,
but not in the sense of trying to determine the validity or accuracy of God’s
Word, or creating some autonomous basis for arguing for the existence of God.
That’s the first example.
Now let’s go to the second
example. Turn over a page or two to Acts 3:11. This is Peter’s second sermon
that’s recorded in Acts. We’ve gone through all this in verse-by-verse detail,
so I’m just hitting a survey here of the high points related to the topic that
we’re addressing in “How to Give an Answer.”
What happens in this third
chapter is that Peter and John go up to the Temple to pray in the ninth hour.
It’s about 3 o’clock in the afternoon. There’s a lame man there. Everybody
knows him. He’s been lame since birth. They go to him. He’s a beggar; he’s trying
to get alms. Peter and John look at him and see that he has faith. Acts 3:6, “Then Peter said,
‘Silver and gold I do not have, but what I do have I give you: In the name of
Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk.’ ”
He stands up. In verse eight
he’s leaping, he’s walking. He enters the temple. He praises God. Acts 3:9, “And all the
people saw him walking and praising God.” This is evidence–right in front
of their eyes. This is a miracle that takes place, so this is evidence. Whether
it happened 2,000 years ago, or yesterday, or today, it has the same legal
evidentiary value. But it’s how the evidence is used.
As he’s healed the people
come together, and this gives John and Peter a hearing. Once again, Peter
speaks. He starts with a very clear statement. Look at Acts 3:13. Notice how he
starts. He doesn’t start with a generic deity. See, this is what happens when
you get into a classical apologist approach or an evidentialist. Remember, in
evidentiary apologetics the most you get is probability; same thing in the
classical approach. The most you get is a high degree of probability, but it is still
probability; you don’t get absolute certainty.
The other thing that I
pointed out last time ... Remember, right at the end of the last class I went
to the book, Faith
Has its Reasons, and I quoted from a section there at the end that talked
about certain characteristics of the four different positions that are used.
When it comes to creation, what was interesting is the classical view.
Classical apologists don’t have a specific or set view of creation. They
believe in creation, but they don’t have a specific view of creation.
If you read somebody like
Norm Geisler, who is a perfect example of a modern proponent of a classical
apologist system, he doesn’t believe in a literal six consecutive 24-hour day
creation. He doesn’t believe in, necessarily, a young earth. He has kind of an
odd view of creation.
If you look at evidentiary
apologetics, according to the chart in Faith Has its Reasons, they hold mostly to an
old earth view. They see the evidence of science as being neutral, and so they
think it’s accurate. They accept an old earth view.
But presuppositionalists
tend to be young earth creationists. Interesting how that works itself out. And
that’s why I would say … Not that somebody in the other school doesn’t have a
high view of Scripture. Goodness knows Norm Geisler’s leading the charge
against a lot of this. He and David
Farnell, who spoke at the Chafer Conference, just published a tremendous
book on vital issues in biblical inerrancy today. It’s huge—563 pages.
But it is not an issue of,
“Do they have a high view of Scripture, but have they got a consistent
high view of Scripture? I think a presuppositional view has a higher level of
consistency.
What we see here is that he
doesn’t start at creation, which is what Paul’s going to do in Acts 14 and 17. Because
that’s already known. He starts with, “You are Jews; You are a Jewish audience.
You’ve got a high respect for our background, for Torah, for Abraham, Isaac,
and Jacob. Let’s start there and be consistent with this belief you claim to
have related to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.”
He starts in verse 13a, “The God of
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of our fathers.” What’s the point of
common ground here? The God they claim to believe in. He’s not trying to prove
it; that is clear that that’s their starting point. And they understand that. He’s got a clear
statement of Who the God is that he’s talking about.
Then, in the second half of
the verse, he summarizes some evidence. He says, “The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the
God of our fathers, glorified His Servant Jesus, whom you delivered up and
denied in the presence of Pilate.” When did this happen? 50 days ago—less
than two months. Some of you people were right there; you were in the crowd.
He’s reminding them of what was part of their witness. They knew this was true.
He didn’t have to prove it in any other way—they were there.
“Whom you delivered up and denied in the
presence of Pilate, when he was determined to let Him go.” And verse 14, “But you denied the
Holy One and the Just, and asked for a murderer to be granted to you.”
What’s he talking about? Their suppression of truth in unrighteousness.
Paul was a true suppressor
until when? Till Jesus appeared to him on the road to Damascus. Just because
somebody is bent on suppressing the truth and they don’t seem to budge, doesn’t
mean they’re not thinking about it in their soul.
We see that his starting
point is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He focuses on evidence.
Third, he challenges them
with their spiritual and ethical disobedience to God. He says, “You denied the
Holy One.” He’s identifying the fact that they have rebelled against God; they
have disobeyed God; they have “denied the Holy One and the Just”. “And killed the Prince of life.” He makes
it clear what their sin is; he doesn’t back away from that.
Then, in Acts 3:15, he
weaves in the historical evidence of the resurrection. “And killed the Prince of life, whom God
raised from the dead, of which we are witnesses.” As we know from 1
Corinthians 15, there were a lot of witnesses—Jesus appeared to over 500.
Then he challenges them to
face the evidence of the healing and the foundation of everything that he has
said already. Look at Acts 3:19. He says, talking about Scripture, Acts 3:18, “But those things
which God foretold by the mouth of all His prophets, that the Christ would
suffer, He has thus fulfilled. 19 Repent therefore and be converted.”
“Repent therefore and turn …” It’s very
clear what is going on there: He challenges them to the evidence and to turn to
God. It fits the same pattern we have seen all the way along.
“19 Repent therefore and be converted, that
your sins may be blotted out, so that times of refreshing [which is
referring to the Millennium, the Kingdom] may come from the presence of the Lord, 20 and that
He may send Jesus Christ, who was preached to you before.” So you see some
of the same patterns.
Now we’re going to look at
Paul. Paul goes to a totally different audience. I could take the time and we
could look at Stephen and some other examples, but we’ve established one type
of audience with Peter already. Let’s turn over to Acts chapter 14. Paul is on
his first missionary journey with Barnabas and Mark.
We pick up a little context.
They’ve been traveling. First, they left Antioch in Syria. They went to Cyprus.
They left Cyprus, and they went to the mainland in south-central Turkey. They
went to Pisidia Antioch; that’s described in Acts 13:13–52. Now that is a long
section.
Compared to how much time is
spent in other places, this is an exceptionally long section. He is going to
the same kind of audience that Peter went to. He’s going to the synagogue. He’s
addressing men of Israel and God fearers. Men of Israel were the Jews; the God
fearers are the Gentile proselytes. So these are people who have a knowledge of
God; they understand that God exists; they have a respect for Torah.
In verse 16 he addresses
them. Then he talks about what God has done in the past with Israel. What’s he
doing? He’s reminding them of the evidence of God’s work in the nation through
the Old Testament. He’s going through the historical evidence. I would say this
is an example of the correct way of using evidence. He uses it within the
framework of revelation.
Then, when you get down to
Acts 13:30–34, he begins to talk about the resurrection as historical evidence,
and he mentions it several times. In verse 30 he says, “God raised Him from the dead.” In verse
31 He says, “He
was seen for many days,” by many witnesses.
In verse 33 he says, “He has raised up
Jesus” and he quotes from Psalm 2:7. So he’s quoting Scripture to an
audience where that’s the common ground and that’s an authority.
In Acts 13:34 he says, “And that He
raised Him from the dead.” Isaiah 55:3 is quoted. Then in Acts 13:35, as
Peter did earlier, he cites from Psalm 16:10. Then, in verse 37, again he
mentions the resurrection. “But He whom God raised up saw no corruption.” That’s a conclusion
derived from Psalm 16:11.
Then, in Acts 13:38–39, what
does he do? He gives them the point that they need to change. He says, “Therefore let it
be known to you, brethren, that through this Man is preached [and the word
there is proclaiming the gospel] to you the forgiveness of sins.” It’s the proclamation
of the gospel; it’s KATAGGELL_, proclamation. It’s not EUAGGELIZO,
which is the proclamation of the gospel. It’s KATAGGELL_. It’s a similar term; it’s the same idea—“proclaim to you
the forgiveness of sins.”
“39 and by Him everyone who believes is
justified from all things from which you could not be justified by the law of
Moses.” Everything leading up to that point is to get them the gospel. That
took some time to walk them through that historical evidence.
Now there are those who
respond, especially among the Gentiles. 42 “So when the Jews went out of the synagogue, the
Gentiles [these are the God-fearers] begged that these words might be preached to them
the next Sabbath. 43 Now when the congregation had broken up, many of the Jews and devout
proselytes followed Paul and Barnabas, who, speaking to them, persuaded them to
continue in the grace of God.”
But there’s going to be a
reaction that sets in. This begins in Acts 13:45, “But when the Jews saw the multitudes, they
were filled with envy; and contradicting and blaspheming, they opposed the
things spoken by Paul.” Now we see that hostile reaction set in. Peter and
John, in the first two examples, get the hostile reaction from the Sanhedrin,
from the religious leaders, and, ultimately, Stephen’s the one who gets the
brunt of that when he’s stoned. But here we see this happening with Paul. There
is a huge
reaction from among the Jews. They stir up trouble against him down in Acts
13:50.
50 “But the Jews stirred up the devout and
prominent women and the chief men of the city, raised up persecution against
Paul and Barnabas, and expelled them from their region.” So they’re kicked
out, and they go down the road to the city of Iconium.
When they get to Iconium,
what happens there in the first seven verses? First of all, they meet
opposition, because the unbelieving Jews are stirred up against them by those
who followed them from Pisidia Antioch. Then we read in Acts 14:3, “Therefore they
stayed there a long time, speaking boldly in the Lord, who was bearing witness
to the word of His grace, granting signs and wonders to be done by their hands.”
This is present-time evidence.
It’s using that evidence
through the signs and wonders to give validation to what they’ve done, and the
result is there is violence against them in verse five. “And when a violent attempt was made by both
the Gentiles and Jews, with their rulers, to abuse and stone them, 6 they became
aware of it and fled to Lystra and Derbe.”
This is the first part where
we really see an indication of how Paul is communicating with a purely pagan
Greek audience. They come into Lystra, and there’s a man that’s parallel to
what happens in Acts chapter 3 with Peter and John healing the crippled man.
They come in. There’s a man who’s a cripple from his mother’s womb, and he had
never walked. He heard Paul speaking, Paul observed him, saw that he had faith
to be healed, and said, “ ‘Stand up straight on your feet!’ And he leaped and walked.”
We have evidence that is
developed right in front of the eyes of the people. But how are you going to
look at the evidence? This is the problem. Because the evidence has been
presented, but there’s no such thing as a brute fact. Remember I went through
detail—got into the clouds a little bit—talking about every fact is what it is
because God created it to be what it is. It’s not neutral.
You have facts, but the
meaning of facts is immediately determined by people. That’s Operation Truth
Suppression, where people immediately see something—this guy is healed—“But I’m
going to redefine it, reshape it, transform it into my framework.” _I’ve got a
Pac-Man here who’s eating up biblical truth, and that’s what happens.
How do they do this? They
see it and they don’t say, “the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is here. The
Creator God of the universe is here. And He has healed this man!” No. They say, “Zeus
and Hermes are here, and we need to go get the priest of Zeus out of the temple
to come bring animals for sacrifice, and flowers, and we can worship these two
men who are Zeus and Hermes.”
Barnabas is called “Zeus,”
and Paul “Hermes” because he was the chief speaker. Hermes was the god who was
the communicator for the gods, the messenger for the gods. See, what they’ve
done is they’ve immediately redefined truth. That’s what happens. You can be
sitting down and you can present an evidentiary case for Christ, and the person
on the other side says, “Well, so what? There are all kinds of anomalies in the
universe.” Or like what we’ll see next week when we look at the film, the
professor says, “So what,” to his audience, “but you are ignorant of this,” and
he brings in another fact and tries to throw the young man off by quoting a
fact that he was ignorant of, or unaware of. That’s what can happen when you
think and treat the evidence as if it’s neutral to both you and the person that you’re
talking to.
This happened in truth
suppression. Then as soon as Paul and Barnabas saw that they were going to be
worshiped as gods, they just had a strong reaction. “No! Not at all!” “They tore their
clothes and ran in among the multitude, crying out ...”
Screaming out, “Don’t do
this! Don’t worship us! This is wrong!” What do they do? What’s the first thing
they say?
It’s a question, “Men, why are you
doing these things?” See, that question focuses on what’s behind this. “Why
are you doing this? Think about what you are doing. Why are you doing this?”
Then they explain who they
are. “We also
are men with the same nature as you, and preach to you that you should turn
from these useless things to the living God.” What’s the point of their
confrontation? Turning to God.
So, “Turn to God.” Then, how
do they define God? “Turn from these useless things to the living God, who made the heaven,
the earth, the sea, and all things that are in them.”
Do you think that was a
problem? If you don’t, you don’t know much about the ancient world. Because in
the ancient world they had their beliefs in the origin of the universe and the
origin of man and they held onto them just as deeply as any modern evolutionist
does. I have heard this many times over the course of my life. People say, “Why
are you getting into all this stuff about creation? Just focus on the gospel.”
Well, apparently, Paul
didn’t know that. To understand the gospel, you have to understand who this God
is—that He’s the “God who made the heavens, the earth, the seas, and all that is in them”.
He’s the God who made life.
What’s the endgame in his
gospel presentation as he talks about Jesus? What does he emphasize over, and
over, and over again? God raised Him from the dead. You see, if you presuppose
a God Who created everything and created life, then it is not a problem to
believe in a God Who can raise Jesus from the dead and give Him life again. Because
it’s not just some anomaly in history; it is controlled by the God who is the living God
Who created life and sustains life.
The language here is really
clear. He’s claiming, “We’re just like you, and we’re here to evangelize you,
to proclaim to you, to preach to you, the gospel [EUAGGELIZO].
“That you should turn from these useless
things.” That’s the word EPISTREPHO. The idea is to get people to turn from
their false system, their paganism, their human viewpoint, “to the living
God, who made the heaven, the earth, the sea, and all things that are in them.” Because if
He can give life, He can give life to those who are dead.
Then we get into Acts 14:16,
“who in bygone
generations allowed all nations to walk in their own ways.” That simply
means that God gave them a certain amount of rope to hang themselves.
17 “Nevertheless He did not leave Himself
without witness.” That’s Romans 1. The witness is in the creation; it’s
nonverbal, but it’s in the creation. Also, in His common grace, “… in that He did
good, gave us rain from heaven and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with
food and gladness.”
Where do you think Paul
would go from there? We’ve seen enough already to know that he would go to
explaining the crucifixion and the resurrection. But what happens? He is
immediately mobbed; the people don’t want to have their worldview shifted.
Their little epistemological Pac-Man, their little truth suppression mechanism,
refuses to accept what he has said because the evidence has been already
reinterpreted in their truth suppression. It can’t mean what he says it means;
it has to mean only that there is Zeus and Barnabas.
Now they’re saying that’s
not true, and the multitude still want to sacrifice to them.
Then the Jews from Antioch
and Iconium come in and really stir up the multitudes. “They stoned Paul and dragged him out of the city,
supposing him to be dead.” So, he didn’t get very far. But we do see
certain principles there that we’ve seen before.
We’ve seen the emphasis on
God as the Creator God. We see that he doesn’t treat God as neutral, doesn’t
treat the people as neutral, understands that they have a religious
predisposition, which indicates they believe in God, but they are suppressing
that true belief in God in unrighteousness.
Now I want to turn over a
couple of chapters to Acts 17. This is on the second missionary journey. Paul
is traveling. He goes to Thessalonica and there he is run out of town by the
Jews who are pressing him. He goes to Berea, and then he ends up going to
Athens.
We read in Acts 17:16 that
while he’s in Athens he’s waiting for Silas and Timothy to catch up. He’s
walking around Athens, and he has a paroxysm. His soul just starts vibrating.
I know; everybody here is so
calm; you never see anything on the news where you start vibrating and getting
all upset. You just can’t believe what is going on. Well, that’s what Paul is
doing. He’s looking. He doesn’t have television, but he’s walking around Athens
and his spirit is provoked—it’s stirred up, it’s upset.
The Greek word there is PAROXUNO,
where we get our word “paroxysm.” He saw that the city is given over to idols.
Let me show you a few pictures.
This is what you see. If you
are on the Acropolis, the high point of the city where the Parthenon is
located, you look around and you see the temple to Hephaestus over here on one
side.
Then down, just below, you
see the Temple of Themis from above.
Then you look a little
further along, and you see the Theater of Dionysus, just at the base of the
Acropolis.
Then you look over and you
can see the Temple of Zeus. There were many, many others at the time of Paul.
Everywhere he looked there is a religious expression that’s going on. The
people are completely given over to all these gods and goddesses.
Now what does that tell you?
What’s the principle we’ve been studying? Everybody has a God consciousness.
Everybody knows God exists. Now they’re suppressing that in unrighteousness
through this polytheism.
Here’s the Acropolis and the
Temple to Athena. He is just really upset about all that he has seen, and he begins to talk to
the Athenians and to challenge them.
He sees certain Epicurean
and Stoic philosophers there that he’s talking to, and he’s talking to them
about Jesus and the resurrection. That’s what we see at the end of the verse: “because he
preached to them Jesus and the resurrection.” The way it’s written in the
Greek, they are preaching to them IESOUS and ANASTASIS. Jesus is one person and ANASTASIS is
another one. ANASTASIS is the Greek word for resurrection. So
they are thinking these are two different gods.
But Paul has an
understanding. Because of what he says, we know he has an understanding of the
culture that he’s speaking to. This isn’t something that is foreign to him.
That’s important. When we’re talking to unbelievers, we need to have an
understanding of what they believe and what their framework is to make sure
they’re hearing what we’re communicating to them.
If you go to polytheistic
cultures and start talking about the God, Jesus, they just think you’re talking
about another god that they’re going to put on the shelf with their 99 other
gods. You need to identify who Jesus is and who this God of the Bible is.
I’m not going to go through
everything I did when I taught Acts 17 in the Acts series, but I ran across
this quote in Van Til’s little pamphlet, called Paul at Athens.
Remember, Cornelius Van Til
is probably the finest articulator of presuppositional apologetics in the 20th
century. He writes,
“Basic to all the thinking
of the Greeks was the assumption that all being [that is, existence] ...”
“… all being [as a
philosophical term] is at bottom one, that all change comes by way of some form
of emanation from that one being and is therefore ultimate as the One.”
There’s one being. The
Beatles had a song, “I am you; you are me; he is she; we are one.” That’s
monism. That was from their period when they were into transcendentalism.
You saw it also in The Empire
Strikes Back, in the first series of Star Wars. When Luke Skywalker goes
off into the woods and has a light-saber battle with Darth Vader, cuts his head
off, and then he opens the visor and he sees himself—it’s pure monism. I mean,
the whole Star Wars thing is nothing more than a Buddhist mythology. I heard
George Lucas say that in an interview on PBS 30 years ago. I’ve had arguments
with people. “No, it’s not!” “Yes, it is! Listen to the creator; authorial
intent tells you how to interpret things.
What Van Til points out here
is that they’re are monists. Paul understands that. He has to talk about
being—that not all things are one, that God, the Creator, is outside of
creation.
This is a chart of the Great
Chain of Being. This is a scale diagram here. God had 100% being, going all the
way down to nonbeing—nonexistence—a rock, or leaf, a grain of sand has
nonbeing. Everything else is in between. And it’s just a big circle.
Here’s another diagram of
it, and it refers to this idea that there is a hierarchy of static, unchanging
forms with God, Who is being itself. Or God is called “the unmoved mover”; that
was Aristotle’s argument for God. He didn’t get to the God of Abraham, Isaac,
and Jacob. He just got to an “uncaused cause” or an “unmoved mover.”
Angels and demons and man
and animals are all part of this chain. Well, that was a mythological chain.
What happens is Darwin comes along and basically turns it on its side.
Darwin has the same thing.
He has this progression from amoeba up to man, and it’s the same thing as the
scale of being. It’s just ancient paganism given a scientific cloak and
concern.
Arthur Lovejoy, who wrote
the classic book explaining the history of the chain of being, says it’s “The
essential and unbreakable links in the chain include the Divine Creator, the
angelic heavenly, the human, the animal, the world …” What he is basically
saying is, “God’s part of the creation. God is part of being. He’s not over
against being. He’s not totally separate as the Creator versus the creation.
He’s part of the whole process.” That is basically what you have in all the
ancient pagan systems.
R. J. Rushdoony said, “Apart
from biblically governed thought, the prevailing concept of being has
been that being is one and continuous. God, or the gods, man, and the universe
are all aspects of one continuous being.” That hasn’t changed. What I’m
pointing out here is the pagan philosophers that Paul is talking to at the
Areopagus aren’t any different from the pagans you’re talking to. They just
have more scientific, technological terminology for everything, but they’re
still basically believing the same kind of nonsense.
I’ll skip over some of these
other quotes.
I always like to throw this
one in because most people don’t realize what a racist Darwin was and that
Darwinism is a racist theory. He said, “At some future period, not very distant
as measured by centuries, the civilized races [that means the white races] of
man will almost certainly exterminate and replace the savage races throughout the
world. At the same time the anthropomorphous apes …”
There was a politician in
Virginia who got into a lot of trouble because he used some term related to a
monkey, and it was taken to be a racist term. You know, that is what Darwin is
saying here; he is talking about blacks.
He says, “The break between
man and his nearest allies will then be wider, for it will intervene between
man in a more civilized state, as we may hope, even than the Caucasian, and
some ape as low as a baboon, instead of as now between the negro, or
Australian, and the gorilla.” This guy is racist to the core. Anybody who believes in
Darwinism is a
racist to the core. They just don’t realize that his whole system is
grounded on that.
Lovejoy says, “What the Schoolmen
...” That term is for the scholastics. That’s Thomas Aquinas, Albertus Magnus,
all the middle-aged, highly educated Roman Catholic theologians. What they called
ens perfectissimum—that’s just their Latin term for “perfect being.” “Ens” is
being; perfectissimum is self-explanatory; “perfect being.”
What they call perfect
being, “the summit of the hierarchy of being, the ultimate and only completely
satisfying object of contemplation and adoration, there can be little doubt
that the Idea of the Good …” That you find in people like Albert the Great, and
Thomas Aquinas, and others] was the God of Plato; and there can be none [that
it became no doubt] that it became the God of Aristotle, and one of the
elements or aspects of the God of most of the philosophic theologies of the
Middle Ages, and of nearly all the modern Platonizing poets …”
Modern Platonizing
poets—that’s all the enlightenment thinkers.
They all buy into this same
ancient pagan idea—that God is part of the chain, just like everything else.
It’s all just a means to deny the Creator God.
It’s the Pac-Man eating
everything up.
Let’s just hit this real
quick to see what happens. “And they took him and brought him to the Areopagus” [a rocky
outcropping at the base of the Acropolis, which is where they would get
together and discuss philosophical ideas]. And they said, “We want to talk to
you about this. We can all be objective; this is a good idea.” No, they can’t. Why?
Because they are truth suppressors.
“May we know what this new doctrine is of
which you speak?” That is, resurrection. See, their concept of life is
distorted, so their concept of resurrection and afterlife is going to be distorted. You
have to have a point-to-point confrontation to tear down the whole edifice.
You’ve heard me use this
before. When the Holy Spirit shows up—when you go from being an unbeliever to a
believer—He’s not coming in like an interior designer, “Let’s put some new
curtains here and change the paint in this room from blue to green.” He’s not
going to say, “We need new carpet here. And let’s get rid of the siding and put
in some new brick work or something.” He shows up with a bulldozer, because He
wants to take out the foundation. That’s what Paul’s doing here. He’s got to deal with
their foundation.
So they want him to come
here. Here’s a picture of Mars’ Hill. This is a Logos diagram that they’ve put
together. You see that they cut these stairs into the rock. You can go up on
top. Let me tell you, after all the years of people climbing up on top, that is slick!
You get up there, and you will fall and die! It is exceptionally slick. We have
Paul down here, just to the right of the stairs. I’m making a point out of
that.
Here’s a modern picture.
See, here are the stairs, right here. And here are the trees that were pictured
in the other diagram. That’s an aerial of Mars’ Hill taken from up on the
Areopagus.
Then, here’s a modern-day
preacher at Mars’ Hill in that same spot. That’s Tommy Ice, teaching Acts 17 at
Mars’ Hill.
Paul says, “Men of Athens, I
perceive that in all things you are very religious.” See, in 1961, the
Supreme Court issued in a ruling the statement that secular atheism was a
religion. Did you know that? The Supreme Court of the United States has defined
secular
atheism as a religion. They want to say, “No, no, no, no. We’re not
religious.” Yes, you are.
Anybody who says anything
about ultimate meaning is religious. If you say, “There’s a God,” is that a
religious statement? They’ll all say, “Yes.” Well, then the opposite must also
be a religious statement. “There is no God” must be equally religious. So, the
United States Supreme Court recognized that in a decision in 1961.
He’s talking to these
Epicureans and Stoics, and he says, “I perceive that in all things you are very
religious; 23
for as I was passing through and considering the objects of your worship, I
even found an altar with this inscription: TO
THE UNKNOWN GOD.” Now, a lot of people make the mistake of
thinking the altar “to the unknown God” is an altar to the God that he’s going
to talk about. But you have to punctuate this differently.
I thought I had created a
slide for this, but I didn’t. The “for” at the beginning of verse 23 is
explaining his statement, “I perceive that in all things you are very religious; 23 for as I was
passing through and considering the objects of your worship, I even found an
altar with this inscription: TO THE UNKNOWN GOD.” Period.
“Therefore,” that therefore is a
rhetorical device to move to his point. He’s not drawing a conclusion that the
unknown god is the God that he’s going to talk about.
Because he’s immediately
going to say, “This is the One I’m going to proclaim to you.” “God, who made the
world and everything in it.” No Greek ever thought there was a God who is totally
outside the chain of being, the God who created the whole chain of being, the
God who created everything.
He is saying, “This is the
God I’m talking about.” “God, who made the world and everything in it.” He starts with
creation. Creationism is important! It’s not some sideshow; it’s not secondary.
That’s why, when we look at the film next week, what we are going to see is
that in almost every one of the arguments for the existence of God, it goes to
creation. Because creation is not an option to talk about. You have to understand the Creator
God, or you don’t get a right understanding of the cross or Jesus.
24 “God, who made the world and everything in
it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with
hands. 25 Nor
is He worshiped with men’s hands, as though He needed anything, since He gives
to all life, breath, and all things.” He’s outside the chain of being. He gives to everything
its existence.
26 “And He has made from one blood every nation
of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their
preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings.” I quote that all
the time to prove that we’ve got to have national boundaries. You’ve got to
have defense of nations based on their boundaries, and God predetermined those boundaries. It’s not
something that originated with man.
Why did God do this? “So that they
should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him …” So,
nationalism is ultimately designed in the plan of God to bring people to what?
To worship the God Who made everything.
Then he goes on and talks
about Who God is. “For in Him we live and move and have our being.” Because of that he
is saying, “It is not a pantheistic idea; it is that God is the One who gives us our
very existence. “For
we are also His offspring,” in the sense of He created us.
29 “Therefore, since we are the offspring of
God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold or silver or
stone [it’s not an idol], something shaped by art and man’s devising.”
30 “Truly, these times of ignorance God
overlooked, but now commands all men everywhere to repent.” What’s the goal
of the confrontation? To change them. So what we’ve seen is that God is
focused, in the confrontation, on changing men’s minds to turn to Him.
Acts 17:30–31, “Truly, these
times of ignorance God overlooked, but now commands all men everywhere to
repent, 31 because
He has appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by the
Man whom He has ordained. He has given assurance of this to all by raising Him
from the dead.” And what happens? They react. Because this doesn’t fit
their truth-suppression mechanism.
What have we learned?