Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - The Power of Hospitality and Culture | New Testament | Acts 17

Episode Date: May 23, 2023

From the heart of Greece to Paul's courageous stand in Athens, explore the interplay between culture, values, and faith. Join as Tanya explores Paul's transformative encounter in Athens from Acts 17 and its relevance to our lives today. Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now. Join the TMBT community in reading the entire New Testament in one year. Get your FREE reading plan here. Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it with others, so others can find it too. Use #asktmbt to connect with us, ask questions, and suggest topics. We'd love to hear from you! To learn more, visit our website and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter@TenMinuteBibleTalks. Don't forget to subscribe to the TMBT Newsletter here. Passages: Acts 17

Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life and the time it takes to get to work. I'm Tanya Wilmuth. I have something that I wish everyone could have, and if I could, I'd split her up and share her with you. She's a friend, and she's from Greece. And being from Greece, she and her family value good food and good hospitality. Probably at the root of that, they value people. And it shows. She took us to visit her family living in Greece a few years ago, and we were able to see the beautiful country from inside.

her family's home. Besides the turquoise of G&C and Mount Olympus rising above the village, there are two things I will never forget, the Greek hello and the Greek goodbye. There is nothing in America that prepares you for the Greek hello. If you visit someone here in the U.S. And your flight comes into the airport after 8 p.m., you'll be lucky to get a curbside ride and a visit through the drive-thru on the way home. If it's after 10, save yourself the trouble and call an Uber because your American friends are cashed out for the night. But that is not how it works in Greece. Our flight was set to land in Thessaloniki at 1030 p.m. So my other non-Greek friend and I were planning to eat dinner before we boarded the plane. Oh, no, no, no, said our friend from Greece. We'll have dinner

when we arrive. We didn't really believe her, but we obliged. When her cousin picked us up, in her teensi-wincey car at 10.30 p.m., we hopped in, listened to Greek rock on the hour drive to their family home and pulled in to a full on welcoming committee. It was almost midnight, but I mean every single cousin, aunt, and uncle were there waiting for us, even the toddlers. Then we got the best seats in the living room while everyone talked for about an hour, and then we moved to the kitchen just before 1 a.m. where we all sat around a table for a full course Greek meal. That is the Greek hello. The great goodbye was even better. The U.S. also does not prepare you for this. Even our luggage is unprepared for this. In America, we pull you up to the curb at the airport, we press the automatic

trunk to open for your suitcase, and we blow a kiss out the window. In Greece, they stuff Spanica pita and bread and jam into the pockets of your carry-on backpack, drive you to the airport, park the car, walk in as far as the gate will allow, and then wave every single time the security line snakes around and they can see you. The Greek goodbye doesn't end until someone is completely out of sight. And at that point, they start texting to see if you're hungry and remind you about the bread in your backpack. I tell you that story, not so you'll buy a blaine ticket to Greece, though maybe you should, but to give a glimpse into how value systems illustrate culture and vice versa. And also, because today we're in Act 17 and Paul is traveling in Greece,

and he's going to tap into the value system of the Athenians to teach them about the one true and living God. Paul actually had to flee from the city of Thessalonica and leave people he loved because of what Luke labels in her chapter as jealousy. Then he travels in Chapter 17 on to Bria and finally to Athens. And that's where we pick up today, Acts Chapter 17 and Paul's famous talk on Mars Hill that makes up the second half. Now, since Paul traveled to Athens alone, he was waiting for Silas and Timothy to join. And Luke tells us what Paul was doing while he waited. I'm going to pick up with you in verse 16. It says, now while Paul was waiting for them at Athens, his spirit was provoked within him, as he saw the city was full of idols. So he reasoned in

the synagogue with the Jews and the devout persons, and in the marketplace every day with those happened to be there. Some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers also conversed with him. Now, while some of these philosophers brushed him off and called him a babbler, some of them were curious about the so-called foreign divinities Paul was preaching about. And so, they invited him to the Arapagus, wondering about this new teaching that he was presenting. Now, Luke describes the Arapagus. He says, now all the Athenians and the foreigners who live there would spend their time in nothing except telling or hearing something new. That was kind of the thing. They would sit around, philosophize, and talk about new gods. Now, in God sovereignty, Paul was invited into the council,

where a member could come before the council and present their reasoning on why someone, either dead or alive, should be made into a God. For this to happen, you had to present evidence, proving the person's deity. You had to have a parcel of land secured to build them a temple. You had to come up with a day or a festival to honor and celebrate this new God. Then you had to have access or the means to make all of this happen. So imagine what it was like for Paul to be welcomed here to present on the one true and living God, to talk about Jesus Christ the Messiah who was risen from the dead. Only in God's sovereignty could something like this happen.

And in the spirit, as Luke mentioned a few verses earlier, Paul presented in a way that followed the Athenian culture system, a way that they could understand, the way that they debated. And so he kind of followed their own formula. So he starts off by describing, this is not a new God I'm introducing you to, but one that has always existed. And he's not even new to you, to your hearts and your minds.

In Paul's own words, he says, for as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship, I found an altar with the inscription to the unknown God. What therefore you worship is unknown. This I proclaim to you is the God, who made the world and everything in it, being Lord and heaven of earth. Then he goes on to say, there's no need to secure a parcel of land to build a temple because he's not confined to such places. God doesn't dwell in sanctuaries made with human hands, but he's much nearer to us.

And there's no need for an annual feast or a day needed to offer up animal sacrifices, for he is in need of nothing. Rather, the one true God provides everything you need. He is the Lord and God overall. There is no superior race or nation. This was contrary to what the Athenians believed about themselves. And he created you so that you should seek him and find your way toward him. And then for personal evidence of God's deity, instead of talking about even his personal encounter with Jesus on the road to Damascus, as probably would have been the case normally, Paul says no further evidence

is needed than the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ. So what happened? Well, some mocked him and others said they wanted to hear more, and only a few believed and joined Paul. Athens did not become the home of a Christian church or even the site of a church plant during Paul's time. Was Paul disappointed in how things went in Athens? It's possible that he was discouraged. It's hard to talk to people who are really smart and even harder to talk to people who are stuck in a past golden age. Pagan worship was heavily entrenched in this culture. It was a way of life for the Athenians. When the evidence for Jesus Christ intersected with the gods of Athenian culture, what they value shaped the way they responded to Paul's teaching. When our values and our beliefs intersect,

we can either see Jesus is better or we can be stuck on creating idols out of things that were intended to point us to God. For example, if we value excellence, we can give God the credit and the glory when things turn out well because he is the source and giver of all excellence. And when we don't live up to our standards of excellence, we can turn to God knowing he loves us completely, regardless of our performance. We all inherently know there's a hole in our lives that only God can fill. This is kind of what Paul was referring to when he saw that statue to the unknown God. But when we set up other things to try to fill that whole, we make gods or idols out of those things. We seek them to feel better. And they always, always, always disappoint. So the message of the gospel is that Jesus rescues us

from a place of willful ignorance, a place from idol worship to a desire to love him as our one and only true creator, Lord. Since we've been rescued, how can we better understand how the things that we value may be excellence, maybe education, maybe hard work, maybe children. How do those reveal the character of God? How do they point us to God? How can we let these good things turn us toward God instead of making them into idols? And how can we use knowing what our friends and family value as a springboard to talk to them about Jesus. Even though Paul might have been discouraged in Athens, Acts chapter 17 lists a few who did believe. And we know from scripture that God's word never returns void, even if fruit is hard to see or decisions are delayed. So we can be encouraged, even when the culture seems dark and

distorted, that our labor is not in vain, and that God is equipped and enabled us to share his goodness with others. Before you forget, sign up for the brand new TMBT newsletter. Hit the the link in the show notes, and you'll get an email every Wednesday that will help you beat the midweek slump and go deeper in your walk with Jesus. Thanks for listening.