This week, our congregation was blessed to have heard great lessons from Scripture from Bro. Dan Owen from Paducah, Kentucky! I took many, many things from Bro. Dan’s lessons this week. One that sticks out to me is the need to “choose Jesus!” Of course, we choose Jesus when we see how much God loves us. The thoughts we were challenged to consider takes me to Acts 17:16-34. Here, Paul is provoked or moved by the fact that the community he had entered was focused on idols and not the Creator. This section of Scripture teaches us to be focused, to find those who are in need of Jesus, and to never forget judgement is on the horizon.
Acts 17:16-34 says, Now while Paul waited for them at Athens, his spirit was provoked within him when he saw that the city was given over to idols. Therefore he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and with the Gentile worshipers, and in the marketplace daily with those who happened to be there. Then certain Epicurean and Stoic philosophers encountered him. And some said, “What does this babbler want to say?” Others said, “He seems to be a proclaimer of foreign gods,” because he preached to them Jesus and the resurrection. And they took him and brought him to the Areopagus, saying, “May we know what this new doctrine is of which you speak? For you are bringing some strange things to our ears. Therefore we want to know what these things mean.” For all the Athenians and the foreigners who were there spent their time in nothing else but either to tell or to hear some new thing. Then Paul stood in the midst of the Areopagus and said, “Men of Athens, I perceive that in all things you are very religious; 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. Therefore, the One whom you worship without knowing, Him I proclaim to you: 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. Nor is He worshiped with men’s hands, as though He needed anything, since He gives to all life, breath, and all things. 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, so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; for in Him we live and move and have our being, as also some of your own poets have said, ‘For we are also His offspring.’ Therefore, since we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold or silver or stone, something shaped by art and man’s devising. Truly, these times of ignorance God overlooked, but now commands all men everywhere to repent, 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 when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked, while others said, “We will hear you again on this matter.” So Paul departed from among them. However, some men joined him and believed, among them Dionysius the Areopagite, a woman named Damaris, and others with them.
This passage is so rich for so many reasons. To coincide with the thought of choosing Jesus, let’s look at how Paul’s approach. Paul encounters a people who are choosing idols, knowledge, and pleasure over Christ. Paul imitates Christ by having a desire to be concerned about others. Matthew 9:36 says this about Jesus, But when He saw the multitudes, He was moved with compassion for them, because they were weary and scattered, like sheep having no shepherd. Paul is willing to put in the time to teach and converse with others about Christ in not only the marketplace, but also with those who quickly opposed his instruction. Ephesians 5:15-18 says See then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be unwise, but understand what the will of the Lord is. And do not be drunk with wine, in which is dissipation; but be filled with the Spirit, Additionally, we see Paul is wants to put forth effort in giving others the opportunity to choose Jesus. Matthew 9:37-38 says, Then He said to His disciples, “The harvest truly is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest.”
Paul knew the world needed Jesus. Here, he not only communicates, but connects! We see that even in the face of an unfriendly audience that lacked knowledge, some were ready to mock this man, but others joined him. Paul still wanted Jesus to be chosen. Paul teaches us about having a desire, a willingness to put in the time, and to make an effort to share Christ because this is what the world needs.
