Paul and the Town Hall

 Paul and the Town Hall

 

Acts 17:22-31
17:22 Then Paul stood in front of the Areopagus and said, "Athenians, I see how extremely religious you are in every way.

17:23 For as I went through the city and looked carefully at the objects of your worship, I found among them an altar with the inscription, 'To an unknown god.' What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you.

17:24 The God who made the world and everything in it, the one who is Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in shrines made by human hands,

17:25 nor is God served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since God gives to all mortals life and breath and all things.

17:26 From one ancestor he made all nations to inhabit the whole earth, and God allotted the times of their existence and the boundaries of the places where they would live,

17:27 so that they would search for God and perhaps grope for God and find God--though indeed God is not far from each one of us.

17:28 For 'In God we live and move and have our being'; as even some of your own poets have said, 'For we too are God’s offspring.'

17:29 Since we are God's offspring, we ought not to think that the deity is like gold, or silver, or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of mortals.

17:30 While God has overlooked the times of human ignorance, now God commands all people everywhere to repent,

17:31 because God has fixed a day on which God will have the world judged in righteousness by a man whom God has appointed, and of this God has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead."

 

 

 

This week’s text from Acts is a “convicting” one for me, personally. You see, the Apostle Paul demonstrates something here that is not a natural impulse for me, as a Christian, nor as a person who tips the scales on the Myers-Briggs personality inventory as an “ENFP,” or “Extroverted, Intuitive, Feeling, Perceiving.” We love a good argument, and even when making a public witness for our faith, we can easily get drawn into a contentious conversation, just for the “fun” of it. Even if my “opponent,” or shall we say the “protagonist,” enjoys the sparring, me, as the antagonist, is not necessarily providing a good witness of the love of the gospel and the story of my faith in Christ. On a grander scale, this is the problem with “apologetics,” the once-venerated skill of putting up a good “argument” or “case” for the gospel. “Defending the faith” may have its place, but the arena of witnessing for Jesus Christ is not one of them. Hence, apologetics has become an archaic pursuit. Arguing for the “truth” of the gospel will not persuade someone to accept and believe it. Faith is a matter of the heart and the soul. The mind generally comes later. An apologeticist may be “right as rain,” but turn off her or his audience to the transforming power of the Good News. And while I do not see myself in this regard, I DO like to “contend” in conversation more naturally than listen, acquiesce, and lovingly persuade. Again, Paul hits me right between the eyes with the story we read today in Acts 17. More on that later. First, let’s look at the story, itself.

 

Paul, a very learned man, is on a mission to witness for Christ, wherever God leads him. In this account, he is in Athens, and has arrived at the Aeropagus, a rock outcropping used predominantly as a judicial or trial venue. Some doubt that this is the site of Paul’s message, and the Acts author may have set the story there, as future readers would understand why such a philosophical discussion would have taken place. It may have actually been in the Agora, but later readers would have any idea what that was. The text doesn’t directly say whether Paul is in Athens as part of his missionary journey or just as a tourist passing through, but it is clear that his intellect has him fascinated at the statues to the various Gods of the Greek culture. And yet, Paul turns his observations into an opportunity to witness for the gospel. Earlier in the chapter, we read that Paul was “greatly distressed” by all of the idol/statues he encountered in Athens, but when he gets his chance, he shares a witness that does not confront, but that begins as information to his listeners. He begins by showing respect to their pagan faith, offering to “name” for them the “Unknown God” they worshipped as the highest of their deities. As he tells of the power, grace and “exploits” of this God—his God, and the Father of Jesus Christ the Savior—he draws them into his sphere of interest. Paul describes the God of the Bible and the God of Jesus Christ—a God who is “not far from us” and fully engaged with God’s human creation. This is not a “rock” God who is cold and uncaring, and for whom the worship of this God elicits nothing but an inanimate “stone stare.” Paul invokes one of the most powerful and thoughtful descriptions of our God one will read anywhere: “In God we live and move and have our being.” Paul’s description of God as a deity who is directly engaged with us, especially in the incarnate “man” Jesus Christ, obviously moves some in his audience, which included some very powerful leaders in Athens, including Dionysius and a woman named Damaris. The latter part of chapter 17 tells us they became believers! Paul’s sensitive and compassionate “conversation” became a transformational moment for these two, and apparently several others. 

 

Paul effectively staged what we might call a “town hall” meeting, today. There was a time in American history when town hall meetings were held to bring citizens together to express concerns or opinions to civic leaders and elected officials, who then might properly act to remedy the situations discussed. Modern “town halls” are often staged by the news media on TV, radio, or streaming services, with a “cross sectional” audience selected to ask questions or express concerns. Honestly, they have mostly become campaign forums today, such as the one that CNN hosted on Wednesday night with former President Donald Trump. Unfortunately, unlike Paul’s peaceful and intellectual exchange with the folk near the Aeropagus in Athens, most of them today are one-sided and often contentious. Trump’s “town hall” appearance on CNN this week turned out to be just a one-sided forum where he could continue to prevaricate and try out his election sound bites. The host was all but powerless to stop him from steamrolling the “dialogue.” The Apostle Paul could teach all of us a lesson, today!

 

Back to my being “convicted” by this story: I love a good argument, and tend to “push” conversations with those who may disagree with my theology to a point of contentiousness. I don’t know whether it is the competitiveness in me, or just the “devil’s advocate” part of being an extroverted, intuitive person that tends to make me more confrontational in theological discussions? But Paul, here, is empathetic to his listeners, which is NOT a bad idea for someone when witnessing to “unbelievers,” or even as a preaching model. My Friday conversation group has been reading the sermons of Fred Craddock, the late master preacher and professor of homiletics (preaching) at Chandler School of Theology. Craddock was famous for a kind of “aw shucks” type of folksy sermons that led his listeners to “over hear” the Good News, meaning they listened, and were “lured” to draw their own conclusions. When we get to do that, we are first informed, and then transformed by what we hear. What I get from Craddock—and Paul—is that our witness, and our preaching, can be one of three things: confrontational, informational, or transformational. The latter should be our goal, if we are serious about turning the world around toward faith in Jesus Christ, who is, himself, a transformational figure. 

 

As Christian witnesses, and as preachers, for those of us who answer to that calling, we are beckoned to learn from Paul’s “town hall” by the Aeropagus, rather than from the bashing, slashing, and fabricated disaster that was Donald Trump’s “town hall” on CNN on Wednesday. The funny thing is that Donald Trump posted on his personal social network afterwards that he believed he “changed many minds” with his diatribe the other night. I severely doubt it. He may have even ticked some off and lost their support. I thought that my own public witness for Christ may too often be somewhere between Paul and Trump, and no where near Craddock’s, in terms of my preaching. It’s never too late to listen and learn, Dear Ones. How about you?

 

If one reads more of the stories of the New Testament about the life and ministry of Paul the Apostle, one will clearly see that Paul is often confrontational, but usually in the face of opposition or “stuckness” from other church leaders. But in front of “unbelievers” he encounters, whether people like Festus, Dionysius, or even the Philippian jailer, Paul is sensitive, gentle, and inviting with his words and his actions. His public witness is simple, soft, and extremely effective. And even in his “town hall” in front of the Aeropagus, when he could have hotly debated those who had been advocates for a system of heartless, power-craving “deities” they had idolized in stone, Paul came on with compassion, understanding, collegiality, and a goal of persuading them to switch allegiance to a God who cared enough to walk among us and offer his life for us. 

 

Friends, this text should challenge us all. Paul didn’t seem to “worry” that his careful, respectful witness might result in no change in the faith of his “learned” audience. My guess is that if that happened, he just would have dropped the subject, in order to return another day with more inviting rhetoric, rather than scared them with the threat of “going to hell” because of their “devilish” or pagan beliefs. Do we believe in the power of God to transform individuals through the work of the Holy Spirit and via the agency of Jesus Christ? If so, do we believe enough that our witness MAY not be the “last word” our listeners will ever hear? Or do we believe that our witness may need to be borne out over more than one conversation? How much trust do we have that God will offer us many opportunities to be “missionaries” and witnesses to those we encounter? Or that God may well use our testimony as but one part of what is needed to construct a transformational message for some of the folk we encounter? Perhaps one of the most destructive things we have been seduced by is the idea that “we may be the only one” some people meet who may persuade them to put their faith in Christ. Paul reminds us, “Who’s in charge here?”  

 

Again, what the author tells us in verse 28 is all we need to know (and to witness to!):  “For 'In God we live and move and have our being; as even some of your own poets have said, 'For we too are God’s offspring.” Amen!