Bible Study: November 3, 2021

Start the recording. Last week we did the Acts 8-15 Review Study. So I don't know if anyone has any lingering questions from that, but if you do, we could talk about those at this time. We're going to cover Acts 17 tonight. You'll remember before we did Acts 8-15, the review, that we did cover Acts 16. But before I get into that, if there are there any questions or anything anyone wants to discuss from the last Bible study before we begin here tonight?

Rick, did you record last week's Bible study? We did. We did. I haven't seen it out on the site, is it?

That would probably be me. I don't remember sending it today, so let me make a note to myself. Yeah, we'll have it up there with this one this week, then. Yeah, we have to send that today to post last week. Thank you.

Okay, so then just to bring us up to speed in Acts 15, of course we know that was the Jerusalem conference.

We've talked many times about the things that were decided as a result of the conference at the end of chapter 15. Paul and Barnabas decide they're going to go on another missionary journey, but they have a disagreement between the two of them of who they should take along. So Paul and Barnabas split, and it turns out that Paul and Silas are going to go back to revisit some of the churches that began on the first journey, primarily the Galatian churches there. But then they're going to extend beyond that. In Acts 16, we visited or we learned about the beginning of the Philippian church, the church in Philippi, of course. You know, as we study through, as we look at the beginning of each of these churches, there's things that we learned that are unique to the areas that Paul and Silas would go into.

We learned that the churches themselves are unique in a way. They have different characteristics among them. As we look to Thessalonica tonight, we're going to see one of the things that, you know, was that marked that church as they began and as they continued. And each church has its own personality at times, goes through different things. Not every church is exactly the same. They're made up of different people, but also in different locales and different forces that are at work with them. So we're going to see some of that. You know, before we begin, let me go ahead and put up the screen of the map that we had last time that kind of refresh our minds on, you know, where we're at.

If you look up in the upper northwest corner there, you see Philippi. It's up there in the area of Frace in Macedonia. That's where we were in Acts 16. So you recall with the church in Philippi, you know, it was unique in the fact that where Paul customarily goes to the synagogues of the Jews in the various cities, and that's where he preaches the gospel of Jesus Christ and reasons with them from the Scriptures. In Philippi, he didn't go to the synagogue, though. We don't know offhand if there was not a synagogue in Philippi, but you'll remember that he went to the river. And at the river there was the women who were gathering for prayer before apparently the services or whatever they did after prayer was going to begin. And we met a woman there named Lydia. Now, interestingly, we never met one of the men from the church at Philippi, except for the jailer who was later baptized after Paul and Silas found themselves in prison. But we see that the church there in a different light, it was a little bit different. And you'll recall, you will recall that Paul, things seem to be going along okay in Philippi, except for this, I guess, I don't know if I should call her a slave girl, I guess, that's what they call her in Acts 16, a slave girl. And she was a fortune teller of sorts who would annoy Paul, as the Bible says. And she would come out, remember, and she'd say, listen to these men, they're the men of God. And yet she was clearly identified with the pagan religions of that time. And so it was a confusing message that was there because the Church of God would not be allied with a pagan force, as you recall us discussing. Paul cast the demon out of her. And of course, everything broke loose at that time. Her masters were upset because that's how they made money. They got everyone together. They pretty much threw Paul out of the while they threw him into jail. And you recall, as they were in jail, they didn't worry. Paul and Silas were singing hymns and God, again, delivered them. I won't go through the detail of that. You can rehearse your, recurse all that in Acts 16. And then they left. They came back to Lydia's house. Joanna, of course, was baptized and they came to Lydia's house and then they left. And that's where we are as we pick up chapter 17.

But they are in Philippi, up there in the northwest corner. They're going to leave and go to Thessalonica. Thessalonica was another large city in the Macedonian area there. It's about 100 miles from Philippi. As you look and see, how did they travel those days? The Romans in that area, all throughout the Roman Empire, for those several hundred years before that, even had been constructing roads. So there were actually roads people could walk along or have whatever animals they went with them as they went from place to place. But they said typically you could travel about 20 miles a day. So the journey from Philippi to Thessalonica was about five days for Paul and Silas and Timothy, who were there. It's interesting as you look at just some of the history, you know, apart from commentaries and look back at the Roman era, the Roman Empire and what they had done. Paul really had that whole area around the Mediterranean Sea, since it was controlled by Rome, he had pretty much free access into any of those countries. One of the very big advantages to him is that, you know, as he moved from Cappadocia into Galatia, into Achaia, into Thrace, into Macedonia, he didn't stop at the border. He didn't have to show his passport or whatever it was. Because it was Rome, they had free access. They could go. There were no borders. It was all one big country, and it was part of the Pax Romana time. So at the same time, of course, the Jesus Christ lived that allowed people to talk about the things they wanted to talk about. There was a general freedom of religion in that respect. So Paul not only had the opportunity to move freely around the Mediterranean Sea, but he had the opportunity because God had blessed that area at that time. It was a time in history where God made it possible that there was free discourse of the Gospel and free spreading of the Gospel without any of the things that would have occurred, that might have delayed people or distracted or provided the obstacles to them along the way. So it was an interesting time in history. And as we see Paul go from Thessalonica, where we're going to see him today, he's going to get thrown out of Thessalonica. We're going to find out. He's going to go over to Berea, 50 miles to the west of Thessalonica. You see that up there in the map. The same thing is going to happen in Berea after he works with the Bereas there for a while, and he gets far away from that area then and sails down to Athens, which is 250 miles to the south. You see that down there on the Palinsa Peninsula in Greece. But as they move into Thessalonica, Berea and Athens, we see them moving into Europe. The Gospel continually moves, the truth continually moves westward. So that kind of gives you the geography of what we're going to be looking at tonight and how far Paul is from home when you realize that he started over here at the far east of the map down in Antioch of Syria. So the commentaries will say that this whole journey of Paul that we're on now, the second journey lasted about three years. Three years that he was away from Antioch as the churches began.

So let me stop that. Let's pick it up then in chapter 17 and see because chapter 17 is quite an interesting chapter with a number of things that are going on. A number of verses that you're going to be very familiar with as we go through the chapter here. But also the story. What has gone on? You know, what is going on here in Thessalonica? And as we watch what God is doing, how he's leading his church to be formed and spread out into the various areas there around the Mediterranean, what do we learn to it? And there's things that we can see that are similar to us today and some of the things that Paul encounters. So verse 1. Verse 1 of chapter 17. When they had passed through in Phephelus and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica where there was a synagogue of the Jews.

And Paul, as his custom was, went into them, and for three Sabbaths, reasoned with them from the Scriptures. You know, Paul, we know that he went in and preached the gospel. You know, well, read verse 3 too. Explained and demonstrated that the Christ had to suffer and rise again from the dead and saying, This Jesus whom I preach to you is the Christ or is the Messiah.

So what he did when he went into the synagogues, he actually preached and talked from the Bible. That's the basis of our teachings, and the Church of God is the basis of everything we teach as the Bible. But from the Bible, he would prove that Jesus Christ is the Messiah. There was a new message to the people then, an exciting message for them to hear about Jesus Christ. And that's why the Gentiles, you know, when God opened their minds, they embraced it because they could see the truth of it. The Jews, many of them did as well, but as the Jews would see what the response to Paul is, you know, we see something happen in Thessalonica that has happened to Paul and his comrades as they've been in other places as well.

Verse 4, it says, And some of them were persuaded, the Jews in the synagogues, and the great multitude of the devout Greeks, and not a few of the leading women, joined Paul and Silas. So God is opening the way. They're understanding the message. They're looking into the Bible.

They're getting what God has preached. He's the one who's opened their minds. And a church is developing. A following is beginning there as they understand who Jesus Christ is, who understands who Jesus Christ is. But in verse 5, it seems like the same thing keeps happening in every city Paul is in.

The Jews, kind of one of the things that they did back then, the Jews who were not persuaded, became envious, took some of the evil men from the marketplace, gathered a mob, and set all the city in an uproar, and attacked the house of Jason. Well, let me stop there. You know, we've seen this happen over and over. The Jews who would become envious, they allowed envy. And now he's got a greater following than us, and if I could follow him, we'd want them to stay with our church. We'd want to stop what it is.

And so the Jews would come in, and they actually were the enemies of the Christians. Paul himself was an enemy of the Christians. He was of the same ilk. So I'm sure as Paul went through these issues or these incidents with the Jews, he probably thought back, you know, I was one of them.

This is what I was doing to the Christians until God called me. And so he would understand what was going on. And, you know, sometimes, you know, he wrote later in the book of Galatians in chapter 6 there, God is not mocked. You reap what you sow, right? And so sometimes, you know, we sin, and God forgives our sins, but we still reap the consequences of it.

And Paul, as he went through these areas and saw, boy, these Jews who just will not accept us, and they cause us trouble, and they do everything they can to stop the gospel, he had to understand it because he did the same thing before God called them. But it's interesting that that's one of the things the Jews did. One of the things that we've talked about is that when it was envy, I mean, it was envy that led the Jewish leadership to arrest Christ and have him, you know, have him crucified.

And the same thing is happening here. Now, again, if you look at some of the commentaries, and again, I don't know, I don't go back to see where they study these things. It makes sense, some of what they say when they talk about the Jews. Like, how many Jews were? Thessalonica was not a small city. It was a big city. So how could the Jews, a relatively small number of Jews, really disrupt the city in the way that verse 5 says? And it might explain it when it talks about when the Jews took some of the evil men from the marketplace and gathering a mob, set all the city in an uproar, and attacked the house of Jason.

So what the commentaries will suggest, when you look at the words that are evil men there, they're evil, but they're evil in a way that there is a type of person who really loves conflict. They really love to stir things up. You know what some of them will say? There were unscrupulous lawyers who caused this, right? They were looking for an issue.

They were looking for something to get people going because there was some kind of monetary gain out of them, but there was something to gain. Whether it was lawyers or not, I don't know, but there are people who just really, really like conflict. They really, really like confusion. They really, really like chaos, and they move toward it. And of course we know confusion and chaos is not a god. It is of Satan. We see that here, and they talk about a mob. So this mob gathers together all because of what has happened.

Paul, you know, some of the people of some of the Jews and the Gentiles are following Paul's teachings, but they get all riled up about this, and it sets the city into an uproar. We see the same thing happening in our world today in a strange sort of way. Remember, human nature, human nature doesn't change. The times will change, the settings will change, technology will change, human nature is the same.

So if there were people back then who were of this mindset that they loved, they loved controversy, they loved uprisings, they loved riots, so would it seem that today in this world we'd have the same type of people. And so not this past summer, but the summer before, we all suffered through a summer, those of us in America, where we saw cities burning and people rioting all over the place. You know, buildings burning down and people mad about this and mad about this, and the news would say it's mostly a peaceful protest, but there's always this other element that gets things going and that just riles people up.

And it's kind of the same thing that happened back then, that same human element that some are there. There might be a gathering, but there's some that can stir it into another segment. You know, some would say, even as we look back and think that's been in the news here for the last several months, this is January 6th incident, that there are some who would be in a position that would stir things up. You know, how that happened, what happens, we don't know, but there's an element of human nature here that's in this verse. So the Jews, they found some of these people.

They took some of these men because they wanted to create a furor. Took them from the marketplace. They put together the mob. We've talked about mob mentalities before. When the mob gets involved, the laws go out the window and it's emotion and what the mob wants, the rules. They gathered a mob. They set all the city in an uproar, and they attacked the house of Jason and sought to bring them out to the people.

Now, Jason, he's only mentioned a few times in the Bible. We don't know exactly who he is, but apparently that's where Paul was staying. He and probably Silas and maybe Timothy as well. That's where they were when they were here in Thessalonica. They apparently didn't know where Paul was, or he was hidden enough that he wasn't going to be dragged out into the marketplace. Probably God protected him, but they didn't know where he was staying.

So they took to Jason, you know, unassuming Jason, who has opened his house to some visitors here, and all of a sudden he's dragged out in the marketplace. You know where he is, Jason. You're the one harboring him. Paul is the one causing the problems here. Paul and Silas, they're troublemakers. We need to get rid of them. We don't want them in our city, etc., etc., etc. You can kind of hear the commotion as you see what's written here in verse 5 and put it into perspective of what was really going on here.

That the whole city here, the whole city was just in an uproar over what was being preached and the gospel there. And so Jason is brought out. Now, the only other place in the Bible outside of Acts that Jason has mentioned is in Romans 16. So if we just keep our finger there in Acts 17 for a second, and then in Paul's, you know, as he ends his epistle to the Romans in verse 21, you know, Paul usually will say, you know, these people send their greetings to you, etc., etc. Well, he does that. In verse 21, he says, Timothy, you know, Timothy is with him along with Silas on this journey here in Thessalonica.

Timothy, my fellow worker, and Lucius, Jason, and Sosapater, my countryman, greet you. So, you know, assuming that that Jason is the same Jason in Acts, in the book of Acts, you know, it's someone who Paul knows very well. The original King James as kinsmen. I didn't look it up in the concordance, you know, might be that he was a relative of him or just someone that Paul met when he was there.

A church member, someone in Thessalonica that, you know, that invited them to stay at their house. But he was a friend. He was a friend, whether that's a church friend, a church, a spiritual family member, or a physical family member doesn't make any difference. Jason, though, found himself in the midst of this controversy. You know, as the mob comes looking for Paul and wanting to get Paul and the gospel message out of Thessalonica. You know, again, what the mob wanted was, we don't want this message. We want to cancel this message.

We want to quell it. We want to forget you wherever here. We don't want to hear of you again. We don't want to hear this message again. We just want to end this. We just want we want this whole thing gone. Another thing that we begin to see in our world today with this, you know, we'll cancel the message that we don't like. We just stamp it out, right? So back in Acts 17, you know, we have Jason now who's been brought out into this mob and they're attacking him. You know, you can you can hear the screaming at him.

In verse 6 it says, but when they didn't find them, they dragged, they didn't find Paul and Silas. When they didn't find them, they dragged Jason and some brethren. Notice that to the rulers of the city, crying out, these who have turned the world upside down have come here too.

Now, I always liked that verse. I always, you know, when I would read, these who have turned the world upside down have come here too. I always looked at that as as positive because the message of Jesus Christ, the plan of God, it does turn everything upside down.

It undoes all of our prior beliefs, all of you know, which were false. It begins a whole new life for people. So in that sense, it's a positive thing, but it's not the way it's used here because as Jason and the brethren and the people who are dragged to the rulers of the city, what they're doing is accusing them.

You are the one. You have turned the world upside down. You've created this chaos. You've created this uproar. You've created, you know, this mess that we find ourselves in. And it really wasn't Paul or Jason or Timothy or Silas who did it. They were just preaching the truth in a peaceful manner. It was the people who didn't like the message, the people, the Jews who are envious, who, you know, brought all this about.

And yet they're accusing Paul and Jason of turning the world upside down. Really, they are the ones who are turned upside down. It's one thing to remember, you know, in life, in the Bible, I don't know the verse offhand, but it says what other people will accuse you of, they're guilty of the same thing because they think that you think the way they think. And sometimes when accusations are thrown out and you think, how did that happen, kind of tells us some of what is in their mind is too, because they think if they were going to do it, you would do it.

So anyway, just one of those things of human nature. So here we've got a notable verse here. We've got this mayhem that's going on in Thessalonica. And they accuse him. Jason has harbored, verse 7. Jason has harbored them. These are all acting contrary to the decrees of Caesar, saying there is another king, Jesus.

Another one of the twists that the Jews would use against the Christians. They believe that Jesus is king, therefore they're not honoring Caesar. They have another king. They're disloyal to the government. They're disloyal to the state. And of course, none of that is true. But it seems to have been a common theme that went through there. They accuse Jesus Christ of it. You remember that the apostles or disciples came to him and they said, you know, they accused us of not honoring the Sanhedrin and whatever. And Jesus Christ famously said the line about, render unto Caesar what is Caesar's and render under God what is God's.

He was telling them, pay the taxes, honor the authorities. As long as they're not in conflict or being contrary to God, do what the law of the land says. Be good citizens. We've talked about that several times. Paul, as he saw what they were doing here, later on in the book of Acts, or not the book of Acts, in the Battle of Romans, he dedicated Romans 13, the first part of it, to saying, be good citizens. Listen to what the government says.

Obey the laws of the land. Do what they say you do. Of course, that always is countered as long as the government isn't asking you to do something that's contrary to God's will, abide. But know what God's will is. Understand what God's will is. And there comes a point in time, as there was in the book of Acts times, there will come a time in our time where we just say, no, just because the government orders it, I'm not doing it. That is a part from God's will. That's where I draw the line. And I stand by what God says and not yield to the government.

We know from what's happening at the end of the government before the return of Jesus Christ, there will be that time where governments will say, do this, bow down to that. You don't do this. I'm going to make sure you can't sell. You can't buy. Your life is going to be over, basically. You need to watch out for that and see that and be able to devise and to discern what is the spirit behind it.

Obey the law as long as it's not running contrary to Christ and to God. Now, I won't turn to Romans 13. You can turn there if you want and be reading it. I was going through some of my papers here. I accumulate papers. People will hand me things and I eventually do read them.

So when you give me something, I will take the time to read them. I don't know who gave me something on Romans 13. And the person says he's skilled in Greek. He understands Greek. He's got a family that understands Greek very well. And as he goes through Romans 13, he gives a line-by-line translation of the Greek from Romans that is a little bit different than what we see in the New King James Version or even the King James Version.

Here he says the word-for-word translation from the original Greek of Romans 13. He says, every single soul of ruling, dominating or submissive, they do not have substance of ruling if they are not from God and under God.

Now those are confusing words, right? I mean, I have to kind of even pause as I read them to make sense of them. But it's a word-for-word translation of what the original Greek is. He says the correct English translation would be, every governing soul, including those in highest command or lowest command, have no authority if they are not ruling as fair and just as God.

So again, as long as they're teaching, as long as they're expecting to do things that aren't contrary to God's law, yes obey the laws of the land, but when it conflicts, always obey God. And you'll remember in the book of Acts, we've already seen, you know, once where that is written, where the Sanhedrin is telling Peter, if I recall correctly, Peter, you know, we don't want you teaching this anymore. We don't want you teaching this anymore.

And Peter says we ought to obey God rather than men. That's the key. But this is what they're accusing all and Silas of in Thessalonica as they find themselves there. That what they're preaching is, you know, basically turn against the king. You worship this Jesus Christ, but don't have any respect or don't obey the laws of the land. That wasn't at all the case. That's probably why Paul put Romans 13 in there. Peter, who would have faced the same things with the in Judea and in Jerusalem, also put it in 1 Peter 2 verse 13 of his epistle there to remind people we have a responsibility.

We have a responsibility to be good citizens as long as what's being asked doesn't conflict with God's law, will, or the precepts that we know. So anyway, so again, now, while we didn't turn to Romans 13, let's go back to Acts 17 here. So we can see what's going on. We see these kind of false accusations that are re-throwing out about Paul and Silas. The community is all in an uproar. And verse 8 says, And then they, they troubled the crowd and the rulers of the city when they heard these things.

So it's like everyone is upset about this and they really don't even know what they're upset about. They're just upset because people have agitated them. They made them upset. And there are people who can get us going on things when there isn't even a big issue. Kind of want to watch sometimes what our, you know, what our response is to things and find out what is the real issue. What is everyone so upset about?

And then, you know, we may not be as a big issue as as we might think it is. So they troubled the crowd. And verse 9 says, So when they had taken security from Jason and the rest, they let them go. An interesting verse. What it means is that, you know, okay, Jason, Jason, I, you know, maybe I don't know where Paul is. I don't know where Silas is. You know, they don't mean any harm. The whole thing went on. Well, what the mob said and what the ruler says, we just want Paul and Silas gone.

We want them out of the city. We don't want them here. And when they took security, it might have been something like a guarantee that we might pay. Okay, this this will happen. I'll put up my I'll put up my my collateral to you, because I will see to it that Paul and Silas leave. And so they, you know, kind of like bail money we have today. I promise this person will appear collateral. I'll give you this. We'll see that Paul and Silas leave the town, because apparently that was what the conversation was when we look at first 10 that Jason had to put something up.

Okay, I will see the Paul and Silas leave. I'm not going to let him stay at my house anymore. We'll get him out of the city. So in verse 10, that's exactly what happens. The brethren immediately sent Paul and Silas away by night to Berea. And of course, when they arrived in Berea, which is a very interesting place for them to be, they went to the synagogue of the Jews as they typically did. What we see here is Paul's experience of Thessalonica is just a very unwelcome city. They issued them out.

They got Jason involved. They would call anyone out who was of the persuasion of believing Jesus Christ, and they made sure that Paul and Silas were gone. They wanted the religion done. They wanted it to go back the way it was, as if it had never happened. One of the marks—keep your finger there in Acts 17—I think it would be instructive for us to look at the book of 1st or the epistle of 1st Thessalonians here, because Paul gives us a little bit of insight into what the church of Thessalonica was like.

There it was, this controversy while he was there, but apparently the persecution, the tribulation, the hard times for the Christians of Thessalonica continued. It was a troubled church, not troubled by themselves, but troubled by the community. The community just didn't want it. We're going to see that even the Jews from Thessalonica, when they heard that Paul was in Bria, they walked the 50 miles just to rile up the city over there.

They were so much against it. So I thought it would be good, because as we look in Acts and we see the churches begin and we see some of the things that Paul and the disciples went through as they started these churches, then we can look at the letters they wrote back and get an insight. So let's just read through. I'm not going to make a lot of comments on it, but let's just read through the first chapter or two of 1 Thessalonians and see what Paul is talking about, because now that we've been in Acts and we see what's happened, we know what he's talking about.

It makes the book of 1 Thessalonians meaningful to us. Verse 1, 1 Thessalonians 1, Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy to the church of the Thessalonians in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Verse 2, we give thanks to God always for you all, making mention of you in our prayers, remembering without ceasing your work of faith, your labor of love, and the patience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ in the sight of our God and Father.

And so, you know, he commends them. You continued the work, even after we left. It hasn't been easy, but you continued the work. You continue the labor of love, and you patiently have worked and waited for God. You didn't give up. You didn't withdraw in the face of the problems that were continually among you.

You just, in the patience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ, you just kept on going. Verse 4, knowing, beloved brethren, your election by God. For our gospel didn't come to you in word only, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and in much assurance, as you know what kind of men we were among you for your sake.

And you became followers of us and of the Lord, having received the word in much affliction. It was not an easy time, the Thessalonica. As Paul gave them the message, there was affliction for all of the Thessalonians. Jason was thrown out in the street, so were others, you know, as well.

You received the word in much affliction with joy of the Holy Spirit, so that you became examples to all in Macedonia and Okea, who believe. When they saw and understood what was going on in Thessalonica and how you handled the situation, that you remained loyal, that you didn't let the powers that be in that city take you away from the truth, throw away what God had called you to, that you made sure you're calling an election with sure, and you continued in your labor of love and your patience, hope that you had in Jesus Christ.

You became an example to all the other churches. They knew what was happening. They knew what was happening and what you were suffering in that church. You did a good job is what Paul is saying. Verse 8, from you the word of the Lord has sounded forth. For you, the word of the Lord has sounded forth, not only in Macedonia and Okea, but also in every place. Your faith toward God has gone out, so we don't need to say anything. All they know is they know what's going on. They know what you're enduring. It is a tremendous, tremendous thing. We don't have to say anything.

They just know your example. That's a beautiful thing for someone to say. A beautiful example of the Salonians were setting in the face of all that they had to encounter, probably day in and day out as they worshiped God. For they themselves, verse 9, declare concerning us what manner of entry we had to you, and how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God, and to wait for His Son from heaven, whom He raised from the dead, even Jesus who delivers us from the wrath to come.

They waited patiently, you know, for many, many years. They didn't give up. They just endured. Chapter 2, verse 1, for you yourselves know, brethren, that our coming to you wasn't in vain. But even after we had suffered before and were spitefully treated at Philippi, the city that they were in just before they went to Thessalonica, even after we were spitefully treated at Philippi, as you know, we were bold in our God to speak to you the gospel of God in much conflict.

It was a city. It was a city that wasn't easy to preach in. Paul is saying, even after what we did in Philippi, we didn't water down the gospel. We preached it boldly. We told you the truth and weren't going to let the forces of the world and cities to stop us from giving the truth. For our exhortation, verse 3, didn't come from error or uncleanness, nor was it in deceit. But as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel, even so we speak, not as pleasing men, but pleasing God who tests our hearts.

It's a key verse. Do what pleases God, not pleasing men. If both can be pleased at the same time, that's fine. It doesn't always occur that way. For neither at any time did we use flattering words, as you know, nor a cloak for covetousness. God is witness. Nor did we seek glory from men, either from you or from others, when we might have made demands as apostles of Christ. We didn't come in to convert you and say, okay, now you need to do this, you need to give us that, and you need to do all these things.

No, we didn't do that. They say what we came for is just to preach the gospel, to bring you the truth and to see you turn to God. But we were gentle, verse 7, among you, just as a nursing mother cherishes her own children. So, affectionately longing for you, we were well pleased to impart to you not only the gospel of God, but also our own lives, because you have become dear to us.

There was genuine love between Paul and the people that he worked with. For you, brethren, are labor and toil. For laboring night and day that we might not be a burden to any of you, we preach to you the gospel of God.

There you say, you know, they kind of worked on their own. They weren't looking for the church to provide anything. Paul wasn't there to get anything from someone. He was there to give them. He was there to give them the truth and bring the message to there. They didn't want to be a burden to anyone, so that they would look back and say, you know, he was there just to give. You are witnesses, verse 10, and God also, how devoutly and justly and blamelessly we behaved ourselves among you who believed. As you know how we exhorted and comforted and charged every one of you, as a father does his own children, that you would walk worthy of God who calls you into his own kingdom in glory.

For this reason, we also thank God without ceasing, because when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you welcomed it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which also effectively works in you who believe. You know, they weren't just enamored by Paul. They knew it was the truth. They knew it was from the Scriptures. They knew it was the word of God.

And that's, you know, that was what gave that church, you know, its definition. It had a lot, but it knew it was obeying God and following Him. Verse 14, for you, brethren, became imitators of the churches of God, which are in Judea, in Christ Jesus. They saw how the church believed. They saw what the church did. They obeyed God. They had the faith that the churches in Judea did. For you also suffered the same things from your own countrymen, just as they did from the Judeans.

And persecution was ramping up in Jerusalem and Judea. You know, we saw the persecution after the stoning of Stephen. It continued in Jerusalem. It became so bad, you know, later on under one of the Caesar's there, that they had all of them flee to Pella. But, you know, they, but at this time there was a persecution. Thessalonica was experiencing the same thing. For you also suffered the same things from your own countrymen, just as they did from the Judeans. Verse 15, who killed both the Lord Jesus and the Lord Jesus and their own prophets and have persecuted us. And they do not please God and are contrary to all men, forbidding us to speak to the Gentiles that they may be saved.

So as always, to fill up the measure of their sins, but wrath has come upon them to the uttermost. But we, brethren, having been taken away from you for a short time in presence, not in heart, endeavored more eagerly to see your face with great desire. Therefore, we wanted to come to you, even I, Paul, time and again. But Satan kept us. Satan injured us. For what is our hope or joy or crown of rejoicing? Is it not even you in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ that is coming? For you are our glory and joy.

You can see the love that Paul is having. What an encouraging letter for the brethren at that time to know where his heart is. His heart is, of course, with God, but with them as well. They are God's people. You know, later on he'll talk about they are his offspring, you know, when we get later on to Acts 17. And then the first verse of chapter 3 brings us right back to Acts 17.

When we could no longer endure it, we thought it good to be left in Athens alone. And so you can kind of see, and as we go through this, to take the time to read through the epistles to the churches that Paul wrote, you get some of the insight of what it is that he was writing about, what type of church it was, what it was enduring, and how he worked independently, not independently, he worked, of course, with God, but every church was different.

He had to handle each church in a different way. So when he said, the week I become this week to the Jew is the Jew, he understood how to reach those. Of course, God is the one through his Holy Spirit that led him to that. We're going to see that a little bit here in Acts 17 as well. I thought it was just helpful and encouraging to read, you know, to read that to the Thessalonians as we leave Thessalonica here in Acts 17 and we move on to Berea.

So let's go back to Acts 17. And again, remind you to remember that anyone has a comment? Pastor Chavi? Yes, sir. Hi, how are you? Good, how are you doing? Good, thanks. I'm just wondering when in the past the training, you know, when the ministers are in the pastoral training program, I guess they probably use certain scriptures like this a fair bit to show how to handle situations. I don't know. I'm just curious. Is that it?

I think they would. I have a vanity that used those. Not Thessalonians anyway, but, you know, the Bible is instructive to all of us, right? In all of our situations, we learn how to deal with. And yes, as ministers, there are instructions to us if we look at it and say, oh, that's how we handle that situation if we're looking at it. Yeah, so I agree with you. They're instructive. Everything I say we encounter in life, God's given us the answers in the Bible if we look to it. For all of us, that's true. Thank you. Okay, we were moved to Berea, right? Anything anyone else before we go on? Okay, Acts 17 and verse 11. Okay, so they come to Berea. You know, everyone's heard of the Bereans. These were people who actually embraced the Word of God. They did it the right way. Verse 11, you know, is filled with a lot of information of how the Bereans received the gospel of Christ. It's instructive to us as well because actually in this verse, there's seven things that we can look at when we're presented with something new that we might want to pause and look at it the way the Bereans did, right? Okay, in verse 11, it says, these people in Berea were more fair-minded than those in Thessalonica. Thessalonica just said, we don't want to hear it. Get out of here. We want you gone. We don't ever want to hear about it again. But in Berea, and I'm sure as Paul went to Berea, he probably felt, man, what's our reception going to be there? Are these people going to be just like they were in Thessalonica? How's it going to be? They were going to preach the gospel. They were going to do the things that God had sent them to do. But he found them to be fair-minded, you know, and so they received. They were like, okay, we'll listen to you. Paul would have given them the same message that he gave in Thessalonica. Reason with them from the Scriptures of who Jesus Christ was, that he was the Messiah. But they received it. They didn't close their mind to it. They were more fair-minded than those in Thessalonica. And that they received the Word with all readiness. You know, when Paul and Silas were speaking to them, the word received there that's translated or received just means that they had an open mind to it. You know, they didn't argue. They didn't, you know, every 30 seconds say, well, what about this? What about that? Okay, Paul, speak your peace. We'll hear you out. We'll receive the Word. We'll listen to what you're saying. You know, and Paul would have been using the Scriptures, so he wasn't just giving his opinion. He was showing from the Word of God what this is. So they received it.

And they received it with readiness, right? They were eager. They weren't just sitting there like, okay, fine, we have to kind of listen to this and we don't really want to. But you know, let's say what you have to say. We're polite, kind people and then we're going to get on the way and not pay any attention to it anyway. They were giving him their attention. You know, sometimes when we, you know, not just in church, but even in other sessions when someone is talking, you know, we want to be people who, you know, I've talked in the past, you know, in a sermon about resistance. We all have resistance as part of our human nature. When we hear something we don't want to hear, the first thing we want to do is just say, no, I don't want to do it. No, I don't want to do that. And we just kind of shut our minds off to it, right? I mean, all of us have done it sometimes. But the Bereans, you know, didn't do that. The Cecil and Ikins did. And we might do it on some things. But, you know, we need to, if someone is giving us something, you know, whether it's from the Bible, we want to initially disagree with it. We listen. We listen with readiness and do the Scriptures. And even if it's something else, what is it? Is it supported by the Bible? The Bible is the Word of God. The Bible is the place we go to. What is the will of God? It teaches us how to act. I say how to react, how to apply things into our lives, how to test the spirits and see, is this the way God would want it done? Is what I'm being told? Is that? Do I see that in the Scriptures? Is that how I should be? You know, that's what they were doing in Berea. They received the Word with readiness. Okay, well, listen to it. They were eager. They were attentive. They were paying attention to it. And what they did was they searched the Scriptures. They, right? They, the group of them, not just one, they weren't coming up with their own private interpretation. I'm going to go back home and study this and I'll say what I want the Bible to believe. Together, they reasoned from the Scriptures. They searched the Scriptures. And when you look at the Greek word translated search there, it really means that they were pulling the Scriptures apart. They were looking at it. They were analyzing it. They were studying it to see what is God's will. What do these Scriptures say? They searched the Scriptures and the next one is they did it daily, right? They didn't just do it once for an hour. They didn't do it for 15 minutes and say yes, no, or whatever. They wanted to know what the Bible said, what the Word of God said, and that they were going to do what the Word of God said. So they did it daily and they were diligent in their study, just as were pulled in 2 Timothy 2.15 to be diligent in our study and searching of the Bible. Paul would have seen this example and he would have been very heartened by what went on in Berea as he saw that. Later on, to the church in Thessalonians, Thessalonica, he said, prove all things. Prove all things that hold fast that which is good. Remember he said that in chapter 5 there? Prove all things. Well, he saw the Bereans prove all things. It's the same thing that we need to do. The church used to say that often and we should always bear that in mind. Prove what the Bible says and then do what the Bible says. Look at the attitudes we should have, the way that we should act, the way we should behave. Do it the way the Bible says. It's all there if we pay attention to it.

Well, they did. Yes, sir. Xavier?

The interesting thing about that word for fear-minded is mobile. It's different and it's eugenics. We know how they use that nowadays. It's people who are high-minded.

They have all the answers to the world's problems. They're eugenics. We're going to get eternal life our way and you need to follow our way so you can get eternal life too.

Through the means of science and population control, these are eugenics. Eugenics, if I said that correctly.

They take this word and they pollute it because it means noble. High-born in your attitude, but at the same time you're humble to search and to be taught. They do the same thing with liberal.

In the Old Testament it says liberal and it means noble. But here we have in our society we use liberal as the people on the left who promotes, as they say, the left who promotes all kind of perverse things. But yet they're liberal. They pollute another word.

And that's probably why the New King James used to spare a mind as opposed to noble because it would have that exactly what you said. They'd be like, ah, we know it all. We don't need to hear you.

But they didn't have that attitude. They were humble and they were ready to receive it.

Okay, good point. I see a hand. Does someone else have a comment?

I just mentioned a commentary. It also said, as well as liberal and noble, generous as well. Open-minded and generous. They had their heart in the right place.

Right. Yeah, exactly the way we should be, right? We should always be open to what God is showing us. We don't know everything yet. None of us know everything yet, so there are things we're going to learn. So, okay.

Hey, Mr. Shaby? Mr. Shaby? Yeah, Betty.

I was wondering when they said they searched the Scriptures daily, did they go to the synagogue and check out the Scriptures because we don't have their own Bible?

You know, they may have. I don't know that for sure. But when it says they, you know, we know there was a synagogue there, so maybe what they did, that group, I went into the synagogue every day to look at the Scriptures because that's where they would have gone, right?

Okay. Thank you.

I mean, that's a good point. I hadn't thought of it, but I would guess that's where they went, so.

Okay, thank you.

Okay. People actually hurt themselves by being closed-minded.

By what?

People actually hurt themselves when they are closed-minded. They're not helping themselves. They're hurting themselves.

You're right. We hurt ourselves if we're not listening. Yeah, true.

Or we're hurting others, too, right? If we don't listen to them, it could just be others in our family that we're hurting as well when we have a closed mind, so.

Yeah. Okay.

Verse 12.

Verse 12. So we see that. That's an important verse to remember there in 11.

And because they did all those things, right? See what they did with God's legacy. God says He commends them. The verse 12 says, Therefore, many of them believed, and also not a few of the Greek's prominent women as well as men.

So you had people who believed when they went back to the Scriptures and they looked at it, honestly, eagerly committed to whatever the truth is.

Here you have a group of people in Berea who believed.

But, you know, we don't know how long exactly Paul was there. Remember, it takes a few days to get from Thessalonica to Berea when you're walking.

And somehow the news got back to Thessalonica. Hey, Paul and Silas, they're sitting there in Berea. They're preaching that same old gospel weekend to have that happen.

It's too close to home. So what they do is the Jews from Thessalonica, they trek the 50 miles, 45 or 50 miles, whatever it is, to Berea to kind of stir up that city.

And when the Jews from Thessalonica learned that the Word of God was preached by Paul at Berea, they came there and they did the same thing. They stirred up the crowds.

We're going to make trouble. We want Paul gone. We don't even want it happening in our neighboring city over here. Get rid of the gospel of God.

So they came, they did the same thing in Berea that they did at Thessalonica. And the brethren there in Berea saw what was happening. So immediately says they sent Paul away to go to the sea, but both Silas and Timothy remained there.

So you have this time Paul. Paul is the lightning rod. They want Paul gone. So Paul, this time he's not going to go just 50 miles away. He's going to get on a boat. He's going to go 250 miles south down to Athens to get far away from it.

Certainly the Thessalonian Jews aren't going to go all the way to Athens to stop whatever is going on. It would take them months to figure out what was going on or to hear back.

He's going, you know, God leads them far away. The job has been done in Thessalonica. The church has been started there in Berea. We have people who believe Paul leaves, but he leaves Timothy and Silas behind. But in verse 13 or verse 14, No. In verse 15, we always see the son accompanied Paul down to Athens. It says, So those who conducted Paul brought him to Athens, and receiving the command for Silas and sympathy to come to him with all speed, they departed.

He brought Paul there, saw that he got safely to Athens. Paul says, When you go back, tell Timothy and Silas, I want them to come and meet me here in Athens. It takes them how long it is to sail the 250 miles back up to Thessalonica. It takes Timothy and Silas all that time to get ready, come down to Athens. Paul has some time on his hands alone. Alone, as it says in verse 1 Thessalonians 3 verse 1 there. He's got some time alone in Athens, and so he does what anyone would do. Right, Ties? I'm going to go out and see what this city is about.

Athens was the leading cultural center of the entire world at this time. The greatest university they say in the world was there at Athens.

It was a beautiful city, and those of you who have been to Greece, you will never forget it. It's a beautiful city.

And even today, when you stand and look around at the ancient ruins, the Parthenon, the temples that are all around the city, it was a beautiful, majestic city. This was the city, the center of learning in Greece, right?

Which actually became, in a large part, the standard for the world. You know, when we were over there, it was interesting. I remember giving a sermon about all the effects that we still have of the Greek learning back in that time that we still have with us today.

When the Romans conquered Greece, they were so enamored with the intelligence, the wisdom, the arts, the math, the whole nine yards of what the Greek culture was, they didn't want to change it.

They were like, we're going to embrace this. We're going to embrace this. These Greeks, they know what they're doing. They were very smart and intelligent people.

You know, and Athens was the center of it all. So Paul, God has led him now to Athens, the center of learning in the entire world at that time, and Paul finds himself alone there.

Verse 16, it says, while Paul waited for them in Athens, his spirit was provoked within him when he saw that the city was given over to idols.

Well, he probably looked at that city and thought, what magnificent buildings! Look at all the time and effort. Look at the brilliance of the people in a physical sense of what's going on or on.

But look what they did it for. They did it for these idols. They didn't do it for the true God. They did it for idols of stone and idols, you know, statues, things that they've imagined in their minds.

And they did all these things for that. So it says, you know, he was provoked. He is like, you know, this is not right. They should understand who gave them this blessing. Who is the true God? Not Athena and Zeus and all these other people that that they worshiped back then, but the real God. And of course, God is stirring that in him because God has Paul there in Athens.

It was kind of like the New York City of its time, the London of its time, you know, whatever the great cities in the world. Here's Paul, you know, an apostle of God by himself, preaching the gospel of God. And God has brought him here to this great city. So he goes into the synagogues of the Jews in 17. That's what Paul did. He went there to discuss scriptures and to present the proof that Jesus is the Messiah.

Therefore, verse 17, 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.

Now, remember Greeks, the Greeks, and there were Greek philosophers and Athens was one of those places where philosophy was talked about all the time. They prided themselves on their discussion abilities and, you know, this theory, this idea, everyone. You had Plato, you had Aristocrates, you had Aristotle, you had Socrates, you had all these people there, all these great thinkers, and they talked about those things all the time. That was just kind of their job, if you will. They enjoyed doing that. You know, it's not so much unlike the world we live in today. I mean, when you think about it, it's interesting when we get to verse 21 how God has recorded what went on there in Athens. It's not so unlike what we do in our world today against same people, same human nature, different times, different technology, different surroundings.

But therefore, you know, he went there and he talked with people daily with those who happened to be there. He would have been talking about Jesus Christ. He wasn't just discussing how the weather is and how was it in Antiochus or Ere and how was it in Jerusalem. He's talking about Jesus Christ. These are the philosophies, these are the ideas that they would share. And so he became known. It says in verse 18, then certain Epicurean and Stoic philosophers encountered him.

Now, it's interesting that those two philosophies are there. Anyone remember what the Epicureans, what they believed, how they regarded life, what their philosophy in life was? There's a famous saying that you kind of equate with the Epicureans. A commentary said they kind of denied that there was any creator God. They did deny that. Eat, drink, and be merry. For tomorrow we die. Right? That comes from the Epicureans. What they were, they didn't believe in God. They didn't believe in any afterlife.

They thought when you're dead, you're dead. That's the extent of it. So your entire life should just be consumed with pleasure. Just whatever you want to do, just do it. Eat, drink, do whatever you want to do because when you're dead, you're dead. So your time on earth is simply to do what you want to do. That was the Epicureans. So Paul ran into those people. He would have listened to that philosophy. Maybe this is the first time.

He's here in New Anathans. Maybe these people came to him and thought, what? That doesn't make sense at all. These people, they have no idea of what life is about, right? But then the Stoics that came along. Anyone remember what the Stoics were like? Kind of as defined in their names. It's kind of an adjective for people that are like that. Stoics, they were oblivious. They were the opposite of Epicureans.

They did believe in an afterlife. But they believed that whether you were in pain or in pleasure, you should just kind of deny what you were feeling. You should have no emotions in life. You would just kind of go through. We say a Stoic person is one who shows no excitement in life, no interest in anything. They just kind of go through life and endure whatever it is.

If it's good, you can't really tell if it's any better than if they're in pain. And that's kind of the way they did. You deny yourself pleasure. You endure through pain. That's kind of what you do. And at the end of life, whatever happens and happens. So you have these really two different philosophies that Peter Paul encounters here in Athens. And he mentioned those. And so as he talks about Jesus Christ and probably as he talked about Jesus Christ, you would probably be talking, well, you know, there is a responsibility in how we live if you believe Jesus Christ is the Savior. And though God didn't want you to just never have any fun, he didn't want you to not enjoy anything.

He gave us the earth and to enjoy. He built emotions into us so that we could feel joy and we could feel sorrow. And when we feel pain, it hurts.

You know, we don't deny those things. It's just part of life. So as he would talk about these things, as he would encounter these people, as he's waiting for Timothy and Silas to get there, now some people would be, you know, what does this babbler have to say? You know, who is this? You know, maybe that was the Epicurus. What do we need to listen to him for? Right? What does this babbler seem to say?

That it was a new theory that they didn't really know anything about. That's Jesus Christ and resurrections and everything that Paul would have been talking about. But others said, the ones who were open-minded, the ones, because remember, Athens was a learning center. They thrived on new ideas, thoughts, all those things. Others said, well, he seems to be a proclaimer of foreign gods because he preached to them Jesus and the resurrection.

So it's like, well, we want to hear what he has to say. This is something we haven't heard before. Let's explore this. Right? So verse 19, they took him and brought him to the Areopagus saying, may we know what this new doctrine is of what you speak? Now, the Areopagus, I'm sure you've heard of that. It's also called Mars Hill in some places. But Areopagus is a hill in the middle of what was Athens. And as you stand on the Areopagus, you look around, you see all these great temples.

It's a fascinating sight to see. And in this heyday when Athens was there, it would have been one of the wonders of the world to stand there and be that. And this is on the Areopagus. You had courts that went on there. You had the, quote, smartest people in the world who were dealing there.

There were philosophers. They were exchanging ideas. They would have court cases there. They would hear everything out. And the Areopagus was the seat of conversation, the seat of everything in there. It was just that place in Athens. And here is Paul. God has brought Paul to the seat of Athens, the learning center of the world, to the place most renowned to, you know, let's discuss this idea. We want to hear this idea. You're running around saying this, Paul.

We want to hear what you have to say. You can see how God led him to hear. It's something that Paul, if Paul had walked in on his own, they wouldn't have paid any attention to him. God had opened the doors here for him to be front and center among the greatest thinkers in the world at that time. And they say, you know, tell us what you want to talk about, Paul. Verse 24. You are bringing some strange things to our ears. Therefore, we want to know what these things mean. Explain to us. Tell us why we need to know this.

Tell us, you know, state your case here. Verse 21 is very interesting. It says, 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. That was kind of their job. That's there. And you read that and you think, really? They didn't have any other jobs?

That's what they did day in and day out. But apparently that is when Paul was talking daily, there were these people that did that. You know, we have the same type today. You know, before I came with the Bible study, I was listening to the news a little bit, and I was listening to commentators. And I thought, you know what? We have people that all they do all day long is they talk about things, right?

They talk about what happened yesterday. What does this mean? Another one has another idea. No, this is what it means. You look to another station. Now this is what it means. And they all have their ideas and they love to talk about it. And that's all they do for a living. That's all they do is discuss and share.

And we sit and listen to them and, you know, make our own determinations on things like that. But it's not unlike what was going on in Athens. Today we do it by TV. We have different channels we listen to.

We have commentators who do nothing but that. Listen to ideas, watch what's going on, tell us what their interpretation of it is. Same thing happened in Athens. We want to know what this means. Give us, you know, tell us. Tell us, Paul, give us your spiel so we can kind of make a determination on what Athens responds to this doctrine is. So verse 22. Paul stood in the midst of the Areopagus and he said, Man of Athens.

You know, the way Paul approaches things is a lesson to us too. You know, he's very complimentary of them at that. He could have gone up there and said, you know, you guys are all wrong. You worship idols of stone. They don't talk. They don't speak. They don't eat. They don't do anything, right? You have all these things that you've made and you call them gods. You're smart people, but what you do as far as religion is kind of a dumb thing, right? When you look at it, Paul didn't do that at all. He complimented them on what their beliefs were. It says, Paul stood in the midst of the Areopagus and said, None of Athens. I perceive that at all things you're very religious. You're looking for the meaning of life. You're looking to do what you do to do. They wanted to do what was right. They were the ones deciding it, not God, though. For I was passing through, verse 23, I was passing through and considering the objects of your worship, I had followed an altar with this inscription, to the unknown God. Now, Greece, as you remember, they had gods for everything. I mean, you knew that they had a god for it. But somewhere there in Greece, even with all these gods they had manufactured and created and dreamt up, there's something more. All those gods didn't add it up, so they had the statue to the unknown God. And when Paul saw that, God would have inspired, I can bring to you this unknown God that you have a statue for. And so he says, therefore, the one whom you worship without knowing him, I proclaim to you. It's right here in your environment. Here's the statue, the unknown God. I'm going to tell you who the unknown God is. And it's a beautiful thing that Paul says here, and we don't have every single word he said, but we'll just read through what he said here. And as he spoke to the Athenians in the Areopagus, he says, God, who made the world and everything in it, since he is Lord of heaven and earth, doesn't dwell in temples made with hands. Well, he would have said that, looking around, because in Athens there's a temple everywhere. There's a temple to every god, right? There is, and they're beautiful temples, and that's where their gods dwelt.

The statues were there in the middle of them. They built the temples around them. That's where the people went to worship. In Old Testament times, God dwelt in temples. But in New Testament times, Paul says here, we were told earlier in Acts as well, and other places in the Bible, as Paul wrote and taught, today God doesn't dwell in temples made with hands. He dwells in the temple, in the people that he's building, the temple that's you and me, individually, collectively, in our congregations, and in his church around the world. God doesn't dwell in temples. Their ears would have perked up, because all their gods dwelt in temples. God, who made the world, does not dwell in temples made with hands, nor is he worshiped with men's hands, as though he needed anything, since he gives life to all. Since he gives to all life, breath, and all things. You know, you're not going to chisel God out. He's not going to be...he doesn't need your hands. He's the one who gives us life. He gives us everything. And he has made us, verse 26, from one...that word, blood, may well have been added...he made us from one...he has made from one every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their pre-appointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings. You know, God's in control. He had a plan for mankind. He knew what was going to be. The whole world is marching toward the kingdom of God. I'm not sure he went through all that, but what he's saying is, God had a plan, you know, and we're all part of it. The boundaries of their dwellings are 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. God's will is that we will find Him. That's what He said. He's not willing that any should perish, but all should find repentance, right? For in Him we live and move and have our be, as also some of your own poets have said. For we are also His offspring. We are made in His image, He's saying. 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. God isn't there in material things. God is Spirit. He's far and above all of us. We're His offspring. He created us in His image. We don't create God. He created us. And He comes down to a verse that we're all very familiar with as He's speaking to them and as He's, you know, as I'm sure, intently listening to Him, you know, because they wouldn't have interrupted Him. There was no uproar as He was speaking. Okay, I'm telling you the truth here. As your mind is opening, you know, this is what you used to believe, but now you know the truth. Now you've been told the truth. These times of ignorance got overlooked. I like it better what it says in the King James. These times of ignorance God winked at. It doesn't mean that we were right in what we were doing. We didn't know any better. It's still sin if it's not what God's will is. If it's against His law and way of life, it's still sin, even if we didn't know it was sin at that time. But when we recognize it's sin, when we recognize that we've been worshiping idols instead of the true God, we put those idols behind and we repent. These times of ignorance got overlooked, but now commands all men everywhere to repent. Turn from your false way. Turn to the true God, who you call the unknown God, He's saying, because He has appointed a day in 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.

He spoke to them of a resurrection, knowing that the Epicureans were there. They didn't believe in any of that. Here's a man who lived, the God, the unknown God, the true God, is appointed, who will be resurrected, who will be the judge of all things. He's pointing them to the future when Jesus Christ will return, however much detail only God knows at this point. He's giving them the picture, the plan of God. Here's what it's about. In verse 32, it says, when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked. We can probably guess who the ones who mocked would be. Those of the Epicurean persuasion would have probably mocked and thought, there's no resurrection. When we die, we die. We haven't seen anyone come back to life. What are you talking about? They would mock and make fun of it and not pay any attention to it. We've heard it. That's where you've lost us, Paul. When they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked. Others said, we will hear you again on this matter. We're not going to discount it. What you said is interesting. What you said makes sense. We have to process it a little bit. We have to think about it a little bit. We want to talk about it some more. Paul just left it says in verse 33. He departed. Some there, just the onus of the Areopagite and a woman named Damaris, joined with him and believed. By that, there were a few who believed based on his teaching there. Others said, we'll hear it again. We'll hear you again on this matter and see what's going on. I'm going to leave it there. We'll finish chapter 17 here. Let me remind you too that the Greeks, of all the things that they did, God uses the Greek culture in the Bible as well. We have talked about, I know in Orlando, I bring up the Greek word, pihadea, from time to time. I remind you that in the Greek culture, they had this training program for young men, pihadea, P-A-I-D-E-I-A.

It was for the elite young men. It was a well complete training of them, so that they would grow up to be the ideal people in society. They were there to learn everything. I mean, arts, math, sports, you name it. They were supposed to be the well-rounded young men, examples of what the Greek culture would produce when they were through that training program. It was a rigorous training program. It was a demanding program. It required discipline. Paul uses the word discipline in 2 Timothy. The author of Hebrew uses it four or five times in Hebrews 12. It's the same type of training program. God is showing us the training program he has you and me in. It's that same thing, so that we are well-rounded citizens of the kingdom of God. When we become spiritually mature, born in the kingdom, we can be the people, the leaders in that society, because we will have been well-trained at this time and during this time. It's a lot of discipline. It's a lot of hard work. It's a lot of sacrificing what you want, and always dedicated to what God wants, just like the Greeks put their young men through, too. What the Greek society wanted, that was what they did.

Let me leave there and I will open it up for any comments at all. Bro, shame me. Two comments. The first one is verse 29. 26. You say from 1. The receptor Texas has was a Greek red imon, which is for blood. The only ones that are omitted are Westport and Fort. You can't trust Westport and Fort. They have some weird lifestyle. I'm just looking at my comment that it's not made from blood. But Adam, all of us were in Adam's loins, hence from one blood, because we know what comes out of the loins, so to speak.

And then the play on word, going back to the verse where they say, babbler. You have to look up that Greek word, because it also goes back to something that comes from the loins, but it also has logos in it. It's Pramalogus. And it means one who picks seeds, always taking seeds of what they were saying, and then applying God's word to it properly.

So he was using one they were using, well, in a good way. Because here he says one of your prophets, one of your poets, and he applies it biblically. Yeah. But when they use that, Pramalogus, what does this babbler have to say? They're referring to Paul at that time. He's just picking seeds. He's just telling us something, but he really doesn't know the full story of it. Yes. He's picking their words, and then he's applying what they're saying biblically, honoring God. And you're like, ahh, purpose of babbler. And that's why they say, tell us what it means. Tell us what you're talking about, Paul. Just don't give us these little snippets here. Tell us what it all means. We want to know this is a real doctrine and not just an idea you picked up that you're trying to present yourself to someone. So yeah. Just take any little pieces of what you're saying and apply it correctly. That's why it says like one of your own poets say we are his offspring. And you're like, oh, that's just poetry. No, this is the truth. This is the truth. Exactly.

Okay. Anything else? Any comments, thoughts on anything, really? You talked about Greek philosophers. And I remember reading where the saying that people, when they die, they go to either heaven or hell. And that's why a lot of religious organizations, they very seldom talk about resurrection. They talk about going to heaven at death. And I read that that all came from Greek philosophy. So is that true? You know, a lot of it did come from Greek philosophy. I'll tell you something. You know, I mean, my parents came to the church. So I understood there was no heaven and hell from the time I was 10 years old and whatever. But when I was in Apadors, it was in high school or college. And we read Dante's, Dante's Inferno, right? And Dante's Inferno. And in there, there's this ever burning fire that people would go to and after death. And I remember, I think it was in college, because we were discussing it in an editor's or class, there was a lot of discussion. And it was like, that's where hell came from. That's where the ever burning hell fire came from. It was someone that wrote something in Greek time. It was one of those things. And the professor agreed, and when you look back in Catholic history, it was around that time that they came up with what they just kind of, someone wrote it, and they believed it. And that's where ever burning hell fire came from. And I kind of remember that because it was an eye opener to me. They just created this. This was someone's imagination. And now it becomes doctrine. It's nowhere in the Bible at all. So, yeah. So I think a lot of it did come from them. So, again, a lot of the ideas in the world today still stem from them. You know, even democracy, even democracy, you know, was there back in Greek time. So, but a lot of the religious ideas did. It had quite an influence on mankind from that time forward. Okay. Any other questions, comments, anything?

Okay. Let me say good night. I'll remind the people in the Jacksonville area, services are 1130 this week in Orlando. They're at 130 this week. Zoom services in Jacksonville, for those who can't be there, we'll do the YouTube thing. The very same link you used last week to join the live stream for WebSATA services in Orlando works this week. So, just do the same thing. We're going to get the whole thing resolved, but right now, according to insurance, the reason we're doing it is someone's got to hit the link. Got to hit the link in order to join. And so we're working through all that. So, hit the link and you can join us and services are at 130. Anything else? Okay. Then I'm going to say good night. Some of you the Sabbath, the rest of you, have a good week. Have a good Sabbath. We will look forward to those you don't see. We'll see you next Wednesday, right? Okay. Good night, everyone. Good night, too.