Peter Barnes | Acts 17:16-34
SERMON NOTES
PAUL AND HOSTILE PHILOSOPHERS
Exodus 34:10-17; Acts 17:16-34
– Athens was cultured and the home of philosophy
1. We ought to be jealous for God’s name.
– 17:16; ‘provoked’ is often used in a bad sense (e.g. 1 Cor.13:5)
– God is a jealous God (Ex.20:4-6; see Ex.34:14; Isa.42:8)
– Henry Martyn in Persia in 1812: ‘I could not endure existence if Jesus was not glorified’.
2. Be prepared to be mocked.
– 17:17-21; Epicureans had little notion of God and the judgment; Stoics believed in self-sufficiency and God as a World-Soul.
– they mock Paul as a ‘seed-picker’, someone who manages to pick up scraps of knowledge.
3. Emphasise the resurrection of Jesus.
– 17:18; see 17:31
– Acts 2:24, 32; 3:15; 5:30-32; 10:40-41; 13:29-31.