God’s Word for You
Acts 17:17-18 The babbler
by Pastor Timothy Smith on Thursday, October 15, 2020
17 So he began by reasoning in the synagogue with the Jews and the Gentile worshipers, and in the marketplace every day with those who happened to be there.
The plan, it seems, was for Paul to stay in Athens and wait for the other missionaries to arrive. Paul attracted attacks from the Jews, and it probably didn’t seem wise to anyone except Paul for him to start preaching without friends nearby to rescue him whenever the hammer might fall. But some men just need to speak, whatever the consequences. Paul got all riled up over the number, the obscene number, of idols and shrines everywhere. He had to say something. He had to speak. In this way he reminds me of a woman hopelessly in love with a man who can’t love her back. Every time he pushes her away, she comes running back professing her undying love. The ‘man’ is the human race, the lost souls of the world. Paul was a rescuer, a healer, a preacher. The Germans have a word, seelsorger, which means “soul-saver.” This was Paul.
With no friends to protect him or pull him to safety when the rocks might start to fly, he went into the synagogue of Athens all alone with his faith. He began to preach, to present his ideas in a logical way, point by point. After making a start in the synagogue, he started talking to anyone who would listen to him out in the marketplace. Luke says he did this daily, every day. Eventually he was overheard by some of Athens’ philosophers.
18 Then, a group of Epicurean and Stoic philosophers began to debate with him. Some of them asked, “What is this babbler trying to say?” Others said, “He seems to be preaching about foreign gods.” They said this because he was preaching the gospel about Jesus and the resurrection.
Greek philosophy had come down to this pair of ideas: the Epicureans and the Stoics. The Epicureans were atheistic and encouraged appreciating life while one is living. The Stoics encouraged personal responsibility and ethics. The two groups tolerated one another, and engaged in friendly debates, neither group really convincing the other of anything. When some of them encountered Paul, they thought that they had found the one thing they were truly seeking: something new to talk about.
They tried to bait him with an insult, “babbler.” This is a word that literally means “seed-picker,” a term used for a crow. They were calling Paul the kind of man who picks up little pieces of other people’s arguments and tries to use them without any original thinking of his own. There’s still a lot of that going on today.
They also admitted that he was saying something different, something that they hadn’t heard before, “about foreign gods.” This was the message of Jesus, the Son of God. The idea of God’s Son rising from the dead was a new message, to be sure. Here in Athens Paul had to begin to formulate his answers to Greek philosophy about the resurrection of Christ and the resurrection of all on the Last Day. Soon he would formulate this in the fifteenth chapter of his first letter to the Corinthians.
The famous founder of the Stoics, Zeno, had made a name for himself by proposing that all philosophical arguments are absurd because when one uses philosophy, one must argue the opposing point of view. Therefore, if one argues (for example) that the idea of “many things” means a finite number of things, then the opposite view would be that “many things” means an infinite number. Therefore if you are arguing about the number of, say, birds in Athens, true philosophy cannot say that there are “many,” because another man would be bound to prove that, no, they are infinite and uncountable. Zeno’s arguments (which I’m sure I have muddled or mangled here) were so convincing and so profound that his opponents shook their heads in confusion.
What was spectacular about Paul’s preaching was that it wasn’t based on philosophy at all, but on historical fact, and yet he was willing and able to use philosophical terms: If Christ did not rise from the dead, our faith is useless and for nothing. Christ would be a fraud. Yet Christ did rise. There were eyewitnesses, so many that Paul could tell the Corinthians that more than five hundred men and women could be found who would testify to having seen him (1 Corinthians 15:6). More: “If Christ has not been raised, then you are still in your sins” (1 Corinthians 15:17).
That sad fact is what leads us all to put our trust in Jesus. There is a risen Christ, and therefore our sins are wiped away forever. If there were no risen Christ, we would still be in our sins, still awaiting a Messiah, still waiting for a Son of God to arrive and do precisely what Jesus did, which would be absurd. Jesus has already accomplished everything on our behalf. Because he lives, you, too shall live (John 14:19).
In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith
Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in New Ulm, Minnesota. To receive God’s Word for You via e-mail, please visit the St. Paul’s Lutheran Church website.