Wisconsin Lutheran Chapel logo

God’s Word for You

Acts 17:26-28 The Athenian Catechism (part 3)

by Pastor Timothy Smith on Tuesday, October 20, 2020

The third part of Paul’s “Athenian Catechism” is: What God has done.

26 He made every nation of mankind from one man.

This first act of God, a thought so despised by the ignorance of modern man, is a key teaching, not only of the creative act of God, but of the resurrection from the dead. For just as God brought forth all human life from one man who fell into sin and brought death as well, Adam, so also he will bring forth all who rise from the dead through one man, Jesus Christ, who did not sin and who brings life (1 Corinthians 15:20-21). The other particulars about the one man who is that father of each and every nation would appeal to the philosophy of the Greeks, and it’s doubtful that they would even question it, since first principles and conceiving of “the many” having some from “the one” was not at all out of place in their arguments.

He did this so that they would live everywhere on earth, and he determined the times and the very places where they would live, 27 so that they would seek God, so that in that way they might feel their way toward him and find him.

Secondly, the act of creation had a purpose, a true cause, which is never something that the Greek conceived of in the works of their false gods. With the pantheon of Zeus and his cronies, the Greek could only imagine spite, or revenge, or favoritism, or other sins. But the true God had a simple, clear purpose, one which should be obvious. God planted the seeds of the human race through Adam so that all mankind would appear over the course of the many long centuries, and so that all of us would in turn have an opportunity to come to faith.

To explain this, Paul makes his third point with a picturesque phrase, “that they might feel their way toward him,” which is just what Paul hoped the Athenians were doing as they listened, groping their way along the dark contours of their own thoughts, doubts, and guilt, seeking for the hope of salvation in, in, whom? It was the ‘whom’ that Paul was offering in Jesus and the resurrection. They were simply hoping to find him, but Paul was not going to leave him covered up or hidden away. The gospel is not a matter for games where you shout out, “getting warmer!” No, the gospel is for clear proclamation without hints. This is Christ. This is God’s love. When a dog likes you, does it hide how it feels? When newlyweds share their feelings, do they bother to mince words? When a baby wants to smile at you, does it tell a fib instead? So it is with God. When he offers and gives the forgiveness of sins, he won’t hide the fact.

Yet he is actually not far from each one of us, 28 for “‘In him we live and move and have our being;’ as even some of your own poets have said, ‘For we are his offspring.’”

Paul has arrived at the center of his little catechism. Here he pauses to make his point more firmly with some quotations. We would want to use passages from the word of God, but Paul sees fit to quote a couple of Greek poets who used phrases that agreed with God’s word. The first of these is from Epimenides, a Cretan who lived at about the same time as the prophet Daniel (600 BC). The quote “In him we live and move and have our being” is said to come from a work called the Cretica, which is now lost. The other quote, “We are his offspring,” is found in works by Aratus (“Phaenomena”) and Cleanthes (“Hymn to Zeus”). Since those men were contemporaries (c. 330 BC), we don’t know which of them used the phrase first, or which one Paul might be quoting here. Paul quotes Greek poets again in 1 Corinthians 15:33 and in Titus 1:12. The latter quote is again from Epimenides. The point Paul is making is that God is the source of every blessing including life itself. But this is not just human life, or this existence. God is the source of eternal life as well, which is what the Greeks wanted him to explain to them and was the reason he was brought to the Areopagus in the first place (Acts 17:18-19).

To be raised from death to life is the promise from God that also raises us from the deadness of the sinful human heart to a living faith, a trust in God that’s more than mere hope. It’s a certainty because the promise comes from the One who made everything, who placed us where we live, when we live, and with whom we live. “You have brought me up from the grave; you spared me from going down into the pit. Sing to the Lord, you saints of his; praise his holy name. For his anger lasts only a moment, but his favor lasts a lifetime” (Psalm 30:3-5). The Lord guides our lives, sometimes gently, sometimes firmly, toward those things that will strengthen our faith and bring us into the circles of those who need us in turn. Notice your place in God’s kingdom, and offer what you can, when you can. Not everyone can speak like angels or preach like Paul, but you and I can be faithful for each other and for the people in the world who don’t know Him.

In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith

Pastor Tim Smith
About 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.

 

Browse Devotion Archive