ACTS 17:16
16 While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he was greatly distressed
to see that the city was full of idols.ACTS 17:17-18
17 So he reasoned in the synagogue with both Jews and God-fearing
Greeks, as well as in the marketplace day by day with those who happened
to be there. 18 A group of Epicurean and Stoic philosophers began to debate
with him. Some of them asked, “What is this babbler trying to say?” Others
remarked, “He seems to be advocating foreign gods.” They said this
because Paul was preaching the good news about Jesus and the
resurrection.ACTS 17:19-21
19 Then they took him and brought him to a meeting of the Areopagus,
where they said to him, “May we know what this new teaching is that you
are presenting? 20 You are bringing some strange ideas to our ears, and we
would like to know what they mean.” 21 (All the Athenians and the
foreigners who lived there spent their time doing nothing but talking about
and listening to the latest ideas.)
You think God is LIKE YOU.
ACTS 17:22-23
22 Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: “People of
Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. 23 For as I walked
around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an
altar with this inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. So you are
ignorant of the very thing you worship - and this is what I am going to
proclaim to you.ACTS 17:24
24 “The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven
and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands.ACTS 17:26
26 From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the
whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the
boundaries of their lands.ACTS 17:28-29
28 ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own
poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’
29 “Therefore since we are God’s offspring, we should not think that the
divine being is like gold or silver or stone - an image made by human
design and skill.
You think God NEEDS YOU.
ACTS 17:25
25 And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything. Rather,
he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else.ACTS 17:27
27 God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him
and find him, though he is not far from any one of us.
You think God EXCUSES YOU.
ACTS 17:30-31
30 In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all
people everywhere to repent.
31 For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the
man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to everyone by raising
him from the dead.”