Acts 17- A Prophetic Message
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This morning, I read Acts 17 and verses 19-24 really grabbed me. I feel that they are a prophetic reminder for the church today!
Here is the text:
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.)
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.
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. 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.
Here are the thoughts and questions it raised for me:
- Paul had a "new teaching". What is our new and fresh message that Jesus has asked us to deliver? And they may sound strange (v. 20). I know that the stuff we are teaching traditional believers on this training trip are certainly strange.
- Are you just listening to the new ideas? Or are you doing something about it? If you are, then what is it you are doing?
- What are our unknown idols? In what ways are we a modern day Athens?
- How, in the ways we do church, are we communicating the message that God does not live in buildings made by human hands?
I just sense that this passage and the events that happened surrounding it are a message that we need to pay close attention to today.
Is there anything you see that you could share? Feel free to comment.