This Week’s Experience – 7/7/2019

While Paul was waiting for his travelling companions in Athens, he was very disturbed to see all the idols in the city.

-Acts 17:16

So he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the God-fearing Greeks, as well as in the marketplace day by day with those who happened to be there.

  -Acts 17:17

He got to know some of the Epicurean and Stoic intellectuals pretty well through these conversations. Some of them dismissed him with sarcasm: “What an airhead!” But others, listening to him go on about Jesus and the resurrection, were intrigued: “That’s a new slant on the gods. Tell us more.” They brought Paul before the councilmen of the city, and said, “Tell us what your new teaching is all about. We have heard you say some strange things, and we want to know what you mean.” (All the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there spent their time doing nothing but talking about and listening to the latest ideas.)

-Acts 17:18-21

So Paul stood up in front of the council and said: People of Athens, I see that you are very religious. As I was going through your city and carefully looking at the things you worship, I found an altar with the words, “To an Unknown” You worship this God, but you don’t really know him. So I want to tell you about him. “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 hands. And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else. From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’ Since we are God’s children, we must not think that he is like an idol made out of gold or silver or stone. He isn’t like anything that humans have thought up and made. In the past, God forgave all this because people did not know what they were doing. But now he says that everyone everywhere must repent of their sins and turn to him. He has set a day when he will judge the world’s people with fairness. And he has chosen the man Jesus to do the judging for him. God has given proof of this to all of us by raising Jesus from the dead.

-Acts 17:22-31

When they heard about the resurrection of the dead, some of them sneered, but others said, “We want to hear you again on this subject.” At that, Paul left the Council. A few men became followers of Paul and believed. Among them was Dionysius, a member of the city council, also a woman named Damaris, and a number of others.

-Acts 17:32-34

LIFE APPLICATION
To discuss during the week with your family or Life Group

1. How have you seen culture change in your lifetime? How has that impacted you? How have you reacted to it?

2. Gilbert talked about 2 things we can’t do and 2 things we must do when it comes to our culture. Which do you need to work on?  How will you respond differently?

3. What is your next step as a result of this message?