Acts 17:16-34 Now while Paul waited for them at Athens, his spirit was stirred in him, when he saw the city wholly given to idolatry.… Consider - I. The connection of the whole with THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY. The Greek mind evangelized. The function of Greek thought in the development of doctrine. The contrast between the gospel and philosophy. The step towards the conquest of the world. II. The illustration of THE APOSTOLIC METHOD. Adaptation of the truth to every class of mind. Difference of the preaching when the foundation of the Jewish Scriptures was for the time forsaken. Important difference of results, showing that there must be something intervening between idolatry and Christian faith, besides natural religion. The resurrection must stand on its true foundation, or it is mocked at. The spiritual truth is mere "babbling" to those who look upon it from the naturalistic point of view. III. The picture of HUMAN HELPLESSNESS presented. Intellectual restlessness of Athens. The judgment of God overhanging the moral corruption. Times of ignorance. Idolatry, the more hideous in its decorations of artistic beauty. Worship of the human body. Social miseries of the Greek world. The one man among the multitude, type of the spiritual force which, though a grain of mustard seed in apparent magnitude, was a germ of life in the midst of the universal decay and death. So in the decline and fall of the Roman empire. A great lesson on (1) the sufficiency and power of the gospel; (2) the responsibility of man. - R. Parallel Verses KJV: Now while Paul waited for them at Athens, his spirit was stirred in him, when he saw the city wholly given to idolatry. |
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