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KINGDOMS. IN. CONFLICT. The Book of Acts. KINGDOMS. - IN -. CONFLICT. To An Unknown God Acts 17.
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KINGDOMS IN CONFLICT The Book of Acts
KINGDOMS - IN - CONFLICT To An Unknown God Acts 17
While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he was greatly distressed to see that the city was full of idols. 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 17:16-17
A group of Epicurean and Stoic philosophers began to dispute 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 17:18-19
KINGDOMS - IN - CONFLICT Epicureans: were atheists who believed that the material elements of the universe were the only realities. They did not, of course, believe in a created universe. They denied any ‘divine intervention’ in life and that death ended everything. "Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die" was their slogan about life and how to live it. All pain should be avoided, and any simple pleasures that one could attain was both permissible and good.
KINGDOMS - IN - CONFLICT Stoics: were pantheists. For them, god was not personal but the "world soul" inhabiting all things. God is everything, and everything is god. Their pessimistic philosophy taught resignation to fate. The quenching of all desire was the goal of existence for them; “be sick and yet happy, in peril and yet happy, dying and yet happy, in exile and happy, in disgrace and happy
KINGDOMS - IN - CONFLICT Athenians: were citizens of a free city, a great center of philosophy, architecture, art, and religion. The Athenians knew 100s if not 1000s of deities, with scores of temples, monuments, and idols; including one, ‘to an unknown god’.
KINGDOMS - IN - CONFLICT How would you share the Gospel to that culture?
KINGDOMS - IN - CONFLICT God is real
The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. Acts 17:24
KINGDOMS - IN - CONFLICT God wants a relationship with you
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. Acts 17:26
KINGDOMS - IN - CONFLICT God wants a relationship with you on His terms
In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. Acts 17:30
KINGDOMS - IN - CONFLICT God will judge each of us on the basis of that relationship
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 all men by raising him from the dead.” Acts 17:31
KINGDOMS - IN - CONFLICT Where do you need to take the Gospel?
KINGDOMS - IN - CONFLICT How would you share the Gospel to this culture?