Mixed Audience

Acts 17:16-34

The Areopagus had a long history of and .

We know this place better as “ ”.

If Athens had anything it was .

Paul gave a , , orderly presentation of the Judeo-Christian worldview and our need for salvation through the Resurrected Christ.

• There are significant to Paul’s presentation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

1^st Paul spoke from the perspective of the .

So Paul stood in the midst of the Areopagus and said, “Men of Athens, I see that you are very religious in all respects.”
Acts 17:22

2^nd Paul used the to talk about the unknown.

For while I was passing through and examining the objects of your worship, I also found an altar with this inscription, ‘TO AN UNKNOWN GOD.’ Therefore what you worship in ignorance, this I proclaim to you.
Acts 17:23

Paul was building a .

3rd Paul shared tactfully and .

To do this, he used points:

• As Creator, God cannot be .

The God who made the world and all things in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands;
Acts 17:24

• God has no .

nor is He served by human hands, as though He needed anything, since He Himself gives to all people life and breath and all things;
Acts 17:25

• He is Sovereign – He has a and He is .

and He made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their habitation, that they would seek God, if perhaps they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us;
Acts 17:26-27

• God does not on us; we on Him.

for in Him we live and move and exist, as even some of your own poets have said, ‘For we also are His children.’ Being then the children of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and thought of man.
Acts 17:28-29

All of this says we will continue to after death because the Creator us too.

4^th Paul applied these things to the of his audience.

Paul’s bombshell statement was, “.”

^“Therefore having overlooked the times of ignorance, God is now declaring to men that all people everywhere should repent, because He has fixed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness through a Man whom He has appointed, having furnished proof to all men by raising Him from the dead.”
Acts 17:30-31

• Paul’s message brought common responses:

1. – Now when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some began to sneer, but others said, “We shall hear you again concerning this.” Acts 17:32
2. – But some men joined him and believed, among whom also were Dionysius the Areopagite and a woman named Damaris and others with them. Acts 17:34
3. – Now when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some began to sneer, but others said, “We shall hear you again concerning this.” Acts 17:32

• Parable of the !