Culture

Where We’re Going / Acts 17:16–23

• Using one word answers, how would you define the culture we live in?

Everything we are searching for is found in Christ Jesus.

Everyone is searching for meaning

English Standard Version Chapter 17

16 Now while Paul was waiting for them at Athens, his spirit was provoked within him as he saw that the city was full of idols. 17 So he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the devout persons, and in the marketplace every day with those who happened to be there. 18 Some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers also conversed with him.

We walk around like Paul and our spirits are provoked within us.

• Have you noticed more people in our culture “provoked”?

• How have you noticed your own spirit being “provoked”?

“We’re witnessing the phenomenon that Harvard Divinity scholars Casper Kuile and Angie Thurston have called “unbundling”: the rise of bespoke religious identities. The more individualized our religious identities become, the more willing we are to mix and match ideas and practices outside our primary religious affiliation.” Strange Rites: New Religions for a Godless World by Tara Isabella Burton

Everyone is searching frantically

English Standard Version Chapter 17

And some said, “What does this babbler wish to say?” Others said, “He seems to be a preacher of foreign divinities”—because he was preaching Jesus and the resurrection. 19 And they took him and brought him to the Areopagus, saying, “May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? 20 For you bring some strange things to our ears. We wish to know therefore what these things mean.” 21 Now all the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there would spend their time in nothing except telling or hearing something new.

• This passage is incredibly helpful for us today because we live in a culture where Jesus and the resurrection is strange in people’s ears.

• We live in a world where every idea is changing rapidly and all there is is a rapid exchange of ideas. It is constant and it is always evolving and it is impossible to keep up.

• Because we live in a provoked culture our initial response is to react. But reacting doesn’t always get us to where God desires us to be.

The Gospel is not a reaction to a disagreement, it is an answer to a question.

• It is important to see Paul’s engagement here. Because it will bear fruit in the upcoming passages.

• In our post modern age, in this culture, we are going to have to learn how to find our apologetic and our witness between the fight and the flight.

• Where have you noticed Christians fighting?

• Where have you noticed Christians fleeing?

“The Remixed hunger for the same things human beings have always longed for: a sense of meaning in the world and personal purpose within that meaning, a community to share that experience with, and rituals to bring the power of that experience into achievable, everyday life. Strange Rites: New Religions for a Godless World by Tara Isabella Burton

Everyone’s search is only satisfied in Christ

English Standard Version Chapter 17

22 So Paul, standing in the midst of the Areopagus, said: “Men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious. 23 For as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription: ‘To the unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you.

• Paul sees something true about the culture and tells them, “see, you see it too.”

• That they are searching for meaning. They are searching for certainty.

• And Paul takes the middle ground. HE doesn’t run, He doesn’t fight. He tells them that He has found what it is they are looking for.

• Humanity is on a frantic search and Paul tells them that they have come to the end of their searching.

English Standard Version Chapter 3

15 but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect, 16 having a good conscience, so that, when you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame.

• How are you prepared to answer for the hope that you have?

• What specifically would you share regarding the hope you have? What would you tell someone?

• We need to recover a new apologetic of Christian hope in the world. Because I think people are tortured by doubt and disillusionment.

• Tell about a time where you experienced doubt or disillusionment. How has God met with you in that area? How have you seen the hope of Christ within it?

• Pray for each other to know the hope of Christ.