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All Times, All Things, All Places
ICEBREAKER
For an Icebreaker, pull out a cookie, a donut, a piece of cake, or any kind of delicious treat and just start eating it in front of them. Really make a big deal out of how tasty it is, with each bite just mmmmm and wow this is so good. Finish eating it and then say “Well, That was delicious, let’s get started with the lesson”, and then act as if you are going to continue. Now more than likely somebody will protest, especially if you’re teaching youth, and they’re going to ask, “Didn’t you bring some for us?” Or “That’s rude, you’re not going to share?” , which is exactly what you want them to say because then you can lead into the lesson with something like “Why do you think that's rude?” What would have been the polite thing to do?” But If you have a quieter class where nobody seems to say anything you could get the ball rolling by asking “How did you feel while you were watching me eat in front of you?” And they may respond with something like: Well it made me hungry. I want some too!
Well, you can then explain: The Gospel is the same way. We, as members of Christ’s Church, have been given the delicious gift of the truth. Just like the fruit of the tree of life, it is the most sweet, most pure, most desirable, and most joyous thing to the soul. With something that good, we should share it. It would almost be rude not to.
Another approach here to introduce the lesson would be to simply ask them what they usually like to do right after they’ve watched a great movie, read a good book, or eaten at a great new restaurant. I can almost guarantee that somebody is going to say that they usually want to tell other people about it. It's a natural human reaction to want to share something good with others around them.
And if you’d indulge me for a minute, I’d love to share a quick personal story when that truth really sunk deep for me. It was my first day in the mission field and my senior companion had taken me tracting. He did the first couple of doors and then turned to me and said, ok elder, now it’s your turn. I was so nervous, I remember going up to the door, palms sweaty, my heart racing, and knocking on the door. A woman came to the door and started cursing at us, she was very upset and told us to leave her alone and never come back, and little greenie missionary me I backed away from the door and said, “Oh, we’re so sorry for bothering you, we won’t come back again, sorry”. And we walked away from the house. After a little distance my companion turned to me and said, “Elder, don’t ever do that again”. And I said, what, what did I do? And he said, “Never apologize for trying to share the gospel with people, we can be polite, we aren’t pushy, we’re respectful, but we never apologize. All you’re doing is trying to bring the goodness and the truth of the gospel into their life, and there is no reason to be sorry for that”. And that was a powerful lesson for me. It really made me realize how grateful I am to have the knowledge of the restored gospel. We have the amazing fruit of the gospel in our hands, so we can be confident and gracious in our efforts to share the amazing gift of the gospel with others.
TRANSITION
And if there was anybody that really understood the deliciousness of the gospel and the desire to share it, that person would be Paul. He is one of the best examples of how to be a great missionary. Now, I told you last week that missionary work was going to be a major and recurring theme throughout the book of Acts and this week is no exception. In fact, this lesson even extends past the boundaries of the chapters assigned in this week’s “Come Follow Me” block. Sometimes there is value in pulling back from the chapter-by-chapter approach and examining the big picture. This week I’d like to focus on the example of Paul as a witness.
And he is going to answer 4 key questions about sharing the gospel. He’s going to show us Who, When, How, Where? Who should we share the gospel with? When should we share the gospel? How should we share the gospel? Where should we share the gospel? For each question, a different challenge or activity to guide us through these questions.
WHO
So challenge number 1. We’re going to start by answering the question “who”? Who does Paul share the gospel with? This is going to be a fill-in-the-blank challenge. I’ll give you the chapter the answer is in, and then display a verse in the chapter with the description of who missing. Your student’s task will be to find the verse the answer is in, raise their hand, and share the word or words that go in the blanks. For this activity, I’ll usually have a bowl of candy and I’ll throw a piece out to the person who identifies the answer first. But as you go through these, encourage your students to mark these individuals in the same color under the label of “Who”. And I’ll just reveal the answers here on the video so you can see what they are.
14:8 a cripple, or a lame man, who had never walked before
16:16 a certain damsel, or a young woman
17:12 women, and men
20:12 A young man
20:21 Jews and Greeks
21:16 An old disciple
21:19 The Gentiles
21:39 The people
23:1 The council (The Sanhedrin)
23:33 The Governor
25:11 Caesar
26:2 The King
Now this is not a comprehensive list of all the people Paul shares the gospel within these chapters, but it does give you a good sense of his approach on deciding who to share with. How would you answer that question now? In short, who is Paul willing to share the gospel with? All people. Male and female, young and old, healthy and sick, Jew and Gentile, rich and poor, high and low. There isn’t anyone Paul excludes. There isn’t anyone that he won’t share the gospel with. Put him in front of another human being, and odds are, he’s going to testify.
Therefore, who should we be willing to share the gospel with? All people. We should not exclude anyone in our efforts to share.
WHEN
All right, how about when, when does Paul share the gospel? This one’s a little bit shorter but what we’re looking for is time-related words and phrases. When is Paul sharing? The challenge for this question is a short crossword puzzle. I wanted to make this one short because you want to have time to answer all four questions, and crossword puzzles can sometimes take a lot of time. But this should be quick. You can make it a contest by putting them into companionships and seeing which pair can finish it first. Be sure to tell them that blacked out squares mean that there is more than one word in the answer. It’s a phrase. While they go through the answers, encourage them to mark those words and phrases in a different color under the label of “WHEN?”
Here are the answers.
17:17 Daily
20:7 Midnight
20:18 At all seasons
26:7 Day and night
28:23 morning till evening
So when does Paul share the gospel and when should we share the gospel? At ALL times. Paul doesn’t care whether it’s early or late, winter or summer, day or night, he’s willing to testify to you. He doesn’t just wait around for a convenient time. There’s no time, that’s not a good time to share.
HOW
How does Paul share the gospel or and under what conditions will he share it? For this question, a much simpler approach. Just a teacher walk-through marking activity with encouragement to your students to mark each phrase as you go in a new color under the label of “HOW”.
17:2/18:4/18:19 He reasoned with them out of the scriptures.
18:5 He testified that Jesus was the Christ. Paul would bear his testimony of Jesus over and over again throughout his life.
18:5/19:8/19:26 The word that is common in those verses is persuading. Paul sought to persuade people to believe the truths he was teaching. Now verse 8 also uses the word disputing which I don’t like as much, but I don’t think that’s used in the context of arguing or quarrelling. I could be wrong, but I think that means a discussion—answering questions, resolving concerns, defending his testimony. Because in the accounts we have where we actually get to hear Paul teach, there’s not an argumentative spirit in it. He’s a persuader not an intellectual bully. I like this description so far of how he's sharing. He didn’t try to manipulate people into the gospel. He didn’t try to prove them into anything. He didn’t try to intimidate, or bribe, or compel anyone. He reasoned, and persuaded, and discussed, and testified. That’s a pretty good example of how to share the gospel with others. And this is good for us to consider because I think that sometimes we tend to just rely on that last one. We just testify. And that’s a key part of the process. But we’ve also got to be good at reasoning and persuading too.
20:19 With all humility of mind, and with many tears and temptations. Which in this case, means in great trials and challenges.
20:20 Keeping back nothing. Paul always gave his all and never held anything back. He’s a great example of somebody who was willing to “waste and wear out his life in bringing to light [the truth].” (Doctrine and Covenants 123:13)
20:22 Following the Spirit, not knowing the things that shall befall me there. So he witnessed with complete faith, not knowing the outcome. Kind of like Nephi going into Jerusalem without knowing what he would do. Just trusting the Spirit.
20:27 Never shunned to declare the counsel of God. Paul was not ashamed of the gospel of Christ. He didn’t hold back things that were hard to teach or that thought might be mocked or difficult to accept. Sometimes we may want to hold some teachings back because they aren’t politically correct, or they are challenging, or difficult to talk about. But not Paul, he always taught the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
20:31 He warned them with tears. I like that phrase. Usually when we give warnings we do it with a different emotion. We warn with sternness, or anger, or seriousness, or a raised voice. Paul warned with tears. And that shows us that the motivation for his warnings was always love and concern for the warned.
And then finally, I’m cheating a little here and pulling this out of 2 Corinthians. 11:24-27 but it perfectly describes the conditions under which Paul was willing to testify.
24 Of the Jews five times received I forty stripes save one.
25 Thrice was I beaten with rods, once was I stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck, a night and a day I have been in the deep;
26 In journeyings often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils by mine own countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren;
27 In weariness and painfulness, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness.
So how does Paul share the gospel. In what circumstances?
In ALL things. Under all circumstances. In a loving, humble, persuading, spirit-inspired way. The same way in which we should strive to share.
WHERE
Now where does Paul share the gospel? Location, location, location is the challenge here. Here’s the way I like to do this. If I have a big white board or chalk board at the front, I’ll create the following chart and challenge my entire class to see how fast they can fill it in together. You give them the verses, and they search to see if they can find the location where Paul is testifying. Now we’re not looking for names of cities in this or countries, but places. So for example, this first one here. Acts 16:13. Where is Paul testifying?
16:13 By a river side.
16:23 In prison
17:17 Synagogue(Church) and in the Market
18:7 A certain man’s house
19:9 In a school
19:29 In a theater. A theater full of angry and shouting Ephesians no less. We’ll look at that story in a moment.
20:7 Upon the first day of the week, where the disciples came together to break bread. So what do we call that? A sacrament meeting. Paul will teach during a sacrament meeting.
20:20 Publicly and from house to house
21:26 In the temple
23:35 In the judgment hall
25:23 The place of hearing. Or the king’s court.
27:15 On a ship, And this is a fascinating story that we’ll cover in a future week. He teaches and testifies during the middle of a storm at sea in this chapter. Can’t wait to go over that with you. Acts 27 has so many great principles to teach us.
28:23, 30 In his lodging or in his own hired house
THREE STORIES
Before we conclude this question, you may or may not decide to do this next section. But there are three specific stories from those locations that I would want my students to understand a little more in depth because I feel they really capture the spirit of Paul as a witness and his depth of commitment. So I might just summarize these stories briefly as a teacher to help them catch that vision.
The Prison (Acts 16:23-33)
Paul and his companions have been beaten and thrown into prison when an earthquake starts, their chains fall off and the doors swing open. Now if you were Paul, what would you do in that instance? Run, right. But when the doors open, the jailor sees this, and in despair grabs his sword and is about to kill himself. You know, he’s responsible for the prison and all the prisoners, and now he figures, that they are going to escape on his watch. We’ve already seen last week what Herod did to the soldiers in charge of Peter when he escaped, so he’d better just end it now. But does Paul run away, with a serves you right kind of attitude? No, in verse 28, he cries out with a loud voice to the jailor and says, “Do thyself no harm: for we are all here.” And he testifies, and starts to teach this guy the gospel. Only Paul could make a missionary contact out of a prison break. I can just see him running down the corridor of the prison and seeing the jailor, and stopping and saying, “Hi, I’m Elder Paul and this is my companion Elder Silas and we’re representatives from of church of Jesus Christ of ancient day saints and we have a message to share with you. Paul is just amazing as a missionary. Oh, and the jailor gets baptized by the way, along with his whole family. Great story.
The Theater (19:23-40)
In this story, Paul is teaching in Ephesus and they’re beginning to have success. And the silversmiths of Ephesus, who make these little silver statues of Diana start to realize that Paul’s teaching about Jesus is bad for business. And so they get together and say in vs 27:
27 So that not only this our craft is in danger to be set at nought; but also that the temple of the great goddess Diana should be despised, and her magnificence should be destroyed, whom all Asia and the world worshippeth.
Now which of the two concerns do you think they’re most worried about, Diana’s reputation, or their own paychecks. I’ll let you decide. But either way they plan to stir up the people. You know how it goes, when reasonable arguments lack, they are replaced by shouting. So they start yelling, great is Diana of the Ephesians! And the pandemonium spreads, and the people of the city all rush into the theater and continue shouting “Great is Diana of the Ephesians” for two hours no less. Vs. 32 says that most of the people didn’t even know why they were there, just that they got caught up in the frenzy of the crowd. Which, by the way, is a great description of our world. Nobody wants to listen to the other side anymore. They just want to shout at each other. They’re not like Paul who reasons, and testifies, and persuades with all humility. The Jews at this point send a man named Alexander out in front of the crowd to try and calm them down and explain, but what do they do as soon as they find out he’s a Jew? Verse 34
“But when they knew that he was a Jew, all with one voice about the space of two hours cried out, Great is Diana of the Ephesians.”
Same thing today. Nobody is willing to even entertain someone else’s ideas just based on who they are. Oh, she’s a Mormon, no need to listen to her. Oh, he’s a democrat, we can dismiss everything he has to say. Oh, they’re poor, they’re not my gender, they’re from a different country. We’ll cancel them, we’ll shout them down. But a better solution is in :36. But we should be quiet and do nothing rashly. Don’t have to agree, but we should at least listen. Talk. Seek to understand.
But as this giant theater full of angry Ephesians is ringing out with this cry, what does Paul want to do? Knowing what you know about him, what would you expect? Look at verse 30 :
And when Paul would have entered in unto the people, the disciples suffered him not.”
So he’s like, “Hey, there’s a crowd in there, I’m going to go testify”, and he’s about to run in and his companions have to pull him back in and they’re like, “Paul, are you crazy, you’ll get torn to pieces in there.” And I can just see him protesting and saying, “But, but there’s an audience in there, I want to share the gospel”!
The Temple (21:26-40)
One more. Paul testifying in the temple. In this story, Paul heads off to Jerusalem, and everybody knows that this is dangerous for him. He’s not a popular man there and he’s warned by many of his friends and converts not to go, but he feels compelled by the Spirit. While in Jerusalem, he’s warned that there are slanderous reports circulating that he’s been teaching Jewish people to turn against the law of Moses and that they shouldn’t circumcise their children, so they encourage him to do something Jewish to show the people that he’s still committed, and so Paul takes some men into the temple to perform their purification rites and to make an offering. So when he goes in to make the offering, his enemies see an opportunity, it says in vs. 28 that they . . .
“Crying out, Men of Israel, help: This is the man, that teacheth all men everywhere against the people, and the law, and this place: and further brought Greeks also into the temple, and hath polluted this holy place.”
So they’re accusing him of bringing Greeks into the temple, which was forbidden to bring anybody past the court of the Gentiles. This was the most holy place in Judaism and a place only for Jews. Now it’s not true, he hasn’t brought Gentiles in, but they know that Paul is accustomed to hanging out with Gentiles, so they’re using this lie to rile the people up against him. And it works, the people grab him and start beating him up and trying to kill him. Well thank heavens for the Roman soldiers in this case, because they rush in and stop the riot and arrest Paul (for his own safety) and start to haul him up the steps of the Antonia Fortress to figure out what the problem is. So that’s the setting, here’s Paul, almost beaten to death by this group of people, and he’s been rescued. If it were me, I would want to get as far away from that crowd as possible. But remember Paul’s character. He looks around, and what does he see? It’s a crowd of people, so what do you think he’s going to want to do? He looks up at the Roman soldiers and asks in verse 39, “suffer me to speak to the people.” He wants to testify. Please, give me a chance to share my testimony with these people. Gosh, don’t you just love Paul? Does that give you a good sense of his character as a witness of Christ?
Look at all the places and situations where he was willing to testify. And if you wanted to add one more additional layer to this question of where, you could display this chart as well, which shows all of the different specific locations we know of where Paul testified of Christ.
In summary then. How would you answer our question? Where will Paul share the gospel? In ALL places.
TRUTH
So to tie everything together, What has Paul just taught us about being a witness of Christ? That we too should strive to be witnesses of Christ to all people, at all times, in all things, and in all places.
And does that sound familiar to anyone out there?
Let’s go to Mosiah 18:9 for a moment. This is when Alma describes the covenant of baptism to the Nephite believers at the waters of Mormon and explains the commitments that are made by entering the waters of baptism. And what is one of those covenants that they and we all make when we become disciples of Christ through baptism? To stand as witnesses of God at all times, and in all things, and in all places that ye may be in, even until death. So if you want to see an example of somebody who really got that—if you want to watch somebody keep that covenant, just look to Paul, he’s one of the greatest illustrations of that commitment that I know of anywhere.
LIKEN THE SCRIPTURES
What could you do to be more like Paul this week? How could I become a better witness? Do I need to expand my WHO vision? Are there people that I hold back from sharing with for whatever reason? Do I need to expand my WHEN vision? Have I been waiting around too long for a convenient time to share with someone, or do I just need to be more willing to share at any time. Do I need to expand my HOW vision? Are there aspects of the way I share that I need to improve? Do I need to add more reasoning, persuading, warning, or testifying to my witnessing efforts? Or do I need to expand my WHERE vision? Do I need to look for opportunities EVERYWHERE I go, under any circumstances, in any location?
CONCLUSION
We too can be like Paul! I pray that we may all try and imitate him and look for more opportunities to stand as witnesses of God at all times, in all things, and in all places, and to all people. To share the delicious fruit of the gospel with others even when the circumstances aren’t ideal. And if we do this, I believe I can promise that we “like Paul” will have successes and failures. There will be people that love us and people that despise and mock us. We will experience great triumphs and also great opposition. But like Paul, God will support us throughout it all, and we will find joy as his witnesses. Because we know something. The gospel is delicious. It goes down easy. It tastes so good; we just can’t help but share it. It’s too wonderful to just keep to ourselves.
And here, whatever treat that you began the lesson with, when you ate it in front of them, I’d pull out a plate or bowl full of that treat and share one with each of your students at that point.
KNOWING THE UNKNOWN GOD
Now, there is another great story from these chapters that I believe deserves its own special treatment. And that’s a story that comes from Acts Chapter 17 where Paul teaches a group of people from a very famous city.
ICEBREAKER
For an icebreaker to this section I like to bring in a stack of textbooks representing various areas of study. Math, biology, physics, philosophy, chemistry, just get a bunch of scholarly or educational type books. If you don’t happen to have any lying around your home, you could always check some out from the library.
And you say: These books represent a wealth of knowledge. What do you feel is the most important subject you can study? The most important thing you can know? Is it Math, History, Science, Philosophy, Physics? Invite them to share their opinion with a partner.
TRANSITION
But then we’ll transition to the scriptures by saying that Paul is going to teach us the most important thing we can know. And he’s going to teach it to a group of the smartest people of his time in a city known for its intelligent citizens. The key to understanding this story is in the setting. In fact, this city, in Paul’s day certainly and even now, in a way, continues to embody learning and education. Can you find the name of that city somewhere in Acts 17?
And there are some other cities mentioned in that chapter, but eventually they’ll find it. That city is Athens. Certain cities are known for certain qualities. Paris is the city of love. Vienna is the city of music. Jerusalem is the Holy City, while Las Vegas is sin city. Athens is the city of knowledge. It’s the city that represents the birthplace of western civilization. Just think of all the things the Greeks contributed to humanity and culture. Philosophy, Democracy, Art, Architecture, Medicine, the Sciences, Sports, Theater, and more, all of these areas were either started here or reached an advanced level of sophistication here. It’s the city of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Homer, Pericles, Hippocrates, Archimedes, and many others. It was the most educated and advanced culture of its day. And to that setting, comes a Jewish tentmaker. And it says in vs. 16 that as he walks through the city his spirit is stirred within him when he saw the city wholly given to idolatry. You know, lots of temples and altars, and statues, all of those Gods of Greek religion and mythology. And eventually Paul's preaching in the city catches the attention of some of the thinkers of the day. And I love what they say in vs. 18, what will this babbler say? And isn’t that just the epitome of the attitude that a lot of intellectual types have towards religion. Oh these babblers. What can they teach us. How does faith even hold a candle to cold hard science and reason. They say, “He seemeth to be a setter forth of strange gods.” Which to that I think, “you’re calling Paul’s god a strange God? If you know anything about Greek mythology, those were some strange Gods. But I digress. And so he ends up on Areopagus, or Mars Hill, which is a big rock just below the acropolis, and was a gathering place of sorts, a city council area. And Paul says in vs. 21 that the Athenians spent their time in nothing else, but either to tell or to hear some new thing. Sounds like the social media center of its day. The Twitter of Ancient Greece.
And there at Mars Hill, Paul is going to give a very famous speech. And remember the setting, ironically, with all the things these Greeks know and understand, there is one key piece of information that they have missed. Something unknown to them. And what is it? What don’t they understand?
And they will find it because it’s in big capital letters. They don’t know God. They’ve built an altar to the unknown God . You know, the Greeks wanted to make sure that they pleased all the possible Gods out there, so just to be safe they make an altar to the UNKNOWN GOD, this Jewish God they’ve heard mentioned.
And so Paul says, “let me declare Him unto you.” This individual you don’t know.
And a quick side note here: Don’t be thrown off by him saying that the Greeks were too superstitious in vs 22. He’s actually giving them a compliment. He’s saying that they are very religious and careful in their devotions. Also, when he says that they are ignorantly worshipping the Unknown God, that’s a bit of a harsher translation than the original Greek suggests. He’s just calling attention to the fact that they don’t know anything about this God, and Paul desires to teach them more.
And so, with my class, I would send them in to read vs. 24-31 by themselves with this one question in mind.
SEARCH
What is your favorite truth about God that Paul teaches here and why? He’s going to reveal to us some of the most important things we should know about God.
Here are some of the answers they could give and a few of my thoughts on some of them.
24 He made the world and all things therein.
I think that’s an interesting one to start with. We come to know God by what he has created. You can tell a lot about an artist by what he paints. And this is one of my favorites, because I love the outdoors, and when I’m standing on top of a mountain, or sitting next to a beautiful lake or the beach, or watching a storm roll in, or exploring the sandstone canyons of Southern Utah, I feel close to God. And a God that can create such beauty, and color, and majesty, and diversity, must truly be a magnificent being. A being that I want to know.
:24 He is the lord of heaven and earth and dwelleth not in temples made with hands.
And I going to pair that with the next one which is:
:25 He doesn’t need anything from us, but he gives all things to us.
I think these verses are showing us that you can find God in many different places. Not just in one specific location. And that verse may sound bad to a member of the church because we build temples, and we call them the House of the Lord. I don’t think this is a condemnation of temple building though. Paul worshipped in the temple at Jerusalem. But remember the audience and the setting here. The acropolis is sitting right behind him in full view of the Greeks he’s speaking to. And the Greeks built all kinds of temples. Temples to every one of the myriad of Gods they had. And I think the big difference between our temples and Greek temples is that Greek temples were built more for the benefit of the Gods. To please them. They needed to be built for them. Our temples, I would argue, are built for us, to bless us and our ancestors. To give us a place where we can feel closer to God. But it’s not the only place we can find God. We can find him at home, in church, in nature, in our relationships. I think that’s what Paul is getting at here. God is on the giving side, not the receiving. He already has everything he needs. He isn’t self-centered. He doesn’t ask us to worship Him and pray to Him and give tithing to His church because He needs those things. Rather, He knows the blessing and goodness that will come to US when we do these things. It’s all about us. His work and glory is to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man. We are his purpose. This was not the nature of the Greek Gods. Maybe that’s why they thought Paul’s God was so strange. A God that actually cared about mankind.
:26 He has made of one blood all the nations of man
God sees all mankind as the same blood. We are all sons and daughters of Adam and Eve. Remember Peter’s dream. He is the Lord of all and loves all his children. It’s man that places labels and categories on itself. Dividing us up into nations and races and political affiliations. God sees us all of one blood.
:26 Also in vs. 26 he’s determined the times and bounds.
I think that’s Paul’s way of saying that God is in control and is very much a part of what happens on this earth.
:27 We can find God if we seek Him and feel after Him, and find Him
That’s probably my favorite phrase from this chapter. How does one come to know the unknown God? WE seek him and feel after him. God wants us to put some effort into this search. In order to gain knowledge about math or biology or physics, we have to study, and experiment, and put time and effort into it. Do we expect it to be any different when it comes to the most important knowledge we can gain? We must seek it. And a good question to ask here might be : How does somebody feel after God?
Ideas:
Pray-talk to Him
Study his word in the scriptures and in the words of the living prophets
Visit his house, the temple, as often as you can
Serve him by serving others
Show your trust in him by being obedient to his commandments and counsels.
The more we feel after God, the more real he will become to us.
:27 He is not far from us.
God isn’t hiding. Satan would have us think that God is hard to find. But I don’t think so. I think he’s a lot easier to get to know than the world lets on. I don’t think that God is simply just up. I believe he is around and next to. Feel after Him and you will find Him.
:28 He is the power by which we live and move
Again, God is all about giving. He has provided us with the gift of life and has made our experience on earth here possible.
:28 We are also his offspring, children of God.
I like to ask my students if they know what hymn in the hymnbook is always translated first when put into a new language. And it’s “I am a child of God”. It’s one of the first things that missionaries are encouraged to teach investigators. We are children of Heavenly Parents. It isn’t a mighty God/ puny insignificant mortals kind of relationship like the Greeks believed. But a loving parent/child kind of relationship.
:29 He’s not an idol made by the hands or even the thought of man.
Man did not create God. God created man.
:30 God winks at ignorance. I really find that one interesting. We believe in a winking God. A God that can overlook or pardon ignorant sin. It suggests the ease with which God can forgives man and his merciful nature. And in this case, he’s winking at idolatry. If God can wink at idolatry, then maybe he’ll wink at me sometimes too. Hopefully.
However
:30 He commands all to repent.
God expects something of us. He’s not a permissive God either. He does require us to do certain things.
:31 He will judge us.
And what will be the standard by which judges us? By that man whom he hath ordained. He’s talking about Jesus. His son will be the standard by which we are judged. So, if we want that judgment to go well, we need to strive to be like Jesus.
:31 And finally, he assures us that we He will resurrect us from the dead. Which kind of blows things up with the Athenians and they start to mock him. The doctrine of resurrection will really challenge the Gentiles. We’ll see that again in 1 Corinthians 15.
TRUTH
The most important knowledge we can gain is a knowledge of God.
LIKEN THE SCRIPTURES
How well do YOU know God? I know it’s easy for us to point at the Pagan Athenians here as needing to figure that out. But could some of those phrases describe us at times? Are we sometimes a little too superstitious-overly religious or dogmatic in our beliefs and practices? Do we ignorantly worship God because that’s just what we’ve always done, and it’s what our parents did? How well have we come to know God, and how personal is our relationship with him? There are things that I used to think about God, that I’ve changed my mind on over the years. I’ve learned more about him and his nature. Can we be humble enough to recognize that there may still be some things we need to learn about him? Things that we are ignorant of or that we’ve gotten downright wrong. We’ve got to continuously feel after God, all throughout our lives.
And if you do feel like you know God. How have you come to know he is there?
And I imagine that all of you have probably had some kind of experience that helped you to know that God was there and that he knew who you were.
As I teacher, I would encourage you to get the ball rolling by sharing a story like this of your own. A time where you came to know God better in some way.
And, you know what, I’ll go ahead and share one of my own personal experiences with coming to Know the Unknown God.
(Answer under the pink waterslide story)
CONCLUSION
Remember that getting to know God will be the most important knowledge we will ever gain. We can be smarter than an Athenian if we make this knowledge a priority in our lives. I promise you that God is knowable, because he’s real, and he’s our Father, and he loves us, and is not far from us. But we’ve got to feel after Him. So do that. Feel after God, and you’ll find him.
SHOTGUN PRINCIPLES
Well those two areas are where I would spend most of my time in these chapters, but there’s some other really good stuff in these as well that is just so hard to leave behind. But if tried to do full lessons on each of these ideas, the video would be three hours long, and “aint nobody got time for dat”. So allow me to just throw out a few other quick ideas and insights that you may choose to build a lesson around if you feel so inspired or that might enrich your own personal scripture study.
NO, NOT THIS WAY (ACTS 16:6-10)
I like what Acts 16:6-10 teaches me about the way the Spirit works. If you were to take a look at the map of Paul’s second missionary journey you can tell he’s making a very methodical east to west path to all the cities that he’s preached in before. And he’s about to go into Asia, the most logical next stop, when the Spirit says, nope, not that way. So he decides to go to Bithynia, but again, the Sprit says, nope, not that way. And if you were Paul, what would be your question for the Lord? Ok then, which way should I go? And it seems that for a time, there is no answer. So he waits around in Troas for who knows for how long. And then he has a vision where a man from Macedonia appears and says to come over and help them.
And I don’t know about you, but it seems I’ve had that experience before. There are times when I wish the Spirit would just directly tell me what to do. I’ve had some “no, not that way guidance before” which is helpful, but I always wish He would just tell me what to do. Finding my career and my spouse kind of worked that way. I remember considering certain career paths or young women I was dating where the Spirit would clearly direct, no not this way. But then the guidance stopped there. And it wasn’t until I decided to act and continue to move forward in SOME direction, that the light that I needed came. And for a lot of those things, it came after a significant amount of time. I think these verses are a good illustration that
The Spirit will sometimes tell us what not to do, but then require us to move forward with faith until we know what we should do.
READINESS OF MIND (ACTS 17:10-12)
I love the description of the people in Berea who received the word with all readiness of mind and searched the scriptures daily. We should follow the example of the Bereans. Hopefully we have open minds when things are taught to us by the prophets and the scriptures, and be ready to receive those truths. And personally, I hope that you don’t read your scriptures. I wish everybody in the church would just stop reading their scriptures. And I’m serious about that. Rather, I think they should do what the Bereans did, which is search the scriptures. Way too many people simply read the scriptures, like they would read a magazine or a novel. That’s why a lot of people have trouble understanding the scriptures, or seeing their relevance to their lives. It’s because they’re reading the scriptures. Just rushing through them to get it done, or finish the chapter. No, search them, engage with them, study them, ponder them, meditate on them, feast on them. And they will feed you for a lifetime.
APOLLOS (ACTS 18:24-28)
Since I’m speaking to gospel teachers here we have to take a quick look at Acts 18:24-28 about a man named Apollos. Now Apollos was a teacher that I aspire to be like. He’s a hero of mine. And what kind of teacher was he?
He was an eloquent man
Mighty in the scriptures
Instructed in the way of the Lord
Fervent in the Spirit,
Spake and taught diligently the things of the Lord
Speak boldly
Helped them much
Mightily convinced
Showed by the scriptures that Jesus was Christ.
I hope and pray that we can all become “Apollos’s” and learn to teach like this great man.
And finally, you gotta love the story of Eutychus in Acts 20:7-12. I’ll let you read it, but the moral of the story to me. Don’t fall asleep in church, unless Paul is there.
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