Athens on Trial | Disruptive Presence 91

In which John and David peel back the layers of Paul's engagement with Greek thinkers, using their own religious and cultural touchstones to introduce Jesus and the Gospel.

As we unravel the nuances of Paul's argument, we ponder his approach in adapting scriptural teachings for a polytheistic audience. We explore his use of the Athenians' altar to the 'unknown God' to pivot to a discussion on how this was the God he wanted to introduce to them. 

With a touch of scholarly critique and reflection, we also address the human condition of searching for the divine. This discussion opens up a compassionate view of spiritual hunger and the human attempts to grasp the divine, even when shrouded in ignorance. Through Paul's personal revelations, we explore the notion of divine intimacy—how it's not about our efforts to know God, but the transformative power of being known by Him. 

Episode 146 of the Two Texts Podcast | Disruptive Presence 91

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Music by Woodford Music (c) 2021

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Transcript

David Harvey: 0:05

Hi and welcome to the Two Texts podcast. I'm here with my co-host, John Andrews, and my name is David Harvey. This is a podcast of two friends from two different countries meeting every two weeks to talk about the Bible. Each week we pick one text to talk about, which invariably leads us to talking about two texts, and often many more. This season we're taking a long, slow journey through the book of Acts to explore how the first Christians encountered the disruptive presence of the Holy Spirit. So, John, the last time we were together, we had Paul approaching a sermon in Athens. So there's a little bit of a question being asked around what it is that Paul's saying amongst a group of people who love to hear new things and new teaching. And so we've sort of built the whole story up in the last couple of episodes, right up to Paul beginning to preach, and so in this episode we're going to jump into Paul's sermon itself, aren't we?

John Andrews: 1:15

Yeah, yeah, and I'll tell you one of the things that I just saw in a fresh way reading it through again verse 19,. It says then they took him and brought him to a meeting of the Areopagus, and it really reinforced the sense again that this wasn't just a discussion, it was almost a trial, really, wasn't it? These people were bringing him to a place of trial to discuss this.

John Andrews: 1:41

I think if we're not careful, we almost reduce. I mean, we're about to lean into the sermon of Paul, but we almost reduce it to a little bit of a. Well, we're in a debate, we're having a wee bit of a chat, but it's actually Paul is defending something. He is being asked to put his case in this court. So I think, as even we come to hear the sermon, it's recognizing that, although it's a summary little sermon and Dr Luke's probably not given us all the detail it's a summarized sermon, a condensed sermon, but at the same time it's a powerful moment where Paul has been asked to defend his position. So I think it's worthy of note on that, isn't it? It's not just a conversation, there is a trial.

David Harvey: 2:26

Sense to this, and I think, as is the case often within the gospel narratives and I'll include acts in that there's a question at some level of who's on trial, as well isn't there.

David Harvey: 2:43

This is the gospel in very new space for us and I think that's worth remembering. Sometimes we get overawed, I think, by Acts, chapter 17,. Because Athens represents so much for Westerners particularly. It's like the heart of our notions of democracy, it's the the heart of our, our notions of philosophy, and I think what happens and it's worth, I think, bearing this in mind as we hear Paul's sermon is is we get a little over awed by Paul in Athens, because because I think our hold in our minds on the centrality of the Greek way is so prominent for us. It's how we build our cities, essentially after how the Greeks imagined them. We build our economics, we build our philosophy, all these sort of things, and it's easy to miss that Paul's there as a critic. He's not there to actually approve of the Greek way.

David Harvey: 3:48

This is not the gospel making the shift from Jewish to Gentile. Now, in terms of what it is, it's the same message. If Paul comes at the message, we'll see differently, but I feel like maybe I'm not being as clear as I'd like to be, but I feel like it's worth us holding in our hearts, as we hear this text, that that paul is criticizing athens as much as he's doing any of the normal work. It's just that this model is new for us because we don't get that sort of synagogue gathering that we have come to expect in Acts and when we have encountered Gentiles, they've been Gentiles moving towards God, they've been reading the Old Testament, they've been practicing the ways of Torah. That's been quite common for us.

David Harvey: 4:36

What's unusual with this is that backdrop. Think about Ethiopian eunuch Cornelius. They all have a sort of baseline knowledge, don't they, that the gospel comes along and says here's how we're understanding this story. This is new space, so the sermon sounds differently. But I wonder if over the years we've misunderstood why the sermon sounds differently and overly praised the sort of Greco-Roman way.

John Andrews: 5:06

I don't know if that makes sense. It does. Well, I think there's a lovely play on the idea that, potentially, though, paul is on trial here, there's a sense in which we could also say he's putting a Greek worldview on trial. There is a clash of worldviews happening here, a Greek worldview on trial. There is a clash of worldviews happening here, and Paul is making some fairly substantial points in his defense in this sermon. So yeah, quite amazing. So shall I read it.

David Harvey: 5:33

Yes, that would be amazing.

John Andrews: 5:35

Marvellous. So we've got to verse 22. This is where Paul begins, and it says this. Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said people of Athens, I see that in every way you are very religious, for as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription to an unknown God. So you are ignorant of the very thing you worship. And this is what I'm going to proclaim to you.

John Andrews: 6:09

The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands, and he is not served by human hands as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else For one man, from one man. He made all nations that they should inhabit the whole earth, and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us, for in him we live and move and have our being. As some of your poets have said, we are his offspring. Therefore, since we are God's offspring, we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image made by human design and skill.

John Andrews: 7:05

In the past, god overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, 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 everyone by raising him from the dead. When they heard about the resurrection of the dead, some of them sneered, but others said we want to hear you again on this subject. At that, paul left the council. Some of the people became followers of Paul and believed, among them Dionysius, a member of the Areopagus, and also a woman named Damaris, and a number of others.

David Harvey: 7:53

My goodness, it's such a good text it certainly is. I think I love this sermon because it is different, so it forces us to listen to Paul differently, which I really like, and we should converse at some point about its uniqueness. Does Paul's response in Athens ultimately lead him to think maybe this is not the best way to try and tell the story, because it's so stark Even a casual listener is going to realize oh, this doesn't sound like how Paul normally does a sermon, does it?

John Andrews: 8:33

Yeah, yeah it is. It's a very interesting apparent change in style with that. I mean, I noticed almost a little it's probably too much to say a symmetrical pattern in the sermon where he sort of starts off by saying find this altar to the unknown God and then he launches into let me explain to you who the unknown God is, sort of thing, and then we get this sort of interesting little interjection where he quotes their own poets and then out of that quote there's almost a second major defense of the gospel. So it felt to me like there were two parts to the sermon. One kicks off by observation in terms of this altar to the unknown God, and the second part kicks off because he literally is referencing their own poets, but then he makes a dynamic point biblically off the back of quoting their own poets. It's almost like there's a symmetry to the sermon. It feels like there's two parts to it and they're sort of linked together by observations of their own culture. Is that a fair observation or am I pushing that a bit?

David Harvey: 9:54

No, I think it's what I was feeling as well. I was thinking that the sermon is very different on one hand, but to the point that I was making probably badly before you read notice it's still a very Jewish sermon, right? So what we expect from Paul is, I mean, I think this is we expect him. He turns up in a synagogue, he argues from scripture, which, of course, is what we would call the old Testament, the Hebrew Bible. There's no new Testament at this point. So it's always worth, I think, our listeners bearing that in mind, that whenever they're talking scripture, that's what they're talking about. So they're arguing from prophetic texts, genesis, et cetera, et cetera. Then they then invariably Paul, and you see Peter do this as well. There becomes this point that well, this is Jesus, this is who we were all expecting.

David Harvey: 10:51

Of course, he doesn't have that shared space with the Athenians. So he offers a different sermon, a sermon from almost the more textual, and we see, like I think this has shaped a lot of western preaching what's going on in the world around you that you can pick up on and then say something about and lead the conversation to jesus. But if you look closely, it's a very jewish sermon, because the thing he chooses to say something about is the thing that really offends him as a Jew, which is there's a lot of idols around here. So it's fascinating to me that if we slow down and pause, it's a very, very much this type of sermon we should expect from a Jewish man like Paul. That look at all at some level. Can I say it like this, john? What this sermon is is a critique of the anti-Shema nature of the context that he's in.

David Harvey: 11:52

I get up every day. I say here is a Lord, our God, the Lord is one. And now I've noticed you have many gods, which is we know that, like Philo says that Jews never want to hear of the concept of there being more than one God, and Philo is a contemporary of Paul's, so this notion of monotheism is so central. So in a weird way, like as weird for us, paul's actually very much on point with this sermon. And then, even when he makes the point in him we live and move and have our being, as you say, he immediately brings it up with an allusion to like I think it's allusion to genesis and genesis one and psalm eight. Isn't it that you know that's going on there? I mean, is that? Is that helping what you're saying? That's, that's how I'm sort of seeing this yeah, yeah, completely.

John Andrews: 12:36

I mean I I love the fact that in his introduction, paul has shown both an a keen, not just in a general sense oh you've got lots of gods here but he makes an observation about the particular sense that, oh, I've even seen an inscription to the unknown God or an unknown God, and he so I think even in that he's showing number one. He's being observant and respectful of the culture that he's in, but he's actually using that as a gorgeous platform to say, well, actually, I stand before you today as one who knows the name of this unknown God. I actually know who he is and I'm going to explain him to you and I love that. So he's not just being culturally sensitive or trying to find a cool way into the gospel, but he's actually identifying. There is a real opportunity here, a real marker here, for me to actually lean into. You have an altar to an unknown God. I'm here to tell you I know who that God is. I'm here to tell you I know what he looks like and I know what he has actually done and achieved, and I love what could be interpreted as a sort of a quite soft, like culturally connected introduction.

John Andrews: 13:55

It's actually quite an aggressive introduction when you read it properly, I mean, if you look at it, look at that verse 23,. He said I even found an altar with this inscription to an unknown God. So you are ignorant of the very thing you worship. That's pretty strong. He said hold on a minute. You've got all these gods and you don't actually know who this God is. And then he says this and this is what I am going to proclaim to you, and this is what I am going to proclaim to you.

John Andrews: 14:25

So I've heard people over the years say that Paul goes a bit soft in Athens. Well, verse 23 suggests he's not going soft at all. He's actually criticized them for the fact oh, I criticize, maybe too strong a word, but he certainly exposed an observation that you're worshipping something. You don't even know what that is, you don't know who he is, you don't know who she is, you don't know what it is. And then he says and I'm here to proclaim that to you.

John Andrews: 14:55

So this is a very bold beginning and again, I think, if we remember that he's on trial, this is the beginning of a defense. He is saying this is the beginning of a defense. He is saying actually, I know who the unknown God is, and then he launches into what sort of a. It feels to me like a little mini section there David, verses 24 to 27. It's almost got a very strong, dynamic, creational feel to it. So it's like he's contextualizing who this God is around the creation of the world at this stage and bringing, as you say, completely a very, very strong Jewish worldview on the origin of the world and how humanity came about.

David Harvey: 15:39

Well, I mean, if it's of any interest which I assume it is because people are still listening to us At least three. I was looking, I was looking. It never struck me until you were saying this just now and I didn't count, and I should have. But in my Greek New Testament what it does is along the outside margins. It's there's a constant run of biblical texts and what this is is that the editors of the Greek New Testament that I have have, basically, whenever they get a sense that there's an allusion or a reference or a quotation from a Hebrew Bible text, they list it there. And so, generally speaking, when you're reading through, there'll be two or three on the dotting on this On this page.

David Harvey: 16:28

When Paul starts the Athens sermon, like there is, I mean, he alludes to according to the editors he alludes to Genesis In these three verses that you've just mentioned sorry, four, from 24 to 27. Listen to this. He alludes to Isaiah 42. He then alludes to some stuff from the Maccabees which is from the Septuagint Psalm 50, isaiah 42, 57, genesis 1, genesis 9, psalm 74, deuteronomy 32, deuteronomy 4, isaiah 55, jeremiah 29, leviticus 24, psalm 145, and Jeremiah 23. Leviticus 24, psalm 145, and Jeremiah 23. So what that means, just to put it in context, is that he's quoting, but the editors of the Greek New Testament have noted that his language bears strong allusions to these pieces of Hebrew text. I mean, I think that's wonderful. That makes me really excited.

John Andrews: 17:26

Well, I think it's a magnificent observation and I mean I love that and I think it strengthens the idea right from the get-go that this is not Paul going soft on the Bible. So I think again I loved your introduction that Greece is on trial. The Greek worldview is on trial, not just Paul here. And Luke summarizes Paul's sermon in approximate. We can read Paul's sermon from beginning to end about two to three minutes. We know Paul did not only take two to three minutes here. So this is a phenomenal, brilliant summary by Dr Luke on the key points that Paul is making.

John Andrews: 18:12

And just from the opening paragraph we have multiple allusions to the biblical text. So to the untrained eye, to the casual read, this looks like Paul's just grabbing a hold of something contextual. No, there's an altar without an omnia, an unknown God. Let's have a wee chat about the fact that our God's a creator, and then you look a bit closer and Paul is saturating his first paragraph response with dynamic allusions to the Tanakh and to the Hebrew Bible with dynamic allusions to the Tanakh and to the Hebrew Bible.

John Andrews: 18:54

And I would say this David and maybe this is me pushing it too far, but again, paul has such confidence in the biblical text, both in the way he's been trained and the way he proclaims, that he not only proclaims explicitly but he proclaims implicitly the biblical text. He's so saturated in the text that actually he's dropping ideas out even without these people knowing that. He's dropping in a Hebrew worldview right in the heart of Greek, greco-roman culture, and he's doing it in the most spectacularly brilliant way. To the untrained eye it looks like he's just gone a wee bit of a waffly conversation, but a deeper read and this man is really presenting intertextual observation in the most dynamic way.

David Harvey: 19:45

I think that's such a good observation for for us to to hold on to it. I mean, yeah, I mean it's, it's. It's so interesting that I mean I I'm trying to think of a way to succinctly respond, but essentially what you're saying is, if I'm hearing you correctly, Paul's sermon is actually very similar to every sermon he preaches. It's just that the shared knowledge isn't there. So he frames the stuff he normally says differently, but you're still going to get all the normal stuff the supremacy of God, the oneness of God, the creator-ness of God and then stunningly I mean stunningly when you've actually begun it with a conversation about an unknown God, that this God I mean, I love. Look at verse 27, so that they would search for God and perhaps grope for him and find him, though indeed he is not far from each one of us.

David Harvey: 20:51

I mean, my goodness, there's this sense. Here's what I love about what Paul is doing here is there's a critique of let me try and say this carefully because I want to make sure that I say what I actually want to say there's a critique of their idol worship. There's a critique of their not knowing the God that they should know. Critique not, I mean, I think this is a false dichotomy, critique or criticism. I think we are overly nervous about the word criticism in the contemporary world. Critique not, I mean, I think this is a false dichotomy, critique or criticism. I think we are overly nervous about the word criticism in the contemporary world. But you know, there's, there's a critique of of those two things. You're worshiping everything and you're even worshiping what you don't know. What there isn't a critique of is that they're trying to find God. Yes, indeed, and I think a lot of Western modern preaching misses that it's so easy to walk into a context and say you're wrong. But what Paul doesn't actually say to them is you're wrong. But what Paul doesn't actually say to them is you're wrong. He actually approves, at some level, of their desire to try and find God. The problem is he's nearer to you than you realize you think he's far off.

David Harvey: 22:32

In one sense, I love this notion that God is looking for those who are looking for him in idols, almost. That's what Paul's saying here. It's like you're searching and groping, like that image of somebody in the dark, and they can't quite. They can't quite. I mean, that's what I think. When somebody says groping and searching, I'm imagining you're trying to make it to the bathroom in the middle of the night without turning the lights on and yet god's actually super near to you the whole time. But the desire that's in you to find god, the people that are desiring god, god is desiring to find, I think maybe I'd say it like that. Does that? Does that resonate with what you think's happening here?

John Andrews: 23:14

It does, because I think there's a powerful that. Verse 27 is a powerful conclusion and this idea. You've got what feels like a very clumsy word or phraseology of the idea of groping or searching, stumbling around, trying to find something. And he's making that point in the very heart of this intellectual worldview, a worldview that would have very, very great confidence in what it thinks it knows and what it thinks it understands. And Paul is almost saying the multiplication of the idolatry in this place is a sign that you're actually lost, you're groping. It's not that you found anything, you're still searching and groping.

John Andrews: 24:00

But I love that sense of grace that we've seen all the way through the book of Acts.

John Andrews: 24:05

He's saying even in your groping and your blindness, god can be found, because this God, this and I love his language in verse 24, this God who made heaven and earth, this God who is the Lord of all, that beautiful combination of the Genesis language of the creator God and then the Lord of covenant, the Lord who reveals himself.

John Andrews: 24:33

That actually Paul is saying this Lord is coming close to you, this Lord is here If you will look beyond the idol, if you will look beyond what you think you know or even what you think you don't know. If you look beyond that, actually the maker of heaven and earth is here. He is closer to you than you think, and I love this sense that Paul is challenging the idolatry around him, but in a way that makes total sense. He's not simply saying, oh, you all need to get rid of your idols, you're all a bunch of pagans. He's actually saying that the very fact that you've got all this and the very fact that one of your altars speaks of an unknown God means you're still searching, you're still looking, you're still trying to find, and he's saying I've actually found, or, to use his language of verse 27, he has actually found me which is more accurate in terms of Paul's own experience.

John Andrews: 25:31

He found me and because he found me I can proclaim this God is known and he's here among you. So he's treading a very, very difficult line of. He has to stand up to the idolatry in his world. But if he does it in a super confrontational and negative way, then the whole thing's going to close down. But he's trying to show them that actually this God, who's not made by human hands or even served by human hands, is close to them.

David Harvey: 26:02

It's that moment that you always run the gauntlet of in two texts, john, and this is the moment in this episode, essentially what you've just said. There is what Paul does in Galatians, chapter 4. So let me read Galatians, chapter four, verse eight. He says this formerly, when you did not know God, you were enslaved to beings that by nature are not gods. Now, however, that you have come to know God and then he interrupts himself or rather, to be known by God, how can you turn back again to weak and beggarly elemental spirits? How can you want to be enslaved to them again? So I mean what you've just said there.

David Harvey: 26:44

You think it seems like that's what Paul's doing here. I mean, in Galatians he explicitly frames that that is one way that we know. Paul actually thinks, isn't it that here I know what you're doing, now I know what you were doing, but I love the fact that he basically says exactly you know what you've just said, now that you've come to know God, or actually be known by God, and that's I mean there's a lovely, there's a lovely allusion to that in this with I saw it and just again, one of the reasons I love listening to somebody read scripture he himself gives to all mortals life and breath and all things. So hold that in your mind and then think about. Indeed, he is not far from each one of us. It's like you're not sure who he is.

David Harvey: 27:33

Paul seems to be saying an idol up to an unknown god, not realizing that your life, your breath, all things are actually him and frito are actually from him in your life. It's quite, it's that, it's it's that. It's that gorgeous I mean, the early church fathers are really good at this that christ in all things. Christ is not all things. There's panentheism and and pantheism sort of challenge there, but but. But god is in all these things. So of course he's near to you, of course he's not far from us, and so I was really I struck when you were saying that. I thought it's a gorgeous. It really is worth us taking note of that.

David Harvey: 28:17

Paul approves of the heart that is looking for God. You've said this to me in context before when you've done work with me in churches I've served in. I remember us talking like this when we worked together at the college there's this critique specifically and praise specifically. Maybe you've probably said it better than that but this notion that we have this tendency to speak in random generalizations so often that was a great sermon, john, but we never really say what was great about it. We just say it was great. That was a terrible sermon, john, and actually it might just be that one sentence upset us and the rest of the thing was fine.

David Harvey: 29:01

I love what Paul does here is he's very specific. There is a specific problem with what I'm seeing, but that doesn't mean that you are entirely wrong and I don't mean that in a pluralist sense anymore. He wants to preserve that heart that you are looking for God, and I think he does that really well by the fact that he then throws out a quote and we should talk about this probably in future episodes. But he then throws out a quote to their own poets to almost make that point that even your poets are not always wrong, it's just they don't know. Does that make sense?

John Andrews: 29:42

Absolutely. And of course, just because he's quoting their poets and agreeing with them on one thing does not mean he agrees with them on everything. But he simply and again I think it's a stroke of that's that little interlude in the sermon. I think it's a stroke of genius in that it's a way of reminding the audience that Paul again is not just this Jewish person trying to bang away at a Jewish worldview and hammer the Greeks, an intelligent man who has read widely and studied widely and understood even what their poets have said about certain issues that are tender to him. And Paul has made this passionate case about the God who made the world and everything in it, who is also this Lord, this known Lord, who is searching for them even though they're groping in the dark trying to find him. And then he sort of almost builds a conclusion with the quote from their poets. But also this becomes a dynamic bridge into the final section of the sermon. And I love the fact that he's able to use the language of their poets, not affirming their worldview, but affirming a worldview that actually agrees with his worldview. And I think this is a really, really important thing.

John Andrews: 31:12

I don't think Paul is adapting the gospel to their worldview. I think Paul is saying your own poets actually agree with my worldview on this issue. So I think that's really important. We make the differentiation. This is not some sort of chameleon gospel. This isn't Paul going. This isn't syncretism. This isn't Paul going. Oh well, that's sort of slice and dice the gospel, so it fits in every context. This is Paul preaching the gospel, but he's saying actually, isn't it interesting that some of your guys have said something very, very similar to the worldview that I'm espousing?

David Harvey: 31:49

to you. I think that's really important. Yes, and that's what I was alluding to when I said earlier as well. I don't think this is pluralism that's going on here.

David Harvey: 32:02

This is Paul making the point that they too can be right about some things, but sometimes and I think that's what his whole sermon is saying, actually, at that level, his whole sermon is saying you're right to be looking for God, but you're looking in the wrong way. I've been thinking about, well, let me say it like this I've been reading the work of Maggie Ross recently and her stuff on prayer and silence is quite profound. But she talks about intercessory prayer and one of her critiques which has really kind of got me is so often our view, she says, of prayer is actually I mean, she doesn't say exactly like this, but is actually a little similar to idolatry, because what we do with idolatry is we carve an image of the God so that we can say this is what the God looks like, and the idea is that I now can control this God. This God now lives in my house and will now be favorably disposed towards me, or this God lives in my city and will favorably be disposed towards us, which allows, in my attempt to control the God, it actually then allows me a level of control of my own life, because if I think the God's now controlling things and that God's now on my side, then my life is more in control, and you see this throughout scripture. This is Moses saying to God like give me your name, because I can control a God that has a name, and which is why Yahweh's response is so amazing, which is basically I am what. I am right. So it's worth noting that idolatry is always a notion of trying to control a God so that my own life can be in the control that I want.

David Harvey: 33:58

Now Maggie Ross's critique is actually that's so often what we do in prayer, right, is that we bring to God our solution to the problem and then say to God right, you should do this solution, and we offer God one solution, and then we walk away. Right, and she says that what we should do in prayer is come to god with that which is burdening us, amongst other things. Yes, give it to god and then leave it with him, and not offering god. This is the solution that I want, but offering god, I trust you and and you will carry these things and having.

David Harvey: 34:38

I was reading maggie rossi's work just from, not in preparation for two texts, but as we've been talking about this today, I'm thinking that's that's exactly what's going on here. Paul's offering them a god who's in complete control of everything, but the journey to that god is to accept that in him we live and move and have our being right. Actually, it's way beyond our ability to control this. So there's this gorgeous sense that really one of the reasons we need to let go of idols, be they stone pillars in Greek gardens, or be they our view of how prayer works as a way of controlling God. They're all idols which resist the sense that this God made the heavens and the earth and sustains even the breath in our lungs. That possibly took me too long to say that, john, but do you hear what I'm trying to hold together in this?

John Andrews: 35:32

Oh yeah completely, completely, and I think you hear it in Paul's words that he doesn't live in temples made by human hands. He's not served by human hands. It's interesting you get to repeat the idea of hands, the shaping dynamic there, and of course, the idea of hand and idolatry go hand in hand. You do get this sense of that. What I make and shape, I control, and what I control then is explicitly for my benefit, and I think we've reflected before, possibly in our podcast. But the ultimate expression of idolatry is making God in our own image, or even could there be a higher form than that, actually placing our own image at the center of the God conversation.

John Andrews: 36:33

So if you look at a multiplicity of a pluralist idolatrous context, you've got a range of gods which reflect a range of expressions and ideas and needs and desires and agendas of human beings. So this is taking place on Mars Hill or the Hill of Aries. This is the god of war. So there's a specific God for war. There's a specific God for fertility, there's a specific God for financial prosperity. There's a specific God, and all of these are reflecting human agendas rather than the desire to come to the creator of heaven and earth.

John Andrews: 37:16

Come to the Lord of all the earth and say, actually, what is it you want and what is it you want to make? I know what I want to make, I know what I want, I know what my agenda is and if I am let loose, my hands will go to work at shaping a temple or shaping a God who looks a bit like me, but actually Paul is appealing that, this creator God, who is Lord of all the world. Actually, we must let go of that agenda and learn to surrender to him, not the unknown God, but the invisible God, the God who will not subject himself to any form of containment, whether it be a philosophical idol or whether it be a physical idol. He is Lord of all the earth and he will not be contained.

David Harvey: 38:06

And that brings us to verse 25 in such a beautiful way, when he says not only is this God not served by human hands beautiful allusion to the Old Testament there but he gives himself to all mortals life. Sorry, he himself gives to all mortals life and breath and all things. I think about that as a critique when you've got, here's our God of war, here's our God of love, here's our God of something else, and now Paul says, oh no, this God, all things come from this God, like there's this beautiful sense of just having to hand everything over to him. So that's it for this episode. We know that there's always more to explore and we encourage you to dive into the text and do that. If you liked this episode, we'd really appreciate it if you rated, reviewed or shared it. We also appreciate all of our listeners who financially support the show, sharing the weight of producing this podcast. If you'd like to support the show, visit twotextscom. But that is all for now. So until next time, from John and I, goodbye.