Too many people, even Christians, have a mistaken notion that God is distant. It’s “The Big Man in the Sky” idea. Some go so far as to see God as distant and detached. Something that’s know as Deism. But the God of the Bible is anything but. Yes, he is transcendent in the sense that he is “other” than us. Yet he is also immanent; close; personal. In Sunday’s passage, Acts 17:16-34, the Apostle Paul finds himself in Athens in a place called the Aeropagus, meeting with the city’s thinkers and philosophers. He spends considerable time there meeting with them and discussing the gospel of Jesus Christ, and he makes the statement that God is “not far from each one of us.” What a reassuring thing to know! God is close. Even in the depths of our sin and even with the sense that we might have that we are “so far from God,” yet he is right there. We’ll unpack all of that from the passage this Sunday.

Series: The Acts of the Apostles

Todd Dugard

Message: 48 – He is not far from each one of us

Harvest Bible Chapel

Text: Acts 17:16-34

May 12, 2024

So that people who don’t yet know Jesus would come to see just how close

they are to him, I must…

…first, show genuine concern for their spiritual state (v. 16-21)

Provoked; παροξύνομαι: to be upset at someone or something involving severe emotional concern. In some languages the expression must be rendered idiomatically as ‘his heart was eating him’ or ‘his stomach was hot.’

L&N 88.189

Epicureanism – materialists; what is seen is relevant; no afterlife; not atheistic, but gods are not involved with humanity; “if there’s a god, why so much suffering?”; religious skeptics; value happiness and see it stemming from the absence of pain, suffering; “a good life is a pleasurable life.”

Stoicism – believe in divine providence; pantheists; divinity found in all nature, matter; “divine spark” binds everything together; pursue reason, logic; high ethic; believe in self-sufficiency and a universal brotherhood.

…then relate the gospel to their specific situation (v. 22-26)

The gist of the speech is...thoroughly rooted in Old Testament thought throughout. The main theme is God as Creator and the proper worship of this Creator God. The language often has the ring of Greek philosophy, for Paul was attempting to build what bridges he could to reach the Athenian intellectuals.

John B. Polhill

…presenting Jesus as the clear alternative (v. 27-28)

Preach the gospel at all times. Use words if necessary.

Dumb Quote by Someone

Romans 10:14–15

…and not equivocating at all on the error of their ways (v. 29-34)

The big 3 of the gospel:

(1) Everyone must repent;

(2) There is a coming judgment; and

(3) Jesus’ resurrection from the dead secures our salvation.

When the whole world is running towards a cliff, he who is running in the opposite direction appears to have lost his mind.

C. S. Lewis