Paul And Privilege

As previously indicated, we shall be looking closely at a servant of God and his work in presenting Jesus to others.

Here is our working Bible text.  

And they took him and brought him to the Areopagus, saying, May we know what this new doctrine is of which you speak? Acts 17: 19.

This move of Paul, servant of the Most High God, this response of Paul to go to the Areopagus, has only come about because he has gone to Athens, as God’s fully lit vessel. At the moment, Athens is in spiritual darkness and so are all its people. Paul does not have Athens as one of his destinations on this evangelistic campaign. He is taken there by some church family, as a haven, a safe place, a place of peace and quiet from the bulldozer-like Thessalonicans, who are stopping at nothing, to disrupt the preaching of the Word of the Lord by Paul. Their target is Paul, because he is the Lord’s fired-up, lit-up vessel, full of brightly burning lights, from stem to stern.

Paul enters this unplanned place, all lit up with the Gospel of Jesus Christ, Crucified and Risen, and immediately lights up the place where he is. Understand fully the words, light up. You can only light up a dark place. If the place already has lights and you enter, you will just be joining your light to the existing light. It will be a joyous time of homely fellowship. But if, on the other hand, there are no lights, then you light up the place. Athens is in spiritual darkness. Now while Paul waited for them in Athens, his spirit was provoked within him when he saw that the city was given over to idols. Acts 17: 16.

 It was then that Paul boldly shed his illuminating light to all, wherever they were. He never stood one place and expected all people to hear and see the Word of God. Paul spent his time speaking to all the people. Since he was a Jew, he was perfectly eligible and perfectly free to enter the synagogue, this closed place of worship, closed to all who were not Jews or converts to Judaism. Since Paul was freed by his Lord, to go anywhere and be among any people, he was also perfectly eligible and perfectly free to enter the marketplace, or any other public place to preach. Additionally, as his Master’s called and sent servant to the Gentiles, he was at home among Gentiles wherever they were and whoever they were.  

I’m bold enough to say that Paul’s invitation by some Epicurean and Stoic philosophers, to speak at the Areopagus, their special meeting place, was because of Paul’s marketplace speaking. In other words, had Paul confined his illuminations to the synagogue, these highly cerebral thinkers would never have seen and heard the Gospel, and would never have asked to know more. It was Paul’s unbounded, unconfined showing and telling, his presentation of the Living Word, which brought the highest thinkers of the city to speak to Paul, a humble presenter and preacher of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.