The title to this evening’s message is: “From Cover to Cover.”
In this regard, I was thinking about two proverbial statements.
The first is: “You can’t judge a book by it’s cover.”
In order to preserve these literary treasures he took old pieces of cardboard and made some covers.
So he’s got books which say “Campbell’s Soup” or “Western Family,”
Indeed, you can’t judge a book by its cover.
If I had tried to judge that book by its cover, I would have had a very hard time.
Apparently there are differing definitions for both the word “holy” and for the word “Bible.”
Quite often when someone refers to something “from cover to cover,” he is talking about the whole thing.
“From cover to cover” covers everything between those covers.
No one can honestly say that he’s read the Bible from cover to cover, unless he’s read all 1,189 chapters.
Why did I choose this proverb for the title of our message?
Because it seems to me that in some ways the religions and philosophies referred to in these three verses roughly cover the entire gamut of human religions and philosophies.
The idolatry of the Greeks stands in nearly complete contradiction to the theology of the Jews.
And despite the fact that both the Epicureans and Stoics invited Paul to present his case, they were nearly at opposite ends of the philosophical spectrum.
Again tonight, I merely want to help you to understand the background of Paul’s sermon on Mars Hill.
if we judge the Greek religion by the myths that have been passed down to us through the centuries,
and that can be misleading.
When I was in high school we read a play called “JB.” written by Archibald McLeish.
It was written by a man who was probably not a true child of God.
For me, as a new Christian, I could see the parallel with the Bible, but for most of the class, whatever they learned about the Lord was distorted.
But that the Athenians were POLYTHEISTS is quite obvious.
They believed that there were a number of gods with various ranks and responsibilities.
And they honored and celebrated one god one week and sometime later they venerated a different one.
Their religion provided them with a whole pantheon of gods.
The Greek religion began with the Titans, lead by the god Cronus followed by 16 or 18 others.
Then there were the twelve Olympian gods who were said to have overthrown the Titans.
Zeus was the chief Olympian, only because he drew lots with his brothers and picked the longest straw.
Poseidon became the god of the sea,
and poor Hades, by the luck of the draw, became the god of the underworld.
Athena was the goddess-daughter of Zeus, but not the daughter of Hera, because she was born right ought of his mind.
Ares, Artemis, Hermes, Apollo, Aphrodite were all considered to be children of Zeus but with different mothers.
And all of these had their various deistical areas of responsibility.
Then came a host of lesser gods and semi-gods, some of whom were Dionysus, Eros, Pan, Nemesis, the Graces, the Muses, the Fates, etc., etc., etc.
The people of Athens had a deity to cover just about every area of their lives.
But unfortunately for those poor confused souls, their gods often fought with each other with the Greeks caught in the middle.
As a result there was a great need for all those altars, as people tried to appease, placate and bribe whatever deities they felt they were going to have to face on that particular day.
Their sacrifices and offerings had nothing to do with atonement for sin, but simply to please the spoiled children whom they considered to be their gods.
Christianity, based upon the truths of the Old Testament, is rooted in the holiness of Jehovah.
The Lord is not a fickle despot with power and authority to make laws, break laws and make life miserable for people, just because he has the power to do so.
He said, “Be ye holy, for I am holy.”
“God is not a man, that he should lie; neither the son of man, that he should repent: hath he said, and shall he not do it? or hath he spoken, and shall he not make it good?”
In Malachi the Lord said,
But who may abide the day of his coming? and who shall stand when he appeareth? for he is like a refiner’s fire, and like fullers’ soap:
And he shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver: and he shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer unto the LORD an offering in righteousness.
Then shall the offering of Judah and Jerusalem be pleasant unto the LORD, as in the days of old, and as in former years.
And I will come near to you to judgment; and I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, and against the adulterers, and against false swearers, and against those that oppress the hireling in his wages, the widow, and the fatherless, and that turn aside the stranger from his right, and fear not me, saith the LORD of hosts.
For I am the LORD, I change not; therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed.”
But the poor Greeks, as a direct result of their idolatry, were in constant turmoil.
It may be mythology, but in reading about poor Odysseus and his ten year struggle against the gods to get home from the Trojan war illustrates the tragedy and foolishness of the Grecian idolatry.
Praise the Lord for the simplicity of the truth, and for the beauty of the gospel.
Have you noticed the APPARENT INCONSISTENCY between verses 16 and 17?
“Now while Paul waited for them at Athens, his spirit was stirred in him, when he saw the city wholly given to idolatry.
and in the market daily with them that met with him.”
It was that he was so filled with paroxysm that he couldn’t contain himself,
But was the very different religion of the unbelieving Jews, any different? Not as to its results.
The Jews were monotheists, diametrically opposite to the average Athenian.
Instead of an army of different deities, the Jews believed that there was only one God.
But that didn’t change the fact that they had rejected their Messiah and were doomed to the same eternity as their polytheistic neighbors.
Yes, the Jews were monotheists, but slowly over the centuries since the days of Abraham and Moses, the nation had assimilated a corrupted view of the Lord.
And thus, when He came unto his own, His own received him not.
Now, I sincerely hope that you don’t think of this message as some sort of mere intellectual exercise.
There is a very practical and important application.
Early Israel had been taught the truth, and for the most part had believed the truth about God,
For the sake of our children and grand-children none of us can afford NOT to take every aspect of Bible Christianity very seriously.
Both the Greek polytheism and the Jewish monotheism were corrupt,
and but for the grace of God, there go we.
But when Paul was encouraged to visit the amphitheater on Mars Hill, it wasn’t by either of these religions.
As far as he was concerned the highest pleasure of man was attained through knowledge, friendship and living the good life.
He approved of pleasure and rejoiced in pleasant things, but only if it was kept simple.
He is sometimes accused of being an hedonist, someone devoted to pleasure, this was only partly true.
He did not feel that men ought to do whatever they wanted; there were limits to which he would go.
But Epicureans were materialists; they emphasized the neutrality of the gods, as were similar to agnostics.
Epicurus believed that the gods were made of the same atomic material as human beings;
As a result Epicurus is sometimes accused of being an atheist.
He was definitely a practical atheist.
The Stoics, on the other hand, were followers of the philosopher Zeno who lived at about the same time as Epicurus.
These people believed that good lies in the condition of the soul – so far so good.
However, they believed that it is through self-discipline that the soul could be made better.
So by developing the mind and denying the flesh, they believed that purity can be achieved.
Therefore we must strive to be free from all passions: love, hate, fear and pleasure.
And in this they were in direct opposition to the Epicureans, who encouraged the enjoyment of pleasurable things.
The Stoics believed that through education and cold, hard intellect mankind could reach perfection.
And Stoicism became the most influential heathen philosophy of the Greco-Roman world.
So here were those who advocated the pursuit of pleasure and those who advocated the denial of pleasure asking Paul to explain himself.
Neither one of those philosophies had much to offer their followers beyond their earthly lives,
And here came an apostle of the Lord, teaching life after death, a resurrection and a Saviour whose name is “Jesus.”
Between polytheism and corrupted Jewish monotheism,
Between the pleasure-seeking Epicureans and the pleasure-denying Stoics,
The city of Athens was in trouble from cover to cover; from east to west and north to south.
But then there was the preaching of Paul and the Lord Jesus Christ.
And by the grace of God, “certain men clave unto him, and believed: among the which was Dionysius the Areopagite, and a woman named Damaris, and others with them.”
That there were any converts at all was due entirely to the grace of God.
The spiritual harvest was not great in Athens, but perhaps the seed there only needed to be watered for a few decades first.
Now what about our Athens?