Proclaiming God’s Love AND God’s Wrath - Acts 17-18

 Acts 17:29-31 (ESV)

Being then God's offspring, we ought not to think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of man. The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.”

In the above passage, Paul is preaching to the Gentile philosophers gathered in Athens at a place called the Areopagus.    It was both a place (there is an actual rock outside of Athens named the Areopagus) and the name of the leadership council or governing body.   Earlier in the chapter we read about their normal activities:

Acts 17:21 (ESV)

Now all the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there would spend their time in nothing except telling or hearing something new.

These were Gentiles who didn’t know God but wanted to know a God, any God that would be their God.   Paul observed that they even had an image created to the unknown God:

Acts 17:23 (ESV)

For as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription: ‘To the unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you.

Paul was there to proclaim Jesus Christ risen from the dead.   In the above passage he tells them about Christ.   In his approach he offers two things of interests:

1).  He first tells them about judgment to come 

2). He second tells them about Jesus’ payment on the cross to pay for and cover that judgment.  

Despite the fact that these people are unchurched or contemporary in nature, Paul does not hesitate to talk to them about God’s wrath.  The formula for today’s contemporary approach to ministry is to “meet them where they’re at.”    However, Paul meets them where they are about to be, in the face of God’s judgement.   Today’s approach is to entice others to want Jesus.  Paul’s approach was to tell them about God’s judgment and show them their need for Jesus. It does not have to be an either/or approach.  But, Paul was not fearful of speaking God’s love And God’s wrath.