Teshuva
090614sd By Rabbi Dennis Richards. Chapter 17 in the book of Acts which is the history book of the early movement. Gives us an interesting dialogue that goes on between Paul and the Greeks. Paul is now called, …I remember Paul was a Hasidic Jew at one time, and after meeting the Messiah on the Damascus road, he has a call to go out to the Gentiles. And I want to start in Acts Chapter 17, because Paul’s message is identical to the message of the Messiah, and the message of James the brother of the Messiah. So we are going to start with Act Chapter 17, and we are going to go all the way to 22. “So Paul stood in the middle of the aeropagus, “Men of Athens, I observe that you are very religious, in all respects.” Now remember Paul is coming from an orthodox Jewish background, and all of a sudden in 17, if you read up to the verse that leads you to this you find out that Paul was speaking in the midst of Athens. And it’s really a story, it looks like its just a simple little story that they wanted to know what Paul was doing, but he was preaching from day to day in the market place, he was making a journey into the Gentile nations, and he was speaking in the market place daily and it caused the great philosophers of Greek to hear him, and say who is this stranger in our midst and what is he doing. And if you know the— it was up on a hill…this is the Supreme Court of Greece. And the religious leaders of Greece called him up to this high tower where you could see everything going on below because they wanted to know why he is blaspheming against their Gods. It was composes of entirely x-lawmakers, they usually met at night time. Their main concern was blasphemy. So here we have Paul coming up, and he starts the conversation with “I know you are a very religious group,” and after he says something nice, but after he says something nice he says “But,” and this is where we are going with the “But,” listen to what he is telling them, This is a man in the middle of all the great minds of Greece. He’s saying for while I was passing through and examining the objects of your worship, I also found an altar with this inscription “To the unknown God.” Therefore, what you worship in ignorance, this I proclaim to you. The God who made the world and all the things in it since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands. Nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything since He Himself gives us, all people life and breath and all things, and he has made for us one man, every nation of mankind to live on the face of the earth. Having determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their habitation, that they would seek God, if perhaps they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us. For in Him we live and move and exist. As even some of your own poets have said, for we also are His children. being then that the children of God, we ought to not think that the Divine nature is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and thoughts of men. (continued in audio)
