The world's want supplied.
"He preached unto them Jesus, and the resurrection." Paul at Athens a typical fact. No place so representative. No preacher so equal to the occasion. His spirit stirred within him. Idolatry—turning human greatness into ruin. "To the unknown God." Great opportunity well employed. No dreary denunciations. No lowering the gospel by admixture with human speculations. He presages the time when the intellect of Greece and the power of Rome would both alike be Christ's. He dared their mockery, to win their hearts.
I. A PERSONAL SAVIOR. Jesus:
1. Presented as Divine. "Setter forth of strange gods." The facts of the gospel so described as to reveal the Divinity.
2. Set forth as an Object of trust. Just what such minds required, to look away from self and the vagaries of the mind. Names enough in the ancient world. This Name above every name.
II. A PRACTICAL APPEAL.
1. To a true worship in place of the false. Religion universal. Paul's preaching was not intended merely to change the forms, but the substance; to place religion on its true foundation, not as man's offering to propitiate the Deity, but as his acceptance of God's love—in fellowship. Jesus is in the midst of us, therefore we worship no longer an unknown God.
2. To a new life in place of the old. A great city like Athens reminds us of the world's wants—power to live a better life. He did not preach a mere story of the past, but a proclamation of a new kingdom of grace, which should make all life afresh. Words! Examples! They had them. But they wanted power. There was a new fact before their eyes, a living man changed and made from a persecutor into a missionary. Nothing like it in Greece.
3. To a great future. The resurrection. Personal prospect. A fact more than arguments. Messages to Corinth. "In Christ shall all be made alive" (1 Corinthians 15:1-58.). May such doctrine prove its sufficiency in us!—R.