What do I See? What do I Say?

Acts 17:16-23

Journey #2 Review: Paul, Silas, Timothy and Luke – Depart Antioch

1. Revisit the churches
2. Discern Direction
3. Philippi – Two Women and a Warden
4. Thessalonica – Jealous Jews and a Rowdy Riot
5. Berea – Scripture Searching Saints
6. Athens – The unknown god

Three questions we need to ask and three commitments we must make:

Three Essential Questions:

1. What do they know?
2. What do they not know?
3. What do they need to know?

Three Essential Commitments:

I. We need to Learn to Look

• When you go into your community, what do you see?
• What you see will impact how you should respond?

II. We need to Resolve to Reason

In Athens Paul engages the philosophers

1. He acknowledges their beliefs (What they know)
2. He noticed an alter to the “unknown god”(What they do not know)
3. He tells them about Jesus Christ (What they need to know)

III. We need to Care enough to Confront

Paul took this group of philosophers from their world to the cross.

Four Levels of Conversation

Level 1: Connection – “I perceive that you are very religious”

Paul used what he saw to draw them into conversation

Level 2: Curiosity – “let me tell you about this god you don’t know”

Level 3: Confrontation – Basics of the Gospel:

1. God made us
2. God is the creator and not the created
3. He has made both himself and his plan known to us
4. Sin is the issue and repentance is the response
5. Judgment is sure
6. Christ is the cure

Level 4: Commitment

Everyone there was brought to the point of responding to what they had heard: Some mocked, some wanted to hear more, some believed