GOD’S WORD FOR YOU
ACTS 17:32-34
32 When they heard about the resurrection of the dead, some of them began to make fun of him, but others said, “We want to hear you about this again.” 33 So Paul left them. 34 Some men joined him and believed, and among those were Dionysius the Areopagite and a woman named Damaris, and there were others with them.
As soon as the Greek philosophers heard him bring up the resurrection, they began to make fun, either of the concept, or of Paul, or both (I translated “him,” but it could also be “it”). In fact, they didn’t know how to say it. The Greek expression they use isn’t really “the resurrection of the dead,” the way we say it (Matthew 22:31; Luke 20:35; Hebrews 6:2), but just “a resurrection of dead.” It was so outrageous and new to them they didn’t even understand how to say it, let alone understand it. The Greeks generally believed that the spirit of a man left him at death, freed at last from wickedness, but they couldn’t grasp that the body might somehow live on or rise again. It was outrageous to them. They believed that the body was the source of all wickedness and corruption, something to be rid of finally in death. They believed it would be like wanting to save the rind of a melon, or an empty eggshell, or the bark of a tree after the rest of the wood is cut up for lumber.
On top of all that, the Greek poet Aeschylus had written a scene about the founding of this very court, the Areopagus, in which Apollo says, “When the dust has drained the blood of a man, once he is slain, there is no resurrection to life. For this my father [Zeus] has provided no remedy-spells, though all other things he can reverse” (Eumenides 647-650).
Yet there were a few who believed Paul’s words. The gospel will do its work when it is preached, and at least one member of the Areopagus itself came to faith, a man named Dionysius. He “stuck” to Paul. The word Luke uses here is almost playful, kollethentes, “he stuck like glue.” We get our medical term collagen from this word (collagen is one of the main parts of connective tissue, sticking or ‘gluing’ the body’s parts to one another). It’s also a word used for the way dust clings to clothing and hair. Once Dionysius and the woman Damaris heard the gospel, they didn’t want to be separated from Paul. Luke says that there were others, too, but he uses the names of this man and woman because they might be names that became known to the Christian community outside Athens later on, or because Luke’s friend Theophilus had heard of them (remember that Acts is really a long letter written to Theophilus).
Listen to the words of some members of the council: “We want to hear you about this again.” Were they just being polite? We can’t say that, but maybe it was true of some of them. Yet they said it, and we shouldn’t be surprised that some of those men longed to have the resurrection explained to them. Who wants to fly around in eternity as a wisp of air, less than air, not knowing whether you might ever encounter another wisp of whatever that was someone you knew or loved in life? But to have a physical resurrection, to be able to look into the eyes of your mother, or your spouse, or your children, for all eternity! Paul offered a hope that they longed for. Perhaps some of them were hoping he would convince them with his wonderful gospel words.
It isn’t an easy thing to trust in the resurrection, especially for someone who doesn’t trust what the Bible says about the presence of Christ in the Lord’s Supper, or the account that Moses and Isaiah give of the creation (Isaiah 45:12, 18-19), or the incarnation of the Son of God as the Son of Man. Yet the human heart yearns for the resurrection, longs for it. Who wouldn’t be thrilled to see their dead loved ones again? But those who don’t have faith in Christ won’t rise to a glorious reunion. They will rise to damnation, pain, and torment. They will pass one another in the dungeons and not even notice who else is there, their pain will be so horrible; the burden of their sins will be unbearable. But we who have put our faith in Jesus will have no burdens at all, only reunion, joy, pleasure, and life, forevermore.
In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith
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Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, New Ulm, Minnesota
God’s Word for You – Acts 17:32-34 The Athenian response