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In this episode of The Reformed Brotherhood, Tony Arsenal and Jesse Schwamb bring their extended series on the parables of Matthew to a powerful climax with the passage most listeners have been waiting for: the Sheep and the Goats (Matthew 25:31–46). Far from a checklist of works required for salvation, this text is unpacked as the master parable of Christ's entire parabolic ministry — a sovereign declaration of divine election, not a merit-based audit of individual performance. Tony and Jesse explore why this passage has been chronically misread as a call to works righteousness, why the language of inheritance and predestination is front and center, and how a Reformed reading liberates rather than burdens the conscience. Along the way, they weigh in on Herman Bavinck's prescient warning about media distraction, and Jesse recommends a Puritan gem on anxiety worth picking up immediately. Key Takeaways The Sheep and Goats is best understood as a parable, or at minimum parable-adjacent. The Greek construction in verse 31 mirrors the same comparative language Christ uses throughout his parabolic ministry, placing this text firmly within that tradition rather than outside it. The kingdom was prepared before any works were done — this is election language. The phrase "inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world" (v. 34) is not a reward for performance; it is the language of sovereign predestination preceding all human action. The works of the sheep are diagnostic, not causative. What the righteous did reveals who they already were — sheep — rather than being the mechanism by which they became sheep. The beak doesn't make the bird. Both groups are surprised, and that surprise is the parabolic punchline. Neither the sheep nor the goats anticipated the verdict they received, which undermines any reading that frames this text as an encouragement to accumulate saving merit. This passage is a recapitulation of the wheat and tares parable. Sheep and goats co-mingled until the moment of final separation, just as wheat and tares grow together until the harvest — the judgment reveals what was always true. Any theology that requires a human contribution to activate or complete salvation misreads this text.Whether Roman Catholic, Arminian, or Mormon in flavor, every view that makes God's preparation of the kingdom contingent on foreseen human merit fundamentally inverts the logic of the passage. The scope of judgment — "all nations" (ta ethnos) — would have been scandalous to first-century Jewish ears. This language deliberately expands the kingdom beyond ethnic Israel, fulfilling the Abrahamic covenant promise and confounding the assumptions of the religious elite. Key Concepts The Kingdom Prepared Before Your Works: Sovereign Election, Not Merit When the King says to those on his right, "Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world" (Matthew 25:34), the theological weight of that single sentence is staggering. The kingdom was not prepared in response to anything the sheep did. It was prepared before time, before works, before choice — which means the works that follow in the passage cannot be the grounds of that inheritance. Only a Calvinistic understanding of election can sustain this logic without remainder. Arminian views require God to foresee a qualifying human response; Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox views require some degree of meritorious participation; even certain Lutheran frameworks lean on non-resistance to grace. Reformed theology alone places the entire cause within God's sovereign, unconditional decree — and this passage, read plainly, says exactly that. Works as Evidence, Not Ground: The Diagnostic Function of This Parable The great pastoral error in preaching this passage is treating it as a performance rubric — a list of charitable acts that, if completed, qualify a person for eternal life. But Christ does not separate the sheep from the goats because of what they did or failed to do. He separates them, and then describes the activity that characterized each group. The works are revelatory. They surface what was already true of each person's nature, just as a bird's beak reveals its species rather than constituting it. This reframing is liberating precisely because it means assurance does not rest on tallying acts of charity. It rests on the sovereign act of a Father who prepared a kingdom and the regenerating work of the Spirit who produces, in those He has claimed, a life that looks like the one described here. "All Nations": The Scandal of an Ethnically Inclusive Kingdom The Greek phrase ta ethnē — translated "all nations" in most English Bibles — would have landed very differently on first-century Jewish ears, particularly those of the Pharisees and Sadducees who comprised a significant portion of Christ's audience throughout Matthew 24–25. To them, ta ethnē meant the Gentiles, the peoples out there, those outside the covenant. The implicit effect of Christ's language is to place every people group — including Israel — within a single undifferentiated mass standing before his throne, with no ethnic group receiving preferential standing at the bar of judgment. This is entirely consistent with the Abrahamic promise of blessing to all families of the earth (Genesis 12:3), the vision of Psalm 2, and the missionary thrust of the Great Commission. The scandal is not incidental — it is the point. The kingdom Christ is ushering in is not the ethnic-nationalist kingdom the religious establishment expected. Memorable Quotes The kingdom of heaven was prepared for those whom Christ has elected before the foundation of the world, and it was the preparation of that kingdom that brought you through this such that you did the good works that you did... That is caused by the fact that God prepared a kingdom for you in advance, not that you somehow caused this kingdom to be prepared for you. - Tony It's not the beak that makes it the sparrow, it's the sparrow that makes it the kind of beak it is. That's the kind of classification we're talking about in this parable. - Tony The best freedom is the one that turns over all things to God and takes him at his word when he says, 'In love you were predestined to inherit this as sons and daughters of the kingdom,' so that he does all the work, because we do not want to have any of that work our own. - Jesse Full Transcript [00:01:11] Jesse Schwamb: Welcome to episode 498 of the Reformed Brotherhood. I'm Jesse  [00:01:19] Tony Arsenal: And I'm Tony, and this is the podcast with ears to hear. Hey, brother.  [00:01:24] Jesse Schwamb: Hey, brother. They said it couldn't be done. They said we couldn't come back. We wouldn't come back and continue in Matthew 25. But here we are, and we're ending this chapter in this whole section about sheep and goats. Everybody was clamoring for it. Everybody wanted to know, what about the sheep and the goats? And I think the last time we all chatted together, we prefaced it by saying it's parable adjacent. Or let's just say- Yes ... we just stacked up these three other parables, lots of things going on, and then Jesus resolves this or brings all these parables to a culmination by speaking about the end times, the end of all things, and the sheep and the goats. Yeah. And so we gotta go there  [00:02:06] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah, I'm stoked.  [00:02:07] What Counts Parable [00:02:07] Tony Arsenal: And y- you know, I, I was talking with a brother at, um, at church yesterday on the Lord's day, and he was asking how the podcast's going and what we're doing. And, you know, I was kind of thinking, like, I was talking about the parables and how we're kind of moving forward, and we were gonna do some of the I am sayings in John. And, and I was thinking, like, what is a parable anyways? And who decides what a parable is and what a parable isn't? Right. Um, some of the parables Christ calls a parable, others he doesn't. Uh, we'll probably talk a little bit about that when we get to, uh, some of the back half of Luke. But this, this episode I think is gonna be really, really the payoff and really the culmination of not just these, like, this trio of or trilogy of parables that we've talked about, but I think really, like, the payout of all of the parables in Matthew. It's really, like, the summary of all of Christ's parabolic teachings. So it's, it's a good place for us to round out Matthew, and then we'll, we'll dip into the parables in the other gospels, probably have a couple more months of, of, uh, parable talk before we move on to the next thing. But, uh, it's been great, and I'm super, super stoked for this. This is one of my favorite passages, actually, and there's so much to dig into. I, I, I'm just gonna say now, we probably won't make it through the whole thing- Right ... uh, because there's a lot there. But we'll see. We'll see how we do. Maybe Jesse and I will be super efficient tonight, uh, but we usually aren't, so. [00:03:27] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah, that's never happened. We, we take it low and slow. Not only that- ... it was reminding me as you spoke about that kind of proverb generally of if you wanna go build a wall, you assess what you need, how many stones, and then you go gather those stones. Yeah. You should double it, or if you're gonna go out and fight an army, take stock of that army. That's basically what we do, but in reverse. Anytime, like, you just... I just heard you say- ... like, "It'll probably take us a couple more months," you should double that. That's probably how long- Yeah ... it's actually gonna take us.  [00:03:50] Faith Works Assurance [00:03:50] Jesse Schwamb: Even in this- Yeah ... conversation, I think we're gonna get stuck in the best way possible speaking about things like faith, works, and assurance because there's a lot of language here- Yeah that could seem on the surface to sit in this tension with justification by faith alone. And I think the key to resolving all that tension, as I hopefully think we'll see, lies in the readings of works as the evidence of living faith rather than its ground, and I think that's what- Yes ... Christ is leading us through all of these parables, actually, whether it goes back. And you should listen to all those episodes. In fact, I gotta ask. Th- I mean, this brother you were talking to, it just strikes me as that question had already be answered for him if you were listening to the podcast. So-  [00:04:29] Tony Arsenal: Yeah, I don't think he does. No, I don't think he does- ... listen to the podcast. Uh, he knows that I do the podcast, and he's very gracious to ask me about it. Tom. And I think he's probably listened to the podcast before. Got it. Um, and he's, he's just a very kind, gracious brother who, who is concerned and wants to know what I'm doing. And, um, he has, he has his own sort of, like, production stuff that he does that he enjoys that I'm, I'm not super keyed into. But, uh, it was just nice. But, but it did get me thinking, like, I was trying to explain to him where we were in the progress of the parables, and I was like, "I can't really... I don't really know," because, like, it's hard to even understand and fully... There's no, like, full comprehensive universal list of what is a parable- Right ... and what's not. And I think what we've found as we've been going through this is sometimes, sometimes you come up against a portion of a text that is often taught sort of separate from the, the rest of it. Parables get taught discreet from other parables. But then you have these sort of, like, intervening texts, or this one's kind of a summary text, that's so integrated to what the parable means you really can't do a series on these parables without also treating this text. Which is gonna be interesting, 'cause I've never, I've never encountered somebody who really roots this teaching here of Christ in the context of the parables, despite its proximity. So it'll be fun. We're gonna figure it out in real time, and, and it'll be good.  [00:05:47] Jesse Schwamb: No, it's gonna be fun.  [00:05:48] Deny Doomscrolling Bavinck [00:05:48] Jesse Schwamb: And speaking of fun, we're so glad that you're listening, and we know that you're waiting with bated breath to hear about affirmations or denials. It's of course that part of the conversation where we either affirm with something that we think is fantastic, maybe by way of recommendation, or conversely, we deny against something that isn't that great. So Tony, as is our custom in the liturgy of the Reformed Brotherhood podcast, I ask you once again, are you affirming with or deny against? [00:06:15] Tony Arsenal: I am denying against something, and I'm gonna do that by affirming a Herman Bavinck quote. Uh, so I'm gonna read it for you. This, uh... Some of the guys in the Facebook group have put... or the Facebook group, the Telegram chat, have put together a, uh, like, a reading group to work through Bavinck's, uh, Wonderful Works of God, which is great, and I'm loving it. I haven't been able to participate in the conversation as much as I would like to, but just being part of a reading group, uh, sort of keeps you on schedule, which is great. So I've been reading through Wonderful Works of God, and on the Kindle edition, on page 34, uh, which I think is still the, I think is still the, uh, introduction, he says, quote, "The reading of daily and weekly newspapers, of magazines and brochures, devours our every blink. There's a lack of desire and opportunity for the investigation of scripture and the study of old theological works," end quote. And when I read that, it just really struck me as like- If that was true like 70 years ago, 80 years ago when Bavinck was writing this, right? And all there was was hard, hard copy media. There was no, uh, there was no digital media. There was radio, but there wasn't a lot of programming. Uh, I don't think that there was much in the way of television broadcasting. If there was, it was, it was very, very limited and very rudimentary. Um, even then he was saying the daily news cycle and all of this extra stuff that is out there is consuming our, quote, "Every blink," which I thought was a really interesting phrase. Um, it's basically like it's so ingrained in us, we're so invested and obsessed with the news cycle. Uh, or you might translate that to like to our Twitter feed or our Facebook feed or our Instagram reels or whatever it might be, and dare I say it, the podcasts we listen to.  [00:08:05] Jesse Schwamb: Right.  [00:08:05] Tony Arsenal: Um, that we don't save time for scripture and other theological works. And I think it's funny too is that the, the eternal, uh, the eternal contemporary statement of the Reformed world is like we don't read enough old theological works. Even Bavinck, who I'm reading as one of the old... I mean, not like super old, but like one of the old theological works, is saying, "Hey, we don't read enough old theological works." So I'm denying this sort of like obsession we have with the daily news cycle and with constantly being up to date and like constantly consuming all of that. Um, we've talked about how like our modern global news cycle sort of, uh, is built around the deception that we can be sort of pseudo omnipotent and know all things about everything. And, um- There's a lot of work that's been done to show that, like, the world's not really that much, not that much more of a violent place than it was 100 years ago. We just know a lot more about what's going on- Right ... in other parts of the world. And there's pros and cons to that. But I think the main con is, like, we, we feel suddenly that we have to be, you know, deeply involved in the goings on of a church on the other side of the country that we never would've even known existed otherwise. It- there's just a, there's a sense of omnipotence and omnipresence that's just not becoming for the creature that I think we try to take on. So Bavinck knew it. Uh, we've talked about it. Lots and lots of people have talked about it. This isn't new. I'm not, I'm not e- engineering anything new on this. But that quote really struck me when I was reading. I was like, "Dang, man, he, he got it right 100 years ago or, or 80 years ago, and we're still struggling with it." And I think probably, like, if you go back and you look at the, I don't know, more occasional writings of people like Martin Luther and John Calvin, um, as they're interacting with, like, people in the Reformed community or the Protestant community, I bet you would find statements like this too about how, like, we really spend a lot of time reading, like, silly things and not spending- Right our time studying the scripture or studying, um, theological works. So that's my denial. I'm sticking to it, and if that means you feel like you need to turn this podcast off and go read some John Calvin or some Herman Bavinck, then by all means. Uh, I think you're probably going to be edified by what we have to talk about. But, uh, th- the Bible's better, so if you gotta go do it, if you only got- That's true ... an hour today to study scripture or listen to this podcast, please go study scripture. Yeah. Uh, hopefully we can do a little bit of both with this podcast. But Herman Bavinck said it best. Our every blink is consumed with pamphlets and newspapers and it just is- It's true it's pretty silly.  [00:10:41] Jesse Schwamb: It's true.  [00:10:42] Meme Detour Reading Groups [00:10:42] Jesse Schwamb: I gotta take us all the way back to where you started there, and I'm going to betray, to nobody's surprise, my really strong naivete when it comes- ... to social media, and memes in particular. But this is what occurred to me, and I'm gonna try it. This is, like, what classically makes really good podcasting. Let me try to describe a meme to you that I'm not even sure I actually understand or know. So this will be great. I think, you tell me, Tony, 'cause you may have seen this. It's an old meme too, so I'm not even, like, on the cutting edge here. I think it's a meme of two panels showing, like, two pictures of Drake. In know one he's kinda, like, pushing away as if to say, like, "Get that outta here," and the other one's like, "Oh yeah, that's the stuff." Do you know what I'm talking about? Yeah. Is that accurate?  [00:11:21] Tony Arsenal: I do. I think you're gonna use it wrong, but yeah.  [00:11:23] Jesse Schwamb: Is that Drake? Okay, all  [00:11:24] Tony Arsenal: right. Yeah, that's, that's the meme.  [00:11:25] Jesse Schwamb: Okay, okay. And usually, if I understand it correctly, it's kind of like a faux juxtaposition of two things, right? Like, okay. So like here, let me try it. Uh, uh, let me just try it on everybody. Here we go. I'm gonna describe to you how I just interpret this based on what you said, 'cause something cracked me up that you said, Tony. If I were gonna make this meme just based on how you opened that up, the first panel would be like Drake pushing away the idea or being like, "That's no good," book club. The second one would be reading group, as in like, like the reading group is like the new cool way of like just kind of... Did I use it properly? Am I close?  [00:11:59] Tony Arsenal: I think the problem with this is that there's like a, there's like an ironic way to use it, and then there's like a more direct way to use it. Mm. Yeah. The direct way would be like some- like Drake's pushing away something that's bad, and he's- Yeah ... like accepting something that's good. That'd be like the direct way. Yes. The more ironic one is where like Drake is pushing away something that's actually pretty, actually pretty good, and he's- Yeah ... accepting the one that's pretty silly. Oh, okay. Um, there's a lot of memes that have that basic format. Never mind. There's one with like Jordi LaForge. I think there's a Michael Scott one. I tried. I tried. But yeah, no, I, I think yours is valid, it's just, I think it's an older usage of the meme. That's like the, that's like the middle English version of that meme. The Shakespearean use of that meme.  [00:12:36] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah. I'll take that. It's the old English style. I love a good book club or a reading group. A, a reading group just, it does have that sound like maybe somebody in the group has a monocle, or you guys have tea. Either way- Yeah ... I absolutely love it. And yes, what are our beautiful quotes. You kind of hear that general conception recapitulated among like theologians almost in every era. But it does make you think, what would Bavinck say about, like doom scrolling on the smartphone? Like- Yeah ... he's beside himself, right? It would just be beside himself. So I'm with you. I, it, there's gonna be a condemnation in every generation. Maybe I say this with some degree of like chronological snobbery, especially in ours, when it comes to not, like you said, I think kind of like not carving out or not prioritizing time in the scriptures. Yeah. There's not gonna be any excuse of like, "Well, I just didn't have time." Right. Or, "There were too many things to read." It's just, it's not gonna cut it. So I'm with you. I think you and I have talked about this at length, even just like the news media like you and I consume, like just s- set aside social media for a second. Just like how i- how much value is there in a lot of like what we cons- used to consider to be like well-informed reporting? How valuable is that to us? Yeah. And I'm certainly not saying like that everybody should be like unconcerned and uninterested in the world, but I think it's to what degree and what fascination we have with that, and how it fits into our priority as we consume information each day. That's the thing that's tricky, and there's no really-  [00:14:02] Tony Arsenal: Yeah ...  [00:14:02] Jesse Schwamb: good answer except to weigh out with the spiritual discernment- Yeah ... how we ought to consume that stuff. But certainly I think, without question, we need to be prioritizing time in prayer, time in the scriptures. I imagine if we were all doing that with a great deal of attention, that all of the other things would kind of find their way into the right place. Or let's say they would just find their way out of our lives in a significant way- Yeah ... that would remove us from distraction and anxiety, instead bring us back into the providence of God.  [00:14:31] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. And I'm not, I'm not gonna be the guy that tells you you can never s- you can never scroll Instagram or TikTok or whatever. Um, I, I think that's a decision that's between you and the Holy Spirit as far as how you spend your time. But I, I do think, um, I think you're right- We are accountable for the decisions we make and how- Right ... we choose to divide up our time. And I- God, I mean, God is the inventor of fun. He's the inventor of leisure, and he is, uh, I think he's pleased and honored when we, we make good use of our time f- for things that are restful and rejuvenating. Um, he doesn't expect us to just slavishly read scripture all day, every day, like every minute. That's not, that's not the biblical expectation. Um, and so I think it's fine if you wanna sit down and watch a fun show, or if you wanna watch some YouTube videos, or listen to a silly podcast, or listen to a serious podcast. Um, but I do, I agree. Like, we, we really need to be thoughtful. And I think where, where Bavinck's quote, uh, is strong is it's not so much about, "Don't read these things." Right. He, he's talking about these things consume our every blink. Like, m- he's treating blink... He's using the word blink as sort of a fill-in for like our, our finite resource of time and attention, and these things have consumed all of them. There's a very strong use of that word consume. Uh, and I, I think that's really the, the point that I'm trying to make is we often allow, either intentionally or unintentionally, we, we just let our time get all sucked up, uh, on things that maybe are good but are not pr- properly proportioned. Um- Like I said, it's, it's fine to spend some time on Twitter and to get into a debate once in a while, or to check in on your friends on Facebook, your old high school, college buddies or whatever, but we can definitely take it too far. So I think it's a good corrective for all of us to at least make a stop and think about how we're spending our time, and whether we are affording the appropriate amount of time to things like scripture, theological study, catechesis of our children, um, family worship, all of those good things. So we don't have to go much more into that. I think the point has been made. Uh, so Jesse, what are you affirming and/or denying tonight?  [00:16:43] Affirm Puritan Anxiety Cure [00:16:43] Jesse Schwamb: Perfect segue, because speaking of reading old things, you know me, I've always got some kind of Puritan work in the rotation, and the one I just finished is the one I'm affirming, which is called Special Providence for Anxious Souls by Obadiah Sedgwick, who I think is kinda... Like, people are sleeping on Sedgwick, you know? Mm-hmm. He's, he's kinda like, he's there in the wings, but we need to take him off the bench. And I came across this book and I thought, "Who doesn't want a title like that in their lives?" Like, we got some anxiety in all of our souls. And I'm affirming this because, uh, hi- his definitions, his writing is, are on point. But here's what I thought. I was embarrassed that I picked this up expecting one thing, and then in typical puritanical fashion, was delivered something else that was far better. And I was thinking about this title as you might see it, like, in your modern bookstore today, whether it's, like, in Barnes & Nobles or at any of the periodicals we were just kind of mentioning or implying that are out there. And I was expecting to get some kind of, I don't know, six or seven things, I mean, that's Puritan style, but six or seven things that would really help you diagnose the psychology, and then going back to the scripture in ways, all, all the ways we'd expect about how God loves us and cares for us, and all those things are true. And yet the only way I could describe how this book ministered to me is, like, how you might go to a physical therapist for some kind of ailment, which I have many as I get older, and have recently been to one. And the ailment I had was, um, basically like tarsal tunnel, which is like carpal tunnel for your foot. And so there was some nerves that were inflamed and causing some pain and some weirdness in my feet. And here's what I do know about physical therapy now that I think the Puritans also do for our souls, and that is the physical therapist gave me this full workup. They prodded me and poked me and rubbed things and made things hurt- And in the course of doing that, they clearly could figure out what was wrong with my foot. And so when he gave me the diagnosis, after, again, rubbing that part and, like, doing one of those things where he's like, you know, they tap on your hard and they're like, "Does that hurt?" I'm like, "Yes, it does hurt." And I presume that's because you know anatomy. And, you know, he's, he's ta- tapping on my ankle and it's causing my foot underneath to hurt. And after all that, you know, I run on a treadmill. He d- takes all this video, and this is what he says to me. He goes, "Yeah, so this is actually pretty straightforward." And I was like, "Great, so what are we talking about? Like exercises, uh, splints, like massage?" He's like, "You have a weak butt." And I was like- "I'm sorry, let's talk about that for a second." And this is what I've learned about physical therapy, is it's rarely about the thing that's actually bothering you or the thing that's hurt, right? It's something- Yeah ... far different. It's something almost seemingly, like, disjointed or removed or divorced from the very thing, maybe even non-contiguous, if only in our minds, maybe even logically. And so what I love about this is the first half of the book is just speaking about the province of God before it even gets into this idea of anxiety. And then the treatment on anxiety and worry is, he goes through, like, six or seven things in particular, are just absolutely glorious. So good that I want you to read it. I don't even want to talk about it. Uh, that, that's my admonishment to you, is that you should just go pick it up. So I'm affirming again that the Puritans in particular do this thing where there's, there's no cheap advice here. It's not even hide advice. It's really good advice, but it's the kind that says, "You have a weak butt" when you're concerned that your ankle- is messed up. Yeah. And that's sometimes what you need to hear. And in my case, after... Let's make this super weirdly spiritual. After doing a bunch of squats, I don't know what the spiritual equivalent is of that. After doing a bunch of squats, my ankle and my foot was so much better. And it, because I had somebody who cared enough for me to go through and actually diagnose the root of it, that was the reason that inevitably there was healing. So I've, this has given me so much to think about, this tiny little treatise. So much to put into practice. It's so rich, so good, so practical, and yet I think you'll find in many ways joyfully unexpected. So I highly affirm to everybody listening, and even those who aren't, Special Providence for Anxious Souls, Obadiah Sedgwick. You'll, you'll love it  [00:20:49] Tony Arsenal: Yeah.  [00:20:49] Physical Therapy Spiritual Practice [00:20:49] Tony Arsenal: So two thoughts. Uh, one, uh, I can confirm Jesse has a weak butt, um, flat as a board. So it's probably, probably better after, after doing some squats. Wow. Uh, two- Wow. ... uh, I can say I also am in some physical therapy right now, and I've been a little bit of a slacker. And what I will contribute to the conversation is just like in physical therapy, they can give you all of the exercises- Yeah uh, that you want. If you don't do the work, you're not going to get better. Yeah. And so whether it's Jesse doing squats or me not finding time to stretch and to do some, like, arm exercises with a, with a s- uh, like a TheraBand, uh, the same holds true. And, and maybe to unify our, uh, affir- our denials/affirmations into one mega, mega recommendation, um, the same holds true in that, one, we can take a book like this from, uh, Sedgwick, and we can turn it into the same thing we do with media where we're just... it's just devouring our blinks. Right. And we're just using it as a way to sort of, like, feed our eye hole Get better. You won't improve. Um, and that's actually the same with scripture. Like y-you can- Right ... turn scripture into, uh, into a snack food that you, you don't actually use to be nutritious. Um, I think there's probably more benefit to reading scripture sort of rote and, and almost mechanically than there is to reading anything else. But, um, but at the end of the day, you can also consume your blinks with scripture and not get a lot out of it if all you're doing is passing your eyes over text. So get in there. I think that's great. I haven't read that one. I mean, I think there's... I think there are probably many, I can't think of one off the top of my head, but I'm sure there are many, many Puritan treaties that- treatises that are similar in theme and tone and have the same kind of like spiritual antidote or spiritual medicine, um, prescribed by these guys that is good and wholesome. And again, like, like you're saying, like it's not that complicated. It's not that hard. Right. It just takes- Right ... you just actually have to do the work. Um, it's funny, my physical therapy thing is my, my shoulder has been really ba- really messed up, and I went in, I expected him to give me all these, all these shoulder exercises, and he's like, "Uh Really what you need to do is you fix your neck, uh, 'cause your shoulder is, is being in- injured because you're sleeping- Okay on that side because you're trying to stay off the other side. So, like, you really gotta fix your neck so you can sleep on the other side of your body. And I was like, "So I'm just, like, sleeping wrong?" Like, it's funny, there's a joke, it's like in your 20s you can do anything you want, in your 30s, like, you gotta be a little bit careful, and in your 40s, like, you hurt yourself just sleeping. Right. Just getting out of bed is dangerous.  [00:23:46] Jesse Schwamb: It's  [00:23:46] Tony Arsenal: true.  [00:23:47] Jesse Schwamb: It's true. So. It's a tough world. But  [00:23:48] Tony Arsenal: it's true. I feel like a really old man saying that.  [00:23:51] Read Matthew 25 Aloud [00:23:51] Jesse Schwamb: You know, it strikes me that you're right, of course, that there's so much here we always have to put into practice. There's so much here that we have to trust with God. There's a faith that works. And so I think actually that is the most lovely inroad into this final passage of Matthew, because there's a lot here for us to talk about with all of those things, and to understand it in this proper context. So as you've already set us up, Tony, the best part of our podcast is the scripture, for sure, 100%. So let's go there. So we're in Matthew 25 in case you're just joining us. And for some reason I went into, like, a full radio mode, as if this, like, this is being broadcast live, and you just came into the program. We're in Matthew 25, uh, starting in verse 31, and I'm gonna read until the end of the chapter. There's so much here that of course we're not gonna get to all of it, but in the spirit of literally having the full context of the scripture in front of us, and to hear it all, I think it's important. It w- b- better yet, you should go back and read the entire chapter and then tune in right now. But let me start at verse 31. "But when the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. And all the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate them one from another as the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. And he will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left. Then the King will say to those on his right, 'Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom which has been prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry, and you gave me something to eat. I was thirsty, and you gave me something to drink. I was a stranger, and you invited me in, naked, and you clothed me. I was sick, and you visited me.  [00:25:32] Judgment Scene Read [00:25:32] Jesse Schwamb: I was in prison, and you came to me.' Then the righteous will answer him saying, "Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? And when did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or naked and clothe you? And when did we see you sick or in prison and come to you?" And the King will answer and say to them, "Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of mine, even the least of them, you did it to me." Then he will say to those on his left, "Depart from me, accursed ones, into the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angers-- angels. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat. I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink. I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me." Then they will themselves also answer saying, "Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison and did not take care of you?" Then he will answer them saying, "Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me." And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life  [00:26:47] Tony Arsenal: Yeah.  [00:26:49] Parable Not Fear [00:26:49] Tony Arsenal: Yeah, it's, it's, um, it's a sobering passage. And just as I think we've seen in a lot of the other parables, um These eschatological parables and these eschatological sayings of Christ, uh, as you kind of alluded to earlier, I, I think they are really, really, um... They are not prone to being misinterpreted. Right. The church has been prone to misinterpreting and misapplying these, um, in a, in a way that's used to make, make the Christian fearful and to, uh, undermine their assurance rather than to call them to action or to accountability.  [00:27:33] Why It's A Parable [00:27:33] Tony Arsenal: Um, and I think a- as I've been reading through this and I've been sort of glancing at the Greek as we're reading, I actually think I'm on... I, I stumbled on much more better ground to treat this as a parable than I even originally thought I did. You know, I, I had this whole lead-up that this isn't technically a parable, but when you read here, when it says, in verse 31, it says, "When the Son of Man comes in glory and the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. Before him will be gathered all nations, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates- Right ... the sheep from the goats." If you go back to verse 14, when it says, "For it will be like a man," uh, that, that first word of verse 14 in the Greek is the same word as is used when it says, um, uh, "He separates people one from another as a shepherd." That same word is used as there, it's just translated differently because of where it comes in the, um, in the text. So Christ is still making this comparison, so it would be as though he said, um, you know, like the common, most common, at least so far, most common kind of parabolic introduction is like, "The Kingdom of Heaven is like." Um, this is the same basic language he's using here to introduce what the eschaton will be like. Right? The ga- the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate them. It says people in the ESV, but will separate them one from another. You could also say the, the nations or the peoples will be gathered before him. Right. He will separate them one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep. So the parable here is the s- the shepherd separating the sheep from the goats, this whole process of the separation and this, this, um, frankly, like it's, it feels and smells like a parable, right? It does. This, this, um, figure, this shepherd in the parable or the shepherd in the saying is saying these sort of like parabolic statements. He's using this language that's kind of like shocking punchline statement. Like we've talked about how in parables there's often this sort of unexpected turn of events, or there's this unexpected kind of shocking language, and this whole like twist at the end in both, sort of both s- chunks here, where like the sheep don't really understand, like they didn't really recognize that they were doing sheepy things, and the goats didn't really understand that they were being goats. That's like the parabolic twist or the parabolic punchline here. So the, the kingdom of heaven is like, basically it's like the Son of Man will come in his glory and it will be like this. It will be like a shepherd separating the sheep from the goats. That's the parabolic connection here. Mm-hmm. So I actually think that, that linguistically we're on, we're on pretty solid ground not just to treat this as a summary of all the parables, um- I think of for sure these three parables, but it, it really is like the master parable, and I think probably the master parable that kinda governs and constrains and explains all of the parabolic ministry of Christ. So I'm, I'm stoked for us to really dig into the details a little bit, but I think linguistically we're on super good ground to, to treat this as a parable. I agree. At the very least, it's stronger than just parable adjacent.  [00:30:44] Jesse Schwamb: Right.  [00:30:44] Tony Arsenal: It- but even if we aren't saying it's a parable proper, it's stronger than that. It still is using this kinda comparative ministry, comparative language that Christ has used throughout the parabolic, um, sayings of Christ.  [00:30:57] Jesse Schwamb: The construction seems a little bit less veiled because here we have Jesus implanting himself directly into the account.  [00:31:03] Tony Arsenal: Mm-hmm.  [00:31:04] Shepherd Imagery Stakes [00:31:04] Jesse Schwamb: At the same time, though, he's drawing on all the things you just said he does, especially with this allusion to shepherding, which would've been, of course, common throughout. So it seems to me a lovely bridge to all of the overt parables he's just told, but now he's bringing them all together and placing himself clearly as, like, the interpreter, as the identifier of all the things, as the one to seal up all of the edges, as it were. So it's clear that this is about the end times. All of these were all about the end times and about Jesus' role in them. And so of course here he identifies himself as the eschatological judge just to make it clear. He's the one who sits on his glorious throne, and that's significant, and that's why I think we sometimes feel like, well, this is not a parable because he's, he's being very, like, Christologically certain and direct here. You know, throughout scripture the final judgment is God's prerogative alone, but the Father has committed all that judgment to the Son, and here's Jesus affirming that. And so again, like Reformed theology, in all our conversations we've consistently emphasized that this text is in many ways, like, proof of Christ's full deity and his role as mediatorial king, and he's exercising his office as the judge at his return in glory. And though, like you said, at the same time, here's the cool parable kind of scent or flavor is you get all these nations, every person who has ever lived, not merely Israel or merely the church. And how does Jesus describe this? He goes back into parabolic language. And we got the shepherd imagery that- Yeah is, like, similar to Ezekiel 34 where God himself is judging between the sheep of his flock. And that separation, the shockingness of it, it's immediate, it's binary. There's no third category. There's only two eternal destinies. There's no purgatory, no middle ground, no post-mortem opportunity for repentance. So all that's at stake. And then again, the beauty of the language itself or the setup of the construction of the story as it unfolds is that both groups- Get the same speech with a change in do or do not, but they both ask the same question from, like, wildly different perspectives and standings. And that's the beautiful- Yeah thing to make reconciliation over is what does all this mean then? How is all this established and how is this final judgment come to be such that there are sheep and goats if, in fact, they're both doing the same things theoretically, or they're at least both asking the same questions of, well, when did this ever actually occur? That, that's what's for us to unpack either way.  [00:33:29] All Nations Gathered [00:33:29] Tony Arsenal: Yeah, and b- before we jump into, um, into the parable itself and start to unpack that, the other element that I think is worth, uh, and this just came to me so hopefully I'm not on too far of a, of a limb here. But the other element that I think is worth at least commenting on, um, we've, we've remarked, especially in these last three eschatological, um, parables, how much these are directed at the religious leaders, right? Right. The, the, the people are, um, the, the- the parables are told, um, in the context and sort of following up on these, this real directed, um, assault against the religious leaders who thought they were the ones, right? They're the ones that have a claim to the Kingdom of Heaven, they're the ones that, um, are the, you know, they're the ones that think they're doing the right thing, they're the ones that are ushering in God's kingdom. This little phrase here, "gathered all the nations," would also have really stuck in the craw of the religious leaders, right? Because the word for nations that's translated here is the same word that would el- elsewhere get translated as Gentiles, right? And the word people, when it says, "He will separate the people," that, that word people doesn't actually exist in the Greek. So if you translate this very literally, it'd say, "Before him will, will be gathered all nations, and he will separate them one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats." Now, I don't wanna go the route of saying, like, this is a parable about, like, which pe- people group will be brought into the kingdom and which won't, and I've read some that go that direction. I don't wanna go there. But this idea that, like, even in the final judgment, the people who are in view here are the Gentiles, right? Right. I think most Jewish, particularly the, the Pharisees and the Sadducees hearing this, would've, would've read this and would've read ta ethnos, and would not have thought nations the way we do. Certainly would not have thought of, like, modern nation states. They might have been thinking maybe, like, people groups in general, but they would be thinking more along the lines of, like, Psalm, Psalm 2, like, "Why do the nations rage?" kind of nations. Why do the Gentiles rage? Why do the peoples plot in vain? They would've been thinking th- this, this, uh, judgment almost, at least on the face of it, almost excludes the Jews entirely when you think about it this way. It's really now sort of, like, zooming out where at the very least, at the minimal least, the Jews are just another people group within this broader judgment of the people group. Right. So again, like, we've seen this theme that Christ is continually expanding the scope of what is considered to be the Kingdom of Heaven to include not just the Jewish people, um, but all nations, all people groups, all Gentiles and Jews alike. And in a very real sense, um, and I wanna be careful how I've said this, I know I've commented this in the past, there's a very real sense of anti-Semitism that is prominent in- reform, quote-unquote reformed circles right now that is just vile and disgusting and sinful, and has no place in any sort of Biblical Christianity. But there is a reality that the Jewish people, broadly speaking, um, rejected the Messiah, at least while he was here on Earth. Um, relatively speaking, very few Jewish people, especially in the Jewish elite, like the leadership class, accepted Christ for who he was while he was here. Many Jews came to faith through the ministry of Peter, uh, and, and even through the ministry of Paul, even though he was an apostle to the Gentiles. So it's not as though it remained the case, but at this point in Christ's ministry, the Jewish people were by and large were rejecting him as Messiah. And so this idea and, and sort of this like final culmination now saying like he gathered all the, all the Gentiles, all of the peoples, all of the nations. In Jewish, in Jewish language and, and when you look in the Old Testament, and even in some of the New Testament literature, the nations were those people out there. So even if we don't translate this as Gentiles, we don't, we don't take that more like restrictive sense, even then it still implies that Christ is talking about people out there, the non-Jewish nations- Right are being gathered before his throne. And so that's not to say, absolutely not to say that the Jewish people, that, that the Jewish people of his day or the, the... This is where it gets tricky too, 'cause like we think about modern Israel and we, we import our understandings of like nation states. That's not what was in view here. The, the idea of a modern nation state was not a concept that existed in the first century. Um, you might have something like city states, but even that is kind of like a little bit ethereal. The idea here is that all people groups, and maybe, maybe we conceptualize Israel now as one of these people groups, the Israeli Jewish people as one of these people groups. All of those people groups, Jews, Gentiles, Scythians, Athenians, Spartans, like, uh, Ethiopians, you know, all of these different people- Right ... groups that are mentioned in the, the New Testament, all of those peoples, all of those nations are gathered before the throne, and then he will separate them one from another in the same way that a shepherd sep- separates the goats. [00:38:35] Group Judgment Assurance [00:38:35] Tony Arsenal: And yes, I think there is an individualistic, um, judgment element, and this is where I think, um... And, and then I'll, I'll pause for a second. This is where I think we can go wrong reading this as a parable about the individual judgment of individuals in the future That's not really what the language here is supporting. This is supporting sort of a broader group-based judgment, and the grouping is there are those who are sheep and there are those who are goats. But it doesn't appear as though Christ is saying like, "I'm evaluating each individual person, and this person is a sheep, this person is a goat." It's, it's a broader picture that, yes, has some implications for individual personal judgment, but when we read too much of that individual personal judgment into this parable that doesn't seem to be there, that's where we start to, like, rob individual Christians of their assurance. We start to say, like, "Did you do enough? Did you feed enough poor people or did you not?" That's not really, not really what's at stake here, I don't think.  [00:39:40] Jesse Schwamb: No, it's definitely not. It's, it's important to remember just the beauty of, like, the consistent theological thread that runs all the way through the Old Testament, and then that we might expect, of course, to be manifest in Christ's teachings, which happen exactly here. So he is going all the way back to that covenantal promise seed through Abraham, single seed, many people groups, many ethnicities. In this way, the gospel is ethnic inclusive. And so it is, why wouldn't he say that in this way to express that this is exactly from all time what God wanted to do is gather all people groups to himself? Which means then by the time we get to the end of this chapter in verse 46, and there is this righteousness that... or the righteous that lead or go into eternal life, then of course we're led to believe here either directly or implicitly that that means that there would be some for whom the Pharisees would find it's, like, anathema to receive that kind of righteousness and eternal life are the ones in fact who are getting it. And so even that is scandalous. So the, the whole thing is very much a setup, and I think it's the confusion again of this is Jesus saying again to the Sadducees, like, "You are confused. You do not know the power of God. You, you search for it everywhere else but do not find it in front of you. It, it's he who speak to you. I am he. You think you search the scriptures, but you do not know." Everywhere it feels like he's saying that, and here also he's saying that again, but it's in the setup. And I'm with you. I think that there would've been a lot here that would've, like, just come right off his lips that would've been like, "Say what?" Uh, that would've been, like, offensive right off- Yeah ... the top.  [00:41:16] Tony Arsenal: Yeah.  [00:41:17] Sovereign Separation [00:41:17] Tony Arsenal: And the other, the other theme that plays out really loud and clear here, um, as we start to dig into this is, um, there's a sovereignty to this separation that is baked into, um, the king's right to decide who to keep and who to cast away. Right. So I think we, we, um, understandably read into this an assessment of the productivity or the profitability or somehow the, like, merit or worth of the sheep as contrasted to the worth of the goats. Um, and we read into it like the sheep have utility and the goats don't, so the goats get cast into the- Right outer darkness. That's not really, that's not really what's going on here, right? In a, in an agrarian society, like sheep and goats both have utility. It's not as though, like, sheep are worthless and goats aren't. There's a reason people have goats. Um, th- the, the issue here is that the king has decided that there are those on his right and there are those on his left, and the ones on his right he's gonna keep, and the ones on his left he's gonna cast away. And, and so, um, there's this sovereign election and determination that precedes the rest of this, right? It's not as though he's ... And this is where the personal, sort of personal assessment part comes in. He doesn't look at a person and go, "All right, you did a g- enough good works to qualify as a sheep, so you go ahead and go over-" Right and be a sheep. And you didn't do quite enough, so you're actually a goat, so you go over and you be a goat." He looks at, he says, "Y- sheep, goat. Goat, sheep." You know, he, he's separating them out, and then he describes what sheep do versus what goats do. And I, I, like I'm even drawing some of this language out. The sheep goats part of this is actually only, like, a verse and a half. He then flips out of this parabolic language to now go back to the sort of strictly predictive eschatological ex- like explanatory language. So this is what it's like when the Son of Man is on, on his kingdom. He separates sheep and goats. We read into, and maybe with some good reason, but we read into Uh, we read into the fact that the sheeps go to one side, the goats go to another. Then we sort of like attribute the characteristics of those who go to his right to sheep, and we attribute the characteristics... And I think we do this the wrong way. How many sermons have you heard where the whole sermon is about how sheep are obedient, and they're, they're affable, and they listen, and they, they, they are sweet and kind, and goats are stubborn, and they, they just wreck everything, and they don't listen, right? And how many s- how many sermons have you heard where they talk about, like, well, sheep and goats really look the same in the Middle Eastern context, and the only way you can tell them apart is what, by what they do? I think there's probably some, uh, benefit to thinking through those elements, but Christ does not make that point in this parable- Mm ... at least not directly, right? He said, "This is the activity. Imagine a man who has sheep and he has goats. He takes the sheep, he puts them on one side. He takes the goats on another side." That's what the separation at the end of the time, at the end of time will be like. Then he goes straight back out of the parable language into saying, "This is how the king will actually make the distinction.  [00:44:29] Predestination Before Works [00:44:29] Tony Arsenal: The ones on his left, or on his right, he will say, 'Come, you're blessed by my Father. Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.'" Right? This is predestination language, not eschatological judgment language. The sheep were guaranteed a kingdom from before the foundation of the world. Before they did anything bad or didn't do anything good, they were guaranteed a kingdom from before the foundation of the world. Then he says, he explains to them, like the context that, as you said before, that reveals that they were sheep all along. [00:45:02] Jesse Schwamb: Right.  [00:45:02] Tony Arsenal: It shows them that they were already... Man, I just, just made this connection in my head. This is the parable of the wheat and of the tares- Yep ... coming to fruition- Exactly ... at the end of time. Right. Right? The sheep and the goats were allowed to mingle until the time came when they would be separated, just as the wheat and the tares were allowed to grow up until the time when they would be reaped and separated. This is what's going on. The sheep did things that sheep do. Those on the right did the things that the people on the right would do because they were part of God's blessed kingdom all along.  [00:45:34] Jesse Schwamb: Right.  [00:45:35] Tony Arsenal: And then he goes on to explain what the people on the left did not do, not because now they've been put on the left because they didn't do it, but they were shown to have always been a part of that, part of that population. They were always goats because of these things. This shows that they were goats all along, and they did these things or failed to do these things because they were goats all along.  [00:45:58] Jesse Schwamb: That's right.  [00:45:59] Works Righteousness Trap [00:45:59] Jesse Schwamb: Let me read another verse. "For we labor diligently to write, to persuade our children and also our brethren to believe in Christ and to be reconciled to God. For we know that it is by grace that we are saved after all we can do." My guess is everybody was with me- ... sounded kind of okay until that last part. And if you had that, like, as we say, like, that theological muscle memory that just made you flex or bristle there, or you had the Spidey Sense, as you say, Tony, good, because that's from 2 Nephi 25:23 from the Book of Mormon. And here's what I wanna say that's shocking, is if we read this passage of scripture that we're talking about as if there's something there that we need to do that proves that we've done enough and that somehow God will be pleased with that, even at the end of time in some small way, some modicum, then we're actually acting way more like Mormons than we are like Christians. That's just the bottom line. Yeah. Because Mormons, if you ask about this verse, rather than try to qualify that last statement by saying, "Well, that's misunderstood," or, "It's really not after all you can do," because of course it begs the question how do you know that you've done enough? How you don't- you've done all the things and that you're, you're exhausted. Their explanation of this is to double down on it and say, "Well, the context of that verse is following verse 23 actually does emphasize salvation only coming through Christ, but it also encourages continued observance of the law of Moses in order to be reconciled to God." Because that's all they could do until Christ fulfilled the law through his atonement. Even that is nonsense. So all of this to say, we have to be careful with this because I, I think you're right. We're aligning, we're running right up on this, and that is I would submit to you that we just get distracted because we always, of course, want to bring something to the party here. The, the salvation cake. We wanna, I don't know, we wanna make it, we wanna do. But God is doing all the things on our behalf. And so as a result of that, I think this parable is actually, it's about the divine prerogative and the agency of Christ in judgment at the end which belongs to him and him alone, and not about these actions. But we get caught up in the actions and we're missing this thri- divine prerogative. I also think that Christ gives this to us to reverse it on us and to show us that he sets about all things. It is in fact his foreordination and his providence. By grace we have been saved through faith, and that in providence being predestined is an act of his great love. And so this shows the extent of that love because those whom he has chosen himself are asking in disbelief as if to say, "When did I do the good works that you required?" And he said, "Well, you didn't because you could never do them apart from me."  [00:48:38] Tony Arsenal: Yeah.  [00:48:38] Jesse Schwamb: And so really that's the whole point. It's just so easy for us to get it twisted and say, "Well, doesn't it make sense that there are two groups?" Well, certainly there are in this passage. And doesn't it make good sense that because he said they did things or they didn't do things, then I just need to be about doing those things. And I think that is unfortunately the adventure in missing the point in this passage.  [00:48:58] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah, I, I agree 100%. And it's funny 'cause you were reading that and I was like What translation of J- of First John is it? It sound, I mean, it sounds like, it sounds like something you'd read in First John It sounds okay  [00:49:09] Jesse Schwamb: until  [00:49:10] Tony Arsenal: the end. Yeah. No, I mean, like, it literally sounds like First John until- Yeah ... you get to that last part.  [00:49:14] Jesse Schwamb: Yes.  [00:49:15] Tony Arsenal: And, and I think you're right that, um, we'll, we'll explore this more next week, but what has always struck me about this passage is that the, the p- the, the people on His right, I've gotta stop saying sheep, because that's... I just made the point that that's not really what's going on. The people on His right who are called into the kingdom because it was prepared for them before the foundation, because they were elected unto that kingdom. The people on His right, they're surprised at the fact that they did these things. And it, I, I think the works righteousness way of reading this is like, "You better earn your salvation. You better get at it because if you haven't fed Jesus in disguise, then you just aren't gonna make it. At the end of the day- Mm ... He's gonna say, 'I never knew you.'" And it, whether intentionally or unintentionally, sometimes I think intentionally, it implies that we, uh, that Jesus comes to know us because we've done good works, right? When we say, "If you don't do these things, then Jesus will say, 'I never knew you,'" then what you're saying is Jesus doesn't know you apart from your good works. Right. And what the Bible says, what this passage says, just right on the face of it, is that the Kingdom of Heaven was prepared for those whom Christ has elected before the foundation of the world, or who the Father has elected, who are blessed by the Father before the foundation of the world. Now, obviously the Father had to know those people in some sense-  [00:50:43] Jesse Schwamb: That's  [00:50:43] Tony Arsenal: right ... before the foundation of the world in order for them to be blessed by Him and for Him to prepare a kingdom. So then to come back to the end of it and say, "Well, there are some of those, uh, who the Father never knew because they didn't do enough work," well, the problem is that those who did the good work, the Father knew before they did the good works. They didn't merit the good works. I mean- Right ... it's funny you, you bring up the, the Mormons, and that's certainly true, but, like, you could substitute in, at least on this regard, right? There are meaningful, important differences between the groups I'm about to say and Mormons, that would be the dividing line between those who are possibly saved and those who are y- definitely not saved, right? You could substitute Arminians, who wanna say God looks down the corridor of time, and the reason He prepared a kingdom in advance for them from the foundation of the world is 'cause He saw that they would do these things that would merit salvation, or He saw that they would make the proper decision to receive His grace, right? Or Roman Catholics or Eastern Orthodoxes in a different sense, but similarly who would say like, "Well, yeah, God knows in advance that you're gonna merit salvation, so He prepared- Right ... this kingdom anticipating your merit that you would contribute or your participation or, or whatever." I think in a certain sense, um, you could even apply this to some Lutheran theology, right? Which would say, like, "Well, God prepared this kingdom for you from the foundation of the world because he looked down the corridor of time and he understood that you were not going to resist the grace he gave," right? You were not gonna reject his grace. Um, it really truly only is Reformed theology that can say, "No, God prepared this kingdom in advance for you, and it was the preparation of that kingdom that brought you through this such that you did the good works that you did, such that you made the wise decision to follow Christ that you did. That is caused by the fact that God prepared a kingdom for you in advance, not that you somehow caused this kingdom to be prepared for you." A- and aga- again, again, like, this is dicey. It gets into, like, logical ordering, but fundamentally, a- as far as I can understand it, every competing view besides sort of a Calvinistic understanding of predestination election has to say that in some sense God prepares the kingdom for you as a response to something you have done, or chose- Right to do or chose not to do. The reality is that this passage is saying, "No To those who are on the right. He didn't separate them based on the fact that they did these things. He just said, "You are on the right, and now to those who are on the right, I say to you, come into the kingdom that is blessed. You're blessed by my Father. Come into this kingdom prepared from the foundation of the world." So I think, you know, we're c

Misha Glenny and guests discuss the origins and evolution of an alliance which transformed the geopolitics of the classical world: the Delian League. Since the start of the 5th Century BCE, city states across Greece had been fighting a series of armed conflicts in the Greco-Persian Wars. After the defeat of a second Persian invasion in 478 BCE, a league of cities across Greece came together and formed a new alliance led by Athens. That alliance is now known as the Delian League, after the island of Delos where it was established. In the following decades, Athens used the Delian League to grow its own wealth and formidable naval power. Cities which tried to leave the alliance found themselves violently put down and their lands confiscated by the Athenians. What had begun as a cooperative alliance sworn to resist the Persian Empire gradually started to seem like it may have created another imperial power: the Athenian Empire.WithLeah Lazar Lecturer in Hellenistic Culture at the University of ManchesterPolly Low Professor in the Department of Classics and Ancient History at the University of DurhamAndPaul Cartledge AG Leventis Senior Research Fellow of Clare College, University of CambridgeProducer: Martha OwenAristophanes (trans. David Barrett and Alan H. Sommerstein), The Birds and Other Plays (Penguin Classics, 2003)Mary Beard, The Parthenon (Profile Books, 2010)M. Canevaro and D. M. Lewis, 'Between ‘The Character of the Athenian Empire' and The Origins of the Peloponnesian War (and beyond): The Popularity of the Athenian Empire Revisited' (Polis 41:1, 2024)Paul Cartledge, Ancient Greece: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press, 2011)Lisa Kallet and John H. Kroll, The Athenian Empire: Using Coins as Sources (Cambridge University Press, 2020)Leah Lazar, Athenian Power in the Fifth Century BC (Oxford University Press, 2024)Polly Low (ed.), The Athenian Empire (Edinburgh University Press, 2008)Malcolm F. McGregor, The Athenians and their Empire (UBC Press, 1987)Robin Osborne (ed. and trans.), The Athenian Empire (Cambridge University Press, 2023)P. J. Rhodes, The Athenian Empire (Clarendon Press, 1985)Thucydides (trans. Robin Waterfield, introduced by Polly Low), The History of the Peloponnesian War (Basic Books, 2025)Thucydides (ed. Robert B Strassler), The Landmark Thucydides: A Comprehensive Guide to the Peloponnesian War (Free Press, 1998)Thucydides (trans. Rex Warner), History of the Peloponnesian War (Penguin Books, 2000)Thucydides (trans. Martin Hammond), The Peloponnesian War (Oxford University Press, 2009)In Our Time is a BBC Studios productionSpanning history, religion, culture, science and philosophy, In Our Time from BBC Radio 4 is essential listening for the intellectually curious. In each episode, host Misha Glenny and expert guests explore the characters, events and discoveries that have shaped our world.

This week Joel walked us through Acts 17, where Paul stands on Mars Hill in Athens and, rather than mocking the city's countless idols, aches for it as a place of people starving for a God they cannot name. We are showed that an idol is not the absence of longing but longing that hasn't found its true home, and that God had been introducing Himself to Athens for six hundred years through their own poets and nameless altars before Paul ever arrived to fill in the name of Jesus. We are left with Paul's playbook for the Athenians in our own lives, to grieve instead of mock, to learn their poets, and to trust God's timing, reading our own stories as a hillside covered in altars marking every mercy God gave us before we knew Him.Support the show

Man was created to worship God, but his sin has placed him under Satan as his Master.  Man, by nature, wants to worship something, you can see that in all of the religions that are created.  There has been only one God given religion, and that was Judaism, which is no longer valid.  All other religions are created by man.  Christianity is not a religion, it is a relationship with Jesus Christ.  Yet, these man-made religions are created by Satan to deceive man from the worship of the one true living God. While man may not be searching specifically for the living and true God, he is searching for a god, and he is willing to put up an idol and worship it.  Man is also not searching for salvation, for it is not until the Holy Spirit convicts the heart of the lost person that he begins to realize his sin, his responsibility for that sin, and the punishment that he will ultimately face for that sin.   Paul says, “and find him, though he be not far from every one of us.” Paul was telling the Athenians that the God of Creation, the God revealed in nature, providence, and circumstance, was not far away.  He had revealed Himself in those things.  Indeed, nature is God's oldest testament.  His eternal power and Godhead are revealed in His creation and in His providential dealings with man.   The next question is how has God shown Himself? Paul states that it is by the “the invisible things,” (love, goodness, power, judgment).  “From creation” (the very beginning) are “clearly seen,” and “understood,” by creation.  Has God revealed Himself to man? Have all men had a revelation of God, from God? YES! The Scriptures make it very clear that through many means God has revealed Himself to all men through creation, law, conscience, spirit, prophet, seasons, and on and on. He has done this “so they are without excuse.”   Click on the link below to hear a lesson on how God has revealed Himself to all of mankind. This is a live recording of The Master's Class Bible Study at LifeChange Church Wichita, KS. Amen.

In this continuation of the study in the Book of Acts chapter 17, Paul addresses the people of Athens at the altar to the unknown God. He declares the one true God who made the world and all things, who is Lord of heaven and earth and does not dwell in temples made with hands. God gives life and breath and all things to all people, has made all nations of one blood, and has determined their times and borders. He calls everyone to seek the Lord who is not far from each one of us, quotes their own poets, urges repentance, and proclaims judgment through the risen Jesus Christ. Some mocked while others including Dionysius the Areopagite and a woman named Damaris believed.

In this episode, I talk to award-winning historian, and novelist, Dr. Adrian Goldsworthy. He is the author of numerous books on ancient history, especially the Romans, and we'll be discussing his latest one, which came out in May, Athens and Sparta: The Rivalry that Shaped Ancient Greece. Highlights* Do you think readers will perceive any parallels between ancient Athenian politics and recent history?* What are our sources like for this period? How biased are they? What's missing?* How Athenian were the Spartans and how Spartan were the Athenians? * How did Athens and Sparta become rival powers? What set the stage for the Peloponnesian War?* What can we learn about the strengths and weaknesses of democracy from the Athenians? * What was the status of slaves and women in Athens and Sparta?* What can we learn about how alliances work, or don't work?* What role did ancient “technological” advantage play in the outcome of the war?* What would have happened if the Athenians had stuck to the military policies of Pericles?* Was Sparta a bit of a myth? How distorted is the popular image of the Spartans today?* If the Athenians had conquered Sicily and defeated Sparta, would they have invaded Persia? (What caused the Sicilian disaster?)Stoicism: Philosophy as a Way of Life is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Links* Adrian Goldsworthy's Amazon author profile* Athens and Sparta on AmazonThanks for reading Stoicism: Philosophy as a Way of Life! This post is public so feel free to share it. Get full access to Stoicism: Philosophy as a Way of Life at donaldrobertson.substack.com/subscribe

In this message, Pastor R. Bret Walker explores Paul's sermon at the Areopagus (Acts 17:22–31) as a model for evangelism in a skeptical world. Paul begins with common ground, acknowledges the Athenians' spiritual searching, and reveals the “unknown God” as the Creator who calls all people to repentance. Pastor Walker challenges believers to recover the courage and clarity of the early church—a preaching church that shared the gospel with wisdom, calmness, and conviction. Though few believed Paul that day, the seeds he planted transformed Athens. We are called to do the same. #GuerrillaChristianity #PastorRBretWalker #BookOfActs #PreachingChurch #Acts17 #PaulAtTheAreopagus #ChristianEvangelism #ShareTheGospel #EarlyChurchLessons #UnknownGod

Here it is — the 2nd installment of CJ’s already-epic mini-series, ‘The Mad Dream of Conquest,’ set in the Peloponnesian War in 5th-century BC Greece. Join CJ as he shares an overview of some of the events of the first half of the Peloponnesian War, including: Spartan-led Peloponnesian invasions of Attica (the countryside around Athens), which used the traditional Greek tactic of ‘ravaging’ farms in order to try to provoke the Athenians to confront them in a decisive hoplite battle Athens’ refusal to do so, as they followed Pericles’ strategy of being purely defensive on land while waging naval & amphibious warfare against the coastal strongholds of the Peloponnesian League The horrific plague that afflicted Athens for the first few years of the war, which likely killed 20-30% of Athens, including, eventually, Pericles himself The leadership void left by Pericles, which was filled by men of much less competence, none of whom ever enjoyed the supermajority support that Pericles had The ‘Peace of Nicias,’ concluded in 421 BC, which was never fully adhered to & wouldn’t last long The growing political feud between Nicias & the Athenian doves vs. Alcibiades & the Athenian hawks The appeal for Athenian assistance from a few Sicilian poleis against Syracuse, the most powerful polis on that island, & the Athenian debates over the wisdom of intervening there, dominated by debates between Nicias & Alcibiades The decision of a majority of the Athenian Assembly to intervene on a massive scale Religious/political scandals that created serious potential problems for the Athenian expedition to Sicily on the eve of its departure The departure, to great fanfare, of a massive Athenian & allied force to Sicily Like this episode? Support the Dangerous History Podcast via Patreon! You can also throw CJ a $ tip via Paypal here: https://www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=D6VUYSYQ4EU6L Throw CJ a $ tip via Venmo here: https://www.venmo.com/u/dangerousmedia Or throw CJ a BTC tip here: bc1qfrz9erz7dqazh9rhz3j7nv696nl52ux8unw79z Other ways to support the show (including CJ’s PO Box) Amazon Affiliate Links (buy ANYTHING from Amazon using any of these links & CJ gets a small commission at no cost to you!) The Landmark Thucydides: A Comprehensive Guide to the Peloponnesian War A War Like No Other: How the Athenians and Spartans Fought the Peloponnesian War by Victor Davis Hanson The Peloponnesian War by Donald Kagan The Life of Greece: The Story of Civilization, Vol. II by Will Durant Links Support the Dangerous History Podcast via Patreon Subscribe to the Dangerous History Podcast Youtube Channel Follow CJ on Twitter/X Follow the DHP on Instagram Follow the DHP on Facebook Hire CJ to speak to your group or at your event

Is God really near, or does He just feel far away?In the final message of the God Revealed series, John Gunter addresses a struggle many believers quietly carry. We know God is real. We know He is powerful. Yet there are seasons when He feels distant.Drawing from Acts 17, this sermon examines Paul's message to the Athenians and their altar to an unknown god. Paul reveals a God who cannot be contained by temples, controlled by human systems, or kept at a distance. He is the God who gives life, breath, and everything else. He is the God in whom we live and move and have our being.This message reminds us that God's nearness is not dependent on our feelings. He is present in worship, present in suffering, present in ordinary days, and present in every season of life. The question is not whether God is near. The question is whether we are drawing near to Him.Key Themes: God cannot be confined to the boxes we create  God is present in every part of life, not just spiritual moments  We often treat God as distant when Scripture says He is near  God's nearness is an invitation to relationship  Drawing near to God changes how we live every day 

Pastor Troy Dobbs examines Paul's ministry in Athens, highlighting how his heart was deeply stirred by the city's idolatry and motivated him to share the gospel with courage and wisdom. Paul engaged both religious and secular audiences, using the Athenians' altar to the "unknown god" as a bridge to proclaim the one true God — Creator, Sustainer, Judge, and Savior. This message emphasizes the importance of understanding culture without compromising biblical truth, calling believers to avoid apathy, isolation, and a shallow worldview while faithfully proclaiming repentance and the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Ultimately, Paul demonstrates how Christians can make the unknown God known in a world still searching for meaning through modern idols.

After the failed revolt against Persian rule, Cyprus experienced a brief and uneasy calm. But that peace quickly unraveled, as the island was drawn into the heart of the renewed conflict between Athens and Persia, becoming a key battleground in a decades-long imperial struggle. In this episode, we explore the turbulent and often overlooked 5th century BCE in Cypriot history -- the period between the failed Cyprus Revolt and the rise of Evagoras I. Dr. Christian Körner joins the History of Cyprus Podcast once more to help us navigate a challenging historical landscape, where much of what we know comes from fragmentary, Athenian-biased sources like Diodorus and Thucydides. As the Greco-Persian Wars intensify, Cyprus is repeatedly drawn into the conflict. We trace four major Athenian-led campaigns culminating in the death of General Kimon. Were the Athenians seen as liberators or invaders? And is the idea of “freedom” for Greek cities in Cyprus truly about independence -- or merely the exchange of one overlord for another?

CJ decided he needed a break from modern US history as he continues to recover & reset his life, so this is the first episode of a new DHP miniseries set during the Peloponnesian War in 5th century BC Greece. The series will primarily focus on a famous Athenian military expedition to Sicily that occurred right in the middle of that conflict, an expedition that, to CJ, is eerily similar in some ways to the current war with Iran. This first episode, though, is backstory & world-building, setting the stage for the massive, complex & costly Peloponnesian War of 431-404 BC during which the Sicilian expedition occurred. Join CJ as he discusses: A brief overview of ancient Greek history, from the Bronze Age through the Persian invasions of 490 & 480 BC. The growing rivalries & tensions between the Peloponnesian League (led by Sparta) & the Delian League (led by Athens) in the aftermath of the Persian Wars, including Athens’ increasingly aggressive & destabilizing imperialism, & Sparta’s fears about it The rise of Pericles & the construction of the Athenian Long Walls The ‘first’ Peloponnesian War of ~460 BC-445 BC, which ended with a treaty known as “The Thirty Years’ Peace” The rising tensions & conflicts that caused the Thirty Years’ Peace to only last about half as long as it was intended to The ancient Greek historian Thucydides The escalating conflicts that led, in 431 BC, to the outbreak of the Second Peloponnesian War (sometimes just referred to as “The Peloponnesian War”), a conflict that would end up dwarfing the previous war in duration, cost, death & destruction Like this episode? You can throw CJ a $ tip via Paypal here: https://www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=D6VUYSYQ4EU6L Throw CJ a $ tip via Venmo here: https://www.venmo.com/u/dangerousmedia Or throw CJ a BTC tip here: bc1qfrz9erz7dqazh9rhz3j7nv696nl52ux8unw79z Amazon Affiliate Links (buy ANYTHING from Amazon using any of these links & CJ gets a small commission at no cost to you!) The Landmark Thucydides: A Comprehensive Guide to the Peloponnesian War A War Like No Other: How the Athenians and Spartans Fought the Peloponnesian War by Victor Davis Hanson The Peloponnesian War by Donald Kagan The Life of Greece: The Story of Civilization, Vol. II by Will Durant Links Support the Dangerous History Podcast via Patreon Subscribe to the Dangerous History Podcast Youtube Channel Follow CJ on Twitter/X Follow the DHP on Facebook Hire CJ to speak to your group or at your event Other ways to support the show

When the Day of Pentecost was Fulfilled Acts 2 by William Klock Luke opens the second chapter of Acts writing, “When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in the same place.”  [Page 1081 in the pew Bibles].  “When the day of Pentecost had come—or some translations say arrived.  The old King James is better: “When the day of Pentecost was fully come.”  Or it might be even better to say, “When the day of Pentecost was fulfilled.”  The Greek word can mean come or arrive, but it has a powerful sense of filling and fulfilment and I think that's particularly important here.  First, this is the day that the church was filled full of God's presence and truly became his living temple, but second, it was also the day when the promises of God contained within this ancient festival were finally fulfilled.  It's about the fulfilment of God's promises to his people. You see, Pentecost was one of the great festivals God told his people to observe when he gave them the torah.  It was a harvest festival, when the people would bring the firstfruits of their grain harvest as offerings to the Lord.  But it was also a commemoration of the giving of torah.  The Passover marked Israel's deliverance from her slavery in Egypt and then fifty days later, Israel met the Lord at Mt. Sinai.  There he gave her his law and established his covenant with her.  You could say that Pentecost was the day that marked Israel's formal creation as a nation—when the Lord had said, “I will be your God and you will be my people.”  And every year, for over a thousand years, the people took their grain offerings to the temple in Jerusalem, laid them before the Lord, and remembered who he was and who they were and they recalled his promises, while looking forward in hope to the day those promises would be fulfilled.  So when Luke writes, “When the day of Pentecost was fulfilled,” we should hear something powerful in that.  Just as Jesus fulfilled the Passover once and for all in his death and resurrection, God is going to fulfil the ancient festival of Pentecost once and for all. Brothers and Sisters, this is important, because ever since John Wesley, there's been a powerful tendency to see Pentecost more as a stage of personal spiritual growth than as the once-and-for-all fulfilment of God's promise happening within the great story of God and his people.  A hundred and twenty-five years ago, a group of Christians in Los Angeles had an unusual spiritual experience that needed an explanation.  They explained it as an end-times renewal of “Pentecost” and the Pentecostal movement was born—a movement that taught—and in most places still today—teaches that while every Christian ought to experience Pentecost and be baptised into the Holy Spirit, it's a second event, a second blessing that follows a person's conversion and that many never receive—and those who never received it include virtually every believer between the First Century church and the birth of the Pentecostal movement in 1901.  This highlights the danger of interpreting scripture in light of our experiences.  Instead, we need to let the scriptures do the talking and understand our experiences in light of them. Because just as every single man or woman who has been united to Jesus the Messiah by faith is a full recipient of the benefits of his fulfilment of the Passover, just so every single man or woman who has been united to Jesus the Messiah by faith is also a full recipient of the benefits of his fulfilment of Pentecost.  The church—the whole church, not just some part of it that began 125 years ago—is pentecostal.   It takes a lifetime to learn to live into both of these realities, but to separate them or to say, as some have, that you have to earn baptism in the Spirit through the process of sanctification is to horribly misunderstand the scriptures and the story they tell.  I have more to say about that, but let's get straight into that story as Luke tells it and, especially, as Peter will explain it.  So, again, this is Acts 2: “When the day of Pentecost was fulfilled, they [that's the disciples] were all together in the same place. [Probably, the upper room where they had eaten the Last Supper.]  Suddenly there came from heaven a noise like the sound of a mighty rushing wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting.  Then tongues, seemingly made of fire, appeared to them, moving apart and coming to rest on each one of them.  They were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other language as the Spirit gave them words to say.” This is the fulfilment of God's promises to come and dwell with his people.  After generations upon generations, millennia upon millennia of sin separating humanity from God, this is God's homecoming.  Jesus' death as a perfect sacrifice for sin washed his people clean, it purified them.  It made them fit and prepared them to be God's temple—the holy place where he will dwell.  And now he's sent his Spirit to take up his dwelling in this new temple. It's also a moment of covenant renewal—again, fulfilling God's promises to Israel.  That's why the imagery of Passover and Sinai are so important here.  In his ascension, Jesus is like Moses going up the mountain and at Passover, like Moses returning with the law and God establishing a covenant with his people, this time God sends down his Spirit to establish a new covenant with this renewed Israel.  And this time it's not an external law carved on stone tablets, but God's own Spirit indwelling, renewing, regenerating and writing his law of love on their very hearts.  Hearts of stone made hearts of flesh. And this fulfilment of God's promises, this covenant renewal, this new temple are all part of the answer to Jesus' prayer that it may be on earth as it is in heaven.  In his ascension, Jesus took a bit of earth—our humanity—to heaven, and on Pentecost he sent to earth, to dwell with us, the Spirit—a bit of heaven.  And that Spirit sent by Jesus, the new Adam, breathes the life of God into the new humanity.  Brothers and Sisters, between the Old Testament imagery that God draws on in doing this amazing thing and the careful choice of words Luke uses to describe it, we ought to see a powerful image here of new creation. And new creation doesn't exist simply for our sake.  New creation began with Jesus and now it's come to his people, but it's not meant to stay with them.  When he ascended, Jesus told his disciples that they would carry this good news throughout Judea and Samaria and eventually to the whole earth.  Once empowered by his Spirit, their mission would be, not only to live out this new creation, but to go out with the announcement that Jesus is Lord and that world belongs to him.  And right here we get a sense of that dominion as these one-hundred-twenty disciples begin to unexpectedly speak in other languages.  Why?  Look at verse 5: “There were devout Jews from every nation under heaven staying in Jerusalem at that time.  When they heard this noise they came together in a crowd.  They were deeply puzzled, because every single one of them could hear them speaking in his own native language.  They were astonished and amazed.” Thanks to the Exile, Jews were spread out across the known world, but Pentecost was one of those feasts where everyone returned to Jerusalem.  So there's an international crowd in the city and this work of the Spirit gets their attention.  Luke goes on in verse 7: “These men who are doing the speaking are all Galileans, aren't they,” they said.  “So how is it that each of us can hear them in our own mother tongues?  There are Parthians here, and Medes, Elamites, and people who live in Mesopotamia, Judaea, Cappadocia…[The international list is a long one.  Jews and proselytes (converts), from the known world.]…We can hear them telling us about the mighty works of God—in our own languages!” Notice about this gift of tongues: It was a gift of known languages.  The speech was intelligible.  And it wasn't for any kind of spiritual benefit of the speakers.  This was a miracle—a first work of the Spirit—to announce what God was accomplishing (or fulfilling!) through Jesus and the Spirit and through this renewed Israel—what we call “the church”.  And Luke says they were all “astonished and perplexed.”  “What does it all mean?” they were asking each other.  But some sneered.  “They're full of new wine,” they said.  Then Peter got up, with the eleven. He spoke to them in a loud voice.” None of the disciples was expecting this.  They were expecting something.  Jesus had told them to go back to Jerusalem and to wait.  So they did.  They waited and they prayed.  Like I said last week, these were men steeped in the scriptures.  Combine that with patience and prayer and understanding will come.  And despite not expecting this exact situation, Peter immediately understands what's going on through the lens of the scriptures, of Israel's story, and of God's promises.  And so—verse 14—Peter says to them, “Men of Judaea!  All of you staying here in Jerusalem! There's something you have to know.  Listen to what I'm saying.  These people aren't drunk, as you imagine.  It's only nine o'clock in the morning!  No, this is what the prophet Joel was talking about when he said, ‘In the last days, declares God, I will pour out my Spirit on all people.  Your sons and your daughters will prophesy; your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams; Yes, even on slaves, men and women alike, will I pour out my Spirit in those days, and they shall prophesy.  And I will give signs in the heavens above, and portents on earth beneath, blood and fire and clouds of smoke.  The sun will be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the day of the Lord comes, the great and glorious day.  And then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” Joel's prophecy was a prophecy of covenant renewal.  Back at the beginning—sort of the first Pentecost, if it helps to think of it that way—before Israel entered the promised land, Moses reiterated the covenant to the people.  If they would be the holy people the Lord had set them apart to be, if they would keep his law, if they would give him their allegiance and not worship other gods, he would dwell with them and bless them in the land.  But if they refused to do these things, he would curse them and eventually exile them—because an unholy people cannot live in God's presence.  And, of course, exile is precisely what happened.  And even when the people of Judah returned from their exile in Babylon, even after they'd rebuilt Jerusalem and the temple, it still felt an awful like the exile wasn't really over.  Judah was ruled by pagan gentiles.  The Lord's presence had never returned to the temple.  And so they hoped in the promises the Lord had made to one day renew his covenant.  Through Isaiah, through Ezekiel, through Jeremiah, through Joel the Lord had promised.  He would not let his people languish in exile forever.  One day he would come and forgive their sins and their idolatry, one day he would come and fix their broken hearts, giving them hearts of flesh instead of hearts of stone; breathing new life into dead, dry bones; pouring out his Spirit to make Israel new.  And in that rushing wind, in the tongues of fire, as he and his friends suddenly found themselves speaking other languages Peter recognised the words God had spoken through Joel.  This was the day.  Through Jesus and the Spirit, the God of Israel was renewing his covenant, through Jesus and the Spirit he'd returned to dwell again with his people: men and women, young and old, slave and free.  Judgement was coming soon on the unrepentant, but for those who called on the name of the Lord—on Jesus the Messiah—there was renewal.  And so Peter announces Joel's promise to Israel: “Whoever calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” And then he does something astounding.  We're so used to hearing it that we might not even give it a thought, but Peter now takes this passage from Joel that was about the Lord, about Yahweh, about the God of Israel and he makes it about Jesus.  Look at verse 22: “You men of Israel, listen to this.  Jesus of Nazareth was a man marked out for you by God through the mighty works, signs, and portents which God performed through him right here among you, as you all know.  He was handed over in accordance with God's determined purpose and foreknowledge—and you used people outside the law to nail him up and kill him.  But God raised him from the dead! Death had its painful grip on him; but God released him from it, because it wasn't possible for him to be mastered by it.  This you see, is how David speaks of him: “I set the Lord before me always; because he is at my right hand, I won't be shaken.  So my heart was happy, and my tongue rejoiced, and my flesh, too, will rest in hope.  For you will not leave my soul in Hades, nor will you allow your holy One to see corruption.  You showed me the path of life; you filled me with gladness in your presence.” Peter's quoting from Psalm 16.  What's that got to do with any of this.  Well, he goes on: “Men and Brothers, I can surely speak freely to you about the patriarch David.  He died and was buried and his tomb is here with us to this day.  He was of course a prophet and he knew that God had sworn an oath to set one of his own physical offspring on his throne.  He foresaw the Messiah's resurrection and spoke about him “not being left in Hades,” and about his flesh “not seeing corruption.”  [So here's his point.]  This is the Jesus we're talking about.  God raised him from the dead and all of us here are witnesses to the fact.  Now he's been exalted to God's right hand; and what you see and hear is the result of the fact that he is pouring out the Holy Spirit, which had been promised, and which he has received from the Father.”  So Peter's explaining to them that Jesus, in his resurrection, has fulfilled the messianic prophecy in Psalm 16 and what they're seeing happening in the wind, the tongues of fire, and the other languages is the evidence of Jesus' exaltation to his throne.  And in the same way that Jesus' resurrection has fulfilled Psalm 16, his ascension is fulfilling Psalm 110. Peter goes on in verse 34: “David, after all, did not ascend into the heavens.  This is what he says: ‘The Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand, until I place your enemies underneath your feet.'  So the whole house of Israel must know this for a fact: God has made him Lord and Messiah, this Jesus, the one you crucified.”  Again, what they're seeing is the proof that God is vindicating the claims of Jesus to be Israel's Messiah.  Jesus fulfilled God's promises when he rose from the dead, he fulfilled God's promises when he ascended into heaven, and now he's fulfilling God's promises in pouring out God's Spirit, now seen and heard in the wind, the flames, and the tongues.  Again, God is renewing his covenant as he promised. Luke goes on in verse 37: “When they heard this, they were cut to the heart.  “Brothers,” they said to Peter and the other apostles, “what shall we do?”  “Repent!” replied Peter.  “Be baptised, every one of you, in the name of Jesus the Messiah, so that your sins can be forgiven and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.  The promise is for you and for your children, and for everyone who is far away, as many as the Lord our God will call.” Notice—this is important—even though, yes, it is individuals who do the repenting, one by one, what Peter is calling for is national repentance.  Israel must repent—from sin, yes, but most of all from her rejection of Jesus as Messiah.  That's why Peter puts so much weight on how all that's happened is proof of Jesus' messiahship.  Jesus had warned over and over that if Israel would not repent, if Israel insisted on rejecting him as Messiah—and Jesus put this rejection in terms of idolatry—judgement would come on Israel and this time it would be permanent.  The Romans would destroy Jerusalem and the temple and the people would be exiled, not for seventy years, not for 490 years, but forever.  As an aside, Paul will pick up this same theme with the Athenians in 17:31.  As salvation was for the Jew first and then for the gentiles, just so would God's judgement be.  He would judge Israel for their idolatry and then come for the gentiles.  So Peter urges his fellow Jews to repent of their idolatry, to put their faith in Jesus as Messiah, and they will become part of this renewed covenant community—this new temple in which God, through his Spirit, has come to dwell. Luke says in verse 40 that Peter “carried on explaining things to them with many other words.”  No doubt walking them through more of Israel's story and more of Israel's scriptures to show them how Jesus and the Spirit have fulfilled them.  “Let God rescue you,” he was urging them, “from this wicked generation.”  Those who welcomed his word were baptised.  About three thousand lives were added to the community that day. And, again, the result is new creation, lived out in this renewed community of men and women.  Pentecost isn't just a personal exercise in spiritual growth any more than Jesus' death and resurrection were.  It's about the formation of a new people of God that would be God's temple in the world.  A temple made of people, transformed from the inside out, a temple that would—that still does—steward God's presence, God's wisdom, God's new creation for the sake of the world.  Luke makes a point of contrasting it with the old Israel, trundling along blindly in unbelief, in idolatry, and heading straight into inevitable judgement and destruction.  In contrast, this new Jesus-plus-Spirit people [verse 42] live out their baptism by “giving full attention to the teaching of the apostles and to the common life, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.  Great awe fell on everyone and many remarkable deeds and signs were performed by the apostles.”  At the centre of their life together was this apostolic teaching that we see Peter giving: Teaching showing how Israel's scriptures, God's promises were being fulfilled in Jesus.  Truly good news.  And it drew them together as they shared meals—just as Jesus had done—including that last meal he'd shared with them, transposing the Passover meal, the covenant renewal meal of the people of God, transposing it around himself, his death, and his resurrection.  And they prayed.  And this transformed them.  “All those who believe came together and held everything in common.  They sold their possessions and belongings and divided them up to everyone in proportion to their various needs.”  No, they didn't become Marxists.  Luke's point is that they became a family.  They became what Israel was supposed to be.  Not a people who did their own thing; not a people who grabbed and hoarded for themselves; not a people who disengaged from community seven days a week, and then gathered with a group of religious acquaintances for a couple of hours one day a week.  No, Jesus and the Spirit made them a family.  Jesus and the Spirit made them a people of love, of grace, of abundance (even in their physical poverty), a family that witnessed the character of the Spirit and the goodness and abundance of God's new creation.  And the people around them noticed: “Day by day they were they were all together attending the temple.  They broke bread in their various houses and ate their food with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and standing in favour with all the people.  And every day the Lord added to their numbers those who were being rescued.” Brothers and Sisters, our great desire should be that the church today—not just our congregation, but the whole church—should look just like this, simply on a much larger and global scale.  We are no less a people of Jesus and the Spirit than those first Christians in Jerusalem were.  We should be such a family where the scriptures are read and the mighty works of God—the fulfilment of his promise; the good news about Jesus, crucified, risen, and ascended—are not only believed, but lived out and proclaimed.  A family where God's new creation generosity is actively lived out.  A family that not only keeps this covenant renewal meal, but lives out its implications throughout the week.  A family that clasps its hands together and prays that it might be on earth as it is in heaven, not just because Jesus told us to, but Brother and Sisters, because we are the people whose King shares our earthly nature and reigns in heaven; because we are the people who have been, ourselves, plunged into heavenly life by God's Spirit; and because we are people who are ourselves the fulfilment of God's promises and therefore a people of hope and witness of God's glory. Let's pray: Faithful God who never fails to fulfil your promises, you have purified us with the blood of your Son and filled us with your Spirit to make us your temple; give us grace to be that temple, to be your new creation, to be the stewards of your presence and your gospel for the sake of the world; and in your faithfulness, cause our faithfulness to bear fruit for your kingdom.  Through Jesus the Messiah, our Lord and our rescuer, we pray.  Amen.

Where do you turn when God feels distant?In today's episode, host Lauren Alessi Burgos invites us to reflect on Acts 17 and discover the comforting truth that God is never far from any one of us. Together, we'll unpack Paul's words to the Athenians, exploring how our Creator designed us to seek Him, reach out, and find that He's always near, even in the moments we feel most alone.Come alongside our community as we pray for open hearts, courage to reach out, and deeper connection with God in every season of life.Tap HERE to send us a text! BECOME A FOUNDING "MY MORNING DEVOTIONAL" MEMBERIf you enjoy your 5 minute daily dose of heaven, we would appreciate your support, and we have a fun way for you to partner with the MMD community! We've launched our "Buy Me a Coffee" membership where you can buy us a latte, OR become a founding member and get monthly bonus video episodes! To donate, go to mymorningdevo.co/join! Support the showNEW VIDEO EPISODES! You can watch our new video episodes on YouTube! Watch Our Video DevotionalsNEW TO MY MORNING DEVOTIONAL? We're so glad you're here! We're the Alessis, a ministry family working together in a church in Miami, FL, and we're so blessed to partner with the My Morning Devotional community and continue the great work done by the show's creator and our friend, Alison Delamota.We pray our personal reflections and devotions will empower you to grow your faith in God, and that you'll join us every morning in prayer! HELP US GROW THE MMD COMMUNITYSubscribe to the show on this appShare this with a friendJoin our newsletter Follow Us on ⁠Instagram⁠ and ⁠Facebook⁠⁠Leave a reviewSupport Our Friends and FamilyConnect with the original host of MMD  Alison DelamotaFollow our family's podcast The Family Business with The Alessis

This video continues the Book of Acts series in chapter 17 starting from verse 11. The Bereans are described as more noble than those in Thessalonica because they received the word with readiness and searched the Scriptures daily to verify what they heard. Many in Berea believed including honorable Greek women and men while Jews from Thessalonica stirred up the people against Paul. Paul is sent to Athens where his spirit is stirred by the city's idolatry and he disputes daily in the synagogue and marketplace with Jews, devout persons, Epicureans, and Stoics before addressing the Athenians at the Areopagus about their superstition and the altar to the Unknown God.

“History is really interesting because it's about people. And people are interesting. So there are plenty of different ways of doing this, and I think there's room for everybody.” — Adrian Goldsworthy The greatest rivalry in antiquity is also uncomfortably relevant to us today. In Athens and Sparta: The Rivalry That Shaped Ancient Greece, the classical scholar Adrian Goldsworthy covers the long fifth century BC, from the Persian Wars that forced Athens and Sparta into alliance, through the Peloponnesian War that set them against each other. The parallels of the rivalry between Sparta and Athens are uncannily relevant today. Goldsworthy traces the NATO-like structure of the Athenian alliance, with its familiar complaint that the allies weren't paying enough. He notes that Athens, which outgrew its ability to grow its own food, had to secure its grain supply from the Black Sea — in the same way as closing the Straits of Hormuz has disrupted modern supply chains. And he observes that the Spartans won the Peloponnesian War by getting Persian money — while the Athenians were doing exactly the same thing. Persia, he notes, is always lurking in the background. There would be no “west” without it. Five Takeaways •       Athens and Sparta: Two Experiments, One Greek Longing: Both city states were driven by the same competitive Greek impulse — the desire to excel, to be the best. But they ran radically different experiments in how to achieve it. Athens: radical democracy, open society, maritime empire, philosophy, drama. Sparta: apartheid military state, in which a tiny Spartan elite was freed from all labour by a vast population of helots, so that they could devote their entire lives to being warriors and citizens. Two models for a polity that still structure political argument today. •       Thucydides: Essential but Embittered: The History of the Peloponnesian War is the essential source — and the problematic one. Thucydides was an Athenian general who failed to save a city from a Spartan-led force and went into exile as a result. He is analytical and apparently balanced in ways that seem modern. But he cannot hide his biases: the demagogue Cleon gets speeches written for him that make him look like a self-interested buffoon. And his silences are as revealing as his words — large events, including an Athenian disaster in Egypt, are mentioned only vaguely. He tells us what he wants to tell. •       The NATO Parallel: They Weren't Paying Enough: The Delian League — the Athenian alliance that emerged after the Persian Wars — has a structural similarity to NATO that Goldsworthy notes carefully. Athens, like the United States, is the dominant naval power that has mobilised for a great threat and then chosen not to demobilise. The allies, like European NATO members in successive administrations' complaints, weren't willing to send ships or men. They'd just send a bit of cash. The Athenian fleet ends up overwhelmingly Athenian. As the threat recedes, the other states increasingly resent the protection they're receiving from it. •       Persia Is Always There: The Spartans won the Peloponnesian War by securing subsidies from the Persian Empire. The Athenians were doing the same thing. The irony: both sides of the Greek world's greatest internal conflict ended up funded by the barbarian power they had united to defeat a generation earlier. Goldsworthy draws the modern parallel delicately: America is now fighting a war in Iran, once known as Persia. Europe chose not to join. The question of who Persia is in any given age is always live. Persia, he says, is always there. It always has been. •       Athens as a Theme Park: The Roman Legacy: In the Roman period, Athens and Sparta became what Goldsworthy calls “university cities or, in Sparta's case, a theme park.” Sparta, having lost any real military or political power, invented a public performance of its old customs — a tourist attraction for Roman visitors who wanted to see the old ways enacted. Athens was a university town for the Roman elite, whose children went there as we might go to Oxford. What we think we know about classical Greece is partly filtered through this late antique nostalgia — a celebration of how great we used to be. About the Guest Adrian Goldsworthy is a historian, novelist, and YouTuber with a DPhil from Oxford. He is the author of Athens and Sparta: The Rivalry That Shaped Ancient Greece (Basic Books, May 12, 2026), Caesar: Life of a Colossus, Augustus: First Emperor of Rome, How Rome Fell, Philip and Alexander, Rome and Persia, and many other books. He lives in Penarth, South Wales. References: •       Athens and Sparta: The Rivalry That Shaped Ancient Greece by Adrian Goldsworthy (Basic Books, May 12, 2026). •       Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War — the essential and problematic source, discussed at length. •       Episode 2897: Patrick Wyman on Lost Worlds — directly referenced in the interview as a contrasting style of history. •       Episode 2892: Jason Pack on the Iran war — the companion episode on the modern Persian conflict, referenced in the interview. About Keen On America Nobody asks more awkward questions than the Anglo-American writer and filmmaker Andrew Keen. In Keen On America, Andrew brings his pointed Transatlantic wit to making sense of the United States — hosting daily interviews about the history and future of this now venerable Republic. With nearly 2,900 episodes since the show launched on TechCrunch in 2010, Keen On America is the most prolific intellectual interview show in the history of podcasting. WebsiteSubstackYouTubeApple PodcastsSpotify Chapters: 

The story of classical Greece is often told, rightly or wrongly, as the story of the alliance, competition, and eventual war between Athens and Sparta. Even in antiquity, each city fascinated the other. Athenians imagined Spartans as disciplined, laconic conquerors; Spartans regarded Athens with a mixture of admiration, suspicion, and alarm. Yet despite their differences, both cities shared fundamental Greek assumptions about honor, competition, citizenship, and excellence.In his new book Athens and Sparta: The Rivalry That Shaped Ancient Greece , my guest Adrian Goldsworthy tells the story of classical Greece through the relationship between these two cities: from their legendary origins, through the Persian Wars, and into the tensions that would ultimately lead to the catastrophe of the Peloponnesian War. Along the way we discuss democracy, slavery, naval warfare, the strange logic of Greek politics, and why the Greeks never succeeded in becoming “Greece.”Adrian Goldsworthy is a historian of the classical world and the author of numerous books on Greece and Rome, including biographies of Julius Caesar, Augustus, and Philip and Alexander. He was last on Historically Thinking to discuss Augustus. This is his sixth appearance on the podcast.For more notes and resources, go to the Historically Thinking Substack

Brian Priebe | Executive Pastor | May 10, 2026 Referenced Scripture: Acts 17:16-27Reflection Questions:1. What's one thing that stood out to you from the sermon and why? 2. How would you describe your relationship with science? 3. What are Biblical examples of how science and faith can come into contact? 4. One of Brian's main points was that believers need to use the right tools for the right tasks as we share our faith. What examples of this do you see throughout the Bible or even just in regular life? 5. Brian's focal point was that science best answers questions related to HOW the natural world works and faith best answers questions related to WHY the natural world is. Do you agree or disagree? Why? 6. Read Acts 17:16-27 What elements of Paul's interactions with the Athenians offer clues to how we might engage people that have a science bend? 7. What would the church look like if everyone took Paul's cues in interacting with people outside the faith, especially those where science is most influential? 8. What are your thoughts around Genesis 1 and the definition of a day? 9. Brian cited the use of Yom as the Hebrew word for day in Genesis 1 as also being the same word describing various periods of time. He referenced Genesis 2:2, 4:3, 43:9 and 44:32. What do you think about the various uses of Yom in Genesis? 10. What might be a next step for you related to the interaction of science and faith and the people in your sphere? What's your next step? * Connect: We'd love to connect with you! Fill out our Connect Card to receive more information, have us pray for you, or to ask us any questions: http://journeybozeman.com/connectcard * Connect: Get your children connected to our children's ministry, Base Camp: https://journeybozeman.com/children * Connect: Our Student Ministry is for High School and Middle School students: https://journeybozeman.com/students * Give: Want to worship through giving and support the ministry of Journey Church: https://journeybozeman.com/give * Gather: Subscribe to our YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/JourneyChurchBozeman * Gather: Download our app: https://journeybozeman.com/app * Gather: Join our Facebook Group to stay connected throughout the week: https://facebook.com/groups/JourneyChurchBozeman  Chapters (00:00:00) - The Right Tools for the Right Job(00:06:28) - Paul reasoned in Athens(00:13:04) - Paul: Why Does the Universe Exist? (Acts 17(00:16:01) - Debate on Science and Faith(00:19:19) - The Debate Over Genesis 1 and the Age of the Earth(00:20:27) - The Day Debate in Genesis 1:2(00:26:50) - Three Hard Questions for Science and Faith(00:29:34) - Three Scientists on the Origins of Everything

May 10, 2026: May God's words be spoken, may God's words be heard. Amen. Happy Mother's Day, and many good wishes to those celebrating. It is a joyous occasion for most – offering a time to appreciate the love of their moms with maybe flowers, a visit or a call, or some other way to thank them. For others, this is also a difficult day, or one that brings about mixed feelings at least. For they are those whose mother's have died, or those whose mothers are absent – in whatever way that may mean – or those mothers who have lost a child, or those women who could not have one. For these people Mother's Day can be troubling, awkward, or even painful. And if that is you, know that we, your parish family, are holding you in prayer. And so, as I say each year, that is that is why I like to think of today as less about Mothers specifically, and more about women – mothers, sisters, daughters, wives, nieces, aunts, and friends. Women who have been a part of our lives – nurturing, mentoring, loving, caring. That is what we really celebrate today – the journey of women – us, if we are women, and those women who have been a part of our lives. And there was a woman listening to St. Paul in the passage we heard today from the Acts of the Apostles, but you wouldn't know it based on the reading for this morning. As the story we heard goes, St. Paul was speaking before the Areopagus. What we didn't hear was why. See, while he was waiting for his preaching buds Silas and Tim to arrive in Athens (why is a whole other story), Paul had been walking around town seeing among the bustling city lots of monuments to various Gods, even an altar that, as he would later note, was inscribed with this: “to an unknown God.” As Paul does, he taught people in the synagogues and the streets about Jesus. Now, this is where the previous verses get funny, and why I think they should be included. It goes like this: “…some Epicurean and Stoic philosophers debated with him. Some said, “What does this pretentious babbler want to say?” Others said, “He seems to be a proclaimer of foreign divinities.” … So they took him and brought him to the Areopagus and asked him, “May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? It sounds rather strange to us, so we would like to know what it means.” Now all the Athenians and the foreigners living there would spend their time in nothing but telling or hearing something new.” That is part of what is missing from the story. The part we did hear was this… St. Paul then speaks before the council, mentions the bit about the “unknown God,” and in classic Paul style, uses their own poetry to counter the notion of such a thing. He quotes Aratus (a Cilician poet) in the phrase “For we also are his offspring,” and likely refers to Epimenides of Crete with the phrase “For in him we live and move and have our being” to counter the idea that any God would be unknown to their own creation. Socrates would have been proud of his use of their own words, and given that Paul was university educated, with excellence in rhetoric and debate which we see in his writings, it also isn't surprising. Then Paul told them about Jesus – about his life, death, and resurrection. For reasons that confound me, that is where the lectionary stops this reading. But on this day, when we celebrate the women in our lives, we need to hear, as the late Paul Harvey would say, “the rest of the story.” The text continues with this: “When they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some scoffed, but others said, “We will hear you again about this.” At that point Paul left them. But some of them joined him and became believers, including Dionysius the Areopagite and a woman named Damaris and others with them.” Now, there are are a few things to note about Damaris, especially on a day when we celebrate women. First, that she is mentioned at all by the author. In his book Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony, New Testament scholar Richard Bauckham argues that named individuals in the Gospels and Acts are not random, but rather were known to the early Christian communities as key witnesses, leaders, or teachers. This would be especially true of any women named. Second, some try to link Damaris by marriage to Dionysius, the other convert mentioned in this story. Nowhere does it say that, and the author of Luke-Acts, being a stickler as he was, would have done so if it had been the case. And third, is that she is standing there listening to St. Paul speak before the Areopagus in the first place. The Areopagus was a place for centuries where the learned, the most respected in that region, the most powerful, would listen to and debate ideas, pronounce judgements over serious criminal matters, and wrestle with larger questions of science, philosophy, & religion. Damaris would have had to have been wealthy, intellectually gifted, powerful, or all of the above. So, there is a lot for us in this larger story about St. Paul, a bunch of Greek philosophers and judges, and Dionysius and Damaris. And we need to hear it too, especially amidst all that is happening in the world today. For starters, there the inscription on the altar that Paul saw and spoke about. One wonders who constructed it, and why? As I was thinking about that, I was struck by this one part of the Psalm we heard today. The Psalmist speaks of God as one, “Who holds our souls in life.” Think of that for a moment. What does it mean that God is one that “holds your soul in life?” There is such a sense of care, of nurturing, of love in that imagery – and most of all – of knowing. That God knows us. The thing is, we hear this not only in that Psalm, but throughout the scriptures of our faith. We hear that same message, or something like it – over and over and over again in many different ways. From Genesis 1 to the final chapter of the Revelation to John, our scriptures remind us that, as those Greek poets Paul quoted made clear – God created us, and in God we have our very being – God holds our soul in life with great love. This is why at the Easter Vigil and in Lessons & Carols we get texts that span the entire bible – to tell the story of God's relationship with us through time as a reminder that our God didn't begin loving us when Jesus was born, but he was born to us because God has loved us from the beginning of time. That God does indeed hold our souls in life…or really, in love. And that type of relationship, the one God has with all of creation, rooted in unconditional love – means that God knows us – knows us deeply – even if God is unknown to us. All of which brings me back to whoever built that altar. The thing is – it wasn't built because they thought God doesn't exist. Why bother? No, it was built because they could sense God's presence – could sense that there was something larger than themselves – they just didn't know how to name what they were feeling. This was a seeker – something we all have been, and hopefully still are, or we wouldn't be here right now. We don't stop seeking just because we walk in the doors of a church and sit in the pew. Or I sure hope not. It is practically in the DNA of the Episcopal Church to seek, to question, to wrestle with what we think we know. And seeking is as much about what is sought as it is about the one who is searching. The spiritual seeker wants to understand the Creative force they can sense in the world, but learns as much about themselves when they do. Understanding is about knowing – about seeing and being seen. And the truth is that we not only seek God that we may know God, but also that we may feel seen and known ourselves. So many people in the world today yearn to be seen – not looked past, ignored, or pushed aside. They want to be listened to, not because they think they have all the answers, but because in listening, we see them a bit more. That is why it is so important to lift up Damaris in this story. So many women in scripture get ignored or go unnamed – and even our lectionary cuts them out. But the patriarchy rooted in sexism isn't just a part of faith traditions like ours. Women all across time have been left out of our history books – their inventions, courageous acts, writings, or leadership unacknowledged – their names unknown. If we are to ever know God the way God yearns to be known, we cannot ignore or abuse what God creates, especially those made in God's image – the women as well as the men. For when we do, when we ignore and abuse the very soul God holds in life – we willingly do the same to God. Which brings me back to Damaris. She was noted by the author of Luke-Acts, and we should not make the mistake so many do and take no notice of her. We will remember Damaris today. We will say her name and tell her story. But there is something else going on in this story – something missing from our world today (not to mention the lectionary). Paul was doing as evangelists are meant to do – all of us really – he was talking about his faith. That's a good thing! Yet, the lesson we most need now though does not come from Paul. It comes from the Athenians, and begins in the part left out from the passage, which I mentioned earlier. Sure, some thought he was a “pretentious babbler,” which, if you read a lot of Paul's writings you might agree with them. And yet, they didn't throw stuff at him, push him aside, or arrest him for saying things they didn't like or understand (as we know happened to Paul in other places). What did they do? Well, this is why this earlier part is so important, and why I cannot figure out why it was left out – I mean, how can you understand the full scripture of you don't hear it? Just a reminder, this is how they responded: They said to Paul “May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? It sounds rather strange to us, so we would like to know what it means.” The text goes on to describe all of the people in that region, saying “Now all the Athenians and the foreigners living there would spend their time in nothing but telling or hearing something new.” And when they listened more to Paul in his speech before the Areopagus, they didn't throw him over a cliff for speaking about something they hadn't heard before – nor did most of them immediately accept what he said. In the final part of this story, again left out of the lectionary for today, they said instead “We will hear you again about this.” We should not be surprised by their response. Anyone who had to read Plato in school knows Socratic dialog, which originated in Ancient Greece long before Paul or Jesus were born. For that matter, anyone who reads some of the epistles of St. Paul see in them this method of question and answer to get to truth. Some scholars have pointed to striking similarities between Socrates in Athens and Paul in Athens – something the learned author of Luke-Acts may have been trying to bring to mind. But while interesting, especially if you enjoy trips down the philosophical rabbit hole, the most important part is in the invitation to dialog in the first place offered by the Athenians in the face of something they either did not know, or did not believe to be true. If only we today would do as these Athenians and the others in Athens at the time of Paul's travels are doing in this story. Instead, most people would just change the channel, walk away, yell and scream, or Gerry-mander them into silence. If you are in our government, you would arrest and indict them, or push to have them taken off the air. What would the world, or really – let's narrow that down…what might our country be like if we were to listen more to what we don't understand, invite those who offer different opinions to speak to us, or at the end of a contentious town hall say “We will hear you again about this.” If we think about it – listening is one of the ways we see others, one of the ways we say to them that they are known to us. One of the ways we become known to them too. And seeing someone, getting to know them a bit, is the first step toward loving them as we are called to do. It is also the first step toward knowing God. So as we leave here and head out into our own public squares – divided as they are – let us question as the Athenians what we hear from others, not to shut down, but so that we can better understand, see, and know – them, the truth, and the God who created it all. And let us hear of the resurrection of Christ and have our hearts moved in such a way as we become like Damaris – leaving this place to proclaim the good news in such a way that we cannot be pushed aside and be forgotten or ignored. For there are far too many yet for whom God is still unknown, who yearn to be known themselves, who dream of being seen and loved by One who would hold their soul in life. Amen. For the audio, click below, or subscribe to our iTunes Sermon Podcast by clicking here (also available on Audible): Sermon Podcast https://christchurchepiscopal.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/Sermon-May-10-2026-1.m4a The Rev. Diana L. Wilcox Christ Church in Bloomfield & Glen Ridge May 10, 2026 The Sixth Sunday of Easter 1st Reading – Acts 17:22-31 Psalm 66:7-18 2nd Reading – 1 Peter 3:13-22 Gospel – John 14:15-21

Sixth Sunday of Easter   First Lesson: Acts 17:22-31 22Then Paul stood in front of the Areopagus and said, "Athenians, I see how extremely religious you are in every way. 23For as I went through the city and looked carefully at the objects of your worship, I found among them an altar with the inscription, 'To an unknown god.' What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. 24The God who made the world and everything in it, he who is Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in shrines made by human hands, 25nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mortals life and breath and all things. 26From one ancestor he made all nations to inhabit the whole earth, and he allotted the times of their existence and the boundaries of the places where they would live, 27so that they would search for God and perhaps grope for him and find him—though indeed he is not far from each one of us. 28For 'In him we live and move and have our being'; as even some of your own poets have said, 'For we too are his offspring.' 29Since we are God's offspring, we ought not to think that the deity is like gold, or silver, or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of mortals. 30While God has overlooked the times of human ignorance, now he commands all people everywhere to repent, 31because he has fixed a day on which he will have the world judged in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed, and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead." Psalm: Psalm 66:7-18  7 Bless our God, you peoples; *        make the voice of his praise to be heard; 8 Who holds our souls in life, *        and will not allow our feet to slip. 9 For you, O God, have proved us; *        you have tried us just as silver is tried. 10 You brought us into the snare; *        you laid heavy burdens upon our backs. 11 You let enemies ride over our heads;    we went through fire and water; *        but you brought us out into a place of refreshment. 12 I will enter your house with burnt-offerings    and will pay you my vows, *        which I promised with my lips        and spoke with my mouth when I was in trouble. 13 I will offer you sacrifices of fat beasts    with the smoke of rams; *        I will give you oxen and goats. 14 Come and listen, all you who fear God, *        and I will tell you what he has done for me. 15 I called out to him with my mouth, *        and his praise was on my tongue. 16 If I had found evil in my heart, *        the Lord would not have heard me; 17 But in truth God has heard me; *        he has attended to the voice of my prayer. 18 Blessed be God, who has not rejected my prayer, *        nor withheld his love from me. Second Lesson: 1 Peter 3:13-22  13Now who will harm you if you are eager to do what is good? 14But even if you do suffer for doing what is right, you are blessed. Do not fear what they fear, and do not be intimidated, 15but in your hearts sanctify Christ as Lord. Always be ready to make your defense to anyone who demands from you an accounting for the hope that is in you; 16yet do it with gentleness and reverence. Keep your conscience clear, so that, when you are maligned, those who abuse you for your good conduct in Christ may be put to shame. 17For it is better to suffer for doing good, if suffering should be God's will, than to suffer for doing evil. 18For Christ also suffered for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, in order to bring you to God. He was put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit, 19in which also he went and made a proclamation to the spirits in prison, 20who in former times did not obey, when God waited patiently in the days of Noah, during the building of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were saved through water. 21And baptism, which this prefigured, now saves you—not as a removal of dirt from the body, but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, 22who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers made subject to him. Gospel: John 14:15-21 15"If you love me, you will keep my commandments. 16And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever.17This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you. 18"I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you. 19In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me; because I live, you also will live. 20On that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. 21They who have my commandments and keep them are those who love me; and those who love me will be loved by my Father, and I will love them and reveal myself to them."

In this sermon on Acts 17, Pastor Johnny explores how Paul's message to the Athenians is applicable to us today in our modern search for meaning through things like career, wellness, and success. He invites us to recognize the idols in our own lives that are preventing us from turning toward the knowable, one true […]

Now while Paul was waiting for them at Athens, his spirit was provoked within him as he saw that the city was full of idols. So he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the devout persons, and in the marketplace every day with those who happened to be there. Some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers also conversed with him. And some said, “What does this babbler wish to say?” Others said, “He seems to be a preacher of foreign divinities”—because he was preaching Jesus and the resurrection. And they took him and brought him to the Areopagus, saying, “May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? For you bring some strange things to our ears. We wish to know therefore what these things mean.” Now all the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there would spend their time in nothing except telling or hearing something new. So Paul, standing in the midst of the Areopagus, said … “The God who made the world and everything in it … 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.” (Acts 17:16-22a, 24a, 30b-31)

IntroductionThis guide covers the four Revised Common Lectionary readings for the Sixth Sunday of Easter, Year A (May 10, 2026). Ascension Thursday falls four days later (May 14), and these texts are shaped by the awareness that Jesus is preparing to leave — and that what he leaves behind is not a void but a presence. Acts shows the gospel reaching into Athens. The psalm testifies to coming through hard places intact. First Peter calls the church to be ready to explain its hope. And John 14 promises the Spirit to people who are afraid of being left alone.From Art in the Christian Tradition, Vanderbilt Lectionary PageThe ReadingsActs 17:22–31The First Lesson — Paul at the AreopagusSummaryStanding before the Areopagus in Athens, Paul addresses a sophisticated audience of philosophers and civic leaders. He opens by observing that the Athenians are clearly a religious people — he even found an altar inscribed ‘To an Unknown God.' That unknown God, he says, is the one he has come to tell them about. This God made the world and everything in it, does not live in human-built temples, and does not need anything from us — God is the one who gives life and breath to all people. God made every nation from one source and set their boundaries, so that people might search for God, who is never actually far from any of us. Paul quotes their own poets: ‘In him we live and move and have our being,' and ‘We are his offspring.' If that is true, then God cannot be represented by gold or silver or stone carved by human hands. God has overlooked times of ignorance, but now calls all people everywhere to turn around, because a day of judgment is coming — appointed through a man God raised from the dead. At that, some laugh, some want to hear more, and a few believe.Key Ideas for Preaching1. The Sixth Sunday of Easter falls just before Ascension, and this reading from Acts, while jumping ahead in the timeline a bit, bridges the two: it shows the gospel already moving outward into the wider world, beyond the familiar territory of Jerusalem and Judea. Paul is standing in the intellectual capital of the ancient world and holding his own. We may want to use this as a moment to reflect on what it means for faith to travel into unfamiliar places.2. Paul finds common ground before he makes his central claim. He does not begin by telling the Athenians what they are missing — he starts with what they have already built and what they are already reaching toward. That approach is worth examining as a posture for the church's engagement with people outside it.3. The description of God in this passage is notable for what it does not say as much as what it does. God needs nothing, is not confined to a building, and is closer to every human being than they realize. This is a picture of God that many in a congregation may not have fully absorbed. A sermon could simply dwell in it.4. The mixed response at the end — mockery, curiosity, belief — is a realistic picture of how proclamation lands in the world. Not every sermon ends with a packed altar call. As preachers, we may need to remind ourselves — and help congregations hold this reality — with some peace rather than treating every unresolved response as a failure.Significant Cautions⚠ This passage overlaps significantly with last week's NL reading (Acts 17:16–31 is the same text). Preachers who used the Narrative Lectionary last Sunday should be aware their congregation has just heard this passage. Consider either going deeper into a specific element they did not explore, or framing the repetition as an opportunity to return to something worth sitting with longer.⚠ Paul's opening compliment about Athenian religiosity has limits — he goes on to call them to turn from what they have built toward the God he is proclaiming. Preachers should hold both moves together rather than presenting Paul as simply affirming whatever spiritual seeking people are doing.⚠ The phrase ‘times of ignorance God overlooked' needs care. It is not a blanket dismissal of all religious life outside Christianity, but it does signal that Paul sees this moment as a turning point rather than a continuation of business as usual. There is truth, even truth about God, that can be learned outside of our religious traditions.Psalm 66:8–20The Psalm — Tested, Tried, and Brought ThroughSummaryThis portion of Psalm 66 shifts from a call to general praise into something more personal and hard-won. The speaker describes a period of severe testing — God allowed the community to be burdened, passed through fire and water, and brought to what felt like a breaking point. But they came through to a spacious place. The psalmist then moves to personal testimony: I cried out to God, and God listened. If I had held on to anything wrong in my heart, God would not have heard — but God did hear, and did not take away steadfast love. The psalm closes with praise for a God who kept listening.Key Ideas for Preaching1. The testing described in this psalm is not metaphorical softness — it involves being ridden over, fire, and flood. This is real hardship, and the psalm does not apologize for naming it. We may use this as an opening for honest conversation about seasons of life that feel like they are breaking something in us.2. The movement from ‘you brought us through' to ‘I cried out and was heard' — from communal memory to personal testimony — mirrors what often happens in a healthy congregation. Corporate faith provides the framework; personal experience fills it in. Both matter, and neither replaces the other.3. The conditional in verse 18 — ‘if I had cherished iniquity in my heart, the Lord would not have listened' — is worth addressing carefully. It is not a claim that only morally perfect people get heard. It is an observation that a life turned deliberately away from God is also a life turned away from the relationship that makes prayer possible.4. The phrase ‘brought us out to a spacious place' is one of the most evocative images in the Psalter for what deliverance feels like. It is not just relief — it is room. We can use this image to describe what life on the other side of a hard season can look like.Significant Cautions⚠ Verse 18 — about God not hearing those who cherish wrongdoing — has been used harmfully to tell people whose prayers seem unanswered that they must have some hidden sin. That is a pastoral minefield. The psalm is a personal expression of gratitude, not a theological formula for how prayer works.⚠ The testing in this psalm is framed as something God allowed or even directed. That raises honest questions about theodicy that, as preachers, we should not sidestep or resolve too quickly. It is fine to acknowledge that the psalm holds this tension without resolving it neatly.⚠ The call to ‘bless our God' at the opening of this section can feel jarring if a congregation is in the middle of the fire rather than on the other side of it. Preachers should be aware that not everyone in the room is at the thanksgiving end of this psalm's arc.1 Peter 3:13–22The Epistle — Ready to Give a Reason for Your HopeSummaryThe letter addresses people who are vulnerable — outsiders in their communities, prone to mistreatment for no good reason. The writer asks: who is going to harm you if you are eager to do good? But even if they do, you are blessed for it. Do not be frightened. Instead, set Christ apart as holy in your heart, and be ready at any moment to give anyone who asks a clear, gentle account of the hope that lives in you. Keep your conscience clear so that those who slander you will be put to shame. It is better to suffer for doing good than for doing wrong. Christ himself suffered once for sins — the just person for the unjust — to bring us to God. He was put to death in the flesh but made alive in the Spirit. The passage ends with a reference to Noah and the flood, connecting that rescue through water to baptism, which the writer describes not as the removal of dirt but as an appeal to God from a clear conscience, made possible through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.Key Ideas for Preaching1. The phrase ‘always be ready to give an account of the hope that is in you' is one of the most practical calls in the New Testament. Many people in a congregation have never been asked to articulate what they actually hope in, or why. We can use this as an opportunity to help the congregation practice that clarity — not as a debate technique, but as an honest personal testimony.2. The instruction to give that account ‘with gentleness and respect' is often overlooked. The call to be ready is not a call to be aggressive or combative. The manner of the answer is part of the witness. We can explore what it looks like to speak about faith in a way that invites rather than shuts down.3. The passage puts suffering for doing right in the context of Christ's own suffering. This is not abstract — the writer is speaking to people who know what it is to be mistreated for no good reason. The solidarity offered here is not a philosophical argument but a shared experience.4. The Noah and baptism connection at the end of the passage is compressed and a little hard to follow, but the key idea is worth lifting out: what saves is not the water itself but the resurrection of Jesus, to which the water points. Baptism is described as an appeal — a turning toward God. We can use this to open up what baptism means in practice for people who were baptized long ago and may not think of it often.Significant Cautions⚠ The question ‘who will harm you if you are eager to do good?' can sound naive to people who have experienced serious harm despite living with integrity — victims of injustice, discrimination, or abuse. We need to acknowledge this rather than letting the verse imply that right living guarantees protection (the Job Principle).⚠ Like last week's epistle text, this passage has a complicated history of being used to demand passive endurance from people in genuinely harmful situations. The same cautions apply: this is not a command to remain in danger. Naming that history explicitly can be a pastoral gift.⚠ The Noah passage has been used in Christian history to make exclusivist claims about who gets saved — only eight people, and so on. I think we should resist this reading. The writer's point is not about the narrowness of rescue but about its reality and about what it points toward.⚠ The reference to Christ preaching to spirits in prison is one of the most debated passages in the New Testament. Preachers do not need to resolve what it means, but they should not pretend it says something it does not. It is fine to acknowledge the difficulty honestly and keep the focus on the surrounding text.John 14:15–21The Gospel — The Promise of the SpiritSummaryThis passage continues Jesus' farewell conversation with his disciples on the night before his death. He tells them that if they love him, they will keep his commandments — and he will ask the Father to give them another Advocate who will be with them forever. This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive because it neither sees nor knows the Spirit. But the disciples know the Spirit, because the Spirit lives with them and will be in them. Jesus then says something that sounds paradoxical: he is going away, but he is also coming back. He is not going to leave them as orphans. On that coming day, they will know that Jesus is in the Father, they are in Jesus, and Jesus is in them. The passage closes with a restatement of the love-obedience connection: whoever has and keeps Jesus' commandments is the one who loves him, and that person will be loved by the Father and by Jesus himself, who will make himself known to them.Key Ideas for Preaching1. The word translated ‘Advocate' or ‘Comforter' or ‘Helper' (depending on the translation) is the Greek word paraclete — literally, one called alongside. The image is of someone who comes to stand next to you in a difficult situation. We can explore what it means in practice to live as though that presence is real and active.2. Jesus says he will not leave them as orphans. That word — orphans — is striking in this context. It captures the specific terror of being left without the primary person who oriented your life. This is the emotional reality Jesus is addressing, and it is one many people in the congregation may know in various forms.3. The connection between love and obedience in this passage runs both ways: love leads to keeping Jesus' commands, and keeping his commands is itself the expression of love. This is not about earning anything — it is about the natural relationship between genuine love and the way it shapes behavior. Preachers can help the congregation feel the difference between obedience as duty and obedience as the overflow of a real relationship.4. The mutual indwelling described at the end — Jesus in the Father, believers in Jesus, Jesus in them — is one of John's central images for what resurrection life looks like. It is not a distant, transactional relationship. It is something more like being woven into one another. This image can do real pastoral work for people who experience faith as mostly external obligation.Significant Cautions⚠ The love-obedience connection has been used to make people feel that any struggle or failure in keeping Jesus' commands is evidence that they do not really love him. That reading turns the passage into a source of shame rather than invitation. The context is encouragement, not accusation — Jesus is promising the Spirit precisely because he knows his followers will need help.⚠ The statement that the world cannot receive the Spirit because it does not see or know the Spirit should not be used to draw a sharp line between insiders and outsiders in a way that produces contempt for those outside the church. The passage is about the disciples' particular relationship with the Spirit, not a verdict on everyone else.⚠ The ‘coming back' Jesus describes in this passage is not straightforwardly about the second coming. In John's Gospel it more likely refers to the post-resurrection appearances and/or the coming of the Spirit. Watch out for confident claims about eschatological timelines.Thematic ConnectionsAll four texts this week are, in different ways, about what sustains people when familiar support is removed or threatened. Paul speaks to people whose religious frameworks offer them something real but incomplete. The psalmist has come through fire and flood and has a story to tell about it. First Peter speaks to scattered, vulnerable people and tells them to hold their hope clearly and gently, ready to name it when asked. And John 14 speaks directly to the fear of being left — promising that what comes next is not abandonment but a new and closer kind of presence.John 14:15–21 is the natural preaching center this week, especially with Ascension approaching. The promise of the Spirit — the one who comes alongside, who will not leave the disciples as orphans — is exactly the word that the season calls for. But First Peter's practical charge to be ready to give a gentle account of one's hope is an equally powerful angle, especially for congregations who want to think carefully about how they talk about faith with people outside the church. Either text rewards a sermon that takes its time.Narrative LectionaryIntroductionThis guide covers the Narrative Lectionary reading for the Sixth Sunday of Easter, Year 4 (May 10, 2026). The primary text is from Paul's letter to the Philippians — one of the warmest and most personal letters in the New Testament. Paul is in prison when he writes it, and he opens by telling the Philippians how grateful he is for their partnership with him in the work of the gospel. Even his imprisonment has turned out to be good news of a kind, and he finds himself genuinely glad no matter what. The supplemental text from Luke 9 gives a sharp image from Jesus about what greatness looks like in the kingdom of God — it looks like a child.The ReadingPhilippians 1:1–18aThe Primary Text — Partnership in the GospelSummaryPaul writes from prison — we do not know exactly which one — to the congregation at Philippi, a community he clearly loves. He opens with warmth and unusual candor: every time he thinks of them, he gives thanks. He is confident that the good work God began in them will keep going until the day of Christ. He holds them in his heart, and he longs for them with something that sounds almost like homesickness. He prays that their love will keep growing in knowledge and discernment, so they can tell what really matters and arrive at the day of Christ full and unblemished.Then Paul gets honest about his situation. His imprisonment, far from shutting down the gospel, has actually spread it — the whole imperial guard has heard about Christ, and other believers have been emboldened to speak more freely. There are people preaching Christ out of goodwill toward Paul, and there are others doing it out of rivalry, trying to stir up trouble for him while he is stuck in prison. But Paul does not seem to care much about their motives. Christ is being proclaimed, he says, and in that he rejoices.Key Ideas for Preaching1. The tone of this letter from the very first lines is worth naming. Paul is in prison. His situation is objectively bad. And he opens by saying he gives thanks every time he thinks of the Philippians, that he holds them in his heart, that he longs for them. This is not forced positivity — it is a picture of what genuine community does for a person in a hard place. Preachers can open up the question of what it means to be the kind of congregation that someone in trouble thinks of with that kind of warmth.2. Paul's confidence that God will complete what God began is stated simply and without qualification. He is not worried about the Philippians' spiritual state. He trusts that the God who started something in them will see it through. Preachers can explore what it looks like to hold people in that kind of faith — not anxiously checking whether they are keeping up, but trusting that God is at work in them even when you cannot see it.3. The imprisonment has spread the gospel rather than stopped it. The whole imperial guard knows about Christ because of Paul's chains. This is a striking reversal — the attempt to silence him has given him a captive audience. Preachers can use this to explore the theme, repeated across Acts and the epistles, that what looks like a setback for the church often turns out to be a door.4. Paul's response to people preaching Christ out of bad motives is remarkable: as long as Christ is proclaimed, he is glad. He does not pursue the rivals or try to correct them from prison. He chooses to focus on what is actually happening — the name of Jesus is getting out — rather than on the impurity of some people's intentions. This is a mature and somewhat counterintuitive posture, worth examining honestly with a congregation.5. The prayer in verses 9–11 is one of the most beautiful in Paul's letters. He prays not that the Philippians will be protected or comfortable, but that their love will grow in knowledge and discernment — that they will be able to tell what really matters. That is a prayer worth sitting with. What would it look like for a congregation to grow in that specific kind of wisdom?Significant Cautions⚠ The joy and gratitude in this letter can be preached in a way that makes suffering sound easy if you just have the right attitude. Paul's joy is real, but it is the product of deep relationship with God and with this community — it is not a technique anyone can simply adopt. Preachers should present it as a witness to what is possible rather than a standard people are failing to meet.⚠ The people preaching from rivalry and selfish ambition are a real presence in this passage. Paul dismisses their motives but celebrates their message getting out. Preachers should not use this as a blanket endorsement of any and all Christian proclamation regardless of how it is done. Paul is making a specific observation about his specific situation — he is not saying that motives never matter.⚠ The confidence that God will complete what God began can become a way of avoiding accountability — if God is going to finish it anyway, why does anything we do matter? That is not Paul's intent. (cf. “God forbid” in Romans 6.) His prayer for growing love and discernment assumes that the Philippians have real work to do. God's faithfulness and human responsibility sit alongside each other in this letter without one canceling the other.Luke 9:46–48The Supplemental Text — Greatness and the ChildSummaryThe disciples have been arguing about which of them is the greatest. Jesus, knowing what they are thinking, takes a small child and stands the child beside him. Whoever welcomes this child in my name, he says, welcomes me — and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me. Then comes the line that turns the argument upside down: the one who is least among all of you is the one who is great.Key Ideas for Preaching1. Placed alongside Paul's letter to the Philippians, this passage reframes what Paul's partnership and humility actually look like in practice. Paul is grateful, generous with his affection, and completely uninterested in asserting his own status in this letter. The disciples are arguing about rank. The supplemental text makes the contrast sharp: the way of the kingdom runs in the opposite direction from the way of competition.2. The child in this passage is not a symbol of innocence or charm — in the ancient world, a child had no social status whatsoever. Welcoming a child meant extending care to someone who could give you nothing in return. That is the act Jesus holds up as the measure of greatness. Preachers can use this to ask who the equivalent of that child might be in the congregation's own context.Significant Cautions⚠ The image of the child can easily slide into sentimentality — a cute child as a feel-good illustration. The passage is actually quite pointed. It is addressed to people who are in a dispute about their own importance. Preachers should let the sharpness of the original moment come through rather than softening it into a general lesson about being kind to children.⚠ The phrase ‘the least among all of you is the greatest' has been used to romanticize powerlessness — as if suffering itself confers spiritual status, or as if people with no power should be content with their situation because they are actually the greatest. That is a distortion. Jesus is speaking to people with power about how to use it. He is not telling people who are already marginalized that they should be grateful for their position.Thematic ConnectionsBoth texts this week describe what a life shaped by genuine partnership and genuine humility actually looks and feels like. Paul in prison is more concerned with the Philippians' flourishing than with his own circumstances. He rejoices when Christ is proclaimed even by people who mean him harm. He prays not for his own release but that his friends' love will keep growing in depth and discernment. The disciples argue about who is the greatest, and Jesus answers by standing a powerless child in the middle of them. These texts hold together a vision of community where status is not the organizing principle — love and welcome are.The Philippians passage is substantial enough to anchor the sermon entirely. Paul's joy from prison is one of the most compelling images in the New Testament, and there is more than enough in verses 1–18a for a full message. The Luke text works best as a brief bookend — either opening with the disciples' argument to frame what kind of community Paul is describing, or closing with Jesus' answer to let it land as a final image. Either way, the two texts together press the same question: what does it look like to care more about others' flourishing than about your own standing? This is a public episode. 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Notes John 14:15-21 Acts 17:22-31 Explore the profound themes of John 14 and Acts 17, focusing on the Holy Spirit as the Spirit of Truth and Paul's approach to evangelism. Discover how these scriptures guide us in understanding love, truth, and community in faith. Chapters 00:00 Introduction and Context of the Episode 04:13 Discussion on John 14:15-21 09:16 The Commandments and Love 11:37 The Spirit of Truth 18:26 Truth in Communication and Community 23:22 Exploring the Translations of the Periclete 29:09 Understanding the Role of the Advocate 33:10 Paul's Address to the Athenians 45:03 Finding Common Ground in Faith

This week we are reading Acts 17:16-34, a story of Paul biding his time in Athens and engaging with the beliefs and culture of the local people there. Though he's upset by their use of idols, this distress doesn't lead our notoriously hotheaded Paul to smash any idols or overturn any tables – he goes instead to conversation with a wide range of people.  Is he being earnest or savvy in his way of speaking to the Athenians? What can this text teach us about interfaith dialogue – and when does it cross over from mutual curiosity and exchange to a careful kind of evangelism? Wherever you might draw that line, this is a master class in finding common ground and leaning into every shared foundation before naming the points of real difference and attempting to effect change in the other.   

This guide covers the four Revised Common Lectionary readings for the Fifth Sunday of Easter, Year A (May 3, 2026). The week's texts circle around two related questions: * what does it look like to trust God when everything is falling apart, and * what is the community of faith being built into? Stephen dies praying for his killers. The psalmist says their times are in God's hands. First Peter calls the church a living temple still under construction. And Jesus, the night before his own death, tells his frightened friends not to let their hearts be troubled.The ReadingsActs 7:55–60The First Lesson — The Stoning of StephenSummaryStephen has just finished a long speech before the Jewish council in Jerusalem — a retelling of Israel's history that ends with a sharp accusation: the council has done what their ancestors did and resisted the Holy Spirit. The crowd is furious. But Stephen, filled with the Spirit, looks up and says he can see heaven open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God. That is the final straw. They rush at him, drag him out of the city, and stone him. As they do, Stephen prays two prayers: one asking Jesus to receive his spirit, and one asking God not to hold this sin against his attackers. He says the second one kneeling down, and then he dies. The text notes in passing that a young man named Saul is standing there, approving of the execution.Key Ideas for Preaching1. Stephen's final prayers are direct echoes of Jesus on the cross — committing his spirit to God and asking forgiveness for those killing him. This is not coincidence in the telling of the story. We can explore what it means to die the way Jesus died, and how that kind of dying becomes a form of witness.2. The vision of the Son of Man standing — not seated — at the right hand of God is worth pausing on. In most other texts the image is of Jesus seated. Here he is standing, as if rising to receive Stephen. That small detail carries significant pastoral warmth. God is not indifferent to what is happening.3. Saul is introduced with chilling brevity: he was there and he approved. This one sentence sets up one of the most important turning points in the whole book of Acts. We may want to use this moment to reflect on how proximity to events — even terrible ones — plants seeds whose growth we cannot predict.4. Stephen's prayer for his killers puts forgiveness in the most extreme possible context. This is not forgiving a minor slight. It's an honest struggle to ask how hard this is, without making it sound like a simple requirement. What enables someone to pray this way? The text points to what Stephen was seeing.Significant Cautions⚠ Stephen's speech leading up to this passage includes pointed criticism of the Jerusalem leadership, and it has historically been used to fuel anti-Jewish sentiment. Preachers should be careful to locate the conflict within an internal first-century Jewish debate, not as a universal verdict on Jewish people or Judaism as a whole.⚠ Martyrdom accounts can be preached in ways that romanticize or even encourage suffering and death. Be careful not to hold Stephen up as someone to imitate in a way that suggests his death was straightforwardly good or desirable. The text mourns his death even as it honors his faithfulness.⚠ The mention of Saul's approval is easy to treat as mere scene-setting. But it deserves to be named honestly: the same person who would later write much of the New Testament participated in this killing. That is uncomfortable, and it should be. There's something here (or coming) about what it means to be truly converted.Psalm 31:1–5, 15–16The Psalm — Refuge in CrisisSummaryThis psalm is a cry for help from someone in serious trouble — pursued by enemies, trapped, and frightened. The speaker turns to God as a place to hide, a strong fortress, and the one who can pull them out of the net that has been set for them. Verses 15 and 16 reach the heart of the psalm's trust: ‘My times are in your hand.' Whatever is happening, and however little control the speaker has over it, God holds the clock. The psalm ends with a plea for God's face to shine and for deliverance to come.Key Ideas for Preaching1. The phrase ‘my times are in your hand' is one of the most quietly powerful statements of trust in the Psalter. It does not claim that everything will turn out fine. It claims that the one who holds time is trustworthy. We can open up the difference between those two things for a congregation.2. Paired with the death of Stephen, this psalm gives language for what it might feel like to face mortal danger with faith intact. Stephen's vision and his prayers suggest someone who had already internalized something like this psalm — not that death is easy, but that God holds what we cannot hold ourselves.3. The image of God as a rock, a fortress, and a hiding place is physical and concrete. God is not an abstraction here but a place to go. We may well ask: what does it look like in practice to run to God rather than away from difficulty?Significant Cautions⚠ The psalm's language about enemies is vivid and personal. In the context of worship, be thoughtful about how ‘enemies' is interpreted. The text is not an invitation to name specific people as targets of divine punishment — it is the prayer of someone overwhelmed, using the language available to them.⚠ Verse 5 — ‘Into your hand I commit my spirit' — is the verse Jesus quotes from the cross in Luke's Gospel. It is also traditionally used at the time of death. If preached alongside the Stephen text, be aware that this verse may carry deep weight for people in the congregation who are grieving or facing serious illness.1 Peter 2:2–10The Epistle — Living StonesSummaryThe letter calls its readers to crave the word the way newborn babies crave milk — purely, instinctively, urgently. They have already tasted that the Lord is good, and that taste should create appetite, not satisfaction. The passage then builds a picture of the church as a living temple, not made of cut stone, but of people — each a living stone being built into something together. Christ is the cornerstone, the one the builders rejected but whom God placed at the foundation. Those who trust in him will not be put to shame. And those who belong to this community are named in layered, rich terms: a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's own people — called out of darkness into remarkable light.Key Ideas for Preaching1. The image of spiritual milk and growing appetite is unusual and worth dwelling on. Many people in a congregation have lost the hunger they once had for Scripture, prayer, or worship. The text does not scold them for this — it invites them to taste again and see what happens. We could use this image to reopen a conversation about spiritual hunger without making people feel guilty for being dry.2. The ‘living stones' image is a genuinely striking way to describe the church. Each person is a stone — not decorative, but structural. The building does not hold together without each one. This gives a theological grounding to the practical reality that every person in the congregation matters.3. The string of titles in verses 9–10 — chosen, royal, holy, God's own — were originally applied to Israel in the Hebrew scriptures and are here applied to the church, a community that includes Gentiles. We may need to help the congregation hear these not as credentials they earned but as a description of who God has made them. The emphasis falls on what they were called to do: proclaim the mighty acts of the one who called them.4. The cornerstone that the builders rejected is a direct reference to Psalm 118, which Jesus applied to himself. The image connects back to Stephen's death and forward to what the church is being built into. Rejection is not the end of the story.Significant Cautions⚠ The titles in verses 9–10 — ‘chosen race,' ‘holy nation,' and so on — have been used to justify religious exclusivism or even nationalism. We want to be clear that these are descriptions of a community defined by calling and trust, not by ethnicity, culture, or any human marker of identity.⚠ The use of Israel's titles for the church has a complicated history in relation to Jewish-Christian relations. This text has sometimes been read as suggesting the church has replaced Israel. We want to avoid that reading and instead note that the letter is drawing on a shared inheritance, not canceling it.⚠ The ‘newborn infants' image for spiritual hunger can be misread as a call for people to remain permanently childlike in their faith — dependent, unquestioning, always needing to be fed. The context makes clear this is about appetite and receptivity, not permanent immaturity.John 14:1–14The Gospel — The Way, the Truth, and the LifeSummaryJesus is at the table with his disciples on the night before he dies, and he is trying to prepare them for what is coming. He tells them not to let their hearts be troubled — he is going to prepare a place for them, and he will come back and take them to be with him. Thomas pushes back honestly: they do not know where he is going, so how can they know the way? Jesus answers with one of the most famous lines in John's Gospel: he is the way, the truth, and the life, and no one comes to the Father except through him. Philip then asks to be shown the Father, and Jesus responds with some surprise: after all this time, Philip still does not recognize that seeing Jesus is seeing the Father. The passage ends with a promise: whoever trusts in Jesus will do the works he has done, and even greater ones, because he is going to the Father.Key Ideas for Preaching1. This passage opens with a pastoral word: ‘Do not let your hearts be troubled.' Jesus says this to people who are about to go through the worst night of their lives. It is not a command to suppress grief or pretend things are fine — it is an invitation to locate their trust somewhere steady. We can help people sit with that distinction carefully.2. Thomas's question is one of the most honest moments in the Gospels. (Why we called him “Honest Thomas” a few weeks ago!) He does not pretend to understand. He says plainly: we do not know where you are going. Jesus does not scold him. He answers. We can use Thomas here to give the congregation permission to ask the questions they are actually carrying.3. The claim ‘I am the way, the truth, and the life' is one of the most contested verses in John's Gospel. We want to address it directly rather than skipping past its difficulty. It is worth exploring what Jesus means by ‘way' — not a set of rules, but a person to follow — before moving to what is claimed about the Father. I still like what Eugene Peterson had to say (at length) on this matter:We can't suppress the Jesus way in order to sell the Jesus truth. The Jesus way and the Jesus truth must be congruent. Only when the Jesus way is organically joined with the Jesus truth do we get the Jesus life.”― Eugene H. Peterson, The Jesus Way: A Conversation on the Ways That Jesus Is the Way4. Philip's request — ‘show us the Father and that will be enough for us' — is deeply human. Most people in the congregation have, at some point, wanted exactly that: a clear, unambiguous sight of God. Jesus' answer is that they have already been given it. 5. The promise that believers will do ‘greater works' than Jesus is genuinely puzzling and often glossed over. It is worth addressing honestly. The clue is in the reason Jesus gives: he is going to the Father. The resurrection and the Spirit's coming make possible a wider reach than Jesus' own earthly ministry had. This is not about individual superpowers — it is about a community continuing a movement.Significant Cautions⚠ The verse ‘no one comes to the Father except through me' has been used as a blunt instrument in conversations about salvation and who is included or excluded. We should engage it honestly rather than either avoiding it or using it to draw sharp lines around other religious traditions. The context is pastoral — Jesus is comforting grieving disciples, not issuing a theological boundary statement.⚠ The ‘many dwelling places' in the Father's house has been heavily freighted with speculation about heaven and the afterlife. The text does not describe what those dwelling places look like. Be careful to resist the temptation to fill in what the text leaves open, and instead focus on the promise itself: there is room, and Jesus is preparing it.⚠ The claim that seeing Jesus is seeing the Father is one of John's deepest theological commitments. It is also easily misread as making Jesus and the Father identical in every way. The Gospel itself maintains distinction alongside unity. We do not need to resolve this fully, but we should not flatten it either.Thematic ConnectionsThe thread running through all four readings this week is trust in the face of things we cannot control. Stephen cannot stop what is happening to him, but he can choose what he does with his final moments — and he chooses prayer. The psalmist cannot see how their situation will resolve, but they name their trust in the one who holds their times. First Peter tells a scattered, vulnerable community that they are being built into something that will last. And John 14 begins with Jesus telling his closest friends not to let fear run the show.John 14 is the natural center for preaching this week — it is rich and wide enough for a full sermon on its own. But Acts 7 offers a powerful alternative angle: what does trust look like not in a quiet moment of reflection but in the worst moment of a life? A preacher willing to sit in that question without resolving it too quickly will find a great deal to work with. The psalm and First Peter can serve as supporting voices in either direction.Narrative LectionaryThis guide covers the Narrative Lectionary reading for the Fifth Sunday of Easter, Year 4 (May 3, 2026). The primary text is Paul's sermon in Athens — one of the most unusual moments in Acts, where Paul finds himself in the middle of a philosophically sophisticated city full of altars to gods he does not recognize. Rather than leading with condemnation, he starts with what he finds and builds from there. The supplemental verses from John 1 name what Paul is ultimately pointing toward: the God whom no one has seen has been made known in Jesus Christ, from whose fullness we have all received grace upon grace.The ReadingActs 17:16–31The Primary Text — Paul's Sermon at AthensSummaryPaul arrives in Athens while waiting for his companions and finds himself deeply unsettled by how many idols fill the city. He begins debating in the synagogue with Jews and God-fearers, and then in the public square with anyone who will listen. Some Epicurean and Stoic philosophers encounter him and bring him to the Areopagus — Athens' formal court of intellectual and civic life — to explain this new teaching they keep hearing about. They note, somewhat dismissively, that he seems to be talking about foreign gods. Paul stands up and starts not with an attack but with an observation: he can see that the Athenians are very religious people. He even found an altar inscribed ‘To an Unknown God.' That, he says, is exactly what he has come to tell them about.Paul then speaks in terms his audience can follow. The God who made the world does not live in temples made by human hands and does not need anything from us — God is the one who gives life and breath to everything. God made every nation from one source and set the boundaries of where they live, so that people everywhere might search for God and perhaps find him, though God is not actually far from any of us. Paul even quotes their own poets: ‘In him we live and move and have our being,' and ‘We are his offspring.' If we are God's offspring, then God cannot be made of gold or silver or stone shaped by human imagination. God has overlooked the times of ignorance, but now calls everyone everywhere to turn around, because a day of judgment is coming. The judge has been appointed — and God raised him from the dead as proof. At the mention of resurrection, some laugh, some want to hear more, and a few believe.Key Ideas for Preaching1. Paul does not open by telling the Athenians they are wrong. He opens by telling them he has been looking at what they have built and finds them genuinely religious. The altar to an unknown god is his starting point, not an object of ridicule. This is a remarkable model of how to enter a conversation with people outside the faith — starting with what is already there rather than what is missing.2. The God Paul describes is not contained in any building, does not need anything, and is already close to every human being. This is a picture of God that cuts against every form of religious gatekeeping. Preachers can ask: how does a congregation hold this truth — that God is not far from anyone — alongside a commitment to proclaiming Jesus specifically?3. Paul quotes the Athenians' own poets back to them. He finds truth about God already present in their tradition and uses it as a bridge. This is a rare moment in Acts, and it raises a genuinely important question for preachers: where do we see true things about God showing up outside the walls of the church? How do we engage those places?4. The audience splits at the mention of resurrection. Some laugh, some want to hear more, some believe. Paul does not chase the laughers or try to convince the skeptical. He states what he came to say and lets people respond as they will. (He has spoken his piece and counted to three, so to speak.) 5. The sermon ends with a call to turn around — the same basic movement as every other proclamation in Acts, just dressed in different clothes. The framework is cultural and philosophical rather than scriptural, but the destination is the same. Preachers can explore what it looks like to say the same essential thing to very different audiences without simply giving the same sermon.Significant Cautions⚠ It is tempting to use this passage as a simple endorsement of cultural engagement or interfaith dialogue. The passage is more complicated than that — Paul is genuinely troubled by the idols around him, and his sermon ends with a clear call to leave them behind. A sermon that only celebrates Paul's openness without noting where he still draws a line will miss the tension the text holds.⚠ The phrase ‘times of ignorance God overlooked' has sometimes been read as dismissive of all non-Christian religious practice before the gospel arrived. That reading oversimplifies. The text is pointing toward a shift in how God is acting in the world, not making a sweeping judgment about the sincerity or value of other people's religious lives.⚠ Be careful about using this passage to suggest that all religions are ultimately saying the same thing and pointing to the same God. Paul does not say that. He finds a point of contact, and then he redirects. The altar to the unknown god is a starting point, not an ending point. Those two moves need to be kept together.⚠ The mixed response at the end — laughter, curiosity, belief — can be used to prepare congregations for the reality that not everyone will respond to the gospel. That is legitimate and worth naming. But be careful not to use the laughers as a way of dismissing skeptical people in the congregation or culture as simply closed-minded. Intellectual doubt is not the same thing as hardness of heart.John 1:16–18The Supplemental Text — Grace upon GraceSummaryThese three verses come from the prologue of John's Gospel — the opening hymn that sets up everything the Gospel will say about who Jesus is. From his fullness, the writer says, we have all received grace upon grace. The law came through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God, but the only Son, who is close to the Father's heart, has made God known. It is a compressed statement about what the incarnation actually accomplished: a full, overflowing gift, and a revelation of God that no one could have accessed any other way.Key Ideas for Preaching1. Placed alongside Paul's sermon at Athens, these verses clarify what Paul is ultimately pointing toward. He finds the unknown God in the Athenians' own altar and works outward from there. John 1 names what has now been made known: the God whom no one has seen has been revealed in the person of Jesus. The supplemental text gives Paul's proclamation its destination.2. The phrase ‘grace upon grace' — sometimes translated ‘grace in place of grace' — suggests not just a one-time gift but a continuing, layered generosity. There is always more. Preachers can use this image to speak to people who feel they have used up their portion of God's patience or kindness, or who are afraid that what they have received is all there will be.3. The contrast between Moses and Jesus in verse 17 is not a dismissal of the law — it is a statement about what has now been added. Grace and truth have arrived in a person, not just a set of instructions. Preachers can explore what it means that the fullest revelation of God is not a document or a system but a life.Significant Cautions⚠ The contrast between Moses and Jesus has a long and painful history of being used to set Christianity against Judaism — as if the law was a failed experiment that grace replaced. That reading distorts both testaments. The law was itself a gift of grace; what John describes is addition and fulfillment, not replacement and rejection.⚠ The claim that Jesus has made God known in a way no one else has can sound like a dismissal of all other religious experience or understanding of God. Preachers should present it as a statement about the particularity and depth of what God has done in Christ, not as a verdict that nothing true about God has ever been known anywhere else.Thematic ConnectionsBoth texts this week move in the same direction: from searching toward finding, from not knowing toward being shown. Paul stands in a city full of altars to gods that no one can quite name, and he points toward the one who has now been made known. John 1 names what that making-known actually looks like: the fullness of God, given in a person, producing grace upon grace. Paul's sermon at Athens is the proclamation; John's prologue is its theological ground. Together they describe a gospel that meets people in their reaching and brings them to something specific.The Acts passage is rich enough for a full sermon. A preacher could focus on Paul's method — starting with what is already there — or on what he says about the nature of God, or on the mixed response at the end. The John verses work best as a brief anchor, either opening the sermon with a statement of what Paul is ultimately pointing toward, or closing with it as a final word about what ‘making God known' actually means. Either placement gives the sermon a theological center that the Athens scene alone does not quite provide. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit lectionarypro.substack.com/subscribe

"Now while Paul waited for them at Athens, his spirit was stirred in him, when he saw the city wholly given to idolatry. Therefore disputed he in the synagogue with the Jews, and with the devout persons, and in the market daily with them that met with him. Then certain philosophers of the Epicureans, and of the Stoicks, encountered him. And some said, What will this babbler say? other some, He seemeth to be a setter forth of strange gods: because he preached unto them Jesus, and the resurrection. And they took him, and brought him unto Areopagus, saying, May we know what this new doctrine, whereof thou speakest, is? For thou bringest certain strange things to our ears: we would know therefore what these things mean. (For all the Athenians and strangers which were there spent their time in nothing else, but either to tell, or to hear some new thing.) Then Paul stood in the midst of Mars' hill, and said, Ye men of Athens, I perceive that in all things ye are too superstitious. For as I passed by, and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription, To The Unknown God. Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you. God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands; Neither is worshipped with men's hands, as though he needed any thing, seeing he giveth to all life, and breath, and all things; And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation; That they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, though he be not far from every one of us: For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring. Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man's device. And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men every where to repent: Because he hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead. And when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked: and others said, We will hear thee again of this matter. So Paul departed from among them. Howbeit certain men clave unto him, and believed: among the which was Dionysius the Areopagite, and a woman named Damaris, and others with them." Acts 17:16-34

Who's to blame for the Death of Socrates?This week, The Alarmist (Rebecca Delgado Smith) decides who's to blame for the death of perhaps the most famous philosopher of all time, Socrates. With Athens in post-war political turmoil and a people with a strong deference to the will of the Gods, is it any wonder his “Gadfly Style” of questioning authority rubbed some Athenians the wrong way? Did The Oracle at Delphi proclaiming there was no wiser man than Socrates contribute to his eventual conviction? Or perhaps this was simply the will of the Gods! Fact Checker Faryn Einhorn and Producer Clayton Early join the conversation. Join our Patreon!Tell us who you think is to blame at http://thealarmistpodcast.comEmail us at thealarmistpodcast@gmail.comFollow us on Instagram @thealarmistpodcastFollow us on TikTok @thealarmistpodcastSupport this show http://supporter.acast.com/alarmist. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In the immediate aftermath of the Battle of Salamis (480 BC), both the Greek city-states and the Persian Empire are left facing a critical question: what comes next?In this episode, we explore the tense and uncertain months that followed one of the most decisive naval battles in ancient history. While the Athenians celebrate their victory, they must also confront the reality that the war is far from over. Themistocles, ever the strategist, takes to the Aegean—seeking to punish those accused of medizing and to strengthen Athens' position among the Greek world.Meanwhile, the Persian king Xerxes I withdraws, leaving behind a powerful army under his cousin and general Mardonius. From central Greece, Mardonius prepares for the next phase of the conflict, as a fragile Hellenic coalition gathers at the Isthmus of Corinth—determined to defend the Peloponnese at all costs.But beneath the surface, political tensions, rivalries, and strategic disagreements threaten to fracture the Greek alliance.Will the Persians strike again?Or will they wait for Xerxes to return with an even greater force?*Contents:*00:00 Xerxes' Decision11:59 Themistocles the Cunning23:06  The Long and Deadly March Home30:27 Mardonius' Grand Strategy for Greece39:28 An Achaemenid-Athenian Alliance?!?55:45 Mardonius Marches on Athens Again01:00:55 The Honorable Men of Sparta!01:10:03 Thank You and PatronsSpecial thanks to *Farya Faraji* for the following musical compositions featured throughout the program: "Rise of Arsaces""Achaemenes""Mater""To Phrygia""Under Iranian Stars""In Pythagoras' Mind""Fratres""Aima""Legends of Sparta"Check out more of his work that spans across many countries, cultures and time periods: https://www.youtube.com/@faryafaraji.and.worldmusiciansYou can also find them on the albums:*Songs of Old Iran Vols. I & II**Voices of the Ancients Vols. I & II* Additional Music:Epidemic Sound"Pepper Seeds""Interstate 895" "A Glimmer of Hope""Can I Reach You""On the Lookout""Keeping up with the Tarahumaras""The Trustee""Zero Remorse""Dark Premonitions""Where Kings Walk""Checkmate""Deer Hunt"Support the show

Are you willing for Jesus to take away your religion so he can give you His life? The central message of the sermon is that true worship and service to God are not defined by external actions or religious performance, but by a heart surrendered to Him. Drawing from Scripture—particularly Acts 17, where Paul confronts the Athenians' idolatry by declaring that God 'dwelleth not in temples made with hands'—the preacher emphasizes that God, who needs nothing, is not served by human effort. Instead, genuine service is rooted in a broken, contrite heart, as seen in David's repentance, Jesus' obedience in Gethsemane, and the prophetic call to 'act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly' with God. The sermon challenges the congregation to move beyond ritual and legalism, recognizing that even the most devout acts are meaningless without inner transformation, and that God's ultimate delight is in a surrendered heart, not in human hands or works.

When Paul was in Athens, he was bothered by the idols that filled the city, which prompted him to teach in the synagogue and market place. His message piqued the interest of the philosophers, and they wanted to hear more. The people were “very religious,” but the God of heaven was “unknown” to them. So Paul proceeded to teach them about the one true God. We encounter many people today who are like the Athenians – they do not know God. How can we begin to teach them? Consider what Paul explained to these pagan philosophers.

Fluent Fiction - Catalan: Athens Market Miracle: Marina's Festival Triumph Find the full episode transcript, vocabulary words, and more:fluentfiction.com/ca/episode/2026-03-30-07-38-19-ca Story Transcript:Ca: Els rajos del sol de primavera il·luminaven l'efervescent mercat d'Atenes antiga.En: The rays of the spring sun illuminated the bustling market of ancient Athens.Ca: El mercat bullia de vitalitat.En: The market was teeming with vitality.Ca: La multitud avançava entre els estands plens de mercaderies.En: The crowd moved among the stands filled with goods.Ca: Es barrejaven les riques olors de fruita fresca amb l'aroma de terra del fang cuit.En: The rich scents of fresh fruit mingled with the earthy aroma of baked clay.Ca: Al bell mig d'aquesta bulliciosa escena, Guillem, un jove comerciant, es preparava per al gran festival en honor a Dionís.En: In the midst of this bustling scene, Guillem, a young merchant, was preparing for the grand festival in honor of Dionysus.Ca: Al costat de Guillem, Marina, la seva impacient aprenent, observava amb atenció.En: Next to Guillem, Marina, his impatient apprentice, watched intently.Ca: "Aquest festival és molt important per a mi, Marina.En: "This festival is very important to me, Marina.Ca: Hem de vendre tot el què tenim," li deia Guillem mentre ordenava les seves peces de ceràmica.En: We must sell everything we have," Guillem said as he arranged his ceramic pieces.Ca: Guillem era conegut per la seva fina ceràmica, i confiava que aquesta ocasió asseguraria el seu futur.En: Guillem was known for his fine ceramics, and he trusted that this occasion would ensure his future.Ca: Marina volia impressionar tant a ell com als visitants del festival amb la seva creació.En: Marina wanted to impress both him and the festival visitors with her creation.Ca: El mercat estava ple de comerciants rivals.En: The market was full of rival merchants.Ca: Tots intentaven atraure els atenesos amb les seves ofertes i discursos persuasors.En: All of them tried to attract the Athenians with their offers and persuasive speeches.Ca: "Marina, prepara't per a moments difícils," va advertir Guillem, però amb un esguard afable va afegir: "Avui demostraràs el que vals.En: "Marina, prepare yourself for tough moments," Guillem warned, but with a friendly glance, he added, "Today, you will prove what you're worth."Ca: "Marina va mirar la seva obra més apreciada.En: Marina looked at her most valued work.Ca: Era una peça innovadora, amb formes esculpides que evocaven notes musicals, una al·legoria apropiada per a Dionís, déu del vi i del teatre.En: It was an innovative piece, with sculpted forms that evoked musical notes, an appropriate allegory for Dionysus, god of wine and theater.Ca: Sabia que podria causar controvèrsia.En: She knew it might cause controversy.Ca: Els més conservadors del mercat preferien els dissenys tradicionals.En: The market's more conservative customers preferred traditional designs.Ca: Però ella volia mostrar el seu potencial.En: But she wanted to show her potential.Ca: Quan el mercat estava en plena activitat, Marina va decidir arriscar-se.En: When the market was in full swing, Marina decided to take a risk.Ca: Va col·locar la seva peça al millor lloc de l'estand.En: She placed her piece in the best spot of the stand.Ca: La peça semblava captar immediatament l'atenció d'un atenès influent, que es va acostar per observar-la de prop.En: The piece seemed to immediately capture the attention of an influential Athenian, who came closer to observe it closely.Ca: Guillem i Marina van retenir la respiració mentre aquell home d'aparença imponent inspeccionava la ceràmica.En: Guillem and Marina held their breath as that imposing-looking man inspected the ceramics.Ca: Els moments van semblar eterns fins que ell va aixecar una cella amb un somriure de satisfacció.En: The moments seemed eternal until he raised an eyebrow with a smile of satisfaction.Ca: "Heu capturat l'esperit de la festa, jove dama," va dir amb un to de reconeixement.En: "You have captured the spirit of the festival, young lady," he said with a tone of acknowledgment.Ca: Això va ser suficient per a que altres curiosos s'apropessin, atrets per la novetat i la fama de l'ateneu.En: This was enough for other curious onlookers to approach, drawn by novelty and the fame of the Athenian.Ca: Amb aquest petit però crucial elogi, la reputació de Marina va començar a germinar.En: With this small yet crucial praise, Marina's reputation began to blossom.Ca: Les vendes es van accelerar, i Guillem es va adonar que la seva decisió havia estat encertada.En: Sales picked up, and Guillem realized that his decision had been the right one.Ca: Al cap del dia, no quedava ni una sola peça a l'estand.En: By the end of the day, not a single piece remained on the stand.Ca: Ja quan el sol es ponia darrere de l'Acròpolis, Guillem va mirar a Marina, orgullós.En: As the sun set behind the Acropolis, Guillem looked at Marina, proud.Ca: "Em fas feliç, Marina.En: "You make me happy, Marina.Ca: Has superat totes les expectatives.En: You have exceeded all expectations."Ca: " Marina, radiant de confiança, va somriure.En: Marina, radiant with confidence, smiled.Ca: Ara sabia que el seu lloc entre els artistes d'Atenes era ben merescut.En: She now knew that her place among the artists of Athens was well-deserved.Ca: Així, aquell festival de primavera no només va ser una celebració pels déus, sinó també pel futur de dos ceramistes, ara units per la confiança mútua i el talent reconegut.En: Thus, that spring festival was not only a celebration for the gods but also for the future of two ceramists, now united by mutual trust and recognized talent. Vocabulary Words:the ray: el raigthe spring: la primaverabustling: efervescentthe merchant: el comerciantthe apprentice: l'aprenent / l'aprenentaimpatient: impacientto ensure: assegurarthe crowd: la multitudthe aroma: l'aromato mingle: barrejar-seearthy: de terrathe stand: l'estandthe piece: la peçapersuasive: persuadorinnovative: innovadorathe allegory: l'al·legoriato evoke: evocarmusical: musicalsto risk: arriscar-seto capture: capturarthe satisfaction: la satisfaccióthe praise: l'elogito blossom: germinarto prove: demostrarthe expectation: l'expectativathe trust: la confiançarecognized: reconegutconservative: conservadorsto deserve: merèixerthe controversy: la controvèrsia

Everyone looks for meaning and purpose in their lives, but we don't all find it. Pastor Jon looks examines Acts 17 and Paul's message in idolatrous Athens to explore how we can be seduced by false gospels, and what the real Gospel of Jesus Christ says. Like the Athenians, need to repent and turn from the ideas of appeasement, comfort, and self-sufficiency, to find our purpose in our loving creator God and know true rest and peace.   Speaker: Jon Thompson Publication: March 22, 2026

Chris Sallade continues our FNF series on the book of Acts, focusing on Paul's sermon in Athens from Acts 17:16-34.16 Now while Paul was waiting for them at Athens, his spirit was provoked within him as he saw that the city was full of idols. 17 So he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the devout persons, and in the marketplace every day with those who happened to be there. 18 Some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers also conversed with him. And some said, “What does this babbler wish to say?” Others said, “He seems to be a preacher of foreign divinities”—because he was preaching Jesus and the resurrection. 19 And they took him and brought him to the Areopagus, saying, “May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? 20 For you bring some strange things to our ears. We wish to know therefore what these things mean.” 21 Now all the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there would spend their time in nothing except telling or hearing something new.22 So Paul, standing in the midst of the Areopagus, said: “Men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious. 23 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. 24 The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, 25 nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. 26 And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, 27 that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us, 28 for“‘In him we live and move and have our being';as even some of your own poets have said,“‘For we are indeed his offspring.'29 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. 30 The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, 31 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.”32 Now when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked. But others said, “We will hear you again about this.” 33 So Paul went out from their midst. 34 But some men joined him and believed, among whom also were Dionysius the Areopagite and a woman named Damaris and others with them.

A general sends home a letter that sounds like a warning and Athens treats it like a challenge. Nicias lays out the ugly reality at the Siege of Syracuse: stretched supply lines, sickness in camp, fading morale, and a siege that is slipping out of his control. He offers two paths, reinforce hard or abandon the Sicilian Expedition, but the city's leaders hear the part they can live with politically: the campaign can still be won if they just commit more.I walk through why that interpretation takes hold. Nicias' cautious reputation shapes how readers judge his words, and his own incentives push him to be indirect and share responsibility for the decision. Underneath it all sits the psychology of sunk costs and prestige. Athens has already spent silver, ships, and lives, and a withdrawal could look like weakness to allies across the Athenian Empire and encouragement to Sparta. The result is a dramatic escalation as Athens raises another fleet and army under Demosthenes and Eurymedon.Meanwhile the war widens. Sparta fortifies Decelea in Attica, turning pressure on Athens from seasonal to constant, disrupting routes and revenues. In Sicily, Gylippus and the Syracusans push the Athenians back toward the Great Harbor, seize crucial forts and supplies, then finally crack the Athenian navy with adaptation and deception: fatigue tactics, tight harbor geometry, and missile troops aimed at the rowers. Reinforcements arrive at the last moment, but the stakes only grow larger.Subscribe for the next chapter of the Sicilian Expedition, share this with a friend who loves military history, and leave a review so more listeners can find the show. Support the show

This lesson examines Paul's ministry in Athens as a model for doing worldview apologetics. This has been called an "inside out" approach because of how Paul effectively engaged the Athenians. He begins inside their worldview and leads them out to his own. The model is especially relevant for our own biblically illiterate and indifferent society.

Today's readings.. (Leviticus 5,6), (Psalm 105), (1 Corinthians 14)Our Psalms reading (105) stresses that God is fully conscious of all that happens among his creation.  Many examples are given that illustrate the reality of what Paul told the Athenians, that God “is actually not far from each one of us” [Acts 17 v.27) that “we have our being” within the Divine presence and, as Job expressed it, “In his hand is the life of every living thing” [12 v.10]  Look at some of the illustrations of this in today's Psalm, note how it tells us to “seek the LORD and his strength; his presence continually.” [v.4] We do not have to travel to seek his presence, we need to start each day by doing that: we need to “remember the wondrous works that he has done.” [v.5]  These works are seen, both in creation, and in the wonderful way “all things work together” (see Romans 8 v.28) to achieve God's purpose.  This is seen in history; David reminds us of “his miracles, and the judgments he uttered” to the “offspring of Abraham” [v.5,6].  But it is not just with Israel that God is involved, “his judgments are in all the earth” [v.7] and the full reality and climax of this will be seen when Jesus returns. The detail of the divine involvement in human life is made clear in our Leviticus reading (ch. 5 & 6). We read of more of the divine laws being put in place to cause the nation being formed in the wilderness to become a genuine “”holy nation” (Exod. 19 v.6).  Sadly, they failed in this. David and his son Solomon did their best in their days to lead the people into becoming a holy nation.  Then God's son came to inspire people to develop personal holiness.  The aim must be, as we will read next week in Paul's 2nd letter to the Corinthians, to “cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit, bringing holiness to completion in the fear of God.” [7 v.1]In our chapter today Paul is urgently encouraging them to “let all things be done for building up … for God is not the author of confusion but of peace …” [14 v.33].  Confusion comes when God's word is not read properly – we should not pick and choose the parts which suit us, fully realizing that when “his judgments are in all the earth” when Christ returns,  “then each of us will give account of him(her)self to God.” [Rom. 14 v. 12]  Let us “seek … his strength and “his presence continually.”

Siege lines rose like ribs around Syracuse, and for a moment it looked inevitable: Athens would seal the city by land and sea and claim a victory to match its ambition. Then a Spartan named Gylippus found an open path, a counterwall bit into Athenian plans, and the balance turned in a single campaigning season.We walk through the decisive mechanics of the siege: the capture of Epipolae, the fort at Labdalum, and the careful logic of building north and south walls to throttle supply. You'll hear how targeted Athenian raids shattered early Syracusan counterworks, why the marsh approach to the Great Harbor mattered, and how a split-second battlefield recovery cost the bold general Lamachus his life. Inside Syracuse, morale plunged and talk of surrender spread—until Corinthian ships slipped the net and Gylippus marched overland to reframe the war.From that point, the terrain of decision shifted. Gylippus struck at Lebdalum, forced Athens to defend too many seams, and completed a counterwall that kept Syracuse connected to the hinterland. Cavalry and javelin men exploited open ground, driving the Athenians back behind incomplete lines. Nicias moved supply points to harbor forts for safer seaborne logistics, but the longer haul to the heights invited harassment, fatigue, and a slow bleed of ship crews and morale. The result was a strategic stalemate tilting toward the defenders.At the heart of this chapter is Nicias's stark letter to the Athenian assembly, a rare moment of strategic honesty: withdraw entirely and accept the costs, or reinforce massively with hoplites, cavalry, money, and shared command. No half measures. From the safety of a calm Athens, the choice felt simple—send more. That confidence, nurtured by empire and habit, set the stage for a larger reckoning as Syracuse rallied allies and trained a fleet to contest the last Athenian advantage at sea.Listen for tactical lessons on siegecraft, counterwalls, and the danger of leaving a single approach unguarded, alongside the political lesson that ambition without mass invites reversal. If this deep dive sharpened your view of the Sicilian Expedition, follow the show, share it with a history-loving friend, and leave a quick review to help others find the series. Support the show

'The strong do what they will, the weak suffer what they must'. So claimed the powerful Athenians, according to the Ancient Greek historian Thucydides. Plato tried to demonstrate that might does not make right, and thinkers ever since, from Hobbes and Rousseau to Kant and Carl Schmitt, have placed the idea that might is right at the centre of their political philosophies, for better or worse. Matthew Sweet traces the intellectual history of the idea, with Angie Hobbs, Margaret MacMillan, Lea Ypi, and Hugo Drochon. Angie Hobbs' book Why Plato Matters Now, and Lea Ypi's book Indignity, are both out now, Hugo Drochon's book Elites And Democracy is published in March Producer: Luke Mulhall

A shocked city, a careful army, and a plateau that decides everything. We follow the tense weeks after Athens' first win outside Syracuse, when momentum gave way to method. Nicias, often branded cautious, makes a hard strategic choice: pause late in the season, refill the coffers, request cavalry, and prepare for a siege that can actually hold under pressure. Meanwhile, Syracuse hears Hermocrates at last. His blunt case—discipline over bluster, reform over blame—shrinks a muddled command, tightens training, and sends envoys to Corinth and Sparta to turn a local crisis into a panhellenic cause.The political map of Sicily comes into sharp focus as Camarina keeps a careful distance, Naxos and Regium quietly help Athens, and both sides court allies who can tip supplies, harbors, and morale. Then the war's center of gravity jumps across the sea. Alcibiades escapes and arrives in Sparta with insider detail and a plan to exploit Athenian overreach. His advice sparks two decisive moves: dispatching Gylippus to steady Syracuse and fortifying Decelea to bleed Attica. Intelligence, timing, and audacity reshape the conflict more than any single skirmish could.Through winter 415–414 BCE, the Athenians work with rare clarity. Catana becomes an operating base; ships are refit; scouts trace Syracuse's walls and water. The conclusion is simple and stark: win the Epipolae Heights or lose the siege before it begins. Spring brings speed. A quiet sail, a rapid landing, and Lamachus' night march seize Euryelus, the gateway to the plateau. Engineers mark lines. Syracuse counters. For a moment, the expedition reaches its high watermark, the city nearly within an encircling wall. But with Gylippus on the horizon and a reformed Syracuse ready to contest every trench, the hard road truly begins. Support the show

LISTEN and SUBSCRIBE on:Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/watchdog-on-wall-street-with-chris-markowski/id570687608 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2PtgPvJvqc2gkpGIkNMR5i WATCH and SUBSCRIBE on:https://www.youtube.com/@WatchdogOnWallstreet/featured  What can a Greek island from 416 BC teach us about today's Greenland debate? More than you'd expect.In this short history lesson, Chris revisits Thucydides' Melian Dialogue—where powerful Athens crushed the neutral island of Milos to prove its dominance. The Athenians argued that justice only applies between equals, giving us the chilling line: “The strong do what they can, and the weak suffer what they must.”Milos was destroyed. Athens eventually fell.The lesson is timeless: when power abandons morality, hubris follows—and collapse isn't far behind.

In Genesis 9 we read of the LORD's command for this new creation, who had been preserved in the ark with Noah the 8th person (emblematic of Jesus whose name equals 888 in the Greek - compare 1Peter 3verses20-22); "to replenish (or fill) the earth" with this new creation. The fear and dominion of mankind over the lower creatures would be evident. There was a prohibition of eating food with the blood still in it - as the blood was representing life, which belonged to God. There was also a law reinforcing the penalty due to a murderer. Once more the Almighty covenants that He will never again destroy the earth by a flood. The surety of His promise being seen in the rainbow. The offspring from Noah's 3 sons - Shem, Ham and Japheth - peopled the newly refreshed earth. Unfortunately, Noah became drunk, and it seems was sodomised by his son Ham. Noah pronounced a curse on Ham and spoke of a blessing that would come through his son Shem. Jesus Christ came from the Jewish race -Romans 3verses1-2; 9verses3-5. Shem became the ancestral head of the Semitic and Asiatic people; Ham the progenitor of the African people; and Japheth the forbear of the European race. In Genesis 10 we are told of the 70 nations that came from Noah's 3 sons - Shem, Ham and Japheth - see Moses' comment in Deuteronomy 32verses8. There we are told that the number of nations was determined by the Almighty by the number of Israel's (Jacob's) children, who into Egypt (Genesis 46verses8, 27; see also the Apostle Paul's comments to the Athenians in Acts 17verses26).Psalm 11 tells of Yahweh being in His holy temple and mankind must understand this gives Him the authority to judge the wicked. Habakkuk gives us the take home message which we must ponder - 2verses14, 20.In Psalm 12 the psalmist muses, 'Why have the humble vanished and suffered oppression. Surely, the Omnipotent Creator cannot tolerate evil. Surely, He must act for the downtrodden against their oppressors. He gives the assurance that He will rise against them in His faithfulness. In the 13th Psalm the writer personal asks, 'How long will it be till the LORD intervenes in support of the writer. The writer declares that failure on the part of his Sovereign to act is a cause for the wicked to boast and vaunt themselves in the world. We see it constantly, but we can be assured that at the appropriate time judgment will be poured out upon the evil - Acts 17verses30-31.The judgment mentioned in Matthew 7 refers to critical fault finding in others and not the need to show discernment, which is essential for us to exercise, when we judge righteous judgment as we are commanded to do. The askers will receive; the seekers will find; and to the knockers doors will be opened. Our Lord highlights the golden rule - do to others what you would wish them to do for you.Striving to please God must characterise the disciple's life. The witness of those professing discipleship will be evidenced in their fruit; without which our Lord Jesus Christ and His Father will fail to recognisetheir children. Only doers of the Word and not simply forgetful hearers are grounded and established as faith upon the Rock.Thanks for joining us - we pray you found these comments helpful in your appreciation of God's words, join again tomorrow

Today's Scripture passages are Psalm 96 | Psalm 98 | Ezekiel 33:21 - Ezekiel 34 | Acts 17:16-34 | 1 Corinthians 15:1-11.Read by Ekemini Uwan.Get in The Word with Truth's Table is a production of InterVarsity Press. For 75 years, IVP has published and created thoughtful Christian books for the university, church, and the world. Our Bible reading plan is adapted from Bible Study Together, and the Bible version is the New English Translation, used by permission.SPECIAL OFFER | As a listener of this podcast, use the code IVPOD25 for 25% off any IVP resource mentioned in this episode at ivpress.com.Additional Credits:Song production: Seaux ChillSong lyrics written by: Seaux Chill, Ekemini Uwan, and Christina EdmondsonPodcast art: Kate LillardPhotography: Shelly EveBible consultant: JM SmithSound engineering: Podastery StudiosCreative producers: Ekemini Uwan and Christina EdmondsonAssistant producer: Christine Pelliccio MeloExecutive producer: Helen LeeDisclaimer: The comments, views, and opinions expressed in this podcast are solely those of the host and/or the guests featured on the podcast and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of InterVarsity Press or InterVarsity Christian Fellowship.

Send us a textWhy are people so fascinated with the supernatural—ghosts, spirits, haunted houses, even Bigfoot? Recent surveys show that nearly half of Americans claim to have had a supernatural encounter. Yet with all this obsession comes fear, confusion, and anxiety. In this episode of The Wisdom Journey, Stephen Davey explores Acts 17 and Paul's encounter with the Athenians at the Areopagus. Surrounded by idols and altars—even one dedicated “To the Unknown God”—Paul took the opportunity to introduce the people of Athens to the true and living Creator. His boldness offers us a timeless example for engaging a world that is still searching for answers. Learn how to counter superstition with truth, how to graciously redirect people from speculation to revelation, and how to proclaim the God who alone provides peace, forgiveness, and eternal life. This message will help you see superstition for what it really is—and give you confidence to share the gospel in a confused world.Support the showStephen's latest book, The Disciples Prayer, is available now. https://www.wisdomonline.org/store/view/the-disciples-prayer-hardback

Send us a textWhy are people so fascinated with the supernatural—ghosts, spirits, haunted houses, even Bigfoot? Recent surveys show that nearly half of Americans claim to have had a supernatural encounter. Yet with all this obsession comes fear, confusion, and anxiety. In this episode of The Wisdom Journey, Stephen Davey explores Acts 17 and Paul's encounter with the Athenians at the Areopagus. Surrounded by idols and altars—even one dedicated “To the Unknown God”—Paul took the opportunity to introduce the people of Athens to the true and living Creator. His boldness offers us a timeless example for engaging a world that is still searching for answers. Learn how to counter superstition with truth, how to graciously redirect people from speculation to revelation, and how to proclaim the God who alone provides peace, forgiveness, and eternal life. This message will help you see superstition for what it really is—and give you confidence to share the gospel in a confused world.Support the showStephen's latest book, The Disciples Prayer, is available now. https://www.wisdomonline.org/store/view/the-disciples-prayer-hardback

Send us a textHave you ever dismissed an encounter as random, only to later see how meaningful it was? The apostle Paul experienced that in Athens. Surrounded by idols and philosophers, he found himself drawn into conversations he never planned—but God had planned them. Those “chance encounters” became divine appointments, opening the door for Paul to proclaim the gospel in one of history's most influential cities.In this episode, Stephen Davey unpacks Acts 17:16-21, showing how God orchestrates opportunities to share His truth with the people around us. You'll discover why the Athenians were so eager for new ideas, what drove Paul to engage them, and how his approach to everyday conversations can guide us today.Learn how to recognize divine appointments, why curiosity is not the same as conversion, and how to respond when God places someone in your path. This message will encourage you to see your workplace, neighborhood, or even a casual stop at the store as opportunities for the gospel. God still arranges divine appointments—will you be ready for yours?Support the showStephen's latest book, The Disciples Prayer, is available now. https://www.wisdomonline.org/store/view/the-disciples-prayer-hardback

Send us a textHave you ever dismissed an encounter as random, only to later see how meaningful it was? The apostle Paul experienced that in Athens. Surrounded by idols and philosophers, he found himself drawn into conversations he never planned—but God had planned them. Those “chance encounters” became divine appointments, opening the door for Paul to proclaim the gospel in one of history's most influential cities.In this episode, Stephen Davey unpacks Acts 17:16-21, showing how God orchestrates opportunities to share His truth with the people around us. You'll discover why the Athenians were so eager for new ideas, what drove Paul to engage them, and how his approach to everyday conversations can guide us today.Learn how to recognize divine appointments, why curiosity is not the same as conversion, and how to respond when God places someone in your path. This message will encourage you to see your workplace, neighborhood, or even a casual stop at the store as opportunities for the gospel. God still arranges divine appointments—will you be ready for yours?Support the showStephen's latest book, The Disciples Prayer, is available now. https://www.wisdomonline.org/store/view/the-disciples-prayer-hardback

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the speeches that became a byword for fierce attacks on political opponents. It was in the 4th century BC, in Athens, that Demosthenes delivered these speeches against the tyrant Philip II of Macedon, father of Alexander the Great, when Philip appeared a growing threat to Athens and its allies and Demosthenes feared his fellow citizens were set on appeasement. In what became known as The Philippics, Demosthenes tried to persuade Athenians to act against Macedon before it was too late; eventually he succeeded in stirring them, even if the Macedonians later prevailed. For these speeches prompting resistance, Demosthenes became famous as one of the Athenian democracy's greatest freedom fighters. Later, in Rome, Cicero's attacks on Mark Antony were styled on Demosthenes and these too became known as Philippics. With Paul Cartledge A. G. Leventis Senior Research Fellow at Clare College, University of Cambridge Kathryn Tempest Reader in Latin Literature and Roman History at the University of Roehampton And Jon Hesk Reader in Greek and Classical Studies at the University of St Andrews Producer: Simon Tillotson Spanning history, religion, culture, science and philosophy, In Our Time from BBC Radio 4 is essential listening for the intellectually curious. In each episode, host Melvyn Bragg and expert guests explore the characters, events and discoveries that have shaped our world.

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the speeches that became a byword for fierce attacks on political opponents. It was in the 4th century BC, in Athens, that Demosthenes delivered these speeches against the tyrant Philip II of Macedon, father of Alexander the Great, when Philip appeared a growing threat to Athens and its allies and Demosthenes feared his fellow citizens were set on appeasement. In what became known as The Philippics, Demosthenes tried to persuade Athenians to act against Macedon before it was too late; eventually he succeeded in stirring them, even if the Macedonians later prevailed. For these speeches prompting resistance, Demosthenes became famous as one of the Athenian democracy's greatest freedom fighters. Later, in Rome, Cicero's attacks on Mark Antony were styled on Demosthenes and these too became known as Philippics. With Paul Cartledge A. G. Leventis Senior Research Fellow at Clare College, University of Cambridge Kathryn Tempest Reader in Latin Literature and Roman History at the University of Roehampton And Jon Hesk Reader in Greek and Classical Studies at the University of St Andrews Producer: Simon TillotsonSpanning history, religion, culture, science and philosophy, In Our Time from BBC Radio 4 is essential listening for the intellectually curious. In each episode, host Melvyn Bragg and expert guests explore the characters, events and discoveries that have shaped our world.