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Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
What's going on, guys? Welcome back to another episode of the Bryce Carver Podcast. I'm Bryce, and today, by the title of the episode, you can tell this is my biggest warning to the American church.
Chapter 2: What is Bryce's biggest warning to Christians?
This is my biggest warning to you guys and what I believe that in this passage of scripture that we're going to talk about is so important. And so if you have your Bibles, I want you to turn to Acts chapter 17. I pray that you are all doing well and feeling excited and feeling good. Now, I want to address Acts 17 because I believe that this passage is very applicable to the 21st century.
And this is the beauty of scriptures. We have this transcendent piece of literature that has impacted generations before us, is impacting a generation now, and will continue to impact generations after us. So this thing doesn't have to change or adapt to society. Rather, we should change.
understand how God has originally designed us to be now in this passage we see what's going on in the chapter 17 Paul's going to Thessalonica then he's going to Berea then he's going to Athens okay so Paul is preaching in Athens to the epicureans and the stoic philosophers and these guys are like yo you got to talk to the Aeropagus now I think this is so important so
What's going on is Paul has now been to a city, which is Athens, who he saw a city full of idols. So he goes to Athens and there's a bunch of false gods there. And he's talking to the Epicureans and the Stoic philosophers. Now, the Epicureans and the Stoics were slightly different. You see, the Epicureans, they wanted to solely pursue pleasure, and we'll get back to that.
The Epicureans were so focused on pleasure. Now, the Stoics, on the other hand, they were deeply moral, sincere people. They had moral dignity. They wanted everyone to be a quote-unquote good moral person, but they believed that God was everything and God was in everything. And so it's so fascinating. And now we get to here where they tell him, they're like, oh, you got to go to the Aeropagus.
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Chapter 3: How does Acts 17 relate to modern Christianity?
And so Paul goes to the Aeropagus and he begins to preach this message in verse 22. So Paul, standing in the midst of the Aeropagus, said, Men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious. For as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship, I also found... So Paul is acknowledging that these guys are quote-unquote religious people. Let's stop right there.
I think we've got a lot of religious people in America, but we don't have lovers of Jesus. We've got a lot of people that are worshiping a whole lot of other things. that want to be a good moral person, or maybe they're pursuing pleasure like the Epicurean. We got a whole lot of religious people, but not enough laid down lovers for Jesus, people that want intimate relationship with Jesus.
So is that fascinating? You know, so many times we hear, oh, I'm not religious, I'm not religious, I'm not this. And look, again, like, Christianity is a religion. Religion means to bind yourself with someone. So yes, I want to bind myself with Christ. Yes, I am a Christian by religion, but there is this aspect of relationship that comes with Jesus.
And he says, look, you guys are religious people, but you guys are following the wrong thing. You know, it's fascinating because even when we read in Proverbs, I think it's chapter seven or eight, and it talks about the seductive woman, the adulteress, sexual immorality, that imagery. The lady was like, I went to the temple and I did sacrifices today. you know, in that passage.
And it's implying like, hey, you know, there's people that claim to be religious, but they're not following Jesus. And so that's important. But he says, look, I found an altar to this particular God that they named the unknown God that you guys are worshiping. And he said, what therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. And this is what he says.
The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. So let's stop right there. So now Paul is saying, look, this God that you guys have as the unknown God as an option over here as an altar,
This guy, let me put some definition to him. The reason why you guys have him labeled an unknown God is because what these guys would do, all the idols they were built, is they're trying to conceptualize and confine God into an image so that they can tangibly go, oh, that's God, that's God, that's God. And Paul's like, no, no, no, God is far bigger than what you can creatively imagine God to be.
And I think that sometimes, unintentionally, we put God in a box. We think, oh, God doesn't heal today, or oh, no, God wouldn't do that. Or we say, oh, that's not loving. How do we know what the definition of, you see what I'm saying? Like, it's God is love. God is truth. God has always existed. He has never been created. Rather, he has always existed, and all things created have come from him.
And so this God that we worship in Christianity is far bigger than we conceptualize. He's like, look, you guys are trying so hard to fit God into this box or into this idol, but you guys have an altar to an unknown God. Let me tell you who he is. And so that's what he's describing. He's saying Yahweh, this God, or in their terms, the unknown God, which would be Yahweh, has created all things.
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Chapter 4: What are the differences between Epicureans and Stoics?
And then he says he doesn't live in temples made by man, meaning you can't conceptualize him. Meaning, not only is it that they are doing an injustice by trying to form God into some sort of image that they can worship, but rather they're saying this unknown God that they so worship actually gives life to everything, breath to everything, purpose to everything.
And then it says, 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, 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, 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. So he is now quoting not scripture, he's quoting God. some of the philosophers at that time, because they would understand, because there was truth in these statements that he could use to compel in a way that they could understand.
Verse 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. Again, he's saying you can't form God into an image. You can't confine him to an image. The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he 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. And then it says when they heard some of it said that they'll read about it. Some of them gave their life to Jesus and others of them mocked them. What is the point I'm getting to on this?
Athens was a very wealthy and flourishing city. Athens was a very successful city. Athens had a lot of intellectuals in there. But what is the common denominator? in Athens at the time period is that it was a godless city. What do you mean? There were gods everywhere. They were worshiping things and they were religious people. No, no, no, no, no. The true God, they were a godless city.
And my big warning to America is that we are living in a time where we're worshiping AI or celebrities or people or money or status or all of these things rather than Jesus. And we claim Christianity as a label or a tag, but we don't fully follow him. The Bible says in Revelation 3, Do not be lukewarm in your faith, neither cold nor hot, for I will vomit you out of my mouth.
You know, we talk about lukewarmness as if it's a thing, but really what the Bible is saying is lukewarmness is a deception of the devil to make people think that they're right with God just by doing enough. or thinking that they can get enough of Jesus where they're holy in his eyes and get enough of the world where they can feel fine. Lukewarmness really doesn't exist.
Satan owns the fence of lukewarmness. So either you love Jesus or you don't. And if you're lukewarm, you're really of the devil. And so we live in America right now where a lot of people claim lukewarmness or they worship other things. And I think we're worshiping other things than this unknown God. And the unknown God would be Jesus Christ. We're not worshiping him.
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Chapter 5: What does Paul say to the Athenians about their worship?
And so we have known very quickly that our vices aren't filling us and our vices aren't helping us. So if we know that, Why do we keep turning back to them rather than Jesus? Why do we keep worshiping the other idols rather than God himself? Because we think for some reason that we can find hope in them. A little side note according to Acts 17.
Let's talk about the Stoics because everyone wants to be a good person. Everyone wants to be a moral good person. Again, he is fighting the current to the Stoics by saying you can't be a moral good person if you don't have a standard to get the morality from. And our standard is Yahweh himself. Therefore, if you have no standard and you want to be a quote-unquote good person...
then actually your life has no purpose and meaningless, and rather there is no moral standard at all, but feelings and feelings fluctuate. So my question to you across the screen right now, or whether you're watching or listening, is what are you living for? What are you worshiping?
Don't be like the Epicureans and the Stoics or the people in Athens who are distracted by wealth, who are distracted by things, who are distracted by materialistic idols and things like that. You know, like our idols today aren't necessarily, you know, like a statue that we image like a golden calf. You know, there are religions that still do that.
But still, our version of idol worship in America is not bowing down to a golden calf. Our version of idol worship is bowing down to the media, bowing down to celebrities, bowing down to things, bowing down to money, bowing down to food, bowing down to sex, bowing down to all these things. And you know what I'm really scared of? You know what I'm really scared for, Americans?
It is so hard to hear God in America because we are distracted by a lullaby of entertainment. We're distracted by a lullaby of lies. I got so convicted by two things. There was a documentary on the underground church of Iran called Sheep Among Wolves. It's on YouTube. It's free.
And this lady who could be beaten, raped, and murdered for her faith said that after a certain amount of time that they would move back to the States and retire in California. So they get done. Her and her husband moved to the States.
And in less than five years, they moved back to Iran where she could be beaten, raped, and murdered for her faith because she said it was unbearable to live in America. And that makes me go, wow, that's interesting because we're a country of a freedom of religion. So shouldn't it be easier to worship Jesus? And she said, no, it was harder because she said that phrase.
America is being rocked to sleep by a lullaby of entertainment. And that shocked me to the core years ago. And then recently I've become friends with a guy named Charles who's from Nairobi, Kenya. And we were sitting down one night while we were on our tour bus doing our live podcast tour. And he said, you know, Bryce, it is so hard to hear God in America. And I was like, wow, that's interesting.
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