How you listen is perhaps more important than what you hear. Classroom teachers know all too well that preparing quality lessons is only half of the educational battle – students have to engage with the subject matter by paying attention and asking questions about what they don’t understand if they are going to learn anything.
The men of Athens weren’t particularly interested in what Paul had to say about Jesus. Oh, they liked hearing and discussing new ideas (17:21), but they weren’t particularly committed to any measure of absolute truth. Instead, Paul noticed that the whole city of Athens was filled with different idols, statues of gods that represented all the same sorts of things that modern people continue to find attractive: youth, athletic prowess, musical ability, wisdom, military might, physical beauty, and power. To the worshippers of such idols, Jesus is just one more god, one more ideal from which to choose, so they don’t tend to take Him seriously.
In contrast, the people who attended the synagogue in Berea listened to Paul “with all eagerness” (17:11). Because they believed in the truth of the Old Testament Scriptures, they carefully compared what Paul told them with what the prophets had predicted about the Messiah. And because they listened so carefully and so seriously, “many of them therefore believed” (17:12).
And the same thing continues to be true today. For while many people continue to scoff at Jesus’ teachings and His exclusive claim to be the Son of God, those who really listen to Him, those who take Him seriously often find themselves convinced. Scholars from C.S. Lewis to Rosaria Butterfield and journalists from Lee Strobel to Kirsten Powers continue to find it possible to join education and curiosity with faith and piety. All it takes is an open mind, an honest examination of the facts, and a desire to learn the truth. Will we really listen to Jesus that way today?
Acts 17:10-21 (ESV)
10 The brothers immediately sent Paul and Silas away by night to Berea, and when they arrived they went into the Jewish synagogue.
11 Now these Jews were more noble than those in Thessalonica; they received the word with all eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so.
12 Many of them therefore believed, with not a few Greek women of high standing as well as men.
13 But when the Jews from Thessalonica learned that the word of God was proclaimed by Paul at Berea also, they came there too, agitating and stirring up the crowds.
14 Then the brothers immediately sent Paul off on his way to the sea, but Silas and Timothy remained there.
15 Those who conducted Paul brought him as far as Athens, and after receiving a command for Silas and Timothy to come to him as soon as possible, they departed.
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.
