Jeremy Duncan: I think sometimes we imagine that precision is what matters most to God. When very clearly throughout the scriptures, it is our intent that seems to rule the day. Theological precision in the pursuit of power will have you no closer to the divine. But what I see is that fumbling around on borrowed land, that will bring you to the very presence of God. Well, welcome to church.
Welcome back to the second week of our new series, our first series of 2026. Hopefully, you're starting to settle in for the New Year just a little bit. But I will be honest here. The New Year is not always that big reset in my calendar it's made out to be. Perhaps like many of you, like a lot of the parents in the room, September is really what feels like the start of a New Year.
However, there is something maybe magical about January. Even if it's arbitrary and a little bit artificial, it is that chance to sort of evaluate and recapitulate and make sure we're pointed where we want to go in the year ahead. And so, today, we are gonna continue our conversation about creativity. Last week, we looked at how to be more creative with our technology. And today, we're gonna talk about how to be more creative with our spirituality.
However, right after this series, we're gonna turn our attention to the book of Ephesians. And we're gonna spend a few weeks there. But to start the year, particularly with everything we're seeing happen south of the border right now, more pain we've seen this week, More propagandized narrative that floods our imagination with the thrill of violence. I wanna flip there just for a second because this is what the apostle Paul writes for us in Ephesians three. I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have the power together with the Lord's holy people to grasp just how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ.
To know the love that surpasses all knowledge so that you might be filled to the measure with the fullness of God. Now, I don't know if you caught this, but did you hear what power Paul wants for us as followers of Christ? Because it wasn't political, and it wasn't economic, and it wasn't the power to fire your boss or make your kids behave. It certainly was not the power to force others to conform to your or our will. It was the power to grasp just how large the love of Christ really is.
That's what Paul prays for us. Can you imagine if that was the only power that we aspired to this year? If that power was what drove the Christian agenda in the world, the power to understand the surpassing love of Christ, the invitation to be radically transformed by that, Ours is not a particularly pragmatic faith. It shouldn't make that much sense politically. It should not find itself comfortably wed to power because the path of peace is always the alternative to empire.
And it is the path that calls us to be truly creative in how we lay down our power in exchange for surpassing love. Today, we're gonna look at a passage where Paul speaks at the Europagus in Athens, and we're gonna set ourselves up for a year where we are gonna take some really big swings. We're gonna try some really creative things together in the next twelve months. But maybe the most creative thing we can do in 2026, the most important thing to focus our imagination on this year is just how grand the love of God is for absolutely everyone we encounter. That might actually change how we participate in the world around us this year.
Last week, we did a sermon. It was about technology. Actually, one of my favorites that I've been able to do lately. So if you missed it, please check it out in the archives either on YouTube or, of course, on our podcast. But to start, let's pray together.
God of love, the one in whom we live and move and have our being. As we begin this year together, we confess how easily our imaginations get crowded. How noise and urgency and the illusion of control capture us. And so we pause now. To breathe, to settle our hearts, to remember that before we do anything for you, we are already held by you.
And, we ask that you would root us and establish us in love, not a love that we have to earn though. Not one we have to explain or defend, but instead a love that is wider than our certainty and deeper than our doubts. As we turn our attention now to our spirituality, We pray that you would loosen our grip on precision where it's become a substitute for trust and free us from the anxiety of getting it all right. Instead, teach us to seek you, to reach out for you, to grope our way towards you with genuine curiosity and creativity this year. In the strong name of the risen Christ we pray.
Amen. Alright. How to be more creative with our spirituality. Today, we'll cover introductions, insults, confusion, and a bit of common ground. But we're looking at a story where Paul heads into some unfamiliar territory to share good news.
And every time I read this story, it reminds me of, well, just what it's like being a pastor. For example, I play hockey, not particularly well, but I do enjoy it. And there's a group of guys here at the church that I play regularly with. But every once in a while, I get a chance to jump in on another team with a friend if they need a skater. I got a chance to do that this week, which is always a lot of fun.
However, one of the things that I always dread when I'm in a locker room with a bunch of guys I've never met is when someone inevitably turns to me and says, so, what do you do? And it's not because I'm ashamed of what I do. I love what I do. It's just that I wanna ease people into that slowly. Finding out someone you're talking to is a minister is like getting into a pool.
You wanna go slow. You don't wanna jump in. That can be a little bit shocking. And you can see it. As soon as you tell someone, all of a sudden, they're running through their mind thinking about everything they've said in the past few minutes.
Have they said anything offensive? Do they want to say something offensive now? Maybe it wouldn't be so bad if I didn't look like this, but in their heads, I know they're like, man, this guy is serious. He stole that whole man's flow word for word, bar for bar. Still, I think it all is all worth it because I can definitely identify with Paul I think it's a little bit dragged here in Athens.
This is what happens in Acts 17. While Paul was waiting in Athens, he reasoned in the synagogue with both Jews and Godfaring Greeks, as well as in the marketplace day by day with those who happened to be there. A group of Epicurean and stoic philosophers began to debate with him. So them asked, what is this babbler even trying to say? Others remarked, he seems to be advocating foreign gods.
They said this because Paul was preaching the good news about Jesus and the resurrection. So they took him and they brought him to a meeting at the Europagus, where they said to him, may we know this new teaching you are presenting? You're bringing some strange ideas to our ears. We'd like to know what they mean. You see, all the Athenians and all the foreigners who lived there spent their time doing nothing but talking about and listening to the latest ideas.
So Paul stood up in the meeting of the Europagus, and he said, people of Athens, I see that in every way, you're very religious. Now we'll look at what Paul says here because it's pretty interesting. At first, there's actually a lot to unpack in this opening scene. First, the Europagus, sometimes known as Mars Hill. That was a site in Athens where people would come to publicly debate ideas.
And if you've ever been to London or Hyde Park, Speaker's Corner, you'll have a pretty good idea of what this was like in Athens, a public space for public debate. How does something like that come about? Well, the term Aerobagus is actually a contraction of the Greek phrase, Erios Pegos. And that meant Ares Rock. And if you remember your Greco Roman mythology, Ares was the Greek god of war, whom the Romans then renamed Mars.
And so, Ares Rock becomes Mars Hill. Now, what does Mars Hill have to do with debate? Well, in Greek mythology, this site is where the god Ares slash Mars was put on trial by the other gods for killing Poseidon's son. And it was therefore used by the people of Athens to hold court for their trials. It was later the site on which the Athenian council would meet to make decisions long before the establishment of the Roman senate.
Now, by the time that Paul is there, Athens has been long conquered by Rome. So none of that legal framework for Mars Hill exists anymore. But in its place, has developed this sort of social phenomenon of public debate on Mars Hill. And so, when these philosophers want to take Paul to Mars Hill, the Europagus, to hear what he has to say, This just isn't an invitation to share his thoughts. This is a challenge for a top public debate in front of the intelligentsia of the city.
In some ways, they're looking for their chance to shut him down, maybe even humiliate him a little bit in public. And you can hear that. Right? In their language. They say, what is this babbler even trying to say?
And since we're here, kind of interesting that we just came from the story of Babel last week. But in the Hebrew scriptures, it is Babylon that conquers the nations of Israel and Judah. And in Akkadian, Babylon, Babylou meant the gate of the gods. That's how the Babylonian empire saw themselves. That's how all empires see themselves actually.
They were the dominant force in Mesopotamia. They were the ones who built all those ziggurat brick towers just like we saw in the story last week. But, when the Hebrews tell the story, the city is given the name, not Babylon, but Babel or in Hebrew Baalel, which means to confuse or confound. So, story of Babel is actually an etiology for the diversity of language in the world. It's also a commentary on technology and the pursuit of efficiency that grinds human beings into the dirt.
That's what we talked about last week. It's also a mockery of the emperor of Babylon that thinks power is the access to the divine. Lots of layers in a lot of these old stories. Here, the reference to babblers is also kind of fascinating. The Greek term is sperma logos.
And when you hear that, you might think of the logos, the divine name given to Jesus. You might also think of sperm. Actually, neither of those apply in this circumstance. The terms are sperma, which meant seed, and legao, which means to speak. And, actually, the meaning of the compound word is a seed picker.
Image here is actually a bird going around pecking at the ground trying to find a seed, a bit of food. And the idea behind this in Greek was someone who had found the seed of an idea, but they don't really understand it. They're just parroting ideas they stumble across. They're seed pickers. One of my favorite translations that's been suggested for this line is, what is this bird brain talking about?
Interesting because it's not a very good literal translation, but it actually does a wonderful job of getting the idea of the insult across and at the same time rooting it in the etymology of the snub, which is kinda cool. By the way, since we're here, we're talking about being creative with our spirituality. Here's a tip. Sometimes we have to stop being so literal. Meaning is carried in the nuance of how we speak, not just the dictionary definitions of our words.
You know that instinctively, when I speak to you, you watch my body language and you hear my inflection. All of that is the part of the meaning that's conveyed when I talk. But all of that is going on in scripture as well. The problem, of course, is that we don't have access to it. We can't see the disdain in the face of these philosophers as they talk to Paul.
What we can do though is try to be creative when we read. To wonder what it might have felt like to be there in that moment. What would it feel like to be a philosopher in your hometown when this weirdo shows up talking nonsense? Would you be threatened by that? What would it feel like to be Paul in a new town with no friends, trying to learn the custom of Athens, while at the same time share with them this story he thinks that's important?
Would you welcome that challenge? One of the best ways you can engage scripture is simply to slow down and ask yourself those kinds of questions as you read. And by the way, if you say to yourself, well, I don't know how to come up with those questions. One of the ways you can spark that creativity, that curiosity, without any access to original languages is simply to look at a few different English translations, see what kind of direction and emotion they lean into when they translate. For example, I read the NIV.
That plays it pretty safe. What is this babbler trying to say? The NASB uses what could this scavenger of tidbits be trying to say? That's a little more on the nose. It's going right toward the etymology of that insult here.
Right? The message goes with might actually be my favorite. What an airhead. I mean, that's kind of delightfully silly to read in scripture, but also a pretty accurate rendering of what's going on here. Point is, these philosophers that talk to Paul, they see him as an intellectual adversary.
They see him as beneath them, boorish, uneducated. What they want is to bring him out in public to expose him. Here's a sidebar. How many times have you and I almost ignored an idea because it came from somewhere we didn't expect? Someone new to town, someone new to our company, someone with a led to education than us.
I'll be honest. I love my degrees. I worked really hard for them. But I'll tell you what. I know they are at times a bit of a liability because sometimes I have to actively fight the instinct to dismiss ideas and interpretations, perspectives that don't line up with what I've already decided.
After all, I can tell myself I've got papers on the wall to tell me I know what I'm talking about. Easy to just push that aside. And actually, here's one. Last week, I joked about my five year old daughter scolding me to put my phone away. She was right, by the way.
But some of the most humbling, instructive, important moments for me over the past twelve years have been the moments where I've had to go back to my kids and say, I'm sorry. You were right. I didn't have all the information. I jumped to conclusions. I will do better in the future.
For the record, I imagine that only gets harder and more humbling the older that they get, but I try to tell myself I'm here for all of that. Because I want to learn regardless of where those lessons come from, even if it means they have to come from a bird brain like Paul. So here's Paul. Stoics and the Epicureans wanna debate him. He steps to the stage, and this is what he says.
Paul then stood in the meeting of the Europochos and said, people of Athens, I see that in every way, you are very religious. As I walked around and I looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription, to an unknown god. You're ignorant to the very thing that you worship. And this is what I'm gonna proclaim to you. The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord and heaven and earth does not live in temples built by human hands.
He's not served by human hands as if he needed anything. Rather, he gives himself he gives everyone life and breath and everything else. From one man, he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth. And he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. God did this so they would seek him, perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he's not far from any of us.
For in him, we live and move and have our being. As some of your own poets have said, we are his offspring. First, let's talk about this altar to the unknown god. There's actually a couple possibilities here. The ancient historian Jerome actually records a statue presumably in Athens with the inscription to the gods of Asia, Europe, and Africa to the unknown and foreign gods.
Could be Paul is referring to that specific historic inscription or something like it. We also know there was a practice in Athens of maintaining and repairing old shrines. Some were even brought to Athens for that purpose. So it could be also that this is a reference not to a shrine dedicated to the unknown gods, but to a restored shrine that had been cleaned up and repaired, but was nonetheless unidentifiable, and so it had simply been labeled to an unknown god. Either way, what's interesting about this is that despite philosopher's apparent disdain for Paul, the city of Athens itself seemed to have a strong tradition of welcoming different perspectives.
At the very least, of celebrating the attempt to know God. And Paul opens, not by denigrating that openness, but by recognizing this pursuit itself is the start of divine knowledge. I wanna tell you a different story. This one comes from the Hebrew scriptures, way back in the book of second Kings. There's a man named Naaman, and he's the favorite general of the king of Aram.
And, sadly, he contracts leprosy, and no one can help him. But Naaman knows this Israelite woman, and she's told him stories about her God. So he asked permission of his king to go talk to the king of Israel. Now the king of Aram agrees, sends him with a royal letter and a bunch of gold and silver to pay the God of Israel to heal his general. When he gets there, king of Israel is like, I don't know what I'm supposed to do for you.
I can't fix you. Get out of here. Thankfully, the prophet Elisha hears about this, and he sends a messenger telling Naaman to come and see him. But when Naaman packs up and heads over to Elisha's, Elisha is a really busy guy that day. And so instead of meeting with Naaman, he just sends a servant of his with a message, go cleanse yourself in the Jordan River and you'll be healed.
Now, Naaman thinks this is silly. But one of his servants is like, listen, we have come this far. We've traveled all this way. It's not gonna hurt to take a bath. You probably smell bad anyway.
Let's just do this. And so he does, and of course, he's healed. So Naaman wants to go back to Elisha to say thank you. He tries to give him all the gold that he's brought from the king, but the prophet rebuffs the offer, says I don't need any payment. And so Naaman asked for something.
He asked for some dirt. In fact, as much dirt as he can carry with the two mules that he's got with him. His plan is he's gonna take that dirt back to Aram. He's gonna make his own personal plot of holy land where he will worship the Lord. Now, Elisha thinks this is a great idea.
So he says, sure. But as he's about to leave, Naaman has one more request for the prophet. First Kings five eighteen, he says, may the Lord forgive your servant for this one thing. When my master enters the temple of Rimon, that's Aram's god. But when he enters the temple to bow down and he's leaning on my arm, I'm gonna have to bow there also.
And when I bow down in the temple of another god, will the Lord God Yahweh forgive your servant for this? And this is where Elisha has finally had enough. This foreigner wants healing. He wants your dirt. He wants permission to bow down before other gods.
Elisha blows a gasket. Get out of here, you dirty evil wicked Amorite heathen. Well, not exactly. What Elisha says here is go in peace. And what do these two stories have in common?
It appears to me at least that what they tell us is that the God of the Bible has a lot more grace for our spiritual confusion than we sometimes have for each other. That God, in fact, knows we are often confused. That for the most part, God knows we are spiritually impoverished. That God accepts that a great deal of our spiritual lives will be muddling through and doing our best while leaning on grace to carry us. I think sometimes we imagine that precision is what matters most to God.
When very clearly throughout the scriptures, it is our intent that seems to rule the day. Theological precision in the pursuit of power will have you no closer to the divine. But what I see is that fumbling around on borrowed land, that will bring you to the very presence of God. Another story. My kids have made great friends with this family that lives near us.
In fact, they live right across the alley behind us. And that means that the group of them are back and forth between the houses multiple times a day. What's interesting is that this family is Muslim. And that means that when all the kids are over at our house and we bring out anything to eat, the kids, they may not old enough to know all the rules, but they are old enough to know they have to ask if the food is halal. I don't always know.
Sometimes I gotta Google it. But we do make our best to make sure it's all above board for them. What's been really interesting to watch is how my kids have started to take the initiative for their friends. So rather than grabbing snacks from the cupboard and watching their friends see if they can partake, what my kids will now do is ask if something is halal from Rachel and I before they even bring it out in front of their And actually, it works both ways because my kids have their own dietary restrictions. They're vegetarian, and I've been able to watch our neighbors take the same initiative to make sure that my kids have options lined up with their convictions at their house.
Honestly, it's quite lovely to watch all these kids looking out for each other in this very simple and yet profound way. Now as a Christian, do I think that any of these dietary restrictions on either side of the aisle actually really matter to God all that much? Objectively, I'd say no. In the words of Acts ten fifteen, do not call anything impure that God has made clean. Subjectively though, I think God is deeply pleased to watch these kids care for each other, look out for each other, respect the convictions of the other.
And that that's where Paul starts on Mars Hill. I can see you're very religious. I can tell you take all of this seriously. As a Hebrew, it all seems kind of absurd to me just as my ideas do to you, but the very fact that you have a statue to an unknown god tells me this. You are as interested in finding God as I am.
Except here's the thing. God is not made. God made us. God is creator. Therefore, God can't be found through what's been made, can't be found through any of these statues.
In fact, you already know this because here's the thing. I've read your poets. I've been learning from your wisdom. In God, we live and move and have our being. That's your Cretian philosopher, Epimenides.
Right? We are God's offspring. That's your Sicilian stoic, Aratus, isn't it? See, what's interesting is that the philosophers want to debate faith with this bird brained fool who's wandered into town. Paul, though, he's not interested in any of that.
And so immediately, when they offer him the stage, he flips the script. I'm not here to find our differences. I'm here because I'm searching for common ground. Debate is what pulls us apart. Conversation, creativity, that's when we start with what we share, and we build bridges toward where we can move together.
Now, hear me. Is that because Paul doesn't really have convictions that are too strong, or he doesn't think their differences matter all that much? No. Paul is absolutely going to try to convince these folks to see the way the world he does. He just knows instinctively that if they can start with what they share and build from there, then eventually, when they do reach where they disagree, well, maybe there'll be enough tether.
An adequate relationship, enough trust to actually hold them together even in their disagreement. Because just like my kids, once we care for each other, once we understand each other, once we are committed to looking out for each other regardless of our difference, what we ultimately find is that, honestly, we're all just muddling our way through this thing we call faith, and the best way that we can do that is together. See, if we want to get creative about our spirituality this year, here's the shift we have to start to make. Conviction, disagreement, difference, even debate. None of those things are bad.
In fact, they all have an incredibly important place to play in our lives. But a truly creative spirituality, a generative faith starts not with where we can eke out a win, but from the place of searching out our common ground with those near us, building bridges that allow our differences to actually be held in relationship. Now, does that mean if you do it this way, eventually, you're gonna get your way, and in the end, everyone will agree with you? No. This is not the way to win friends and influence people.
This isn't about strategy. It's about shaping our spirituality in the generous grace of the God who understands just how deep our spiritual confusion runs. Who knows that sometimes we simply need some borrowed ground to pray on, and who reminds us just how wide the river of grace really is for all of us. Because if we can start with that kind of creativity, common ground that builds bridges, that point us toward relationships we can't even understand yet, We might just find that what we believe looks a lot more like the God we want to follow. Let's pray.
God, we are so grateful for this new season ahead, for all the challenges and the opportunities that 2026 will present for us as a church and for us as individuals, for all the conversations and the debates and the opportunities to hold our convictions intention that this year will bring us. But God, we pray that your spirit would be near to each of us so that we might have the creativity to do that in the model that you've already offered us. One that begins with what we share. One that leans into our best intentions. And one that trusts that if we offer grace to each other the way that you have offered grace to us, we can actually build relationships and forge bonds that will allow us to search you out together.
May that be the creativity that drives us in this new year, and may it draw us all the way back to you. In the strong name of the risen Christ, we pray. Amen. Hey Jeremy here and thanks for listening to our podcast. If you're intrigued by the work that we're doing here at Commons, you can head to our website commons.church for more information.
You can find us on all of the socials commonschurch. You can subscribe to our YouTube channel, where we are posting content regularly for the community. You can also join our Discord server. Head to commons.churchdiscord for the invite, and there you will find the community having all kinds of conversations about how we can encourage each other to follow the way of Jesus. We would love to hear from you.
Anyway, thanks for tuning in. Have a great week. We'll talk to you soon.