Paul's Visit to Athen's

Acts 17: 1-5,

How the City of Thessalonica Responded to the Gospel

 Some of them believed the gospel and became devote Greeks, some were envious, some threw an uproar and were very upset about the teachings they rioted the whole city together to throw out Acts and his followers, they wanted nothing to do with his teachings and did want to hear about Christ. Overall this city was very unaccepting of Christ and hardened their hearts and refused to listen.

Acts 17: 10-15

The City Bera

 This group of people was almost the exact opposite of the previous city mentioned. They loved the prophets and what they taught, they opened their hearts to his teachings they were thirsty for his teachings, they were ready for it and loved reading the scriptures. This group of people sounded like every missionaries dream, many of them believed his teachings, changed their lives and were baptized. But however as soon as the Jews heard that they were preaching again and chased them out of that city too. Overall the city was very positive in accepting the gospel.

The difference between these two cities is that Bera, the second city, searched the scriptures! They listened to the prophets with an open heart, compared to Thessolonica that didn’t want to hear anything from the scriptures and hardened their hearts against everything they taught.

How Scripture Study Affects Us

2 Nephi 32:3 we learn that through the scriptures Christ tells us what we need to be doing with our lives and how we should be doing it. Scripture study in this sense helps lead us and guide us in our lives through the Holy Ghost we can learn of things that we need to be doing, and the spirit can testify of people that we need to help, or things that we need to improve on in our lives. If we aren’t reading our scriptures we won’t have that guidance and we will be missing opportunities to learn and ways to improve our lives. 2 Nephi 33:10 teaches us to believe in Christ and to believe in his words, which are the scriptures, and if we believe his words and study them, they will teach us that good comes from God, and that we need to be doing good things. If we aren’t studying our scriptures we wouldn’t know of the good that God is and teaches, we would be relying on the world to teach us, and the worlds teachings is opposite of God’s teachings. Alma 31:5, the preaching of the word had a greater effect on them then the sword.

Epicureans and Stoics: Epicureans believed that the highest level of good was achieved through whatever made you the happiest, or whatever caused a person the least amount of sorrow. There was no greater entity then man, what man worked for was what he got. Stoics believed in a divine power over them, a true stoic doesn’t change his conditions but he accepts them as though they are Gods doing. God has power overall.

Paul’s visit to Athens: Athenians were a free people, they lived in a free city state and were free to worship whatever gods they chose, they were under Roman rule so the majority of their gods were Roman. The people of Athens were very wise, especially their rulers, but like it says in 2^nd Nephi 9:28-29 being learned is not good if you think you are smarter than God. The people of Athens didn’t listen to Paul they thought they were to smart and noble to need to hear his teachings, this is not good. They were more worried about man’s philosophy then what God thought. Some of the false gods that we could be worshipping today could be politics, people believe more in their leaders then their god, and it distracts them from the truth, technology is a distraction, science, people believe that they are smart and that there can’t be a creator because science or technology can’t prove it.

There is a Premortal Life

In Acts 17:27 we learn that there is a premortal life and that we all lived there, it teaches us that God had a foreknowledge of us coming here to earth and that we were appointed, or foreordained to come here. In Deuteronomy 32:8 another word for “bounds” is foreordained. For us to be foreordained to come to this earth there has to be a premortal world, a place where we all knew God   before this earth."...may I ask each of you again the question, 'Who are you?' You are all the sons and daughters of God. Your spirits were created and lived as organized intelligences before the world was. You have been blessed to have a physical body because of your obedience to certain commandments in that premortal state. You are now born into a family to which you have come, into the nations through with you have come, as a reward for the kind of lives you lived before you came here and at a time in the world's history, as the Apostle Paul taught the men of Athens and as the Lord revealed to Moses, determined by the faithfulness of each of those who lived before this world was created. (Harold B. Lee CR, Oct. 1973, p. 7.) I agree with this statement. It clearly states in these scriptures, then supported by a prophet that there was a place where we all lived, where we were separated, foreordained, than came to this earth. We have all lived before and will live again after this life.

We are Children of God!

The prophet Paul states in Acts 17: 28-29 that we are the offspring of God, He is our father and we are his children. Romans 8:16-17 restates that we are in fact children of God and that we are his heirs. God cares for us and loves us, He wants to see us happy, He wants us to live this life worthy to return home to be with Him, just like in the premortal life. We can to this life to be tested and to prove that we could have the veil put over our eyes, forget Him, remember Him again and return home. He loves us that’s why we have our scriptures and modern day prophets because He wants us to succeed.

                We are more than His creation, creations are things like trees, yes God created them, but they don’t have a spirit. We are His offspring actual children of God, He is the father of our spirits. There is a purpose to this life we aren’t puppets used to entertain, there is a special role and destiny for each of us. Creations don’t have futures they are created then wither and die. That’s not how it is with humans, we already learned there is a premortal life, there is a life after this too! And we will each go there after we pass on from this life. We are heirs of Gods kingdom, there is no end spiritually.

Resurrection

                The people of Athens upon hearing about the resurrection and how Christ broke the bonds of death and will live again mocked Paul, they didn’t believe him. We know that from scripture study however that Paul was correct about the resurrection. In Matthew 27: 52 “And the graves were opened and many bodies of the saints which slept arose” Matthew witnessed himself the resurrection of bodies when Christ was resurrected. Everyone who has every lived will become resurrected, that’s part of the reason why Christ died for us because only he, Son of God, could break the bonds of death. Christ said himself in John 11:25 “ Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live.” Christ doesn’t lie and he just stated that man will live again. He is our perfect example and we are to follow him, if Jesus Christ was resurrected we too will be resurrected. The resurrection of Christ is found in the 4 gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John to read for yourself if you have any questions, and it can be studied through the topical guide under resurrection.