Sermon Tone Analysis

Scripture

Acts 17:

Background

EPICUREANS [ĕpˊə kyŏo rēˊənz] (Gk.

Epikoureioi).†

Members of a philosophical school founded by Epicurus (341–270 B.C.).

Epicurus taught that all reality is made up of indestructible and undifferentiated “atoms,” whose integration produces life and whose separation produces death.

He acknowledged the existence of deities and held that they were composed of atoms like all other beings and were, therefore, corporeal; they did not, however, play a role in human life.

This materialistic view of existence was intended, negatively, to free people from anxiety regarding death and the gods; death is the end of everything and, therefore, is nothing to be feared.

Zeno adapted and softened Cynic teaching, creating “a socially respectable revision of Cynic morality” (Sedley, “The School,” 12).

He borrowed heavily from Plato and Heraclitus for Stoic physics, especially their concept of a physical world that was a single, unified entity governed by an active, guiding principle that could be considered the logos/god of the world.

For Zeno, the physical world was the only thing people could truly understand, and they must assent to or challenge impressions from the world until they attain true understanding.

Stoicism

STOICS [stōˊĭks] (Gk.

Stōikoi).

The members of a philosophical school founded by Zeno of Citium (ca.

335–263 B.C.) who taught in the Stoa Poikilē (“Painted Porch”), a colonnaded building in the Agora at Athens, hence the name.

In Stoicism the primary focus is on how life is to be lived, with the attainment of virtue stressed above all.

For the Stoics, virtuous living is living in accordance with nature.

Zeno adapted and softened Cynic teaching, creating “a socially respectable revision of Cynic morality” (Sedley, “The School,” 12).

He borrowed heavily from Plato and Heraclitus for Stoic physics, especially their concept of a physical world that was a single, unified entity governed by an active, guiding principle that could be considered the logos/god of the world.

For Zeno, the physical world was the only thing people could truly understand, and they must assent to or challenge impressions from the world until they attain true understanding.

Stoics were in Paul’s audience when he spoke at Athens (Acts 17:18), and some scholars contend that the apostle himself was influenced by Stoicism.

Indeed, a keynote of Stoicism reflected in Paul’s letters is the stress on self-sufficiency, contentment in all circumstances that nature or destiny brings to an individual, and indifference to whether one is poor or wealthy, suffering or not suffering