Acts 17:20,21

"For thou bringest certain strange things to our ears: we would know therefore what these things mean. (Now all the Athenians and the strangers sojourning there spent their time in nothing else, but either to tell or to hear some new thing)"Now" This is. statement that Luke adds to help the reader understand the state of mind that existed in Athens. "Spent their time in nothing else, but either to tell or to hear some new thing" This verse balances the statements just made by these Athenians. Luke is informing us that they were not as receptive as their question seems to indicate. They were not interested in the gospel because it was the truth, but rather because it was something they had not heard before. The Athenians were infected with the craving to hear something "new" or "novel". This was more important to them than hearing something important or truthful. "The Athenians themselves admitted this; the orator Demosthenes, for example, four hundred years earlier, had reproached them for going about asking if there was any fresh news in. day when Philip of Macedon's rise to power presented. threat which called for deeds, not words" (Bruce p. 352).

Many people in the religious world, and unfortunately some professed Christians are infected with the same attitude. What is important to them is not the truth, but what is the latest fad or teaching. "Such an attitude leads men to regard anything old as obsolete and worth little. People with such. philosophy will have. difficult time being interested in the everlasting Gospel (which does not change) for any length of time" (Reese p. 626). The advocates of the New Hermeneutic are spiritual brothers with those in Athens, because they too are not content with the simple truth that remains unchanged (Matthew 24:35), but insist upon always finding some "new" truth. At some point in life "religious" people make. decision to pursue truth or novelty. Like some people today, the Athenians had made "study" and learning its own religion, rather than realizing that the object of all learning should be to come to. knowledge of the truth, so that one can find favor with God (1 Timothy 2:4; John 8:32). Like many of the "learned" among us today, the Athenians could have informed you concerning hundreds of different views. They were probably full of quotes, speculations and stories, but one thing they could not tell you. "What is God like and how do. have favor with Him?" They remind us of Paul's statement concerning certain individuals, "always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth" (2 Timothy 3:7).