The Gospel in Athens – Engaging with Culture

¹⁶While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he was deeply disturbed in his spirit to see that the city was full of idols. ¹⁷So he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and God-fearing Gentiles, and in the marketplace with those he met each day. ¹⁸Some Epicurean and Stoic philosophers also began to debate with him. Some of them asked, “What is this babbler trying to say?” Others said, “He seems to be advocating foreign gods.” They said this because Paul was proclaiming the good news of Jesus and the resurrection. ¹⁹So they took Paul and brought him to the Areopagus, where they asked him, “May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? ²⁰For you are bringing some strange notions to our ears, and we want to know what they mean.” ²¹Now all the Athenians and foreigners who lived there spent their time doing nothing more than hearing and articulating new ideas. ²²Then Paul stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said, “Men of Athens, I see that in every way you are very religious. ²³For as I walked around and examined your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. Therefore what you worship as something unknown, I now proclaim to you. ²⁴The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples made by human hands. ²⁵Nor is He served by human hands, as if He needed anything, because He Himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else. ²⁶From one man He made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and He determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their lands. ²⁷God intended that they would seek Him and perhaps reach out for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us. ²⁸‘For in Him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are His offspring.’ ²⁹Therefore, being offspring of God, we should not think that the Divine Being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by man’s skill and imagination. ³⁰Although God overlooked the ignorance of earlier times, He now commands all people everywhere to repent. ³¹For He has set a day when He will judge the world with justice by the Man He has appointed. He has given proof of this to everyone by raising Him from the dead.” ³²When they heard about the resurrection of the dead, some began to mock him, but others said, “We want to hear you again on this topic.” ³³At that, Paul left the Areopagus. ³⁴But some joined him and believed, including Dionysius the Areopagite, a woman named Damaris, and others who were with them.