Thursday
Thursday
Paul in Athens
While Paul was waiting for them [Silas and Timothy] in Athens, he was greatly distressed to see that the city was full of idols.
Acts 17:16
There is something enthralling about Paul in Athens, the great Christian apostle alone amid the glories of ancient Greece. As he walked through the city he was “greatly distressed” or “provoked” (RSV) by the idolatry he saw. It is the very verb used in the Septuagint of God’s reaction to idolatry. Athenian idols aroused in Paul deep stirrings of jealousy for the name of God. So he reasoned in the synagogue and in the marketplace with those who were there. Then a group of Epicurean and Stoic philosophers began to dispute with him. One cannot help admiring how versatile Paul was in sharing the gospel with different kinds of people. His dialogue with the philosophers led to an invitation to address the world-famous, supreme council of Athens, the Areopagus.
Paul took as his text or point of contact the altar he had found inscribed “to an unknown god.” He claimed to proclaim to them the god they ignorantly worshiped. Paul then portrayed him as the Creator of the universe, the Lord of heaven and earth; as the Sustainer of life who therefore does not need to be sustained; as the Ruler of nations, determining their times and places; as the Father of human beings, whose offspring we are (as the Stoic philosopher Aratus had said); and as the Judge of the world, who has overlooked past ignorance but now commands everybody everywhere to repent, having appointed the Judge and raised him from the dead. Some jeered; others believed.
It is the comprehensiveness of Paul’s message that is impressive. He proclaimed God in his fullness as Creator, Sustainer, Ruler, Father, and Judge. All this is part of the gospel, or, at least, the necessary prolegomena to the gospel. Many people are rejecting our gospel today, not because they perceive it to be false, but because they perceive it to be trivial. They are looking for an integrated worldview that makes sense of all their experience. We learn from Paul that we cannot preach the gospel of Jesus without the doctrine of God, or the cross without the creation, or salvation without judgment, or vice versa. Today’s world needs a bigger gospel, the full gospel of Scripture, what Paul later in Ephesus was to call “the entire plan of God” (20:27 NAB).
For further reading: Acts 17:22–31