Athens #83

Athens, the great city of ancient Greece, was the intellectual capital of the Mediterranean world when Paul visited it around AD 50 during his second missionary journey. His time there is described in Acts 17:16-34, and it is the New Testament’s most famous example of the gospel being presented to an audience steeped in Greek philosophy and religion.

Biblical Significance

Paul came to Athens alone, waiting for Silas and Timothy to join him, and Luke says his spirit was stirred within him at seeing the city full of idols (Acts 17:16). He reasoned in the synagogue with Jews and God-fearing Gentiles, and daily in the marketplace, the agora, with anyone who happened to be there. Some Epicurean and Stoic philosophers engaged him, and several dismissed him as a “babbler,” while others thought he was announcing foreign gods because he spoke of Jesus and the resurrection (Acts 17:17-18). They brought him to the Areopagus, the council that met on or near Mars Hill, to explain his teaching (Acts 17:19-21).

Paul’s speech there is a careful example of adapting a message to an audience without altering its content. He began with an altar he had noticed inscribed “To the unknown god” and declared that the God they worshiped without knowing was the Creator, Lord of heaven and earth, who does not live in temples made by hands (Acts 17:22-25). He said God made all nations from one man, that people might seek him, and that “in him we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:26-28). Paul supported this by quoting Greek poets, and then called all people to repent because God had appointed a day of judgment through a man he had raised from the dead (Acts 17:28-31). At the mention of resurrection, some mocked, others said they would like to hear more, and a few believed, among them Dionysius, a member of the Areopagus, and a woman named Damaris (Acts 17:32-34). Paul soon left for Corinth (Acts 18:1).

Today

Athens is the capital of modern Greece, and much of the city Paul knew can still be visited. The Areopagus is a rocky hill northwest of the Acropolis, and the Ancient Agora below it has been excavated extensively since the 1930s, revealing the temples, colonnades, and civic buildings among which Paul would have walked. A bronze plaque near the Areopagus bears the text of his address. The Parthenon on the Acropolis, built in the fifth century BC, still dominates the skyline, a reminder of the religious and cultural setting in which Paul spoke.