Athens was the hub of a great philosophical movement that had flowered in the work of Plato and Aristotle and which was kept alive by groups such as the Epicureans and Stoics. Athens was where you came if you wanted to be schooled in the latest ideas. It was also the centre of traditional Greek religion and so philosophy and religion were in constant tension here. But now Paul enters the scene, and he has more than a new idea. He has God in him. The moment Paul opens his mouth in Athens there begins a new movement in that part of the world (which will soon, as a result, become the cradle of Christianity). Everything that these philosophers were talking about were just theories of some remote reality. But Paul’s message was more than that, it was a testimony to something that had happened and was actually happening. Paul was smart enough to meet these people in clever philosophical argument, but he doesn’t go that way (although his speech makes implicit reference to their ideas throughout). He speaks to the longing that lay beneath all the clever talk; the longing for truth. Implicitly Paul was saying that the truth of God is not something unknown that we must work to attain. God has come to us in Christ who is now working in the world. You may not be able to argue like a great philosopher, and perhaps for this reason you feel reticent to discuss your faith with others. But you actually have something more powerful than a clever argument. You are a witness to something that is actually happening.
Ask God to give you opportunities to share your faith.
Read Acts 17:16-34
