How did Paul address the philosophers of Athens?

Today Bible Study:

How did Paul address the philosophers of Athens?

In preaching to them Jesus and the resurrection, Paul was brought to the Areopagus (Acts 17:19). This was a court named for the hill on which it once met. Paul was not being formally tried; only being asked to defend his teaching.

Paul immediately mentioned the inscription on one other object of worship: TO THE UNKNOWN GOD. The Athenians were supernaturalists—they believed in supernatural powers that intervened in the course of natural laws. They at least acknowledged the existence of someone beyond their ability to understand who had made all things. Paul thus had the opportunity to introduce them to the Creator-God who could be known. When evangelizing pagans, Paul started from creation, the general revelation of God (14:15–17). When evangelizing Jews, he started from the Old Testament (vv. 10–13).

Declaring to them the “God, who made the world” (v. 24) flatly contradicted both the Epicureans, who believed matter was eternal and therefore had no creator, and the Stoics, who as pantheists believed God was part of everything and could not have created Himself. And adding that “He has made from one blood every nation of men” (v. 26) also confronted them directly. All men are equal in God’s sight since all came from one man, Adam. This teaching was a blow to the national pride of the Greeks, who believed all non-Greeks were barbarians. “And has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings.” God sovereignly controls the rise and fall of nations and empires (Dan. 2:36–45; Luke 21:24). God is responsible for establishing nations as to their racial identity and their specific geographical locations (Deut. 32:8) and determining the extent of their conquests (Is. 10:12–15).

God’s objective for man in revealing Himself as the creator, ruler, and controller of the world was that they “should seek the Lord” (v. 27). Men have no excuse for not knowing about God because He has revealed Himself in man’s conscience and in the physical world (Rom. 1:19, 20; 2:15).

©BY PASTOR JUDAH OLATUNDE