Missional Living – The Excellent Evangelism Example (Acts 17:22-34)

²² Then Paul stood in the midst of the Areopagus and said, “Men of Athens, I perceive that in all things you are very religious; ²³ for as I was passing through and considering the objects of your worship, I even found an altar with this inscription:

TO THE UNKNOWN GOD

Therefore, the One whom you worship without knowing, Him I proclaim to you: (Acts 17:22–23, NKJV).

Paul does not begin with an indiscriminate blast of information. He has already:

• observed the city’s idolatry (Acts 17:16),
• conversed with its people (Acts 17:17–18),
• listened to their questions (Acts 17:19–21), and
• examined their objects of worship (Acts 17:23).

The altar is not genuine theological common ground so much as a conversational point of contact, something to seize as a segue to matters of salvation. Paul does not say, “You already worship my God.”

He begins with something familiar. In this way the apostle to the Gentiles shows us a gentle way of getting into spiritual conversations. Start, if
possible, where they are. But don’t stay. He takes them with him in a rational review of basic things and will eventually expose their ignorance. But these are not Jews and this is not the synagogue. By initiating conversation about Jesus with their cultural items, Paul contextualizes the presentation of the gospel.

If he had not gone any further, it would have been less truth than what is required for saving faith. Interesting banter, perhaps—but not the gospel. And so he will not stop at a point of mutual agreement for the sake of keeping the peace. That would have been a compromise of his calling to avoid conflict. He has to keep going.

He could have derided their superstition and immediately pointed them away from the foolishness of idols to the real deal. However, δεισιδαιμονεστέρους (deisidaimonesterous) can carry the sense of “very religious” or “very superstitious.” Paul’s wording is tactful enough to secure a hearing while leaving room for correction. The former would have been tacky—taking cheap shots at their culture as a way to shame them into leaving their false faith. His approach was tactful—gently guiding the listeners from their point of view into the truth.

Paul demonstrates that faithful evangelists are both tactful and truthful: they OBSERVE carefully, listen respectfully, and begin with a familiar point of contact. But they do not stop at common ground. The evangelists patiently leads people from where they are to the saving truth they do not yet know.

God, who made the world and everything in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands (Acts 17:24, NKJV).

The word translated dwell (κατοικέω, katoikeō) denotes inhabiting or dwelling. It goes beyond merely appearing somewhere temporarily to indicate living in a space as a home. Paul’s presentation of the truth about the Unknown God begins with creation:

If the God who made the world and everything in it required a temple as His residence, we would be saying that He was effectively homeless until we were created and capable of making a place for Him to live. The Unknown God is not contained within His creation—the world and everything in it — dependent upon His creatures for housing, or confined to a space made by men.

He was unafraid to compare his own knowledge of God as revealed in creation (Psalm 19:1–2) and the Scriptures (1 Kings 8:37; Isaiah 66:1-2) with what was being asserted through the practices of the Gentiles in Athens. Through their idols, temple practices, and teachings, they were making statements about the Unknown God. Paul was there to set the record straight.

Nor is He worshiped with men’s hands, as though He needed anything (Acts 17:25, NKJV).

God is not sustained by human service. The word translated worshiped (θεραπεύω, therapeuō) can mean to serve, attend, care for, or heal. In Acts 17:25, “served” or “attended” best fits the context: Paul is not teaching that human beings should never serve God. The controlling phrase is as though He needed anything. God may accept worship and service, but He is never sustained by them. The logic is devastatingly simple:

God is not the recipient of life’s necessities (Psalm 50:9-12; Micah 6:6-8). He is their source.

Paul has moved from what God does not need—a dwelling place or service—to the truth about Him: God continually gives life, breath, and all things.

²⁶ And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings, ²⁷ so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope 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 also some
of your own poets have said, “For we are also His offspring.” (Acts 17:26–28, NKJV).

Paul does not merely use cultural references to engage in polite disclosure about the One True God; he is engaged in an intentional attempt to deconstruct two dominant philosophical schools of Athens: the Epicureans and the Stoics.

1. Refuting the Epicureans—the Deistic Materialists

The Epicureans believed that if gods existed, they were distant, utterly detached from human affairs, and did not govern the world. They also believed that the soul dissolves at death, making a physical resurrection impossible.

Paul proclaims a God who created the universe and actively sustains it. He explicitly states that God is “not far from each one of us” (Acts 17:27). Further, he says that the Unknown God gives. In fact, in verse 25, Paul says that God gives (didous) to all life, breath, and all things. Didous is a present active participle. The present tense presents the action as ongoing. Paul does not say that God once gave life and then walked away. God remains the active giver of life, breath, and all things. This directly contradicts the Epicurean view of distant, unconcerned deities.

Do you see the conflict? Epicureans say that if there are gods, there are distant and detached. Paul asserts that there is really one God and that He is not far from each one of us (Acts 17:27) and actively gives to all life, breath, and all things (Acts 17:25).

2. Refuting the Stoics—the Pantheistic Fatalists

The Stoics were pantheists. They believed that “God” was an impersonal, divine spark or cosmic reason (Logos) infused throughout the material universe. To them, God was the world. They also believed in a cyclical, fatalistic universe. (That is, the Stoics believed that the universe passed through endlessly recurring cycles and that every event unfolded according to an inescapable, rationally ordered fate.) Paul agrees that humanity is dependent upon the divine, but he radically changes the relationship. God is not in the stone or identical with the cosmos. The cosmos exists within the boundaries established by a transcendent, personal Creator.

In Acts 17:28a, Paul states, “For in Him we live and move and have our being.” The apostle to the nations is quoting the 6th-century BCE Cretan religious teacher and philosopher Epimenides of Crete. The statement is traditionally attributed to the lost Cretica of Epimenides. Because the poem is no longer extant, the attribution and reconstructed surrounding lines should be presented with appropriate qualification. In Cretan mythology, King Minos addresses the supreme deity, Zeus, disputing the popular claim that Zeus had died and was buried in Crete:

They fashioned a tomb for thee, O holy and high one—
The Cretans, always liars, evil beasts, idle bellies!
But thou art not dead: thou livest and abidest for ever,
For in thee we live and move and have our being.

In its original Greek context, the line was an affirmation of pantheistic or panentheistic divine presence: God is not an idol made by hands or a dead entity trapped in a tomb, but the living sustainer of existence. (It should be noted that Paul will quote Epimenides again in Titus 1:12. In that epistle he says that he is quoting a Gentile prophet.)

He also quotes the Stoic poet Aratus of Cilicia (born 310 B.C.) from the fifth line of a work called the Phaenomena:

Let us begin with Zeus. Never, O men, let us leave him
unmentioned. All the ways are full of Zeus,
and all the market-places of human beings. The sea is full
of him; so are the harbors. In every way we have all to do with Zeus,
for we are truly his offspring.

When Paul says, as also some of your own poets have said, “For we are also His offspring” (Acts 17:28b), he quotes a line from Aratus’s Phaenomena, a poem about Zeus that would likely have been familiar to the Stoics among his hearers. The word translated we are (ἐσμέν , esmen), is the first-person plural, present active indicative form of “to be” (εἰμί, eimi). Aratus employed this language within a Stoic worldview in which divine reason permeated the material universe. Paul, however, does not use γένος (genos, “offspring”) to suggest that human beings possess a portion of God’s essence. Rather, he uses the poet’s words to affirm that all humanity owes its existence to God and therefore remains dependent upon Him. Every human being bears God’s image, but no human being shares His divine essence. Believers are personally indwelt by God the Holy Spirit and receive a new nature through regeneration, but they do not thereby become divine.

Paul demonstrates that evangelist learns the culture well enough to speak through its language, literature, and the ideas of its thought leaders. He or she can fearlessly affirm whatever truth the culture has perceived and then candidly expose where the culture is wrong; he or she will DISCERN, DELINEATE, and DECLARE. Cultural knowledge, for the evangelist, becomes a bridge and not a destination. The evangelist uses they bridges discover to lead hearers from familiar concepts to the truth of the living God and the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Therefore, since we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold or silver or stone, something shaped by art and man’s devising (Acts 17:29, NKJV).

Paul follows the quotations with verse 29: “Therefore, since we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold or silver or stone.” If we are the offspring of a personal being, God cannot be an inanimate, impersonal force or an idol carved by human hands. Paul exposes the irrationality of idolatry. The contrast between θεός (theos, “God”) and θεῖον (theion, “Divine Nature”) helps Paul move from humanity’s derivation from God to the nature of God Himself. The argument is:

1. Humanity derives its life from God.
2. Human beings possess life, reason, will, and personality.
3. Therefore, humanity cannot adequately represent its Creator as a lifeless object.
4. An idol fashioned by the creature must necessarily be inferior to both
   the creature and the Creator.

Or, in the memorable Roderick Barnes paraphrase:

“Don’t be stupid, Mr. Stoic. That don’t make no sense!”

The Stoic might immediately protest that the statue only represents the divine, Paul’s answer remains: the Divine Nature cannot be reduced to anything produced by “art and man’s devising.” Yes, “Even if pagan philosophers rationalize the images as material symbols of the invisible divinity, the great bulk of the worshipers will pay divine homage to the images themselves.” (Bruce, 1988, p. 340) These idolaters were no different from their Jewish counterparts. God forbade the making of images because fallen people would not leave them as mere representations; they eventually would bow before them, serve them, and seek from them the favor and deliverance that belong to God alone.

• Exodus 20:4–5 — God joins the prohibition against making an image with the danger of worshiping it: You shall not make for yourself a carved image…you shall not bow down to them nor serve them.
• Deuteronomy 4:15–16, 19 — Because Israel saw no visible form when God spoke, they were commanded to take careful heed to yourselves, lest you act corruptly and make for yourselves a carved image. Moses warned that they might be driven to worship them and serve them.
• Exodus 32:4–6 — Israel fashioned the golden calf, identified it with the god who delivered them, built an altar before it, and offered sacrifices to it. The image did not remain a mere religious aid; it became an object of worship.
• Isaiah 44:15–17 — A man uses part of a tree for ordinary fuel and makes the remainder into a god. He then falls down before it and worships it, prays to it and says, “Deliver me, for you are my god!” The idol becomes both the object of adoration and the source from which favor and deliverance are sought.
• Jeremiah 2:27–28 — Judah said to wood, You are my father, and to stone, You gave birth to me. Yet in trouble they called upon these gods: Arise and save us.
• Habakkuk 2:18–19 — The idolater trusts in the image he has made and appeals to it for help: Woe to him who says to wood, “Awake!” To silent stone, “Arise! It shall teach!”

³⁰ Truly, these times of ignorance God overlooked, but now commands all men everywhere to repent, ³¹ because He has appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by the Man whom He has ordained. He has given assurance of this to all by raising Him from the dead.” (Acts 17:30-31, NKJV).

Paul finally removes the philosophical gloves: The Unknown God now commands a known response. The word translated ignorance (ἄγνοια, agnoia) means ignorance or lack of knowledge. Elsewhere Scripture certainly teaches that humanity suppresses available truth (Romans 1:18–23). Paul’s emphasis here is upon the end of divine forbearance. “Overlooked” does not mean that God approved, excused, or failed to notice their idolatry. It means that He temporarily withheld the final judgment now announced through the gospel. The Unknown God has now made known:

• His command: everyone must repent.
• His scope: all people everywhere.
• His timetable: He has appointed a day.
• His standard: righteousness.
• His Judge: the Man whom He ordained.
• His assurance: He raised that Man from the dead.

The resurrection is therefore not merely evidence that Jesus lives. It is God’s public certification that Jesus Christ is the appointed Judge of humanity and the Son of the true God.

³² And when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked, while others said, “We will hear you again on this matter.” ³³ So Paul departed from among them. ³⁴ However, some men joined him and believed, among them Dionysius the Areopagite, a woman named Damaris, and others with them. (Acts 17:32-34)

Paul has presented the gospel to the Gentiles. What we see next are three responses to the offer of reconciliation.

The second response should not automatically be treated as conversion or even sincere openness. We will hear you again may represent genuine interest, procrastination, or polite dismissal. Luke carefully distinguishes these people from those who believed. Paul’s responsibility was faithful proclamation; the hearers remained responsible for their response. The apparent modesty of the results does not indicate that the evangelistic undertaking failed. Dionysius, Damaris, and others unnamed passed from worshiping what they did not know to believing in the risen Christ whom Paul proclaimed. What we are saying is this:

Paul demonstrates that effective evangelism begins where people are but does not leave them there. It moves from the familiar to the Creator, from the Creator to human accountability, from accountability to repentance, and from repentance and judgment to the resurrection. Yes, the resurrection. It is in this that effective evangelism finds it cornerstone and most compelling argument for placing faith in Jesus – because he is risen. The evangelist finds a point of contact and faithfully brings the conversation to Christ and the nonnegotiable demand for a response; they APPEAL.

What are we to do with all of this? Here below are some key questions and actions for you and I.

References

Bruce, F. F. (1988). The Book of the Acts. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.