(མཛད་པ། 17:10-15)

 

The brothers immediately sent Paul and Silas away by night to Berea, and when they arrived they went into the Jewish synagogue. Now these Jews were more noble than those in Thessalonica; they received the word with all eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so. Many of them therefore believed, with not a few Greek women of high standing as well as men. But when the Jews from Thessalonica learned that the word of God was proclaimed by Paul at Berea also, they came there too, agitating and stirring up the crowds. Then the brothers immediately sent Paul off on his way to the sea, but Silas and Timothy remained there. Those who conducted Paul brought him as far as Athens, and after receiving a command for Silas and Timothy to come to him as soon as possible, they departed.

(Acts 17:10-15)

 

Again all went well at first as the Beroean Jews took care to check Paul’s teaching in the light of what is written in God’s Holy Book.

But then trouble came, and the believers escorted Paul to safety, taking him by ship all the way to Athens.

Athens was a city where free debate of ideas, including religion, was encouraged and not checked by secret police, and where democracy had been practised for a long time. It is the capital of modern Greece.

(མཛད་པ། 17:16-21)

 

Now while Paul was waiting for them at Athens, his spirit was provoked within him as he saw that the city was full of idols. So he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the devout persons, and in the marketplace every day with those who happened to be there. Some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers also conversed with him. And some said, “What does this babbler wish to say?” Others said, “He seems to be a preacher of foreign divinities”—because he was preaching Jesus and the resurrection. And they took him and brought him to the Areopagus, saying, “May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? For you bring some strange things to our ears. We wish to know therefore what these things mean.” Now all the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there would spend their time in nothing except telling or hearing something new. (Acts 17:16-21)

 

In Athens then – as in our modern world now – apart from idol-worshippers and the devout there were also cultured people who followed many philosophies, such as the seeking of material good, and obedience to the moral duty of man. When Paul spoke, what struck them was his preaching about a man, of one who rose, he said. That a dead body had risen was something new to them, and so strange that some of them took his words to be mere meaningless rubbish.

So they took him to the Areopagus, an open-air place where a crowd could enjoy hearing him, and after that perhaps the Areopagite Court would pass a verdict on what he had to say.

(མཛད་པ། 17:22-34)

 

So Paul, standing in the midst of the Areopagus, said: “Men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious. For as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription: ‘To the unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us, for

“‘In him we live and move and have our being’; as even some of your own poets have said,

“‘For we are indeed his offspring.’

Being then God’s offspring, we ought not to think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of man. The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.”

Now when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked. But others said, “We will hear you again about this.” So Paul went out from their midst. But some men joined him and believed, among whom also were Dionysius the Areopagite and a woman named Damaris and others with them. (Acts 17:22-34)

 

Although there were so many shrines and religious societies in Athens, there were also many people, as in Asia today, who did not in truth know what they should believe or which of those idol gods they should visit and worship.

Paul, given his opportunity to speak in the open air, declared boldly that there is indeed a knowable God, the One who created the world and all mankind. ‘He is not some carved and gilded man-made statue, but He is the one true and living father-like God, who deserves and justly demands man’s worship. So repent, and believe in the man chosen to judge us all on the Judgment Day; and who this man is we all may know because God raised him’, he said.

Among Paul’s educated hearers just a few were persuaded to believe.