Inquisitive in religion
Acts 17:16-21
16 While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he was deeply troubled by all the idols he saw everywhere in the city. 17 He went to the synagogue to reason with the Jews and the God-fearing Gentiles, and he spoke daily in the public square to all who happened to be there.
18 He also had a debate with some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers. When he told them about Jesus and his resurrection, they said, “What’s this babbler trying to say with these strange ideas he’s picked up?” Others said, “He seems to be preaching about some foreign gods.”
19 Then they took him to the high council of the city. “Come and tell us about this new teaching,” they said. 20 “You are saying some rather strange things, and we want to know what it’s all about.” 21 (It should be explained that all the Athenians as well as the foreigners in Athens seemed to spend all their time discussing the latest ideas.)
As I reflect on the passage for today’s reading, I feel led to ponder on the culture that Paul is speaking into and how I can learn from his experiences. Athens had once been the centre of the most powerful empire in the world, but in 146 BC, about 190 years before Paul’s visit, Athens was conquered by the Romans.
Interestingly, the romans renamed most of the Greek gods and adopted them as their own, yet the Athenian Greeks, as explained here, were obsessed with trying to discover and discuss anything new. They were eager to hear from Paul and to hear about his “foreign god.”
This suggests to me that the Athenians were quite different from the culture that exists around me, that is interested in all sorts of new information, but not in the realm of faith and belief. I can learn from the way that Paul witnessed to the Athenians, but I cant just copy and paste his response into my context and expect to be effective.
Lord, help me to analyse and understand the culture around me in a way that will be effective in me bearing witness to the truth of the Gospel message.
Written by Ps. Justin Ware