The Book of Acts

Man's Wisdom versus God's Foolishness
(Acts 17:16 - 18:17)

In this section we are privileged to join the apostle in Athens and Corinth, the two most important cities, the one cultural and the other commercial, in the Roman province of Achaia in southern Greece. Paul, it seems, only stopped off at Athens for a rest while he waited for his companions Silas and Timothy. He could easily have passed the time, as most of us would have done, visiting the sites, for Athens, though now living on its former glory, was still a city of unrivalled aesthetic and cultural magnificence. In the Parthenon, for example, there stood a huge gold and ivory statue of Athena whose gleaming spear-point could be seen 40 miles away.

Paul's distress
Paul, who was no philistine, cannot have failed to be impressed by the architecture and monuments of this famous metropolis, the native city of Socrates and Plato and adopted city of Aristotle, Epicurus and Zeno, founder of the Stoics. But the only thing we are told is that "he was greatly distressed to see that the city was full of idols" (17:6).

The word translated "greatly distressed" is paroxunein , which occurs regularly in the Greek Old Testament of the Lord being provoked to anger . It is especially God's reaction to idolatry which is so described (Deuteronomy 9:18; 31:20 etc.). Paul's reaction at seeing the city so full of idols (weighed down, smothered by them) simply reflected the anger and jealousy which God Himself experienced when provoked in this way.

He meets some philosophers
Paul not only debated in the synagogue with the Jews and God-fearing Greeks (as was his custom), he also talked in the market-place (the agora ) with any who would listen. In this way he got into argument with a group of Epicurean and Stoic philosophers. These represented opposite poles of the philosophical spectrum. The Epicureans were pleasure-loving libertines for whom the gods were distant and disinterested; the Stoics on the other hand were long-suffering fatalists who saw themselves as pawns in an all-pervasive pantheistic system.

So far as they were concerned Paul was a religious magpie, a seed-picker ( spermalogos ), one who gathered scraps of knowledge from here and there, and then presented them as his own. They appear to have thought that Jesus and Anastasis (Resurrection) were two foreign gods which Paul was peddling! They were, however, sufficiently interested (it was after all something new) to take him to a meeting of the Areopagus (literally, "the hill of Ares", the Greek name for Mars). Paul was there invited to speak to this august assembly of religious pedants and cynics.

Before the Areopagus
Paul's approach when addressing these pagan philosophers deserves close attention. One of the best studies is a booklet by Professor N.B. Stonehouse to which I shall be referring. Stonehouse is at pains to point out that Paul makes no concessions to pagan piety. He may quote from pagan poets, but only in the interests of Bible truth revealed in the Old Testament and his own epistles.

He begins by drawing attention to an altar he had come across inscribed with the words AGNOSTO THEO, To an Unknown God. "That which ye worship," he says in Stonehouse's translation, " acknowledging openly your ignorance , I proclaim to you." The verb translated "proclaim" is one used frequently in the New Testament of the apostolic proclamation of the gospel. He boldly asserts his authority to provide them with true knowledge, and to remedy the ignorance to which they had unwittingly confessed.

The theme of ignorance is taken up again in verse 30. "In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent." Rather similar is Romans 3:25, "... in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished." This in no way implied a tolerance of idolatry, but simply an attitude of forbearance pending the day of reckoning.

The statements of verses 24 to 27 are all supported by the Old Testament. "The God who made the world and everything in it," Exodus 20:11 etc., "is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples made with hands", 1 Kings 8:27; Isaiah 66:1-2 (quoted in Acts 7:48-50). "And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else", Psalm 50:9-12; Micah 6:6-7. "From one man he made every nation of men", Genesis 3:20, "that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live", Deuteronomy 32:8; Psalm 74:17. "God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us."

There follow two quotations from Greek poets. "For in him we live and move and have our being", attributed to Epimenides the Cretan, and "We are his offspring" from the Cilician Aratus. How, it is asked, can he quote from these heathen poets? Does he quote them out of context, or does he acknowledge that even they had a genuine insight into divine truth? Paul teaches elsewhere that God's eternal power and divine nature was known to mankind, "because God had made it known to them" by means of His revelation in nature (Romans 1:19-20). It is this primitive understanding which Paul finds expressed in these Greek poets.

To quote Professor Stonehouse: "As creatures of God, attaining a sensus divinitatis in spite of their sin, their ignorance of God and their suppression of the truth, they were not without a certain awareness of God and their creaturehood....Thus while conceiving of his task as basically a proclamation of One of whom they were in ignorance, he could appeal even to the reflections of pagans as pointing to the true relation between the sovereign God and His creatures."

It would be impossible to preach the gospel to pagans, whether past or present, unless they had already some awareness of God's existence and power, some sense of their own sinfulness and need of salvation, some dread of a judgment to come. It was to these God-given instincts that Paul appealed, and there were not a few who responded in repentance and faith.

Paul's address before the Areopagus is of necessity very different from his sermon to the Jews and God-fearing Gentiles at Pisidian Antioch (13:16-41). There are however similarities with Paul's brief outburst to the heathen at Lystra who wanted to offer sacrifice to him and Barnabas (14:15-17). There also he refers to "God who made heaven and earth and sea and everything in them". He says that God "in the past let all nations go their own way". Yet He has provided them with rain, crops and plenty of food as a testimony to His kindness and care.

Resurrection is the stumblingblock
Paul's speech was brought to an abrupt end at his mention of the resurrection. That was too much for most of them since the notion of a resurrection was contrary to their respective philosophies. Professor Bruce comments that "all of them but the Epicureans would no doubt have agreed with him had he spoken of the immortality of the individual soul; but as for resurrection, most of them would endorse the sentiments of the God Apollo,....'Once a man dies and the earth drinks up his blood, there is no resurrection '".

Very little has changed. The immortality of the soul, even among Christians, is still far more popular than the Biblical doctrine of resurrection. At least the Athenian philosophers were clear on one thing: the two doctrines were strictly incompatible.

At Corinth
From Athens Paul went on to Corinth. Luke tells us where he went, his motions; Paul himself how he felt, his emotions. "I came to you in weakness and fear, and with much trembling," he says (1Corinthians 2:3). Why, we wonder, was he so alarmed at the prospect of going to Corinth? Corinth was a city of intellectual arrogance and moral depravity. Their claim to superior wisdom is attested in Paul's epistles; their immorality was notorious even by Greek standards. It need only be mentioned that the temple of Aphrodite or Venus was attended by a thousand female slaves who were little more than prostitutes. Paul knew that he would have a hard time in Corinth.

The cross of Christ was the antidote to both these excesses. "I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified," he says (1Corinthians 2:2). He did not attempt to counter man's wisdom with "wise and persuasive words" but rather "with a demonstration of the Spirit's power" (2:4-5). "For the foolishness of God is wiser than man's wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man's strength" (1:25). By this strategy he made many converts in Corinth; but it was not the wise, the influential and the noble who were convinced, but the foolish, the weak, the lowly and the despised, "so that no-one may boast before him" (1:26-29).

He goes to the Gentiles
Paul stayed 18 months in Corinth. He started by reasoning every sabbath in the synagogue. But when the Jews opposed and abused him, he shook out his clothes in protest (compare 13:51, "they shook the dust from their feet"). "Your blood be on your own heads!" he said, "From now on I will go to the Gentiles" (as in 13:46).

He did not have to move far however, since Titius Justus, who lived next door to the synagogue, opened his house to him. He was there joined by the ruler of the synagogue himself, Crispus, who believed with his entire household. The meetings in the house of Titius Justus must have seemed like a rival synagogue. He also received huge encouragement from a vision. "Do not be afraid; keep on speaking, do not be silent," he was told. "No-one is going to attack and harm you, because I have many people in this city."

Gallio showed no concern
Paul was not physically attacked, but he was arraigned by hostile Jews before Gallio, the proconsul of Achaia. The charge against him was that of propagating a religion not sanctioned by Roman law. Judaism was a religio licita , a permitted religion, but Paul's gospel, they insisted, was another religion altogether and should therefore be officially banned.

Gallio, however, was in no mind to get involved. So far as he was concerned Paul's version was simply a variation on the same theme, a matter for the Jews to decide themselves. His ruling had far-reaching consequences. As Bruce observes, "Had the proconsul of Achaia pronounced a verdict unfavourable to Paul, the story of the progress of Christianity during the next decade or so would have been very different from what it actually was." Other provincial governors could be trusted to follow the precedent set by Gallio.

Paul stayed a long time in Corinth and, so far as we know, he was not molested any more by his Jewish opponents.