The First Apologetic to the Gentiles

By Shafer Parker

The apostle Paul spent the first decade of his public ministry preaching the gospel to Jewish audiences familiar with the Old Testament promise of a coming Messiah. Even the Gentiles converted in those early days were mainly God-fearers who had long attended synagogue and studied the Scriptures for themselves. Paul’s task in those early days was straightforward. All he had to do was demonstrate that Jesus of Nazareth had fulfilled the Messianic prophecies, and call people to believe. The fact that in those first years Paul (and Peter) were preaching to people who were already more than half converted goes a long way toward explaining the massive numbers of converts we read about in the first half of the book of Acts.

Something changed as Paul set out on his second missionary journey. Having visited the churches he planted on his first trip through Asia Minor (now Turkey), and having picked up Timothy as a kind of apprentice evangelist and assistant, Paul fully expected to continue planting churches as an extension of his previous work. But God was having none of it. You can read it for yourself in Acts 16. He was forbidden by the “Spirit of Jesus” (Acts 16:7) to stop anywhere until he and Silas arrived in Troas, where in a vision he saw a man from Macedonia saying, “Come over and help us” (Acts 16:9). Paul, Silas and Timothy immediately took passage for Neapolis, bringing the gospel to Europe, and starting the movement that very likely led directly to the conversion of most of you now reading this blog.

As they preached in the synagogues and market squares in Philippi, Thessalonica, Berea and elsewhere Paul and Silas observed a pattern. The Jews and God-fearers in the synagogues would show interest in their message, a significant number of them would believe in Jesus as the promised Messiah, the remaining Jews would become jealous and start a riot, leaving our doughty missionaries with no choice but to flee to the next town over, where the pattern would be repeated. It did not take long for the team to figure out that Paul was the main problem. So, when the pattern showed up—again—in Berea, it was decided that Paul should be sent by himself to Athens, while Silas and Timothy continued the work in Berea.

For the first time in his life Paul was alone in an exclusively Gentile city. And not just any Gentile city, but the very centre of the philosophy and worldview most directly opposed to anything coming out of Jerusalem. Athens was the world centre of philosophy at a time when philosophy included politics, mathematics and all the sciences. For five-hundred years Athens had led the world in every form of human advancement. When Paul visited the marketplace (agora), he was treading in the steps of Socrates who had taught and debated there. Nearby could be visited the academy of Plato and the Lyceum of Aristotle. As he entered the city he would have walked past the porch (stoa) of Zeno, the founder of Stoicism, a worldview that at one point was thought to rival Christianity. Nor could he have missed the garden of Epicurus, the founder of Epicureanism. Moreover, Athens was the pinnacle city of world art and literature. It seems that the city excelled in much that to this day is felt to make up the essentials of the good life.

Alongside all this intellectualism and artistic expression Athens boasted a religious scene renowned for its idolatry and sensuality. Pausanias (a.d. 110-180) travelled all over to write a ten-volume Description of Greece that described Athens as “having more idols than the rest of Greece put together.” Pliny, a contemporary of Paul, says that in the time of Nero Athens had over 30,000 public statues, most of them dedicated to some god or another. The streets were lined with idols. So many clogged the roads that city planners were reduced to carving street names into their bases. Petronius, another contemporary of Paul, said it was easier to find a god in Athens than a man. In short, Athens was a composite of the best and the worst of the Gentile world, and Paul felt compelled to bring a Christian witness. His spirit was “provoked” by the idolatry he observed (Acts 17:16), and so he began to tell the people about “Jesus and the resurrection.”

This was the city in which it was demanded of Paul that he explain himself. Nor should it be forgotten that by being dragged to the Areopagus (literally Mars Hill, named after the Greco-Roman god of war) Paul was asked to defend his teaching in the very same place where Socrates was arraigned and condemned on the charge of innovating on the state religion (Acts 17:19). We have no direct indication that Paul was in any formal sense “on trial,” but the place, and its association with previous religious trials could not have been ignored.

Paul began his defense, his apologia, by noting that among the thousands of gods recognized by the Athenians, he had found an altar “To the unknown god.” Whether Paul knew the whole story or not, this altar had a history. Some five-hundred years before Christ, Athens was being devastated by a plague (It’s a long story, but the details can be found in Don Richardson’s Book, Eternity in their Hearts.) When no earthly cause for the plague could be discerned, and all the known gods had been propitiated by sacrifice, a Cretan poet named Epimenides was consulted who recommended they build an altar to the unknown god and pray to him. This they did, and the plague was stopped. The altar was preserved, left by Divine Providence for Paul to use as his springboard into a Christian apologia before the philosophers of Athens. Thanks to this altar Paul could meaningfully announce that he would reveal the god they had not formerly known, but Who had already made Himself real in the history of the city.

“Not every attempt to persuade people to believe will be successful, but we need to launch into these conversations with the confidence that there will always be connecting points between what we believe and what the other person knows to be true.”

It is important to realize that before we have any conversation about spiritual things, God has gone before us to prepare the way. Not every attempt to persuade people to believe will be successful, but we need to launch into these conversations with the confidence that there will always be connecting points between what we believe and what the other person knows to be true.

Notice, then, that Paul’s witness is a presentation of the basics of a Christian, or Biblical, worldview. Too often we fall into the salesmanship trap when presenting the gospel. “God loves you and offers a wonderful plan for your life” sounds great, but as far as this life is concerned, it is not true (John 16:33; II Tim. 3:12). Paul began with the presentation of a Christian worldview. He states the following truths: (1) God made the world and everything in it (which means He made you), (2) God is Lord of heaven and earth, meaning He is not contained or controlled by beings on earth, (3) God does not need you, but you need Him (every bite, every breath is His gift), (4) All mankind came from one original ancestor created in the image of God and left with one purpose, to seek God, and by His grace, actually find Him, (5) Therefore idols are of no value and all the gods they represent are pure fantasy (something Greek philosophers had acknowledged for centuries), (6) God has patiently waited for you Athenians to figure these things out, but an event has taken place that changes everything. God’s Son has come to earth. He demonstrated His divinity before He was killed, but He did not stay dead. He arose from death, and now only one option is left to all you sons and daughters of Adam; repent of sin and believe in Him. (7) You do not have forever to choose because a judgment day is coming that will expose your choice with eternal consequences.

“Unfortunately, too many twentieth-century expositors have looked at the results of Paul’s efforts (some mocked, some wanted to hear more, some believed) and concluded Paul’s message failed.”

At first glance Paul’s approach to worldview evangelism that day may seem abrupt, with much use of declaration, and little attempt at persuasion. But remember, Luke is giving us the Coles Notes version of the speech; with the aid of the Holy Spirit he was sifting out the essentials of the message and leaving it to us to supply the connecting ideas. Unfortunately, too many twentieth-century expositors have looked at the results of Paul’s efforts (some mocked, some wanted to hear more, some believed) and concluded Paul’s message failed. In today’s world anyone who cannot point to hundreds of converts streaming across a stadium field is considered of little value, and any personal evangelism that does not result in an immediate decision must have contained mistakes.

Not so long ago, scholars took another view of what happened on Mars Hill that day. In a 1941 address given at the University of Pennsylvania by Dr. Joseph L. Hromadka, professor of Philosophy and Christian Ethics at Princeton Theological Seminary, he essentially declared that Paul’s address was nothing less than the founding document of all that would eventually become known as Western civilization. And before I give the quote, let it be remembered that for all its detractors and real shortcomings, the culture and society developed in the West is nothing more than the freest, richest, most Christian and most successful society developed in world history so far. No other society has been so life affirming, or so ready to defend the rights of the individual—of either sex. And according to Dr. Hromadka, it all started with the message summarized in Acts 17. Here is what he has to say as he points to “the central pillars of faith as being central pillars of our civilization:

“The faith in creation as a barrier against pessimistic nihilism and rude naturalism. The faith in the incarnation as a barrier against modern relativism and the mood of spectatorship. The faith in the resurrection of Christ as a challenge to the skeptical mentality of indifference and carelessness. The faith in the ultimate Judgment as a basis of creative earnestness and moral vigor—a continuous protest against any kind of monism* obscuring and obliterating the definite line between good and evil, truth and falsehood, right and wrong, holiness and wickedness. The faith in Christ, the supreme Lord, as barrier against any kind of totalitarianism.”

“Worldview evangelism may not result in as many immediate conversions as some other methods. But it lays a foundation in every mind and heart that eventually opens doors to a complete change of life not found in other systems.”

Do you see what Dr. Hromadka is getting at? Worldview evangelism may not result in as many immediate conversions as some other methods. But it lays a foundation in every mind and heart that eventually opens doors to a complete change of life not found in other systems. The world is literally falling apart around us, but Christians need to regain confidence in Paul’s Mars Hill message. It really is the only good news that will turn the world right side up.

*Monism: the view that there is only one basic substance or principle as the ground of reality such that no real difference between good and evil exists.