The Gospel and Culture: Paul in Athens and Corinth

At my church we’ve been slowly going through 1 Corinthians in Sunday School.  And on my own time I have been reading, listening and thinking about the divisions among evangelicals and among Anglicans on issues concerning social justice – and on how The Evangelical Church of What’s Happening Now (TECoWHaN) is handling said issues poorly.  So when we got to 1 Corinthians 1:17, I saw that it might have some application to these issues.  Writing to Greeks, who greatly valued philosophy and wisdom, Paul wrote, “For Christ [sent me] to preach the gospel, and not with words of eloquent wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.”  And he went on to more or less repeat his commitment to this approach and explained why he took it.  We shall attempt to return to that in due time.

As I was reflecting, it occurred to me that his activity and address in Athens, found in Acts 17:16-34, also reveals much about Paul’s approach to preaching the gospel in the Greek culture.  Even better, the passage shows him in action.  He at first glance appears more sympathetic to Greek culture with its emphasis on philosophical wisdom than he appears in his first letter to Corinth.  But a closer examination reveals a consistent approach that gives important principles in preaching and ministering to a non-Christian (or post-Christian) culture.

We could begin our examination in either city, but since Paul visited Athens first, let’s start there.

While in Athens, “his spirit was provoked within him as he saw that the city was full of idols.” (Acts 17:16) Paul made himself aware of the cultural landscape of Athens.  But he did not allow it unduly to shape his Christian worldview (as TECoWHaN is so prone to do).  Instead his Christian worldview shaped his response.  Part of that response was to see the idolatry of Athenian culture as wrong and offensive.

St. Paul was no multiculturalist.

But his further response was not to withdraw from the culture but to engage it.

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.” (17:17-19)

Paul learned enough about Greek culture not just to oppose it but to engage it and to do so in such a winsome way that the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers were among those who wanted to converse with him.  Paul made his listeners want to hear more. But note that although he spoke to Athenian culture, he did not conform to it.  His gospel message was still “strange” to them.  And it continued strange to them as we shall see.

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.(17: 22, 23)

Paul began with common ground in order to gain further the openness and interest of his listeners.  But then he immediately pointed out areas relevant to the Gospel where the prevailing culture was mistaken.  He told them God was not who they thought He was.

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. (17: 24, 25)

In other words, God is not needy like pagan gods.  Today, Paul might have pointed out that God is not a social justice warrior revolutionary, nor a flag-waving super-patriot. God is not of man’s making; nor does he conform to cultural whims.

Paul then again utilizes common ground followed by again criticizing the prevailing culture’s views about God.

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 [And now he quotes two Greek poets, the first likely Epimenides of Crete, the second Aratus.]

          “‘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.(17:26-29_

And now Paul proclaims that man and his culture must get in line with the truth of God, the Gospel, and notthe other way around.

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.”(17:30-31)

And on this Gospel, St. Paul will not compromise.  But there is a problem.  For reasons I will not get into here, the resurrection of the dead struck the Greek mindset as absurd and not something for which to hope. (And the same could be said for much of increasingly secular Western culture today.)  Paul, a learned man, surely knew this.  But he did not back down. He communicated to Greek culture as winsomely as he could, but he would not compromise the truth of God to please anyone.

Therefore he got a mixed response which brought his discourse to an end.

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. (17:32-34)

God brought fruit out of the faithful preaching of His truth even if it did clash with the prevailing culture.

And thus we should not follow the chameleon ways of The Church of What’s Happening Now, but follow the godly example of St. Paul.  We should become aware of the culture around us.  We should communicate and relate to it as best we can.  

But we should not compromise God’s truth.  We do not allow the culture to erode or twist our faithful holding to the truth and our communication of it.  We communicate the truth of God clearly and call men of whatever culture to get in line with it.  And if the culture doesn’t like it, then the culture doesn’t like it.  Jesus is Lord, not any culture of man.  We do not compromise or twist the truth of Jesus.  

Yes, that may result in unpleasantness.  Remember all the Apostles, save St. John, were martyred. But nonetheless the Gospel of Christ is to be preached to all cultures; it is to appease none of them.