Paul’s Sermon on Mars Hill to the Athenians

The message to a people given to idolatry

Paul Brought to Mars Hill to Explain His Doctrine (Acts 17:15–21)

The Apostle Paul arrived in Athens, and while waiting for Silas and Timotheus to rejoin him, he saw in the city a people “wholly” given to idolatry, and his spirit was stirred. (Acts 17:15-16.)

The idolatries we see most today are ones of materialism (focused on things), entertainment (focused on pleasures), or humanism (focused on self-empowerment). This is not far from the idolatries of the Epicureans and Stoics that Paul encountered in Athens.

As a result of seeing this pervasive idolatry, Paul began to dispute with spiritual leaders (e.g., the Jews in the synagogue), devout lay people, and anyone who would listen to him in public areas. (v. 17.) Thus, even while waiting for others in a city that was only a temporary home, Paul worked, spreading the Gospel. Everything he did in Athens was apparently alone, as Silas and Timotheus didn’t join him again until after he departed Athens and arrived in Corinth. (Acts 18:5.)

Once the debating began, there were others willing to engage him. The philosophers of the Epicureans and the Stoicks “encountered him” and then “took him” to Areopagus, what the Romans referred to as Mars Hill. Mars Hill was a rocky height to the west of the Acropolis, sometimes used as an open air council or court of justice.

According to notes on these passages by C.I. Scofield and John Wesley, the Epicureans were disciples of Epicurus, B.C. 342–271, “who abandoned as hopeless the search by reason for pure truth, seeking instead true pleasure through experience.” The Epicureans “entirely denied a providence, and held the world to be the effect of mere chance; asserting sensual pleasure to be man’s chief good, and that the soul and body died together.” The Stoics were disciples of Zeno, B.C. 280, and Chrysippus, B.C. 240. They employed a philosophy “founded on human self-sufficiency, inculcated stern self-repression, the solidarily of the race, and the unity of Deity.” The Stoics “held that matter was eternal; that all things were governed by irresistible fate; that virtue was its own sufficient reward, and vice its own sufficient punishment.”

Though the Epicureans and the Stoics had different outlooks, for both the biggest stumbling block to Christianity was the resurrection of Jesus. (v. 18.)

It doesn’t appear that they took Paul by force. The Book of Acts doesn’t record physical threats against him here. The philosophers wanted him to explain himself. “May we know?” they asked him, for what he was saying was “new” and “strange.” (vv. 19–20.) There were people in Athens who devoted their lives to hearing and telling “new” things. (v. 21.) Contrast the telling and hearing of the Athenians with the instruction to give attendance to reading and meditation in 1 Timothy 4:13–15.

“It is true that good company is of great use to a man, and will polish one that has laid a good foundation in study; but that knowledge will be very flashy and superficial which is got by conversation only.” — Matthew Henry

Paul’s Sermon (Acts 17:22–31)

The Athenians needed to be made to see that what they believed lacked a true foundation before they would accept Paul’s teaching. To do this, Paul does not rely on subtlety—He accuses them of being “too superstitious” and “ignorant.” (vv. 22–23.)

He had seen an alter near where the Athenians were doing some kind of devotion. The alter had the inscription “TO THE UNKNOWN GOD.” The Athenians did not know God, but Paul did, and so Paul declares Him to the Athenians in order make God known to them. (v. 23.) In referencing the altar and its inscription, Paul effectively says that what he has to say is not “new,” for God and His plan of judgment and salvation has always been.

Paul states that God made everything. Everything we have comes from Him. We cannot bind Him or house Him. He has no need of us and we need everything from Him. We are utterly dependent on Him and He is utterly independent of us. Our life and our breath comes from Him. In other words, we originally exist because of Him and we continue to exist only because of Him. (vv. 24–25; see also 1 Kings 8:27–29 and Is. 66:1–2.)

“I breathe this moment: the next is not in my power” — John Wesley

This was a refutation of the Stoics’ pantheism, which held that God is the world (i.e., “Nature”), and of their belief in human self-sufficiency.

Paul proceeds to note that God made all of us of “one blood.” (v. 26.) Though there are many tribes and nations, there is only one race. The Bible nowhere divides us into different races. Racial division is a man-made construct.

We are bound by God’s determination of timing and location. We were made to dwell on the face of the earth and to haply seek and find the Lord. The task of seeking Him is not difficult, for though He is the sovereign creator of the universe, He is not far from us. We should seek Him because it is in Him that we have life, movement, and our whole being. (vv. 26–28.)

Even Athenian poets had recognized that we must come from a Creator, as one of them had written that “we are also his offspring.” (v. 28; cf. Rom. 1.) (Note that Paul was familiar with their writers. Scholarly pursuits can be of benefit in presenting the Gospel.) John Wesley wrote concerning verse 28:

Aratus, whose words these are, was an Athenian, who lived almost three hundred years before this time. They are likewise to be found, with the alteration of one letter only, in the hymn of Cleanthes to Jupiter or the supreme being, one of the purest and finest pieces of natural religion in the whole world of Pagan antiquity.

If God created us, if we are his “offspring” (He did and we are), it becomes silly — logically, philosophically, whatever — to make Him like unto something created by man, such as that graven out of gold, silver, or stone. (v. 29.)

God had been long suffering to the Athenians, but the call to repentance was now at hand. (v. 30; see also 14:16–17.) Paul not only declared the one true God to the Athenians, but he called them to repentance, a call for them to turn from their beliefs unto God. Knowledge is not enough. There must be repentance. The call to repentance is a refutation of the Stoics’ belief in irresistible fate. Repentance can only be necessary when our lives are not pre-determined.

There is a day that God knows that we do not (v. 26) when He will judge the world. The judgment will be by Jesus. We have confirmation that Jesus was ordained for that task by His resurrection. (v. 31.) In speaking of judgment, recall where Paul is saying this—a place sometimes used as a court of justice.

The Aftermath (Acts 17:32–34)

The reactions to Paul were typical of the various reactions to any presentation of the Gospel:

• some mocked
• some said they would consider it
• a few believed (only two are mentioned by name, though there were others) (v. 34); by Dionysius being called “the Areopagite,” he may have been one of the judges

This is a demonstration of the positive influence we can have on those around us.

Again, the biggest stumbling block, mentally, was the resurrection of the dead, here not just Jesus’s resurrection, but ours as well. (v. 32.) In fact, it appears in verse 32 that the mention of the resurrection of the dead led to an interruption of Paul. The pride of reason got in their way of belief.

Conclusion

Looking back over the sermon, we see that Paul in ten verses, a matter of minutes, goes from the beginning to the end, explaining the nature of both God and man, stating the only hope for man, and the confirmation of that hope, refuting both the Epicurean and the Stoic.

Adapted from an adult Sunday School lesson I taught at Twin Pines Baptist Church in 2014

Cover photo — “Areopagus from the Acropolis” — via Flickr user AJ Alfieri-Crispin under a Creative Commons license.