Paul: What's new?

All the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there spent their time doing nothing but talking about and listening to the latest ideas. Acts 17:21

In the crowded Athenian marketplace of ideas there was still room for the gospel of Jesus Christ. Do we sometimes feel that there is no room for it in our novelty-seeking, information-packed society?

Many people hold this view, most often on the grounds that the gospel is old, out-dated, out of touch with the spirit and values of the age. Such parodies of the gospel will remain as long as people perceive the church as a gloomy dark building, echoing with emptiness. Or as long as Christians believe, in the words of the Rev. Jerry Falwell, that the debate about global warming is 'a tool of Satan being used to distract churches from their primary focus of preaching the gospel'.

When the apostle Paul arrived in Athens, he found a city very different from any that he had been to before. There was apparently no synagogue, nor even as in Philippi a place where the Jews met for prayer. There was no equivalent to the common Jewish culture, which generally formed the background to Paul's preaching. The Greeks didn't take seriously the stories of their gods: hence the Athenians' fascination with the latest ideas.

The differences between Paul's presentation of the gospel in Athens and the speeches that he made in other cities have been observed by many commentators. Four points seem to be particularly relevant here.
First, Paul was polite about the Athenians' worldview: 'I see that in every way you are very religious' (v.22).
Second, he picked a single tenet of their belief to use as his starting point: 'I found an altar with this inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD' (v.23).
Third, he used as his 'text' something from their own popular culture (even though his strict theology might have dissented from it): 'As some of your own poets have said, "We are his offspring"' (v.28).
And fourth, having thus met them on their own ground, Paul built a bridge to the heart of the gospel.

Our greatest opportunity lies in the fact that the old gospel is ever new: it offers what everyone is looking for - hope, security, identity, freedom from guilt. Our greatest challenge is to make people understand that this is so.

Thanks to Helen Parry(LICC)