Reader’s Guide: “The Word for Today” Sunday, July 28, 2013 Read – Acts 17:16-34 When we left off the story we had just heard that Paul had been sent off to Athens by his friends to avoid the trouble that was brewing in Beroea (Acts 17:15). The story Luke tells of Paul’s adventure in Athens is unique in the book of Acts. Did Paul feel like a fish out of water in such a city as Athens? Hardly – Paul was not intimidated, but he was faced with an unusual challenge. In typical fashion Luke tells us that Paul went first to the synagogue in Athens where he carried on the same conversation with the Jews he found there. When the NRSV Bible says that Paul argued with them we should not think of this as a typical argument filled with hostility. It would be better in all of these instances if the word was translated “debated” with the sense of carrying on a dialogical conversation of give and take. Luke tells us very little of what happened in Paul’s visit to the synagogue in Athens. One can surmise that the reaction was similar to what happened in every other place. Instead, Luke tells us that Luke found himself in the marketplace debating with the philosophers who happened to be there. He mentions two schools of philosophy that were represented. The Epicureans were a group who argued that all religious talk and practice was a waste of time and harmful to a person. We might think of them as “secularists” in today’s language. They did not claim that there was no God just that god was so distant and uninterested in human affairs that it was useless to talk about god. The Stoics on the other hand were very willing to enter into religious debate. Over the course of time there were Stoics who became Christians – the two are not mutually exclusive. How is Paul to speak to these philosophers? Luke provides us with an example of Paul’s speech to such people – just as he had given us the model speech to a Jewish audience in the speech he records to the people of Antioch of Pisidia (Acts 13). Paul cannot begin with the story of Israel in the OT – that would not have connected with his audience. Consequently, he will need to struggle to get to the story of the crucifixion of Jesus because that story flows from the OT as well. Paul found an angle in something he had observed as he wandered the streets of Athens. First of all Paul attempts to identify with the people – at least the Stoics and probably most of those present by telling them that he has noticed that they are a very religious people. Athens is filled with temples and idols of all shapes and sizes. Having made this connection, Paul tells them that in his wandering he noticed an altar with a strange inscription – “To an unknown God” – no altar with that inscription has been found in Athens but there is evidence that in other parts of Greece such altars existed – the thought was that one should not miss out on any god so an altar was made to cover all the “unknown” ones just in case. At any rate, Paul grasps on to this idea of an altar to an unknown god and proclaims that this is the God he proclaims to them. Paul argument is essential from the reality of creation. God is the creator of everything that exists. And this God has also created all the nations and people of the earth and this God has instilled in them the urge to search for God. The presence of all the idols and temples was evidence for Paul of that urge. But talking in this way will only get so far – so eventually Paul needs to get to the core message. He does so by speaking of the resurrection of a righteous man God has appointed as judge of the entire world. He does not mention the name of Jesus. And he does not mention the crucifixion. Upon hearing of the resurrection some dismissed Paul and scoffed at him. Others perhaps thought Paul was now talking of about two gods – a male god, the righteous judge, and his female counterpart “Anastasia” which is the Greek word for “resurrection.” Still others become believer and two of them are very prominent people, Dionysius who was the leader of the Areopogus, a kind of Athenian court, and a woman named Damaris of whom we know nothing else. Was Paul successful in his speech to the Athenians? Was his speech the right speech to give in such a setting? Can you talk about God without talking about Jesus? All of these are questions that readers of Acts will long debate and will not fully answer. Likely we must say that the experience was not a glowing success. Paul moves on from Athens to Corinth where he will be much more successful. Luke does not give us Paul’s Corinthian speech – and we will learn that Paul will spend a long period of time in Corinth. Perhaps it takes longer to get the message proclaimed in places like Athens and Corinth. This is the one and only speech in the book of Acts that does not contain the core message Luke has included in every other speech. Perhaps we might gain from that the lesson that ultimately all we have to proclaim is Jesus – crucified, raised from the dead, and the one though forgiveness is made available to all who believe.