Scripture:
While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he was greatly distressed to see that the city was full of idols. So he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the God-fearing Greeks, and in the marketplace day by day with those who happened to be there. A group of Epicurean and Stoic philosophers began to debate with him. Some of them asked, “What is this babbler trying to say?” Others remarked, “He seems to be advocating foreign gods.” They said this because Paul was preaching the good news about Jesus and the resurrection. Then they took him and brought him to a meeting of the Areopagus, where they said to him, “May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? You are bringing some strange ideas to our ears, and we would like to know what they mean.” (All the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there spent their time doing nothing but talking about and listening to the latest ideas.) Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: “People of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: to an unknown god. So you are ignorant of the very thing you worship — and this is what I am going to proclaim to you. The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands. And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else. From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us. ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’ Therefore since we are God’s offspring, we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone — an image made by human design and skill. In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to everyone by raising him from the dead.”
Acts 17:16–31
Devotional Thought:
Paul doesn’t walk into Athens and condemn the idols. He walks around and pays attention. He studies the culture. He finds the altar to the unknown God — and uses it as a bridge. You are already worshiping something you don’t know. Let me tell you who he is.
This is a masterclass in contextual mission. Paul doesn’t abandon the gospel — the resurrection is still the hinge of everything he says. But he finds the point of contact, the existing longing, the question the culture is already asking — and he answers it with Christ. He even quotes their own poets.
The mission does not require us to pretend we don’t live in a particular culture, or to speak in a language no one around us understands. It requires paying attention. What are the altars in your city — the things people are desperately worshiping and finding insufficient? What are the questions your neighbors are already asking? The kingdom mission meets people where they are and then points them to the one they’ve been searching for without knowing his name.
Paul reasoned in the synagogue and in the marketplace — wherever people were. The mission doesn’t wait for the right setting. It happens wherever you are today.
Reflection Questions:
1. What are the “altars to unknown gods” in your cultural context — the things people around you are worshiping and finding ultimately unsatisfying?
2. How can you, like Paul, use those existing longings as bridges to the gospel rather than barriers?
Application:
Pay attention today. Notice what the people around you are living for, worrying about, and longing for. Ask God to show you one point of connection — one bridge from their world to the kingdom. Then pray for an opportunity to walk across it.