Hey guys!
I recently learned some golden nuggets of history & wanted to share with this Vlog & Blog post. This is really wild & cool:
In Acts 17, Paul arrived in Athens, the city of the many Greek gods. Athens was an intellectual hub for the latest and newest theories of, well, like life!
In that city was the Areopagus, or Mars Hill(the hill I created the video out of), where a council of civic leaders met. This council had charge of religious and educational matters in Athens.
While in Athens, Paul met with the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers, who as a lifestyle were looking to discover something “new” to discuss.
Hearing Paul teach about Jesus, the philosophers had Paul come to the Areopagus (mars hill) and asked him to tell them about this “new,” strange teaching he was proclaiming.
Thought to be standing on that hill, Areopagus, Paul tells those gathered that he realized Athenians were very religious, having seen their many objects of worship.
But one altar in the city among the many caught his attention. On it were inscribed the words “TO AN UNKNOWN GOD.”
The Greeks had created an altar to a God they did not have a name for but apparently when they cried out to this god and sacrificed, the plagues upon Athens stopped. Paul used that altar to explain the Deity of “the Supreme God”.
At the times the Greeks did not know who this god was, but Paul explained that this “unknown god” was the biblical God, the Creator of heaven and earth, who does not dwell in temples made with hands.
Actually, that God is the Source of life for all nations, and He is really the One they were seeking.
Paul says God is near; in fact, “in him we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:27–28).
Mars Hill, is the place where the council chatted with Paul on this new revelation of Jesus Christ as the one Supreme God over the heavens & earth.
What the what?!
Please read below for the Biblical Context. Enjoy!
(Acts 17) In Athens
16 While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he was greatly distressed to see that the city was full of idols. 17 So he reasoned in the synagoguewith both Jews and God-fearing Greeks, as well as in the marketplace day by day with those who happened to be there. 18 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. 19 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? 20 You are bringing some strange ideas to our ears, and we would like to know what they mean.” 21 (All the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there spent their time doing nothing but talking about and listening to the latest ideas.)
22 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. 23 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.
24 “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.25 And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else.26 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. 27 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. 28 ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’[b] As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’[c]
29 “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. 30 In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. 31 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.”
32 When they heard about the resurrection of the dead, some of them sneered, but others said, “We want to hear you again on this subject.”33 At that, Paul left the Council. 34 Some of the people became followers of Paul and believed. Among them was Dionysius, a member of the Areopagus, also a woman named Damaris, and a number of others.
