For Paul a thing of beauty was decidedly not a joy forever, particularly when it embodied so distorted a view of divinity.

But during the week, on a daily basis, he bore his witness in the agora, the famous marketplace and hub of Athenian life. There he got his most pronounced response, especially from some of the philosophers. The Epicureans and Stoics were among the leading schools of the day, and they serve as representatives of the confusion caused by Paul’s preaching

The NIV has already solved the problem by translating “a meeting of the Areopagus,” which is a clear opting for the first possibility. The Greek is not so unambiguous, merely stating that the Athenians took hold of Paul and led him “to the Areopagus.” The Areopagus was both a court and a hill, due to the fact that the court traditionally met on that hill. The term Areopagus means hill of Ares. Ares was the Greek god of war. The Roman equivalent god was Mars, hence the KJV “Mars’ hill

one should note that throughout Acts Paul appeared before the leading magisterial bodies—the magistrates of Philippi, the proconsul at Corinth, the Roman governors at Caesarea, the Jewish Sanhedrin, the Jewish King Agrippa, and finally, at least in anticipation, the Roman emperor. It would fit the pattern well if he appeared here before the venerable Athenian court.

The main theme is God as Creator and the proper worship of this Creator God. The language often has the ring of Greek philosophy, for Paul was attempting to build what bridges he could to reach the Athenian intellectuals. The underlying thought remains thoroughly biblical.

Paul’s opening remark that he had observed the Athenians in every respect to be “very religious” has often been described as a capitatio benevolentiae, an effort to win the favor of his hearers and thus secure their attention. Such introductions were a standard device in Greek rhetoric, and Paul probably did have some such intention. He surely did not wish to alienate his audience at the very outset. The term he used for “religious” (deisidaimonesteros), however, had a definite ambiguity in current usage. It could be used in a positive sense for one who was very devoted to religious matters. It was also used with a negative connotation for those who were overly scrupulous, even superstitious, in their religious observance

For Paul, who was already fuming at their idolatry (v. 16), the negative connotation would be uppermost in his mind. By the end of the speech, the Athenians themselves would have little doubt about Paul’s real opinion of their religiosity

First, Paul referred to “what” they worshiped, not “who” they worshiped. Their worship was totally wrongheaded. They did not know God; they didn’t worship him at all. Their worship object was a thing, a “what,” and not a personal God at all. Second, there is a strong emphasis on ignorance, on not knowing. For Greeks, as for Stoics, ignorance was a cardinal sin. The greatest virtue was to discover truth through pursuing the divine reason within oneself. Not to live in accordance with reason, to live in ignorance, was the greatest folly imaginable. Paul accused them of precisely this ignorance, this sin

The philosophers also would have had no problem with Paul’s second critique of human worship, “He is not served by human hands” (v. 25). Paul’s qualifier, “as if he needed anything,” would particularly have resonated with them. It was a commonplace of Greek philosophy to view divinity as complete within itself, totally self-sufficient, totally without need. And they would have agreed with Paul also that the divinity is the giver of “life and breath and everything else.”86 But there was a world of difference between the philosopher’s pantheism and Paul’s strict monotheism.

God’s purpose in all this is stated as his desire that people might seek him and find him. The Stoics would have been in complete agreement. They would have argued that the divine principle was to be found in all of nature and that one should strive to grasp it as fully as possible through cultivating reason, that part of divinity that dwelt in one’s own human nature. They firmly believed that through the proper discipline of reason one could come to a knowledge of divinity. Paul would not have agreed. Even a knowledge of God from nature would still not be a human attainment but a revelation of God in his works

Scripture would have been meaningless to the Athenians. Paul still continued to address them as much as possible in their own terms. Some argue that two quotes from Greek poets are in v. 28, but more likely the verse contains only one. The phrase “in him we live and move and have our being” seems to have been a more or less traditional Greek triadic formula. Paul surely did not understand this in the Greek sense, which would emphasize the pantheistic view of the divinity residing in human nature. His view was that of v. 25: God is the giver of life and breath and all that is

Paul now directed his attention to the Athenians, returning to the theme of ignorance with which he began. They were guilty of ignorance. All their acts of piety were in vain, for they did not know or worship the one true God. In his forbearance God formerly “overlooked” such ignorance (cf. 14:16; Rom 3:25). The times of forbearance had now ended because their ignorance had now ended. Now they knew the one true God through Paul’s proclamation. He was no longer an “unknown God”; and should they continue in their false worship and fail to acknowledge his sole lordship of heaven and earth, their sin would no longer be a sin of ignorance but a high-handed sin.