Paul at Areopagus (Mars Hill)
November 8, 2015
Part 1

 

Acts 17.15-34

This event marks a significant battle-ground operation in the larger war of wills.

Acts 17:15-34
15 So those who conducted Paul brought him to Athens; and receiving a command for Silas and Timothy to come to him with all speed, they departed.
16 Now while Paul waited for them at Athens, his spirit was provoked within him when he saw that the city was given over to idols.
17 Therefore he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and with the Gentile worshipers, and in the marketplace daily with those who happened to be there.
18 Then certain Epicurean and Stoic philosophers encountered him. And some said, "What does this babbler want to say?" Others said, "He seems to be a proclaimer of foreign gods," because he preached to them Jesus and the resurrection.
19 And they took him and brought him to the Areopagus, saying, "May we know what this new doctrine is of which you speak?
20 "For you are bringing some strange things to our ears. Therefore we want to know what these things mean."
21 For all the Athenians and the foreigners who were there spent their time in nothing else but either to tell or to hear some new thing.
22 Then Paul stood in the midst of the Areopagus and said, "Men of Athens, I perceive that in all things you are very religious;
23 "for as I was passing through and considering the objects of your worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO THE UNKNOWN GOD. Therefore, the One whom you worship without knowing, Him I proclaim to you:
24 "God, who made the world and everything in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands.
25 "Nor is He worshiped with men's hands, as though He needed anything, since He gives to all life, breath, and all things.
26 "And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings,
27 "so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us;
28 "for in Him we live and move and have our being, as also some of your own poets have said, 'For we are also His offspring.'
29 "Therefore, since we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold or silver or stone, something shaped by art and man's devising.
30 "Truly, these times of ignorance God overlooked, but now commands all men everywhere to repent,
31 "because He has appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by the Man whom He has ordained. He has given assurance of this to all by raising Him from the dead.“
32 And when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked, while others said, "We will hear you again on this matter."
33 So Paul departed from among them.
34 However, some men joined him and believed, among them Dionysius the Areopagite, a woman named Damaris, and others with them.

The Apostle Paul knew well which side of a room to make his appeal! In this particular instance, Paul’s meeting was with the Stoic and Epicurean philosophers during his stay in Athens, as reported in the New Testament Acts 17.

If you take a careful look at Paul’s letters to the early churches, you will find that he uses Stoic terms and metaphors reflected heavily from his knowledge of Stoic philosophy.His purpose was certainly not to teach the precepts of Stoic philosophy, but to use figures and thinking patterns
familiar to his audiences of new Gentile converts, to help them to gain a right understanding of the revealed word of God in terms with which they could understand.

Paul was a brilliant teacher.

The Stoics taught and believed-

-that destructive emotions resulted from errors in judgment.

-that an active relationship exists between cosmic determinism and human freedom, a trade-off that must be kept in balance.

-that it is virtuous to maintain a will that is in accord with nature.

Basically, nature has a will and you have a will, nature is bigger than you, if you don’t fall in line with nature, even if it causes you discomfort, you will be certain to experience much greater discomfort in coming against the will of nature. Because of this, the Stoics presented their philosophy as a way of life, and they thought that the best indication of an individual's philosophy was not what a person said but how that person behaved.

So, what does this have to do with you and with me?

First, let loose of your modern concept of the word “stoic.”To us the word "stoic" commonly refers to someone indifferent to pain, pleasure, grief, or joy. This modern usage of a stoic as "person who represses feelings or endures patiently" was first cited in 1579 when used as a noun, then later in 1596 as an adjective.

However, as might be expected, and as you will see later in our discussion, the term “stoic” in the sense of the English adjective “stoical” is not without some basis of idea with the original meaning of indifference to some pains in its philosophical origins.

Stoicism teaches the development of self-control and fortitude as a means of overcoming destructive emotions; the philosophy holds that becoming a clear and unbiased thinker allows one to understand the universal will or universal reason, known to the Greeks as the logos
().

A primary aspect of Stoicism involves improving the individual's ethical and moral well-being, so that: "Virtue consists in a will that is in agreement with Nature." This principle also applies to the realm of interpersonal relationships; "to be free from anger, envy, and jealousy,"
and to accept even slaves as "equals of other men, because all men alike are products of nature."

One can easily see a similarity with Christian tenants, but one could also easily think of Stoicism as a form of pantheism.

The Stoic ethic holds a deterministic perspective, that all things have a cause and an effect, as they do not simply occur ad random.

With regard to those who lack Stoic virtue, they believed that the wicked man is "like a dog tied to a cart, and compelled to go wherever it (the lack of virtue) goes."

So, a Stoic of virtue, by contrast to being a captive slave to the lack of virtue, would adapt his own will to suit the world and remain, in the words of Epictetus:
"sick and yet happy,
in peril and yet happy,
dying and yet happy,
in exile and happy,
in disgrace and happy,"
thus holding to the notion of a "completely autonomous" individual will, while at the same time (without conflict) holding to a universe that is "a rigidly deterministic as a single whole".

Clearly we can see here a doctrine of works, wherein man’s self-determination is used to force his own will to conform to a greater will (universal determinism) that exists outside of himself, and by the power of his own self-determination, is willing to endure the pains and discomforts commensurate with the process of attaining virtue.

Do you hear echoes of these thoughts in Paul’s writings?

Stoicism was not a remote or obscure philosophy; during Paul’s time it had become the foremost popular philosophy among the educated elite in the Hellenistic world and the Roman Empire.

Acts 17:15 - 18:1

15 So those who conducted Paul brought him to Athens; and receiving a command for Silas and Timothy to come to him with all speed, they departed.
16 Now while Paul waited for them at Athens, his spirit was provoked within him when he saw that the city was given over to idols.

was provoked

it was continuing to be provoked

imperfect passive

from par-oks-oo‘-no

Meaning: to make sharp, to irritate, provoke, arouse to anger, to exasperate

the city was given over to idols
literally: the city was a place fully accorded to idols substantive adjective

from , kata fully accorded to + idols, images; false gods

17 Therefore he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and with the Gentile worshipers, and in the marketplace daily with those who happened to be there.

he reasoned in the synagogue he continued to apply reason in his own behalf with others imperfect middle

from dee-a-leg'-o-mai
Meaning: to think different things with one's self, mingle thought with thought to ponder, to converse, to discourse with, to argue, and to discuss

in the marketplace
within the agora
noun, name of place

from , ag-or-ah'

Meaning: market place
from (to gather), lit. a place of assembly (market place) where things (merchandise) and views (ideas) are gathered in together

18 Then certain Epicurean and Stoic philosophers encountered him. And some said, "What does this babbler want to say?" Others said, "He seems to be a proclaimer of foreign gods," because he preached to them Jesus and the resurrection.

Epicurean
Epicurean

Ep-ee-koo'-rei-os

Meaning: Epicurean = "a helper: defender“, belonging to the sect of Epicurius, the philosopher

Stoic
Stoic

Sto-i-kos'
Meaning: Stoics = "of the portico“, pertaining to the Stoic philosophy

encountered
they continued throwing a crowd together
imperfect active intransitive

from soom-bal'-lo
Meaning: to throw together, to bring together, intransitive, the forming of a gathering as an entity.

this babbler
the bird-like person
adjective pronoun

from sper-mol-og'-os
Meaning: picking up seed, of birds, esp. of the crow that picks up grain in fields, fig. of one who picks up scraps of information, just as a bird picks up seeds to feed upon…

…used metaphorically: lounging about the market place and picking up a substance by whatever may chance to fall from the loads of merchandise; hence, a beggarly person, a seedy one, (a parasite) getting a living by flattery and bufferoonery. an empty talker, a babbler.

Others said,
"He seems to be a proclaimer of foreign gods,"

a proclaimer
a herald

kat-ang-gel-eus'
Meaning: an announcer, a proclaimer, lit. one who lays down a message of some sort [remember this word for later, in verse 23]

because he preached to them Jesus and the resurrection.

the resurrection

ana‘-sta-sis
Meaning: the action of raising up, a rising from the dead, lit. the action of standing up again from among the dead ones

19 And they took him and brought him to the Areopagus, saying, "May we know what this new doctrine is of which you speak?

to the Areopagus
upon the Areopagus

+Ar'-ee-os Pag'-os
Meaning: Areopagus = "martial peak" the rocky height in the city of Athens, opposite the western end of the Acropolis.
from Ares (the name of the Greek deity of war) and from Pagos = figurative, things that bring death i.e. capital offenses

This hill belonged to Ares (Mars, Latin) and was called Mar's Hill; so called, because, as the story went, Mars, having slain Halirrhothius, son of Neptune, for the attempted violation of his daughter Alicippe, was tried for the murder here before twelve gods as judges. This place was the location where the judges convened who, by appointment of Solon, had jurisdiction of capital offences, (as willful murder, arson, poisoning, malicious wounding, and breach of established religious usages).

Basically this was a place where “willful acts were judged”

The court itself was called Areopagus from the place where it sat.

The apostle Paul was not led to that hill to defend himself before judges, but “commandeered” in order that his opinions might be heard on divine subjects by a higher level audience than those of the market-place (no pun intended), flocking together there and eager to hear
something new.