A Year in Luke/ActsNäide

Paul’s speech in Athens is often read as a philosophical debate with the Areopagus being a kind of debating society. Tom Wright notes that in reality, it was not a place to debate, but a court: “Paul’s speech is an answer to the charge of bringing in foreign divinities” (p105, The Challenge of Acts).

Like so much of Luke’s narrative, temples are important in Paul’s address. The “unknown God” does not live in shrines or temples made by human hands, but fills the whole world, as we see in Psalm 19. Rather than importing a foreign idea amongst many others present in a city like Athens, Paul argues he is presenting the true God that all religious endeavors aim at. This does not mean that God is an Epicurean god who is not interested in human affairs. God is “not far from each one of us” (v27) and wants us to search so that we may find.