²²So Paul stood in the midst of the Areopagus and said, “Men of Athens, I observe that you are very religious in all respects. ²³For while I was passing through and examining the objects of your worship, I also found an altar with this inscription, ‘To an Unknown God.’ Therefore what you worship in ignorance, this I proclaim to you. ²⁴The God who made the world and all things in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth . . .”

Apologetics, as Christians use the term, is the systematic, logical defense of the Christian faith. Many have used this record of Paul’s interaction in Athens as an example of that. However, in this passage he is not defending Christianity but is mounting a logical dissection of pagan belief as displayed in the multiplicity of idol statues in the city. He is utilizing what we call a polemic, “an aggressive attack on or refutation of the opinions or principles of another” (Merriam-Webster). Paul was not acerbic but was fully capable of stepping up to the sharp manner of debate that was quite familiar to Athenians. He seems to be well trained in the rhetoric of the day; at the least, he didn’t shy away from taking on the intellectual elite.

The apostle begins with a positive affirmation that his philosophical listeners were “religious in all respects.” This would line him up with the Stoics rather than the Epicureans, who had relatively little value for religion. This is similar to how Paul would often line up with the Jewish sect of the Pharisees as opposed to the Sadducees (who did not believe in the resurrection).

He quickly pivots to a particular object of worship, the “unknown God,” and segues into informing them of the Creator God of the universe, whom they do not know. Today, popular religious studies in liberal academia assert that belief in one God who created the universe (monotheism) evolved late in human history, having arisen out of the primeval belief in many gods (polytheism). In Paul’s day, the assumption was clear that there are many gods, and the belief in a single god would have been considered atheism because it denied the existence of all other gods. However, Paul’s approach (and the Bible’s assertion) is that there is one and only one God, and He is the Creator of the universe. Belief in many gods is a degradation of faith from original monotheism.

Today’s religious pluralism is very similar to the climate in Athens, where religion was a subject of debate but tolerance was a prime value. Religious belief is acceptable in our culture today, so long as one does not assert that one religion is right and all others are wrong. But the truth is always right; it excludes what is wrong. Thus Paul proclaims the truth that paganism is wrong.

Lord, thank You for showing me the truth of Jesus and His resurrection.