²⁸ “. . . some of your own poets have said, ‘For we also are His children.’ ²⁹Being then the children of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and thought of man. ³⁰Therefore having overlooked the times of ignorance, God is now declaring to men that all people everywhere should repent, ³¹because He has fixed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness through a Man whom He has appointed, having furnished proof to all men by raising Him from the dead.” ³²Now when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some began to sneer, but others said, “We shall hear you again concerning this.” ³³So Paul went out of their midst. ³⁴But some men joined him and believed, among whom also were Dionysius the Areopagite and a woman named Damaris and others with them.

A popular notion today is that all humans are God’s children, and therefore we are all part of the same human family. There is a sense that we are God’s offspring by virtue of being His creation, made in His image, and descendants of the first couple, Adam and Eve. However, Paul does not give Scriptural support for this but draws on a popular notion in the Athenian culture. He begins with what they believe and argues for truth from there.

His first point is that if you believe we are God’s children, then it makes no sense to think of deities as stone sculptures or artwork created by humans. Of course, Paul goes from talking about God (singular) to applying his rhetoric to “divine nature” and to physical idols. The one true Creator God had long overlooked those age-old, misguided efforts of depicting Him, but the time has now come to correct this situation. Paul doesn’t try to prove monotheism, that is, that there is only one true Creator God, and all other deities are false, simply creations of the human mind and hands. No. He calls his audience to repentance—this assumes culpability. Idol worshipers needed to repent of replacing God with their human inventions. As Paul wrote elsewhere:

Professing to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures. (Rom. 1:22–23)

Of course, Paul’s speech was probably much longer than the condensed version recorded here, but the thrust of his message is that the Creator God will judge all people, the Athenian philosophers included. No apologetics here, just a prophetic call to repentance. Presenting the facts through preaching Christ and His resurrection was enough. But at the mention of resurrection, the audience became divided. Some mocked, some were curious, some believed.

Lord, help me be bold because some will be curious and want to learn more.