Telling Our Stories – “Athens: Paul in the Areopagus”
Acts 17:
May 10, 2026
The Areopagus of Athens, Greece – a place and a people.
The Areopagus is the name of a rocky outcrop northwest of the Acropolis in Athens, Greece.
The name comes from the Latin composite of the Greek name Areios Pagos,
translated as “Hill of Ares”. The war god Ares was supposed to have been tried on this hill,
the Areopagus, by the other gods for the murder of Poseidon’s son. (wikipedia.com)
Dudley Larus just visited the Areopagus a few days ago.
The Areopagus is also the people, the principal council of ancient Athens, which served mainly
as a judicial body responsible for cases of homicide and certain religious offenses.
This judicial body was composed of the cultured elite of the city.
Sitting high on a hilltop, they discussed weighty matters of philosophy, religion, economics.
Not just anyone could participate in the Areopagus;
the judges held powerful influence over the city of Athens and the entire region.
Hear the Word of God from Acts 17:16-34
While Paul was waiting for (Silas and Timothy) in Athens,
Paul was deeply distressed to see that the city was full of idols.
So he argued in the synagogue with the Jews and the devout persons,
and also in the market-place every day with those who happened to be there.
Also some Epicurean and Stoic philosophers debated with him.
Some said, ‘What does this babbler want to say?’
Others said, ‘He seems to be a proclaimer of foreign divinities.’
(This was because he was telling the good news about Jesus and the resurrection.)
So they took him and brought him to the Areopagus and asked him,
‘May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? It sounds rather strange to us,
so we would like to know what it means.’ Now all the Athenians and the foreigners living there
would spend their time in nothing but telling or hearing something new.
Then Paul stood in front of the Areopagus and said,
‘Athenians, I see how extremely religious you are in every way.
For as I went through the city and looked carefully at the objects of your worship,
I found among them an altar with the inscription, “To an unknown god.”
What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you.
The God who made the world and everything in it, he who is Lord of heaven and earth,
does not live in shrines made by human hands, nor is he served by human hands, as though
he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mortals life and breath and all things.
From one ancestor he made all nations to inhabit the whole earth, and he allotted
the times of their existence and the boundaries of the places where they would live,
so that they would search for God and perhaps grope for him and find him—
though indeed he is not far from each one of us.
For “In him we live and move and have our being”; as even some of your own poets have said,
“For we too are his offspring.” Since we are God’s offspring,
we ought not to think that the deity is like gold, or silver, or stone, an image formed by the art
and imagination of mortals. While God has overlooked the times of human ignorance,
now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day
on which he will have the world judged in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed,
and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.’
When they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some scoffed; but others said,
‘We will hear you again about this.’ At that point Paul left them.
But some of them joined him and became believers, including Dionysius the Areopagite
and a woman named Damaris, and others with them.
The Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.
After debating with the Apostle in the crowded marketplace and hearing Paul speak
about repentance, judgment, and the resurrection,
Epicurean and Stoic philosophers took Paul to the Areopagus.
This gospel that Paul was preaching was something “new” to be explored and examined.
The people of Athens had been accused of spending their time
in “nothing but telling or hearing something new” in politics, religion, and philosophy,
so these philosophers thought that Paul just might entertain the elite of the Areopagus.
Our former associate pastor, Ken Hughes, preached on this text some years ago.
Ken recognized that “Normally when we hear Paul’s voice,
we’re treated to robust proclamations of Jesus’ saving grace,
and of how God’s plan for humanity’s salvation is being realized through the cross of Jesus.
That’s what we’re used to hearing from Paul.
But in his speech at the Areopagus, Paul doesn’t mention Jesus at all,
only a glancing reference to a man who has been resurrected.
And in another departure from Paul’s norm, he doesn’t cite scripture, not a single verse.
In fact, the only quote in this address is from a Greek philosopher of the 3rd century B.C.!”
Ken said: “What, we might well ask, is going on here?
The short answer is that Paul is preaching to pagans, or those who worship many gods.
The government officials of the Areopagus were powerful, and well connected,
and probably well educated. They were the cultured elite of Athens.
And Paul was trying to meet them where they were.
When Paul spoke in the synagogues, he would quote the ancient Hebrew Torah.
When he spoke among Greek philosophers, he would quote ancient Greek philosophers.
(Rev. Ken Hughes, “Preaching to the Pagans”, sermon on May 29, 2011 at Decatur Presbyterian Church)
Among these who worshiped all sorts of idols and unknown gods, Paul cried out:
“The God who made the world and everything in it, the one who is Lord of heaven and earth…
is not far from each one of us. ‘For in him we live and move and have our being’;
as even as (your own poet Cicero) said,” Paul told them, “we too are his offspring.”
At the time, Paul’s speech before the Athenians about the One True God,
about repentance and judgment, about the One who was resurrected,
did not seem to accomplish much,
At the time, it only seemed to stir “mild curiosity” among the Areopagus.
However, Luke reports in Acts that Paul’s speech led to the conversion of a few,
including Dionysius and Damaris, among others.
Dionysius the Areopagite later became the Bishop of Athens.
He is venerated as a saint in the Catholic and the Eastern Orthodox churches
and memorialized annually on October 3. (wikipedia.com)
Dionysius, the patron saint of Athens, is venerated as the protector of judges and the judiciary.
Two large churches in Athens bearing his name,
the pedestrian walkway around the Acropolis bears his name as well.
And Dionysius is also the patron saint of the village of Dionysi in the south of Crete.
Damaris, the woman who responded to Paul’s preaching in the Areopagus,
appears only here in the biblical text.
She may have been one of the Stoics of the Areopagus,
since Stoicism welcomed women among their ranks.
Damaris is also saint of the Greek Orthodox Church and is remembered on October 3
along with Dionysius.
When Paul spoke to the Areopagus, some scoffed.
Some said that they wanted to hear him again on these things.
Dionysius and Damaris, among others, responded to his message
and became followers of The Way, as the early church was called.
What may have seemed to be futile mission to try to reach the “spiritual but not religious”
of the first century became a promising seed which took root in Greece.
Some of us may be vaguely familiar with the writings of the poet Cicero that Paul quoted,
but I can imagine that each of our lives has been influenced by the letters of the Apostle Paul.
We are still reading Paul’s letters some 2000 years later!
The Holy Spirit working through Paul, and then through Dionysius and Damaris, among others,
ensured that the seed of gospel that Paul planted in Athens would continue even until today.
Some of you will remember an old shampoo commercial
about the one who tries a new shampoo and then tells two friends?
This will age those of us who remember it, but long before Zoom calls
could project dozens or even hundreds of us in tiny boxes on a screen,
this shampoo commercial began with one person telling two friends
about a new shampoo. The screen showed the pictures of the three friends.
Then the words continued along with new photos added each time:
Then they tell two friends, and they tell two friends, and so on, and so on,
as the photos on the screen multiply exponentially.
Like the old shampoo commercial, the Christian Church took root in places like Athens, Greece
because the Apostle Paul spoke boldly about the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.
Then those who believed would tell their friends, and their friends would tell others,
and the Christian church began to grow exponentially.
The Church of today is perhaps more like the first century church
than it has been throughout its history.
Brian McLaren wrote a book called
“More Ready than You Realize: Evangelism as Dance in the Post Modern Matrix.”
McLaren says that “out” is the idea that evangelism is something you have to do
as some kind of conquest or argument or some kind of ultimatum.
Those ways are over – those ways of thinking are over.
What is “in” today is the idea of evangelism as disciple-making in relationships.
It’s something you get to do, in your conversations with the people you see everyday,
in companionship as a sort of dance, he says. But he says also,
that you have to realize that when you dance with a new partner you can’t just teach them
the steps that you know, that you’ve got to be willing to be influenced by the ways
that they move and the music that they listen to.
In order to reach out to the changing culture around us we need to be willing
to get on the dance floor, to learn some new dance steps, to hear some new music,
to learn some new moves.
Like Paul, we are surrounded by those who know or care little about Jesus
and the power of resurrection. There are many “cultured despisers of religion” in our midst.
We all know a number of “unchurched folks” and yes, “dechurched folks” as well.
How would you address a gathering of philosophers, say, over at Emory University,
who may regard Christianity as a fading and archaic system of belief?
How would you address those who claim that Christianity has done more damage than good
to countless numbers of peoples and nations?
How about those whose mindset can be described by the well-worn phrase,
“spiritual, but not religious?”
What common ground can we seek with those who are either hostile or indifferent
to the good news of Jesus Christ?
And some would ask, should we even attempt to engage them at all?
Drew Wilmesherr who serves UKirk, our Presbyterian campus ministry,
can tell you how challenging it can be to even gather a few folks on a university campus
to hear good news about anything.
Our world may not be all that different from Athens in the first century.
As the great St. Augustine of the fourth century once wrote:
“Our hearts are restless until they find their rest in Thee.”
There are many restless souls out there longing for rest and hope and life eternal.
Surely, Augustine himself was a restless soul; he lived a life far beyond the boundaries
of the Church and his mother’s wishes. But Augustine’s mother kept praying for him,
and finally, ultimately, he bowed before Jesus in humility and faith.
We never know what God might do with someone.
We never know who might become a powerful leader within the Christian faith,
and we should never assume that someone, anyone, is beyond God’s reach.
We never know what the Holy Spirit may do with a small seed that we plant in another’s life.
Paul told Dionysius and Damaris about the love and grace of Jesus Christ,
about Jesus’ sacrifice unto death for our sins, about the power and hope of resurrection.
What restless soul do you know who needs to hear some good news today?
Who among us is longing for some good and hopeful news?
Tell your friends. They just might tell their friends, and so on, and so on, and so on…
Amen.
Rev. Dr. Todd Speed
Decatur Presbyterian Church
Decatur, Georgia
