# Paul at Athens



## Puritan Sailor (May 17, 2004)

[quote:ecc2d707ab] 18 Then certain Epicurean and Stoic philosophers encountered him. And some said, &quot;What does this babbler want to say?&quot; 
Others said, &quot;He seems to be a proclaimer of foreign gods,&quot; because he preached to them Jesus and the resurrection. 
19And they took him and brought him to the Areopagus, saying, &quot;May we know what this new doctrine is of which you speak? 20For you are bringing some strange things to our ears. Therefore we want to know what these things mean.&quot; 21For 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, &quot;Men of Athens, I perceive that in all things you are very religious; 23for 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: 24God, who made the world and everything in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands. 25Nor is He worshiped with men's hands, as though He needed anything, since He gives to all life, breath, and all things. 26And He has made from one blood[3] 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, 27so 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; 28for in Him we live and move and have our being, as also some of your own poets have said, &quot;For we are also His offspring.' 29Therefore, 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. 30Truly, these times of ignorance God overlooked, but now commands all men everywhere to repent, 31because 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.&quot; 
32And when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked, while others said, &quot;We will hear you again on this matter.&quot; [/quote:ecc2d707ab]

Using some textual analysis here, what type of apologetic argument is Paul using here? Every apologetic theory tries to claim this passage for themselves. So please show from the text what type of method Paul is using.


----------



## Puritan Sailor (May 18, 2004)

Paul, that's an excellent article. A little long but still excellent. Thanks.


----------



## VirginiaHuguenot (Jan 16, 2005)

Good article!


----------

