Paul at Athens-- would you have done anything differently?

[Guest]

I am heading up a bible study on the book of Acts-- and we are going to be discussing Ch 17, including Paul's discourse to the Athenian philosophers. For your reference:

22Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: "Men of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. 23For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. Now what you worship as something unknown I am going to proclaim to you.

24"The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands. 25And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else. 26From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. 27God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. 28'For in him we live and move and have our being.' As some of your own poets have said, 'We are his offspring.'

29"Therefore since we are God's offspring, we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone—an image made by man's design and skill. 30In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. 31For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to all men by raising him from the dead."

32When they heard about the resurrection of the dead, some of them sneered, but others said, "We want to hear you again on this subject." 33At that, Paul left the Council.

Paul did a really good job (he's an apostle after all) of laying the foundation with them-- bringing up their "unknown God", talking about how even their own poets said that they were God's offspring, and pointing out therefore how can idols made of gold and stone be their God.

He then jumped right into talking about the resurrection, which caused an apparently interested audience to ridicule and scoff to the point where he had to stop, w/o ever getting into a discussion about who Jesus actually was.

Not to mean any disrespect to Paul, but is there anything that he could have done differently in bridging the more general topic of the one true God and the person Jesus Christ? perhaps we can use this as a learning experience as to how to approach people, particularly intellectual types.

TK

[Guest]

I believe Paul was speaking through the Holy Spirit when debating with the Athenians. But if he were merely speaking on his own will, it still appears to be a solid, logical argument. He starts with an area of agreement, then builds upon that foundation by introducing new things that they were not aware of. Some of them believed Paul and others were not swayed. However, it appears that none of them were offended. Food for thought.