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Acts 17:20-22
New Catholic Bible
Acts 17:20-22
New Catholic Bible
20 You are presenting strange ideas to us, and we would like to find out what they all mean.” 21 The major pastime of the Athenians and the foreigners living there was to spend their time telling or listening to the latest ideas.
22 Paul’s Speech at the Areopagus.[a]Then Paul stood before them in the Areopagus and said: “Men of Athens, I have seen how religious you are.
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- Acts 17:22 Paul’s speech is a masterpiece of judicious adaptability to the Greek mentality. Yet he and his hearers are on different wave lengths. He preaches a way of life and calls for a faith while the cultured Greeks seek only a truth that satisfies the mind. A crucified and resurrected God can make no impact on them, and they take Paul for a buffoon (v. 14). Others think of him as a fanatic worshiper of new gods: “Jesus” and “Resurrection,” his spouse (v. 18). Paul first sets forth his theodicy: there is one God, who is spiritual, personal, and provident (vv. 22-26). Then he cites their poets, interpreting them in a monotheistic fashion (vv. 27-30). Finally, his Christology is very brief (v. 31), because of the uproar provoked by the subject of the resurrection, which was openly rejected by all the Hellenistic schools of philosophy.
