A.W. Tozer said, “What comes to mind when you think of God is the most important thing about you.”
All of us have a God-image—an internal picture of what God is like. And that picture depends on lots of different things—your family, your culture, your faith-tradition, you time in history.
If you were born in Athens in the 1st century AD, you’d probably believe in lots of gods. Why? Because that was their culture. Athens was at an ancient intersection between east and west. There were travelers and traders passing through all the time. And they imported foreign gods. Petronius, a first-century writer said, “It was easier to find a god in Athens than it was to find a man.”
Acts 17:21 says, “All the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there spent their time doing nothing but talking about and listening to the latest ideas.” Paul has mixed emotions. On the one hand he is distressed. “He was greatly distressed to see that the city was full of idols.” They had an incomplete picture of who God is. Paul wanted to take them beyond their gods—small g—and introduce them to God—capital G. He said, “What you worship as something unknown I am going to proclaim to you.”
A hundred years ago, most Americans didn’t know any Buddhists or Muslims and didn’t know anything about those faith traditions. But America today is a lot like Athens—lots of different people worship lots of different gods. Globalism has resulted in pluralism.
So Paul was distressed. But he also pays them a compliment. “Men of Athens. I see that in every way you are very religious.” We tend to attack people who have a different conception of God. But all that does is cut off dialogue. Walls go up. End of discussion! Paul compliments them—in every way you are very religious. Athenians believed in a multitude of gods. In a sense, they couldn’t get enough of god. They wanted as many gods as they could get.
Then Paul says, “For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO THE UNKNOWN GOD. Now what you worship as something unknown, I am going to proclaim to you.”
In the sixth century BC, Athens was hit with a terrible plague that killed many of its citizens. Despite sacrificing to the gods of the city, the plague continued to spread. One of the religious leaders in the city believed that the city was under a curse for the sins of King Megacles. Megacles had broken a promise and executed some enemies to whom he had granted amnesty. The religious leader concluded that an unknown god was still offended by Megacles’ atrocities. The leaders of the city decided to send an envoy to the island of Crete to summon one of the ancient world’s most respected philosophers, Epimenides.
When Epimenides arrived in the city he was astounded by all of the idols. And it was his task to identify the one god who had not yet been appeased by the sacrifices of the Athenians. Epimenides made his way to Mars Hill and said to the leaders of the city, “Learned elders of Athens, there is no need to thank me. Tomorrow at sunrise bring a flock of sheep, a band of stone masons, and a large supply of stones and mortar to the grassy slope at the foot of the of this sacred rock. The sheep must all be healthy, and of different colors—some white, some black. And you must prevent them from grazing after their night’s rest. They must be hungry sheep! I will now rest from my journey. Call me at dawn.”
The next morning, the hungry sheep, the stone masons, and hundreds of onlookers gathered at the base of Mars Hill. Epimenides said he was going to offer sacrifices based on three assumptions: 1) There is still a god whose name is unknown and is not represented by any of the idols in the city; 2) This god is great enough and good enough to do something about the plague; and 3) Any god great enough and good enough to stop this plague is also great enough and good enough to smile upon people in their ignorance—if they acknowledge their ignorance and call upon him.
Epimenides then ordered that the sheep, both the black and white sheep, be released to graze. He then prayed aloud to the unknown god, acknowledging their ignorance, and asked that the unknown god make either the white sheep or black sheep lay down, and those sheep would be sacrificed to him.
It seemed like a foolhardy prayer—hungry sheep don’t lay down. They continue to graze until their hunger is satisfied. Much to the amazement of the onlookers, one-by-one the white sheep buckled their knees and lay down. On the spot where each sheep lay down, the stonemasons built altars. Epimenides ordered that no name be assigned to this god. As an admission of ignorance, the stonemasons inscribed the words agnosto theo, “to an unknown god.”
The Athenians sacrificed the sheep on the altars and by dawn the next day the plague ceased to spread.
Over the centuries that followed, some of the altars deteriorated. But even second and third century writers, Pausanias and Philostratus, mention the existence of altars to unknown gods in Athens. We know this for sure, Paul found one when he visited Athens in 45 AD.
The question is: Did Paul know about Epimenides or was simply a convenient starting point? Paul goes on to say, “‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring’.” The poet Paul quoted was none other than Epimenides.
A quatrain from one of Epimenides poems reads,
They fashioned a tomb for thee, O holy and high one—
The Cretans, always liars, evil beasts, idle bellies!
But thou art not dead; thou livest and abidest forever;
For in him we live and move and have our being.
Paul established a point of connection.
In his book Retrofuture, Gerard Kelly tells about a missionary named Michael Shirres who worked for twenty years among the Maori people of New Zealand. His life work was to find “points of connection” between the Maori culture, traditions, and spirituality on the one hand and the Christian gospel on the other. He called the process inculturation:
“Inculturation is a theological term which embraces two rich and seminal ideas, enculturation and incarnation. Enculturation involves growing into a culture which is a process which is continuous. Incarnation is a theological term that expresses God’s becoming a human being…Inculturation is a made-up word, which signifies the process where Jesus, as a human, took on the culture of a particular people. Just as he became a Jew so he becomes a member of other communities, taking on their particular culture. As the Word is made flesh becoming a Jew, so “the word is made flesh,” becoming a member of each human family.”
That’s exactly what Paul does. He established a point of connection. He quotes Epimenides. He cites their history. He tells them about their god—the Unknown God.