Paul Among the Altars of Athens

Picture Athens in the first century, not the quiet ruins that visitors photograph today but the living city. Statues and altars stand in its streets and squares: Zeus, Athena, Hermes, and many more, in bronze, marble, and gold. Smoke rises from the altars in front of them. On every side, someone is bowing to something.

Luke records what the sight did to Paul:

Acts 17:16 Now while Paul was waiting for them at Athens, his pneuma πνεῦμα pnyoo'-mah(spirit) was being provoked within him as he was observing the city full of idols.

Provoked is a strong word. Paul was not strolling through the city admiring the craftsmanship. The sight of a whole city bowing to what its own hands had made troubled him deeply.

What Paul Said, and Where

Then Paul was brought to the Areopagus, the hill where the city’s council met, and there he spoke:

Acts 17:22-23 So Paul stood in the midst of the Areopagus(Hill of Ares) and said, "Men of Athens, I observe that you are very religious in all respects. For while I was passing through and examining the objects of your worship, I also found an altar with this inscription, 'TO AN UNKNOWN GOD.' Therefore the One whom you worship in ignorance, Him I proclaim to you.

A moment later came the sentence so often quoted against the temple in Jerusalem:

Acts 17:24-25 The God who made the world and all things in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands; nor is He served by human hands, as though He needed anything, since He Himself gives to all people zoe ζωή dzo-ay'(life) and pnoe πνοή pno-ay'(breath) in every way;

The setting matters. Paul is not standing in Jerusalem, and he is not looking at the house of the LORD. He is standing in a city packed with idols, speaking to people who serve gods made of gold, silver, and stone. Notice, too, that the word “temples” is plural. Paul is not pointing at the one house God chose. He is pointing at the shrines all around him in that city.

Gods Who Needed Help

One phrase explains the whole sentence: “as though He needed anything.”

In Athens, serving a god meant serving a statue. The statue had to be fed, so worshipers laid food before it. It had to be sheltered, so they built a house over it. It had to be clothed and washed and decorated on feast days. In practice, a pagan god was a dependent. He needed people to keep him housed and fed.

That is the kind of god Paul was confronting. The God who made the world does not need anyone to build Him a shelter, and He does not need anyone to bring Him a meal. The giving runs the other way: He is the one who gives to all people life and breath and everything else.

The Scriptures had said this long before Paul. In the Psalms God says:

Psalm 50:12-13 If I were hungry, I would not tell you; for mine is the world and its fullness. Do I eat the meat (basar בָּשָׂר baw-sawr') of bulls, or drink the blood of he-goats?

And Paul finishes the thought a few sentences later:

Acts 17:29 Being then the children of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the enthumesis ἐνθύμησις en-thoo'-may-sis(intention, thought) and skill of man.

Not a Word About Jerusalem

On that hill, then, Paul was tearing down the idea of a god confined to a shrine and kept alive by human service, the idea that the Divine is like a statue “formed by the enthumesis(intention, thought) and skill of man.” That was the theology of Athens, and Paul dismantled it.

He does not mention the temple in Jerusalem at all. The house that Solomon dedicated was never a place where God was kept alive by human hands. Solomon himself had said, on the day it was opened, that the highest heavens could not contain Him.

Paul and Solomon are saying the same thing, and Paul is saying it to people who worship idols.

The Question Paul Leaves Us

Yet if God does not live in shrines that people make, and does not need us to build Him a shelter, how did a tabernacle or a temple ever come to exist at all, and who decides where the God of heaven and earth will meet with people?

The Torah had answered that question long before Paul stood on that hill.