Sunday School Lesson
(Continued from Page 1)
like to imagine Paul ? the
Apostle to the Gentiles ? re
sponding to the challenge of
this intellectual, pagan environ
ment.
Other Kholars hesitate to ac
cept these words as being direct
ly from the lips of Paul. Here
Is the argument of one such per
son:
"There is no reason to sup
pose that this Is a report of ,
what Paul said. First, the habit i
of Greek and Roman historians!
was to put speeches of their
own composition into the mouths
of their characters. To have re
produced the actual words, even
if they were available, would
have seemed bad style, as de
storying the unity of expression
of a work. Nearly all the char
arters in Acts talk In one style.
Secondly, in all probability
there was no such thing at Ath
ens as an altar dedicated To an
unknown God. Paul might have 1
seen either an altar with no in
scription, or an altar inscribed
'To unknown gods' ? set up
by someone who . . . did not
know the name of the deity to
whom he ought to pay homage:
but it Is extremely unlikely that
Paul can have seen an altar
with this inscription."
1 Usually in this sort of dis
! agreement the truth lies be
tween the two extremes. At the
1 very least, we can say that the
! arguments credited to Paul were
the kinds of arguments Luke
had heard Paul present to gen
tile audiences.
| Again, the main point to rec
ognize here is that Christians
can use the language and
thought forms of non-Christians
in explaining the gospel to them. |
Paul's speech began with a \
reference to an altar to an un
known God. Thus he appealed
to the Athenians' concern lor ,
worship.
The God Paul preached to
them was Indeed unknown to
them. But the concept of God
as creator of the world would
have been understood by the
Stoics, and the statement that
God lacks nothing and is inde
pendent of men would have
found sympathetic ears among
those familiar with Epicurean
philosophy. (See Acts 17:18a.)
The Gospel for Our Day
We have seen that communi
cating the gospel to their au-|
dience in words they could un
derstand was a prime concern of
the New Testament writers. Let
us translate this concern to our
times. Here is how one writer
put it:
"Again and again we com*
back to the basic fact that we
are no longer in a Christendom
in which we may take the Chris
tian faith for granted, but in ?
worldwide pluralism where
Christianity is ? minority. This
situation has important conse
quences for the work of the
church. . . . Simply saying over
again what the church has be
( Continued on Pace 4)
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? ? ? - W? fa
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V
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