Paul quotes two Greek sources here as support for his point that the creator God does not need temples or service from humans. The first allusion is to Epimenides the Cretan, a poet also cited in Titus 1:12. The original poem no longer exists, but it appears in a number of other ancient writers. The second citation is from Aratus, a Cilcian poet (Phaenomena 5). The original line, “in him we move and live and have our being,” was pantheistic, but Paul spins this line into a statement about God as the source of our life.
We might ask how Paul came to know these lines of poetry. There are not many modern readers who can quote freely from current poets or philosophers. One possibility is that he had some secular education which could be applied to the preaching of the gospel. We might imagine Paul thinking through his task of being a light to the Gentiles and researching possible points of contact in order to preach to pagan audiences. This is in fact a typical way of doing apologetics today. Christians will study philosophy for the purpose of interacting with the philosophical world in their own terms. While I do not think this is a bad idea at all, that may not be Paul’s point in using these sources.
On the other hand, these may very well have been well known bits of proverbial wisdom that were more or less “common knowledge.” If so, then the allusion to Greek poets is more like the preacher who uses a common phrase in order to make his point. Or better, Paul is quoting lyrics of popular songs to make his point. I occasionally use a line from a popular movie or song in order to make a point (although with my taste in music, it usually does not work very well.) This comes down to knowing your audience. I have found that I can get a lot further with college age group with a Simpsons reference, while the same line is lost on an older adult group. Perhaps that is what Paul is doing here in Acts 17 – he is riffing on the culture.
(Let me comment here that most of the books which try to use movies to teach the gospel with a popular movie are lame and probably only read by Christians who like the movie in the first place. I cannot imagine that any pagan would pick up “Finding Jesus with Frodo” and get saved as a result.)
In both of the allusions Paul simply intends to show that his thinking is not all that far from authorities which the audience would have understood and appreciated. To cite the Hebrew Bible would have been fruitless since the audience did not know it, nor where they well disposed to hearing from Jewish texts! Paul does not think that Jewish or Christian theology can be added to Stoicism in order to put one right with God – there must be a conversion to an entirely new worldview.
Does this mean that Acts 17 is permission to quote The Simpsons or Bob Dylan in sermons and Bible studies? Perhaps, but we need to couple cultural reference with a serious point from the text of the Bible. It is one thing to mimic culture to attract attention to you point, but it is a fairly worthless strategy is if there is no point behind the reference. I think that you can (and should) illustrate serious theological points via cultural artifacts (like poets, books, movies, etc.)
If the point is obscured by the fact that you rolled a Family Guy clip in church, then you have missed Paul’s point.
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March 20, 2013 at 8:21 pm
arenberg93
In Mark 2:13-17, we see Jesus eating with sinners. This was not an awkward dinner where the sinners cleaned up their act, or hated hanging out with the religious dude. Jesus was the life of the party! He was part of that group and culture without conforming to it. We see it in the pharisees, and we see it in the church today where we fight against culture. But Jesus doesn’t do this! Jesus accepts culture and uses it to gain an audience with a group of people that would not have heard the word otherwise. Paul is doing the same thing in this chapter where he uses the culture to gain an audience and present to them the hope that is in Jesus Christ. Culture is a powerful tool that should not be shunned by the church today, but we cannot be lost in it. We need to be relevant to the world, but stand as a light to it as well. People can understand the scriptures better when they have something to relate it to in our culture. But the scriptures should be the focus, not the illustration that we are using. Paul was brilliant in bringing culture into his message in order to reach the people he was with, but we cannot lose sight of the ultimate message and hope hidden underneath.
March 20, 2013 at 10:08 pm
leviwood138
I would have to agree that if you are using a cultural reference to try and gain a little clout with your audience you need to have some theology behind it. To try and make references for no other reason than to seem cool would be pointless. Most cultures will be able to spot a fake from a mile away. I know growing up in the punk rock scene if a guy who had no actual want to be there then to just try and save a few kids showed up trying to throw out some jargon that he thought would make him hip, he would be laughed out of the room. You also have to watch what you are saying, in keeping with the Simpson reference, there are a lot of things that you could quote from that show that would be inappropriate and could actually damage your ministry. Being relevant to your audience is most definitely a needed thing, but you must also be true to what you are doing. You must also be appropriate in that too.
March 20, 2013 at 10:23 pm
jbefus
Entro. Connecting points are vital to a missionary or anyone who is engaging the culture in order to explain the gospel to people. And that is exactly what Paul does in Acts 17 when he speaks to the Athenians. Even Jesus, like Adam says above, was engaged in the culture during His ministry. However, I am not sure this warrants quoting anything from culture for the sake of explaining the gospel. I think there would be a fine line there where certain things can be used in order to advance the gospel. Paul in Acts 17 uses their beliefs in gods to connect to them. He does this because it touches at the very heart of the issue and it is very relevant to them. When Peter addresses Jews, he references back to Jewish history in order to connect with them. In other passages, Paul uses activities or beliefs in the culture to connect to them. One example is in 1 Corinthians 9:24-27. Paul uses the metaphor of training for the ‘games’ to illustrate his point. In our culture, I think we would have to use a lot of discretion. First we would have to be careful to not endorse things that would be potentially destructive to people. We would also have to be careful that the focus is on connecting and explaining the gospel instead of simply entertaining people.