Paul is in Athens, surrounded by altars to every known god and one to “the unknown god” (v. 23). He stands on the Areopagus — Mars Hill, the ancient court of Athens — and addresses the Stoic and Epicurean philosophers. He does not begin with Scripture; he begins with their own poets. He quotes Epimenides of Crete and Aratus of Cilicia, Stoic thinkers who described humanity as divinely-grounded, and he uses their own language to name the God they do not know.

From the writers we read together

Francis Schaeffer

theologian and cultural apologist, founder of L'Abri Fellowship (1912-1984)

Schaeffer was famous for the method Paul uses on Mars Hill: beginning where the audience is, finding what is true in their framework, and using it as a bridge to the truth they haven't arrived at yet. Paul does not dismiss the Stoic poets; he quotes them. Schaeffer taught his students at L'Abri to do the same — to find the point of contact in any worldview where the human being is reaching toward something they cannot name, and to say: what you are groping for has a name.

Acts 17:28 — “in him we live and move and have our being” — is the most comprehensive description of divine immanence in the New Testament. God is not a being among beings who can be located at a distance; he is the medium in which all beings exist. Schaeffer read this as the answer to the question his century was most urgently asking: does existence have a ground? Paul stands on Mars Hill and says: the ground of existence is a Person, and he is not far from you. The altar to the unknown god is the best evidence that you have been groping for him.