Oct 28, 2026
On a recent visit to WOW’s partner ministries in Africa our return flight took us home through Athens. Our world owes a lot to Greece, especially its contribution to democracy. Democracy, the word, is a compound of two Greek words: “demos” (“people”) and “kratos” (“power”, “might”, or “rule”). In other words “rule by the people”. It has a checkered past evolving through tribal assemblies in the Dark and Middle Ages, various overbearing hegemonies and monarchies, disruptions of wars and plagues, to our “modern” version of universal suffrage. But its essential DNA was the product of Greek thought.
The apostle Paul brought something of lasting influence from Athens to us as well. In Acts 17 Luke records what we now know as the “Areopagus Address”, a sermon Paul preached on Mars Hill to the insatiable minds of the gathered Athenian philosophers. His sermon title was “To The Unknown God”. He spoke of mankind’s philosophical and religious “groping for God” even “though He is not far from each one of us”. He declared we are God’s “offspring” and “in Him we live and move and have our being”. He went on to say that God “overlooked” the ignorance that produced idolatries and now through faith in “the Man whom He has ordained” by “raising Him from the dead” the world will be “judged in righteousness”.
This is strong theology. Theology that provides the foundation for a sustainable faith in Christ, theology that may not be expressed in so many words every time we share our faith but is absolutely vital to its integrity. Our faith, our hope, our day to day walk with the Lord is rooted in history-an empty tomb, a risen saviour, and the promise of his return to judge the living and the dead. Theology preached in Athens and lived every day in the 21st century by millions of believers around the world.
Acts17, BiblicalTeaching, ChristianFaith, FaithAndHistory, JimCantelonToday