Will being a Christian cost you something in the present day? If you merely identify as one—even if you aren’t—will that help or hurt your social standing?
Most of us already know the answers. We feel the cultural temperature.
Aaron Renn has called the years since 2014 the negative world—the stretch in which Christian conviction is no longer treated as quaint and harmless but as a threat to the public good. Real cost now follows public Christian conviction. The positive and neutral worlds that shaped most of our witness instincts are gone.
In response, the church has rightly appealed to Peter’s call to “always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you, yet do it with gentleness and respect” (1 Peter 3:15). Generally, sincere believers intuit when to keep their composure under pressure and give a humble answer when questioned. This is the defensive posture of cultural apologetics.
But defense is only half of our calling. Faithful witness in a hostile age demands both Peter’s gentle reverence described in his epistle and Paul’s provoked spirit in Acts 17 that arose when he was faced with Athens’ idolatry—such that he was compelled to act. The recovery of a proper offensive Christian witness is the unfinished business of the church in the negative world.
Paul’s discourse at the Areopagus in Acts 17 is one of the New Testament’s clearest patterns for cross-cultural offensive evangelism—as relevant for the missionary serving among the unreached as for the modern believer at home in his own neighborhood. Seven tactics emerge from his address that are applicable for us today.
1. Seek Common Ground (v. 22)
Men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious. (Acts 17:22 ESV)
The word translated “religious”—deisidaimonésteros—carries the sense of being fearful toward the gods, pious, or superstitious. Paul finds a foothold by acknowledging what is true: the Athenians took the unseen world seriously.
But notice he does not pitch his tent on this small plot of common ground. He uses it to gain rhetorical leverage, immediately shifting to introduce the Athenians to the one true and living God.
Today, we must seek common ground with unbelievers—but not too much. Insider movements, syncretism, and the “we all worship the same God” framing are dangers downstream of confusing the foothold for the home base. Common ground, including the recognition of pagan spirituality as a sort of grasping after the real, may be a starting point for evangelism, but it cannot carry the conversation alone.
2. Proclaim, Don’t Just Share (v. 23)
What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. (Acts 17:23)
Today’s evangelical vocabulary prefers share or invite. Biblical evangelism does more. News announcers don’t suggest; they declare. Proclamation does not require a soapbox, but it is the moment a believer stops speaking for himself and starts speaking as an ambassador for the Lord (2 Corinthians 5:20).
3. Start With Who God Is (vv. 24–25)
The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. (Acts 17:24–25)
Years ago, when conducting doctrinal interviews of missionary candidates, I would ask, “Who is God?” Most would reply that he is loving, kind, and merciful—true things. Few gave ontological answers touching upon God’s essential nature—his self-existence, eternality, triunity, omniscience, omnipresence, immutability, impassability, and so forth.
Verse 25 hammers the great divide between the pagan gods and the true God: aseity (coming from the Latin a se—“from oneself”). The pagan gods needed humanity. They needed sacrifice, attention, and offerings to sustain them. But the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob needs nothing. He gives. We need him; he does not need us. That is the most offensive doctrine in any pagan culture, ancient or modern. Until we define what makes God God, we will not be able to persuade a lost world with his love.
Until we define what makes God God, we will not be able to persuade a lost world with his love.
4. Stress the Exclusivity of Christ (vv. 26–27)
And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place. (Acts 17:26)
God’s plan for the nations sits at the center of Paul’s argument. Each nation was given over for a time to lesser spiritual powers (see Deuteronomy 32:8). That period, Paul says in verse 30, was the time of ignorance. But the era of such particular tribal cults is over. Paul announces the dawn of the universal, unrestricted reign of Christ. Whatever a culture’s ancestral religion—Hindu, Buddhist, Muslim, animist, secularist—Christ stands over and against it as Lord of all, not as one franchise among many.
5. Exegete Your Culture (vv. 27–28)
As even some of your own poets have said, ‘For we are indeed his offspring.’ (Acts 17:28)
Paul quotes Epimenides of Crete and Aratus’ Phaenomena. Some interpreters tie themselves in knots making sense of these allusions because, in their original context, the lines refer to Zeus. But readers today shouldn’t be scandalized by these references. Paul was not endorsing Zeus worship but engaging a strain of Greek philosophical monotheism that was distinct from the extremes of pagan mythology. His method was to appropriate statements that reflected general revelation, then correct and complete them with the truth of the Creator who commands all people to repent.
Sometimes we send people to the foreign field who don’t even know how to engage their neighbors at home; they are too aloof from the unbelievers around them to understand what their lost neighbor thinks, feels, and values. This ought not be so. Like Paul, we too should study our own culture and its pantings after the transcendent. Cultural apologetics is not a substitute for biblical preaching, but biblical preaching may be well served by good cultural exegesis. Be a good missiological student of your mission field.
6. Preach Repentance (v. 30)
The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. (Acts 17:30)
Earlier, Paul proclaimed. Now that proclamation arrives in full force as he declares what God commands. The difference between teaching and preaching is the call to action. Preaching exhorts. Evangelism must call for repentance and faith, or it is not fully doing its job. The gospel is not the bare facts about Jesus; it is those facts plus their theological implication and the call to reckon with him. Biblical evangelism seeks to “close” with Christ.
7. Emphasize the Authority of Christ, Not Just the Mercy of Christ (v. 31)
Because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead. (Acts 17:31)
Many readers stumble here because Paul does not mention the cross. But they ought not. Paul’s gospel before pagan audiences emphasizes the universality of the one true God, the dawning of his kingdom, the judgment that follows, and the One—Christ—to whom rule and judgment have been given. The evidence of his authority is the resurrection, something utterly unique in human history. It is only in this setting that the free offer of mercy lands. Grace makes its appeal when the hearer realizes that the One who raised from the dead is the One who died for sinners and now invites all to come to him for life and forgiveness.
See how different this is from our usual presentation. We start with “Jesus died for you,” which elicits a “So what?” response if we have not first established Christ’s rule and authority to forgive. Unfortunately, modern evangelism often begins with mercy and never reaches authority. Paul begins with authority and lets mercy land with full weight. Different schools of apologetics approach this from different angles. Use the right tool for the job; just don’t forget to emphasize the resurrection and present reign of Christ.
A Call to Faithfulness
A few commentators have read Acts 17 as a cautionary tale—the apostle reached above the heads of his audience and almost no one believed. But we should seek a better understanding of the text. Dionysius was a member of the Areopagus court itself. Damaris is named, which Luke does not do casually. By New Testament standards, Athens was a successful missionary engagement in a hard city.
The final lesson for us, in light of the mixed results in Athens, is that our job is faithful witness, not guaranteed harvest. As Spurgeon said, “It is ours to obey; it is the Lord’s to command results.” In the negative world, we will not always experience staggering numeric success in our soul-winning efforts. Let us simply be faithful. Humbly explain when pressed. Boldly proclaim when sent. Be ready when the question comes. And be willing to feel provoked by a culture in need.
