Apostle Paul in Athens

Paul had encountered conflict as a result of his preaching in Thessalonica and Berea in northern Greece and had been carried to Athens as a place of safety. According to the Acts of the Apostles, while he was waiting for his companions Silas and Timothy to arrive, Paul was distressed to see Athens full of idols. Paul went to the synagogue and the Agora (Greek: ἐν τῇ ἀγορᾷ, "in the marketplace") on a number of occasions to preach.

Some Greeks then took him to a meeting at the Areopagus, the high court in Athens under the Acropolis of Athens, to explain himself. The Areopagus literally meant the rock of Ares in the city and was a center of temples, cultural facilities, and a high court. It may have been illegal to preach a foreign deity in Athens, which would have thereby made Paul's sermon a combination of a "guest lecture" and a trial.

The sermon addresses five main issues:

• Introduction: Discussion of the ignorance of pagan worship (verses 23–24)
• The one Creator God being the object of worship (25–26)
• God's relationship to humanity (26–27)
• Idols of gold, silver and stone as objects of false worship (28–29)
• Conclusion: Time to end the ignorance (30–31).

Paul begins his address by emphasizing the need to know God, rather than worshiping the unknown:

"As I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. So you are ignorant of the very thing you worship — and this is what I am going to proclaim to you."

In his sermon, Paul quotes from certain Greek philosophers and poets, namely in verse 17:28. He alludes to passages from Epimenides^[7] and from either Aratus or Cleanthes.

After the sermon a number of people became followers of Paul. These included a woman named Damaris, and Dionysius, a member of the Areopagus. He became the first bishop of Athens.