For thou bringest certain strange things to our ears: we would know therefore what these things mean.
The request in the verse was made after Paul was brought to Mars Hill, also called Areopagus, to be given a fair hearing without interruption. Mars Hill was one of the most sacred spots in Athens, regarded with superstitious awe and reverence amounting in some to dread, a place of solemn religious and judicial importance where courts decided criminal cases and difficult religious questions and men acted as final judges on important moral and civil questions. It stood in the highest place on the Athenian coast, with an open-air platform and rock seats for judges reached by stone steps, near temples, sanctuaries, architecture, sculpture and statuary. It was away from crowded streets, public thoroughfares and the tumult of promiscuous discussion where the frivolous and thoughtless class would not follow, so that Paul could be heard there without interruption.
Those who spoke the words were the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers, the great and learned men of Athens, its scholars and sages, poets and artists, a people devoted to art and idols who spent their time in nothing else but telling or hearing some new thing. They had heard Paul in the marketplace preaching Jesus and the resurrection as doctrines new and unfamiliar, sounding like strange gods and a new teaching, and they asked what those things meant and to hear more and have the new doctrine explained. At first they jeered him as a babbler far beneath them socially and intellectually and as a setter forth of strange gods. They warned him of the fate of Socrates, condemned to death for setting forth strange gods, and counseled him not to endanger his life the same way.
Yet they saw his store of knowledge was even greater than their own, and his intellectual power, earnest logical reasoning and oratory commanded the respect of the learned and held the attention of all. Finding him determined at all hazards to accomplish his errand and tell his story and meeting his opposers undaunted on their own ground with logic, philosophy and eloquence, they won respect and admiration for him and decided to give him a fair hearing to know what his strange things meant. Paul's standing there to answer showed he was no novice but able to meet every class from men of renown to heathen idolaters. He met eloquence with eloquence, logic with logic and oratory with oratory, answering proud philosophy with knowledge, eloquence, natural religion, science, logic and philosophy.
He set before them evidences that Christianity was not of human invention but came from God, with light from heaven that no power on earth could quench, stamped by divinity and of heavenly origin. His teaching was accompanied by signs and miracles giving clear evidence of its divine character, and his words astonished and silenced his hearers. Despite this, few accepted the gospel, and the effort was judged a failure bearing little fruit.
The experience led Paul afterward at Corinth to present the gospel in plain, simple terms centered on Christ and his mission and on salvation through Christ and him crucified, rather than worldly wisdom, eloquence and display. Human wisdom and display have no place, and the short lifetime leaves time for nothing else but Christ crucified. The words and circumstances of his preaching at Athens were preserved as a witness to his courage and to Christianity's advance in the heart of paganism.
The request in the verse was made after Paul was brought to Mars Hill, also called Areopagus, to be given a fair hearing without interruption. Mars Hill was one of the most sacred spots in Athens, regarded with superstitious awe and reverence amounting in some to dread, a place of solemn religious and judicial importance where courts decided criminal cases and difficult religious questions and men acted as final judges on important moral and civil questions. It stood in the highest place on the Athenian coast, with an open-air platform and rock seats for judges reached by stone steps, near temples, sanctuaries, architecture, sculpture and statuary. It was away from crowded streets, public thoroughfares and the tumult of promiscuous discussion where the frivolous and thoughtless class would not follow, so that Paul could be heard there without interruption.
Those who spoke the words were the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers, the great and learned men of Athens, its scholars and sages, poets and artists, a people devoted to art and idols who spent their time in nothing else but telling or hearing some new thing. They had heard Paul in the marketplace preaching Jesus and the resurrection as doctrines new and unfamiliar, sounding like strange gods and a new teaching, and they asked what those things meant and to hear more and have the new doctrine explained. At first they jeered him as a babbler far beneath them socially and intellectually and as a setter forth of strange gods. They warned him of the fate of Socrates, condemned to death for setting forth strange gods, and counseled him not to endanger his life the same way.
Yet they saw his store of knowledge was even greater than their own, and his intellectual power, earnest logical reasoning and oratory commanded the respect of the learned and held the attention of all. Finding him determined at all hazards to accomplish his errand and tell his story and meeting his opposers undaunted on their own ground with logic, philosophy and eloquence, they won respect and admiration for him and decided to give him a fair hearing to know what his strange things meant. Paul's standing there to answer showed he was no novice but able to meet every class from men of renown to heathen idolaters. He met eloquence with eloquence, logic with logic and oratory with oratory, answering proud philosophy with knowledge, eloquence, natural religion, science, logic and philosophy.
He set before them evidences that Christianity was not of human invention but came from God, with light from heaven that no power on earth could quench, stamped by divinity and of heavenly origin. His teaching was accompanied by signs and miracles giving clear evidence of its divine character, and his words astonished and silenced his hearers. Despite this, few accepted the gospel, and the effort was judged a failure bearing little fruit.
The experience led Paul afterward at Corinth to present the gospel in plain, simple terms centered on Christ and his mission and on salvation through Christ and him crucified, rather than worldly wisdom, eloquence and display. Human wisdom and display have no place, and the short lifetime leaves time for nothing else but Christ crucified. The words and circumstances of his preaching at Athens were preserved as a witness to his courage and to Christianity's advance in the heart of paganism.