The Truth Didn’t Change. The Doorway Did.

Sojourner:

Professor, I have been thinking about Paul in Athens, when he encountered the altar inscribed “TO THE UNKNOWN GOD.”

We are told to contend for the faith. But sometimes I wonder what that is supposed to look like.

Does contending mean confronting everything that is wrong? Do we have to argue against every false belief, correct every error, and challenge everyone who sees things differently than we do?

Because when I look at Paul standing among the philosophers of Athens, I see something different.

He certainly wasn’t weak. He wasn’t afraid of their beliefs. Scripture says his spirit was stirred when he saw that the city was given over to idols.

But Paul didn’t walk into Athens swinging a sword at everything he disagreed with.

He walked around.

He looked.

He listened.

And somewhere among all those idols, temples, philosophies, and religious ideas, Paul noticed one little altar:

TO THE UNKNOWN GOD.

And Paul seemed to say, There. That’s my doorway.

Professor:

Exactly.

Acts 17 gives us one of Scripture’s clearest pictures of what intelligent, Spirit-led contending for the faith can look like.

Paul was deeply disturbed by the idolatry around him, but being disturbed by error did not cause him to become careless with people.

That distinction matters.

Paul did not accept their idolatry. He did not suggest that all their gods were simply different expressions of his God. He did not water down the Gospel to make Christianity more acceptable to Greek philosophers.

Instead, he studied the ground upon which he was standing.

When Paul finally addressed the men of Athens, he began with something they already understood. He told them that while observing their objects of worship, he had discovered an altar bearing the inscription “TO THE UNKNOWN GOD.”

Then he made his move:

“Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you.”
—Acts 17:23 KJV

Paul found the opening.

They admitted there was something—or Someone—they did not know.

Paul essentially answered:

Then let me introduce you to Him.

Sojourner:

That changes the way I think about contending.

Paul wasn’t looking for the best place to attack them.

He was looking for the best place to reach them.

And those aren’t necessarily the same thing.

Professor:

Precisely.

But notice what happened after Paul found the doorway.

He did not remain safely standing in it.

He walked through it carrying truth.

Athens was filled with temples, so Paul declared that the true God does not dwell in temples made with human hands.

People brought offerings to their gods as though the gods needed something from them. Paul declared that the true God needs nothing from mankind. Rather, He gives mankind life and breath and everything else.

Their culture divided humanity into peoples and nations. Paul told them God had made the nations from one blood.

Their philosophers searched for ultimate reality. Paul told them God had arranged humanity’s existence so that people might seek Him.

Then Paul did something especially remarkable.

He quoted ideas familiar from their own poets.

He wasn’t declaring Greek poetry to be Scripture. He was showing them that even within their own intellectual world were fragments of thought that could point beyond themselves toward truth.

Paul understood their language well enough to speak to them from inside their world.

And then, slowly, he turned the argument.

If mankind is God’s offspring, Paul reasoned, then surely God cannot be reduced to an image made from gold, silver, or stone.

Paul had used their own reasoning to expose the weakness of their idols.

That is contending for the faith.

Not merely contradiction.

Revelation. Reason. Truth.

Sojourner:

And yet Paul eventually gets to repentance.

That’s important to me.

Because sometimes when Christians talk about “meeting people where they are,” it almost sounds as though we are supposed to leave them there.

Paul didn’t.

Professor:

No, he didn’t.

And that is where the balance becomes beautiful.

Paul respected his audience without surrendering his message.

Eventually he told them plainly:

“God… now commandeth all men every where to repent.”
—Acts 17:30 KJV

There was the line in the sand.

Paul had built the bridge carefully, but the bridge had a destination.

Jesus Christ.

Paul told them that God had appointed a day of judgment and had given assurance of this through the resurrection of Jesus from the dead.

And at that point, the responses divided.

Some mocked.

Some wanted to hear more.

Some believed.

Paul did not chase the mockers.

He did not manipulate the curious.

And he did not soften the message in hopes of producing a larger number of converts.

He had faithfully presented the truth.

The decision belonged to the hearer.

Sojourner:

Maybe that is where I have sometimes misunderstood the phrase “contend for the faith.”

I pictured someone standing guard over truth—and certainly there is a place for that.

But Paul shows me something else.

A person can contend without being contentious.

You can be absolutely immovable about truth while remaining thoughtful about how you present it.

You can listen without agreeing.

You can understand someone’s worldview without adopting it.

You can even acknowledge the fragment of truth they already possess and use it as a bridge toward something greater.

Maybe contending isn’t always about winning the argument.

Maybe sometimes it is about finding the altar marked:

UNKNOWN.

Professor:

Yes.

And perhaps that is the lesson Athens still has for us.

We live in another marketplace overflowing with philosophies, spiritualities, ideologies, opinions, teachers, algorithms, influencers, and competing claims about truth.

It would be possible to spend our entire lives arguing with every idol.

Paul offers another way.

Know the truth deeply.

Know the God you represent.

Understand the people standing in front of you.

Look carefully for the doorway.

And when you find it, don’t be afraid to walk through it.

Because the method may change according to the person standing before us.

The vocabulary may change.

The starting point may change.

The illustration may change.

But the truth does not change.

Paul did not change his God to reach Athens.

He changed the doorway.

And through that doorway, he brought them face-to-face with Jesus.