Acts 17:15-34
The Marketplace of Ideas and Reality
In a marketplace of ideas, diverse points of view are competing for attention and acceptance. People compete to promote their views. The best ideas are supposed to win most followers. We love the concept! We also see that marketplace producing specialists in selling ideas, shaping opinion, lobbying those in power. Those with most resources often win. That’s life.
“Paul in Athens” doesn’t turn out right. To be effective, shouldn’t it be a story of success? But we see few converts. Here, Paul doesn’t win the competition of ideas. Why tell the story? Paul comes to the famous heart of Greek civilization. He goes both to the Synagogue and into the Agora, center of civic and cultural life. He talks to anyone, but advocates of famous philosophies challenge him: Stoics and Epicureans, both schools more than 300 yrs old with complex teachings. Paul is superficial talking about new divinities, Jesus and the Rising. Aeschylus long ago told that Apollo ins