The scene depicted in this week’s Acts text (17:22-31) is one of the most memorable of Luke’s Pauline portrayals. Already Paul’s preaching to a synagogue congregation had been recorded (13:16-41). At Pisidian Antioch, Paul, the learned Pharisee, had addressed a Jewish audience as a Jew, using the common ground of scripture and tradition to introduce his listeners to the new kind of messianic reality found in Jesus Christ.

Now Paul addresses a completely different kind of audience, and the apostle adapts his message accordingly. Paul’s ambition to be “all things to all” ( 1 Corinthians 9:22) for the sake of the gospel takes concrete form as he now inhabits the persona of learned Roman citizen, not pious Jew, in order to speak to the sophisticated, pagan listeners gathered at the Areopagus in…