Preaching among idolatrous hipsters? Study Paul.
In Athens, the apostle bears witness—and doesn't try to be cool.
They called him a babbler. It wasn’t a compliment, either: spermalogos, which isn’t quite what it sounds like in English, but almost. Seed picker. Word scrapper. Someone who spouts childish, raggedy nonsense and, worse, profits from it. A gossip columnist, say, or the blogger who posts nothing but recycled chatter. The person you delete from your Twitter account when you’ve had enough foolishness.
“What does this babbler want to say?!” the Athenians muttered about Paul, and Paul must have known he was in trouble. This audience was not going to be like the others he’d encountered on his missionary journeys. This one was going to take some thought. How do you proclaim good news in a city filled with students, a city obsessed with all things new? How do you preach in Athens?
Before his arrival in Athens, Paul’s track record as a preacher wasn’t bad. At least he’d always made an impression, thrilling the faithful, disturbing the authorities, and getting arrested, beaten, and thrown out of town. Simply put, Paul was a preacher who turned heads, and his preaching usually led to first the founding of a small band of believers and second the disgruntlement of everyone else.
