1. The four evangelists bid adieu to the sorrowing saints at the house of Lydia, travel southward, thirty-three miles to Amphipolis, where they do not tarry because there is no Jewish synagogue. Judgment begins at the house of God. Hence they give the preference to the Jews constituting the popular church of their day, always preaching to them first, thus making their start in every city. So the four pedestrians travel on south thirty miles to Apollonia, which they pass for the above reason, arriving at Thessalonica, thirty-seven miles farther south, one hundred from Philippi, where they find a Jewish synagogue.

14. Timothy had remained back at Thessalonica; now arriving at Berea, he joins Silas, left by Paul in the prosecution of the work in Berea.

15. Now the brethren escort Paul in his journey southward all the way to Athens, the great metropolis of Greece, enjoying Roman freedom and the brightest light of civilization and education, poetry, oratory, philosophy and the fine arts beneath the skies. How significant that when Paul had to run for his life, the brethren sedulously hiding and escorting him away to save his head from the persecutor’s ax, he could leave Timothy and Silas to finish up the work he had begun, though they preached precisely what he did. This was simply because, while those young preachers testified and preached the very same doctrines and experience of Paul, they were incompetent to hit hard licks and stir the devil like Paul. Hence they would run him off and let them stay. I used to carry with me two or three boy preachers, helpers in the evangelistic work. When the mobs got after me, they never bothered them.

19. They now lead Paul up to the summit of the Areopagus, that he may stand before that grave assembly of philosophers, orators, poets, statesmen, warriors and sages, recognized by the people as the legitimate custodians of all truth and proper arbiters of every new doctrine, or new religion which might be introduced. When I was there I climbed Mars’ Hill, that I might stand in the footprints of Paul when he addressed the most cultured congregation ever assembled beneath the skies.

22. Paul standing in the midst of the Areopagus, aid: “Athenian men, I perceive that in all things you are very religious,” not, as E. V. says, “too superstitious,” in which case they would have skedaddled him in a hurry.

23. “For going through and seeing your devotions [ i. e., temple, shrines, altars and statues], I also found an altar on which was superscribed, ‘To the Unknown God.’ Therefore, whom you ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you.” Wonderfully shrewdly did Paul, in this way, approach and touch the sympathies of his highly-cultured audience. No other city on the globe, at that time, was so adorned with the most beautiful and innumerable marble statues, altars, shrines and temples, erected to all the gods with whom they had become acquainted in the universal conquest of the Greeks under Alexander the Great, yet, after all, they were fearful that there might be a god somewhere with whom they had no acquaintance. Hence, profoundly solicitous to secure His favor, they had even built a temple and superscribed on it, “To the Unknown God,” and were thus worshipping him, though they knew neither his name nor his attributes. At this point Paul very adroitly approaches them, certifying boldly to them that he was acquainted with their “Unknown God,” whom they had honored with a temple, and were ignorantly worshipping. Hence he commands their sympathies and appreciative audience while he preaches to them their own “Unknown God.”

26. “And of one [ i. e., one man, Adam; “blood,” as in E. V., not in the original] he made every race of men to dwell upon the whole face of the earth.” Having first expounded to them the God of Providence, filling the world with His benefactions, he astounds them by certifying that He can not be represented by gold, silver or any artistic display, neither does He want a temple to dwell in, thus casting a dark shadow of depreciation over all the wonderful works of art which filled their city with idolatrous worship; proceeding on from an exposition of Providence, delineating the august majesty of the divine administration culminating in the final judgment, for which He proposes to prepare all nations by righteousness purchased for them by His Son, whom He has raised from the dead, thus giving inspiration and gracious possibility to the faith of all the people in the world preparatory to the momentous responsibilities of the final judgment, when all the world must stand before the tribunal of that “Unknown God” and give an account of all the deeds done in the body, whether good or evil. We need not wonder that these profound philosophers revolted at the very mention of the resurrection of the dead, as they had no revelation, and discarded all Jewish miracles as mere superstition. Of course, they were stunned and disgusted at the irreconcilably unphilosophical doctrine of the resurrection. Though Paul approached them so judiciously and favorably, he was forced, finally, to alienate them, thus making the worst failure of his ministry at the world’s literary and philosophical metropolis, illustrating the significant fact that unsanctified learning is always a citadel of Satanic power inimical to God, and sending many smart folks down to hell. The policy of popular churches in educating heathens before they convert them is wrong, as educated people are only the more difficult to save. The true policy is to go for nothing but salvation, until you get them saved, and educate them afterward. It is easier to convert a hundred illiterate, ignorant people than one highly-cultured infidel, as knowledge is a citadel of power, and with the unsaved always occupied by the devil. This accounts for Paul’s failure at Athens, not making converts enough to organize a church.
When I was there my guide showed me the superscription of Dionysius on the very wall of the Areopagus, stating that that was a part of the wall of a church edifice that bore his name, some inferring that this Dionysius, the Areopagite, went on and built up a church at Athens. It is more than likely that the church was organized and the edifice built in some after age and named for Dionysius, the Pauline convert, as there were no church edifices built in the Apostolic churches until A. D. 150.