In today’s secular and pluralistic world, many people are surprised to find that religiosity is growing rather than decreasing. Even as people abandon traditional religion in droves, alternative spiritualities are on the rise. This would not have been a surprise to the apostle Paul. In fact it was in this very city, Athens, that he embarked on his most famous critique of a pluralistic culture that was so adept at creating new gods that it even had a statue to an unknown God.

We will go to Mars Hill to read and discuss Paul’s famous sermon. Then we will look at how Paul’s critique of idolatry helps us engage better with our own culture today, compared with various other reductionistic and truncated approaches to explaining sin, its consequences and repentance and faith in Christ. We will see how the language, and critique, of idolatry opens up the Bible in new ways for both instructing believers in their faith and holding out the gospel to the watching world.