Now while Paul was waiting for them at Athens, his spirit was provoked within him as he saw that the city was full of idols. So he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the devout persons, and in the marketplace every day with those who happened to be there. Some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers also conversed with him. And some said, “What does this babbler wish to say?” Others said, “He seems to be a preacher of foreign divinities”—because he was preaching Jesus and the resurrection. And they took him and brought him to the Areopagus, saying, “May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? For you bring some strange things to our ears. We wish to know therefore what these things mean.” Now all the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there would spend their time in nothing except telling or hearing something new. (Acts 17:16-21)
(1) Christianity is meaningless to a person if it is classified as simply another school of thought, like the Epicureans or the Stoics did. While the world may consider it as just another leaflet in its collection of paradigms, it is life for sinners to know Jesus Christ.
Epicureans believed that "pleasure" is the greatest good. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epicureanism
Stoicism teaches the development of self-control and fortitude as a means of overcoming destructive emotions; the philosophy holds that becoming a clear and unbiased thinker allows one to understand the universal reason http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stoicism
(2) There is a certain idleness that philosophical debates bring about. Philosophical debates, however good, has its own vanity. The verse could not have some it up better, "Now all the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there would spend their time in nothing except telling or hearing something new."
(1) Christianity is meaningless to a person if it is classified as simply another school of thought, like the Epicureans or the Stoics did. While the world may consider it as just another leaflet in its collection of paradigms, it is life for sinners to know Jesus Christ.
Epicureans believed that "pleasure" is the greatest good. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epicureanism
Stoicism teaches the development of self-control and fortitude as a means of overcoming destructive emotions; the philosophy holds that becoming a clear and unbiased thinker allows one to understand the universal reason http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stoicism
(2) There is a certain idleness that philosophical debates bring about. Philosophical debates, however good, has its own vanity. The verse could not have some it up better, "Now all the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there would spend their time in nothing except telling or hearing something new."
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