Acts 17: Dramatic Reading

Raphael, St. Paul Preaching in Athens



Here is a Readers’ Theater approach to Acts 17:22-31, a portion of Paul’s “to the unknown God” sermon at Mars Hill in Athens. It comes from the Leader Online website, a quarterly publication for pastors and lay leaders in the Anabaptist tradition.

This scripture reading was designed to be followed by a dramatic monologue from the perspective of the young Saul. You can find that monologue here.

Paul’s Sermon

Acts 17:22-31

1:         Then Paul stood in front of the Areopagus and said,

2:         “Athenians, I see how extremely religious you are in every way.

3:         For as I went through the city

            and looked carefully at the objects of your worship,          

            I found among them an altar with the inscription, ‘To an unknown god.’

1:         What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you.

2:         The God who made the world and everything in it,

3:         he who is Lord of heaven and earth,

1:         does not live in shrines made by human hands,

            nor is he served by human hands,

2:         as though he needed anything,

3:         since he himself gives to all mortals

            life and breath and all things.

1:         From one ancestor he made all nations to inhabit the whole earth,

            and he allotted the times of their existence

            and the boundaries of the places where they would live,

2:         so that they would search for God

            and perhaps grope for him and find him—

3:         though indeed he is not far from each one of us. 

All:       For ‘In him we live and move and have our being’;

1:         As even some of your own poets have said,

All:       ‘For we too are his offspring.’

2:         Since we are God’s offspring,

            we ought not to think that the deity is like gold,

            or silver, or stone,

            an image formed by the art and imagination of mortals.

3:         While God has overlooked the times of human ignorance,

            now he commands all people everywhere to repent,

1:         Because he has fixed a day

            on which he will have the world judged in righteousness

            by a man whom he has appointed,

            and of this he has given assurance to all

All:       by raising him from the dead.”

—from Leader Online  

If you have time in your worship service to tell the entire story of Paul’s sermon to the Athenians, you might be interested in this post: Sermon at Mars Hill: Acts 17.

For other creative worship resources for the 6^th Sunday of Easter (May 29, 2011), click on Easter 6 in the list of “Labels”  on the lower right side of the page.