Restoring Apostolic Faith

Most Christians imagine the early church as this pure Hebrew bubble — apostles quoting scrolls, rabbis debating Torah, fishermen preaching the kingdom in synagogues.

And sure, that’s part of the story.

But the moment the Gospel stepped outside Jerusalem, it walked right into a world soaked in Greek philosophy. Plato, Aristotle, Zeno, Epictetus, Cleanthes — their fingerprints were everywhere. In ethics. Cosmos. Language. Metaphysics. Anthropology.

And the wildest part?

God chose that world — that philosophical, intellectual world — as the stage for revealing the Messiah to the nations.

Today, we’re still living with the ripple effects of that choice.

Let’s walk through the moment Christianity went bilingual… and how that moment still shapes your theology, your vocabulary, and your imagination.

Paul on Mars Hill: When a Rabbi Beat the Greeks at Their Own Game

Let’s set the stage.

The Areopagus isn’t a church service.

It’s not a synagogue debate.

It’s basically TED Talk + Harvard Philosophy Department + the neighborhood gossip circle rolled into one.

Only the most interesting thinkers get invited to speak there.

Paul shows up — not with Torah scrolls, not with synagogue arguments — but with the intellectual fluency of a man who can drop Stoic lines better than half the Stoics alive.

He opens like a card-carrying philosopher.

“The God who made the world and all things in it… does not dwell in temples made with hands.”

If you didn’t know that was Paul, you’d think it was:

• Zeno,

• Cleanthes, or

• Epictetus.

Every Stoic school taught that God is:

• supreme

• uncontainable

• life-giving

• not trapped in a building

Paul starts there — in their worldview — and builds upward.

He quotes their poets. Not Moses. Not David. Not Isaiah.

Paul grabs:

• Epimenides: “In Him we live and move and have our being.”

• Aratus: “For we are indeed His offspring.”

This is brilliant.

Paul doesn’t ask the Greeks to speak “Hebrew.”

He speaks “Greek” and points it toward Yahweh.

Then he drops the one thing Greek philosophy couldn’t swallow: resurrection.

Greeks believed:

• the soul is immortal

• the body is a prison

• salvation = escape

Paul says:

“Actually, God’s plan is to raise the dead and restore creation.”

Half the room laughs.

Half lean in with curiosity.

But every mind in that place gets rearranged.

Mars Hill is the blueprint of missionary theology:

1. Affirm what a culture gets right

2. Expose where it breaks

3. Rebuild everything around Christ

Every missionary, every apologist, every theologian since Paul has been playing this same game — whether they realize it or not.

Greek Philosophy Was the Water the Early Church Swam In

We tend to imagine early Christians as insulated Hebrew thinkers.

Reality? They were Jews and Gentiles living in a world shaped by three giants:

Plato. Aristotle. Stoicism.

Christianity didn’t “borrow” ideas from them.

It engaged them, wrestled with them, baptized some, rejected others, and sometimes absorbed more than intended.

And we’re still carrying some of that baggage — good, bad, and confusing.

Let’s break it down.

1. The Immortal Soul (Plato’s fingerprints all over it)

Bible:

• humans are integrated wholes (body + breath together)

• “soul” can die (Ezek 18:4)

• resurrection is the hope

Plato:

• souls are immortal

• bodies are temporary prisons

• salvation = escape

Guess which version most Christians preach at funerals?

Hint: it’s not Ezekiel.

We inherited Plato more than we realize. Even the phrase “your soul goes to heaven when you die” is straight-up Greek metaphysics.

2. God as Timeless, Unmoved, Impassible (Hello, Plotinus)

Biblical revelation:

• God speaks

• God moves

• God relents (נָחַם / nacham — changes His course)

• God enters covenant

• God responds

Greek metaphysics:

• God cannot change

• cannot feel

• cannot be moved

• cannot interact

Most systematic theology textbooks?

They rely more on Aristotle and Plotinus than on the Psalms or prophets.

We inherited a Greek-shaped God, then told ourselves it was “biblical.”

(He is unchanging in character, yes. But the metaphysical “Unmoved Mover” is not the God of Abraham.)

3. Heaven as the Final Goal (thanks, Plato)

New Testament hope:

• resurrection

• renewed earth

• embodied life

• God making His home with humanity

Greek hope:

• escape the material world

• ascend to spirit

• leave the body

Most sermons today?

Total Greek worldview.

4. Christian Ethics: Basically Stoicism Wearing a Cross

Stoicism taught:

• self-mastery

• ordered passions

• virtue as harmony with nature

• discipline

• universal moral law

Christian ascetics?

They gobbled that up.

Monks?

They ran with “apatheia” (freedom from destructive passions) like it was a spiritual superpower.

It’s not that they copied Stoicism.

It’s that Stoicism gave them a vocabulary the world understood.

5. Logos Theology: John Drops a Greek Bombshell

John’s Logos is Hebrew theology dressed in Greek clothing:

• God’s Word

• God’s Wisdom

• God’s creative voice

But the term logós came with heavy philosophical baggage:

• divine Reason

• organizing principle

• rational order of the cosmos

Justin, Clement, Origen, Augustine — they built entire systems using that term.

Today’s Christians?

Still speaking that language without realizing it.

6. Mystery: Paul vs. Plato

Paul:

• “mystery” = truth once hidden, now revealed in Christ

Greek mystery religions:

• hidden truths

• secret knowledge

• veiled reality

Modern Christianity?

We often treat “mystery” like the Greeks did — as something permanently foggy — not as revelation fulfilled.

7. The Trinity: Biblical Truth, Greek Categories

The doctrine is true.

The vocabulary… is Greek.

• ousia

• hypostasis

• logos

• physis

These are philosophical terms repurposed for theology so the world could understand what Christians meant.

Without Greek metaphysics, the church couldn’t have articulated the Trinity the way it did at Nicaea and Chalcedon.

How Greek Philosophy Shaped Early Christianity (for better and for worse)

Platonism gave Christians:

• a way to talk about transcendence

• immaterial reality

• the soul’s dignity

• participation in divine life

• Logos Christology

Stoicism gave Christians:

• natural moral law

• virtue language

• psychological models for discipline

• providential order

The church didn’t steal these.

They were the cultural vocabulary of the ancient world.

Paul used them.

John used them.

The Fathers used them.

The Gospel was Hebrew revelation being translated for a Greek-speaking globe.

So… Was This Good or Bad?

Both.

Good:

The Gospel gained a bridge-language that allowed it to spread across continents in one generation.

Neutral:

Some Greek categories became scaffolding around biblical truth.

Problematic:

Later Christianity often let the scaffolding rewrite the structure.

Which is why so much of our theology today feels:

• overly abstract

• overly philosophical

• overly “spiritualized”

• divorced from Hebrew story, covenant, and embodied faith

The early church wrestled with this tension constantly.

You’re wrestling with it now in Restoring Apostolic Faith.

And honestly? That’s the work every generation of Christians needs to do.

The Bottom Line: God Chose Greek on Purpose

This is the part that blows my mind.

God didn’t wait for a perfect culture.

He used the one that existed.

He used Greek language so the world could hear Him.

He used Greek thought so nations could understand Him.

He used Greek categories as a stepping stone toward truth — not as replacements for it.

Christian theology today is:

Hebrew revelation, spoken in Greek words, preached in a Roman world, translated into a Western mindset.

Our job now?

Not to throw out the Greek.

Not to baptize it uncritically.

But to do what Paul did in Athens:

1. Honor what was right

2. Expose what was wrong

3. Re-center everything on the Messiah

This is the work of reform.

This is the work of restoration.

This is the work of every believer who wants to think like the apostles — not just the philosophers who came after them.