In Acts of the Apostles, Luke shows Paul adjusting or “inculturating” his message to his pagan audience. At the Areopagus in Athens, Paul does not mention the patriarchs, the covenant, the law, the promises, the Messiah—all Israel’s pride, which, however, would sound “Greek” to the Athenians attracted to novel doctrines and philosophies. Instead, Paul speaks of God who made the world and gives life and breath to everything. Paul’s entry point to their consciousness is the altar inscription “To an unknown God,” the God who has overlooked the times of ignorance of the Gentiles and now reveals the one he has appointed to bring salvation to all: Jesus, whom he has raised from the dead.
What would the Gentile converts have heard from the mouth of Paul? Would the euangelion (good news) be the same as that heard from Peter and the apostles, which, many believe, we now have in the Gospel of Mark, the earliest of the canonical Gospels? Papias, Bishop of Hierapolis, writing around A.D. 140, refers to the testimony of an elder: “Mark, having become the interpreter of Peter, wrote down accurately whatever he remembered of the things said and handed down by the Lord, but not however in order.” Mark would also be the main source of the evangelists Matthew and Luke.
