In a place like Greece, it’s impossible to disregard history – the country’s or your own. The legacy of the Greeks has outlasted their empire and from architecture to ideologies, their work permeates the modern Western world. Visiting Mars Hill, just at the foot of the Acropolis, brought other legacies to my mind.

The small rock was in ancient times a place where men met to discuss their ideas. And when Paul, the missionary who penned many of the letters that comprise the New Testament of the Bible visited Athens, he too went to and spoke on Mars Hill.

And according to The Message translation, his speech recorded in Acts 17: 16-32 went a little something like this…

While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he was greatly distressed to see that the city was full of idols. So he reasoned in the synagogue with both Jews and God-fearing Greeks, as well as in the marketplace day by day with those who happened to be there. A group of Epicurean and Stoic philosophers began to debate with him. Some of them asked, “What is this babbler trying to say?” Others remarked, “He seems to be advocating foreign gods.” They said this because Paul was preaching the good news about Jesus and the resurrection.

Then they took him and brought him to a meeting of the Areopagus (*Mars Hill!), where they said to him, “May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? You are bringing some strange ideas to our ears, and we would like to know what they mean.”(All the Athenians  and the foreigners who lived there spent their time doing nothing but talking about and listening to the latest ideas.)

Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: “People of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious.For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: to an unknown god. So you are ignorant of the very thing you worship —and this is what I am going to proclaim to you.

“The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands. And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else. From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us.‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’

“Therefore since we are God’s offspring, we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone—an image made by human design and skill. In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent.For he has set a day when he will judge  the world with justice  by the man he has appointed.  He has given proof of this to everyone by raising him from the dead.”

When they heard about the resurrection of the dead,   some of them sneered, but others said, “We want to hear you again on this subject.”At that, Paul left the Council. Some of the people became followers of Paul and believed. Among them was Dionysius, a member of the Areopagus,  also a woman named Damaris, and a number of others.

When my parents and I visited Mars Hill, we wanted to stand where Paul had stood tall and talked about Christ to a foreign audience. There’s so many beautiful truths in Paul’s speech having to do with God’s power and his love for us, but what stuck in my mind that day was Paul’s willingness to tell the truth about God even when He knew most everyone would think him a fool.

While there we also talked about my grandma, my dad’s mom, who loved Paul’s words. I think we all imagined her there on that rock, wrists on hips, surveying Athens around her and imaging that conversation.I am a part of her legacy.  Together, we are a part of Paul’s legacy of spreading the gospel to untouched parts of the world. All together, my parents, my grandmother and I along with Paul are part of Christ’s legacy.

A plaque at the steps you take to climb up Mars Hill explains how Paul’s words made him ridiculous in the eyes of many of Greece’s philosophers and politicians. But he wasn’t concerned with that, instead, he lived and moved and found his being in Christ. That’s what I want my legacy to be. I see it in my parent’s words and deeds, in my grandparents’ and if anyone comes after me, I want them to see it in me too.

Life moves at a rapid pace these days. And we’re always moving towards the future, planning for tomorrow without considering how we’re living today. We’ve got to slow down and be active in our living and speaking because otherwise we’ll reach the end of our lives and finally think about leaving a legacy only to find out it’s too late.

In him we live and move and breathe. Not social media presence, not resume building, not perfect jobs.

In him. And in the moment right here.