In ANH, after R2D2 recorded the message from Princess Leia, he made his way to an escape pod.
C3PO sees him trying to enter the pod and calls out, “Hey! You’re not permitted in there. It’s restricted. You’ll be deactivated for sure.” As a series of beeps from R2D2, C3PO replies, “Don’t call me a mindless philosopher, you overweight glob of grease!”
In Acts 17:16, we find that Paul is in Athens. In Acts 17:21, we read that “all the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there would spend their time in nothing except telling or hearing something new.”
In their own way, the Athenians were “mindless philosophers.”
Paul addressed them in the midst of the Areopagus, Acts 17:22b-23, “Men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious. For as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription: ‘To the unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you.”
Paul then proceeded to share the gospel message with them because he connected it to something they were already familiar with.
We all have our own philosophy. Some philosophies make more sense than others.
We could learn a lot from Paul in Acts 17 and in 1 Corinthians 9:19-23 where he became “all things to all people, that by all means I might save some. I do it all for the sake of the gospel, that I may share with them in its blessings” (verses 22b-23).
He did not give up being a disciple and believer in Jesus. He changed how he spoke based on who he was sharing the Gospel with, just as we can change how we share the Gospel with fellow Star Wars fans after reading these devotions.
