Acts 17 and Cultural Appropriation: A Biblical Answer
Short answer: Acts 17:22-31 does not use the modern phrase cultural appropriation, but it gives a better framework for the question. Paul stood among the Athenians, used their own poets, and named their altar without pretending it was his own. He did not erase their culture or claim it as Israel's possession. He engaged it honestly, gave credit where it was due, and pointed everything to the Creator who made all nations. Scripture permits deep engagement with another culture, but it forbids stealing, mocking, or erasing the people who made it. The difference is love, honesty, and whether the goal is to serve people or to consume them. The Bible's answer is not a slogan but a posture.
Paul in Athens: Engagement Without Theft
The setting of Acts 17 matters. Paul was not speaking in a synagogue to people who shared his Scriptures. He was in the marketplace and then the Areopagus, surrounded by idols, philosophers, and poets. Athens in the first century was a city of enormous cultural production: statues, temples, epics, drama, and rhetoric. Paul did not begin by condemning the city's cultural wealth as stolen or contaminated. He walked through it, looked at it carefully, and let what he saw shape how he spoke. That is the first lesson: engagement begins with attention, not with a verdict.
When Paul spoke, he used a phrase he had heard in their world. Acts 17:23 says he told them he had found an altar with the inscription, "TO AN UNKNOWN GOD." He did not invent that inscription to make a point. He read it. He treated the Athenians' own religious artifact as a starting place rather than as raw material to be repurposed for his own brand. This is a small detail with large implications. Appropriation happens when a person takes what belongs to another, strips it of its meaning, and uses it for personal gain. Paul did the opposite: he named the object, quoted its text, and let its original meaning stand.
Paul then made a claim that could have been seen as a takeover. He told the Athenians that the unknown god they worshiped was the God he was proclaiming. Was that theft? Not in the biblical frame. Paul was not saying Athens owned nothing or that their culture was worthless. He was saying that their own longing, expressed in their own words, pointed beyond itself. He honored the search even while correcting its object. The gospel does not flatten every culture into one; it calls every culture to the one Creator who made them all and who is not far from any of us.
The Areopagus speech is therefore not a defense of cultural appropriation, nor is it a blanket endorsement of every borrowing. It is a model of engagement that gives credit, tells the truth, and refuses to pretend that the messenger owns the message. Paul was a Jewish man speaking to Greek Gentiles. He did not become an Athenian, and he did not ask the Athenians to become Jews in order to hear him. He stood in the middle, as Acts 17:22 says, and spoke. That posture is worth studying closely today.
What Acts 17 Does Not Say About Culture
It is tempting to read Acts 17 as if Paul gave a pass to everything in Athens. He did not. He began with the observation that the city was very religious in all things, and the wider context shows he was deeply provoked by the idols he saw. His engagement was neither naive nor admiring. He did not treat Athenian religion as simply another valid path. He announced that God now commands all people everywhere to repent and that a day of judgment is coming. Respect for a culture and agreement with its worship are not the same thing.
It is equally tempting to read the speech as a technique for making the gospel more marketable. Paul did not soften the message into a generic spiritual talk. He named repentance, judgment, and the resurrection of Jesus. The philosophers mocked when they heard it. If the goal had been cultural approval, Paul could have stopped before the resurrection. He did not. The relevance of Acts 17 is not that Paul made the gospel palatable, but that he made it intelligible. He translated without deleting. That distinction matters in every conversation about borrowing from another culture.
A third misreading treats Paul's use of Greek poets as a general permission to take whatever we want from any culture as long as we attach a Christian meaning to it. But Paul did not quote the poets to decorate his own ideas. He quoted them to show that even their own writers testified to a truth they did not fully know. He was not claiming their work as his property. He was acknowledging that God had left witnesses in their culture too. The difference between witness and theft lies in whether the original speakers are honored or erased.
So Acts 17 gives us neither a permission slip nor a prohibition. It gives us a pattern: study a culture carefully, quote it accurately, credit it openly, and then speak the truth in love. The modern debate often wants a rule that can be applied without wisdom. Scripture offers something harder and better: a posture that requires humility, honesty, and a willingness to be misunderstood. Paul was misunderstood in Athens too. He preached anyway, and he left the results to God.
Becoming All Things: 1 Corinthians 9 and Limits of Borrowing
In 1 Corinthians 9:19-23, Paul described his own approach: he became as a Jew to the Jews, as one under the law to those under the law, and as one outside the law to those outside it, so that he might gain the more. The passage is about voluntary limitation for the sake of the gospel. Paul had rights he chose not to use. He did not become all things because he had no identity of his own; he did it because love for people constrained him. That is the opposite of appropriation, which takes from others to enrich the self.
The key word in that passage is gain. Paul wanted to gain people, not to gain status or profit. He gave up his freedom to serve. This is why the passage cannot be used to justify commercial or artistic borrowing that benefits the borrower while leaving the source community unseen. Paul's pattern is sacrificial, not extractive. He moved toward people in their own world, at cost to himself, so that they might hear the gospel. Any use of his example that centers the borrower's comfort rather than the hearer's good has already departed from his intent.
There is also a limit in Paul's approach. He did not pretend to be something he was not. He remained an apostle, a Jew, and a servant of Christ. He adapted his behavior, not his message, and not his identity. That is a crucial distinction for the modern conversation. Cultural engagement that requires you to lie about who you are is not the Pauline pattern. Neither is engagement that requires you to hide where something came from. Paul was transparent about his background, his mission, and his sources. Transparency is part of the ethic.
Christians who want a single rule for every situation will not find it here. Paul's freedom was real, and so were his limits. He was willing to be misunderstood by both Jews and Gentiles. In the same way, faithful engagement with another culture will sometimes be criticized from both sides. That does not mean the engagement is wrong. It means we should expect that any real crossing of cultures will cost something, and that the cost is part of the obedience, not evidence against it.
Knowledge, Love, and the Danger of Using People
First Corinthians 8 addresses a different but related problem: whether to eat food sacrificed to idols. Paul's answer begins with a warning that knowledge puffs up, but love builds up. The issue was not whether the knowledgeable person was technically correct; Paul granted that idols are nothing. The issue was what their freedom did to a weaker brother. This principle applies directly to cultural borrowing. You may know that a symbol, song, or style is not dangerous in itself. That knowledge does not settle whether your use of it builds up or wounds the people it came from.
Paul was willing to give up meat altogether if it caused a brother to stumble. He wrote that if food causes his brother to stumble, he will never eat meat, so that he does not cause his brother to stumble. That is a stunning willingness to limit personal freedom for the sake of another person's conscience. Applied to culture, it means that being technically allowed to use something is not the same as being wise to use it. Love asks what effect the use will have, not merely whether a rule forbids it.
Romans 14 extends the same logic. Paul told the Roman believers to accept one who is weak in faith but not for disputes over opinions. He insisted that each person should be fully convinced in their own mind and that no one should despise or judge a brother over disputable matters. The modern debate over cultural appropriation is full of disputable matters. Some are clear matters of justice: theft, mockery, and erasure are wrong. Others are matters of judgment where sincere Christians will differ. Paul's counsel is to stop condemning each other and to pursue peace and mutual building up.
At the same time, Romans 14 does not make every question optional. Paul still insisted that the kingdom of God is about righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit, and that whatever is not of faith is sin. Love does not erase moral seriousness; it directs it away from self-justification and toward the good of others. If your enjoyment of another culture's art makes you indifferent to the people who made it, love has been replaced by consumption. Paul would call that a failure, not a freedom. The test is not permission but whether the other person is honored.
The Incarnation: Entering a Culture Without Erasing It
John 1:14 says, "The Word became flesh, and lived among us." That sentence is the deepest foundation for thinking about cultural engagement. God did not merely send a message from a distance. The Son entered a particular people, a particular language, a particular history, and a particular set of customs. He became a first-century Jewish man. He did not become generic humanity; He became flesh in a specific place. The incarnation honors particularity rather than erasing it, which is why Christians should honor the particular cultures they encounter rather than flattening them into a vague universal style.
Philippians 2:5-8 describes the same movement in moral terms. Jesus did not consider equality with God something to be grasped but emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant. He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death. This is the pattern for anyone who wants to cross into another culture. You do not enter as the one who owns the room. You enter as a servant, willing to learn before you speak, willing to be taught before you teach, and willing to give up the comfort of being the expert. That posture makes exploitation far less likely.
The incarnation also gives a limit. Jesus entered human culture without becoming a slave to its sin. He ate with tax collectors and sinners, but He did not join their corruption. He touched lepers, but He did not ignore the law. He crossed boundaries, but He never lied about who He was. In the same way, a Christian can love and use good things from another culture without endorsing what contradicts Scripture. The goal is not to be indistinguishable from the culture but to be present within it as a servant and a witness.
This means the modern conversation about cultural appropriation is not merely about rules of etiquette. It is about the shape of the gospel. The Word became flesh, and He lived among us, not above us. If our engagement with another culture is marked by distance, mockery, or extraction, we are not imitating the One we claim to follow. If it is marked by humility, honesty, and service, we are at least walking in the right direction. That is a standard high enough to judge every one of us, and merciful enough to correct us without destroying us.
Practical Discernment for Borrowing and Honoring
How should a Christian think about using music, clothing, food, art, or language from a culture not their own? Begin with honesty. Ask where it came from, who made it, and what it meant to them. Paul named the altar and its inscription. He did not blur the source. If you cannot say where a practice came from, you are not ready to use it in a way that honors anyone. Credit is not a legal technicality; it is a form of love. Naming the source treats the original makers as people rather than as anonymous resources.
Next, ask who benefits. If your use of a culture brings you profit, attention, or status while the source community receives nothing and is not even mentioned, something has gone wrong. Paul gave up his rights so that others might gain. That does not mean every borrowing must produce a royalty check. It means the direction of the transaction matters. Is the movement toward the other person's good, or toward your own? A humble Christian can enjoy another culture's gifts without turning those gifts into a personal brand built on someone else's inheritance.
Then ask what message your use sends. Does it treat sacred things as decoration? Does it reduce a living people to a costume? Does it make a joke of what others hold dear? Paul engaged the Athenians' religion without mocking it, even though he disagreed with it. He corrected the object of their worship, but he did not sneer at their longing. That combination, deep disagreement with genuine respect, is rare and valuable. It is possible to believe someone is wrong and still treat them with dignity. Scripture commands nothing less.
Finally, be willing to listen when people tell you that a use of their culture wounds them. You may not always agree, and Romans 14 leaves room for differences of conscience. But love does not begin by defending itself. It begins by listening. If a brother or sister says your freedom is causing them pain, Paul's example is not to insist on your rights but to consider giving them up. That may feel like loss, but Paul counted such losses as gain for the sake of the gospel. In the end, the question is not what you are allowed to take, but whom you are trying to love.
Biblical fidelity check
What does Acts 17 establish? It establishes that Paul engaged a non-Jewish culture with respect, quoted its own sources, named its own artifacts, and proclaimed the Creator and the resurrection. It does not establish that every cultural borrowing is acceptable, nor that all cultural practices are equally true. Paul corrected the Athenians' idolatry while honoring their search. The passage also does not create a rule that removes the need for wisdom. It gives a pattern of engagement: attention, honesty, credit, and a clear gospel. It does not tell us exactly where the line falls in every modern dispute.
A common misreading treats Acts 17 as permission to take whatever you want from any culture as long as you mention God. That reading ignores Paul's careful naming of the altar and the poets. He did not strip their meaning and claim it as his own; he showed that their own words pointed beyond themselves. Another misreading treats the passage as a prohibition on all cross-cultural borrowing. That ignores Paul's willingness to speak in Athenian terms at all. The faithful reading holds both: engage deeply, give credit honestly, correct what is false, and never use people as raw material for your own purposes.
Other passages that speak to Acts 17:22-31
Several passages help frame the question of how believers relate to the wider world and to one another. First Corinthians 1 addresses division in a culturally mixed church and the call to be united in Christ rather than in favored teachers and styles. See What Does 1 Corinthians 1:10 Mean? Context, Theology, and Application, and also What Does 1 Corinthians 1:9 Mean? Context, Theology, and Application. For the broader setting of the letter, see 1 Corinthians 1: Called, United, and Boasting in the Lord. And for Paul's extended treatment of freedom, conscience, and idolatry, see 1 Corinthians 10: Warnings and Freedom. Together these passages show that Christian freedom is always bounded by love and the glory of God.
Frequently asked questions
Does Acts 17 support cultural appropriation?
Acts 17 does not use that modern term, and it does not give a blanket endorsement of taking from another culture. Paul quoted Athenian poets and named an Athenian altar, but he did so openly, giving credit and correcting error. He did not erase the original meaning or pretend the culture was his own. The passage models respectful engagement, not extraction. It is better read as a call to honesty, humility, and clear gospel witness than as permission for whatever borrowing a person wants to justify.
Is it wrong for Christians to use another culture's music or art?
Scripture does not forbid using good things from another culture. Paul became all things to all people so that he might gain some, and he quoted Greek sources in Athens. The question is how you do it. Is the source named and honored? Are the people behind it treated as neighbors? Does your use serve them or only you? Where the answer is service and honesty, Christians have freedom. Where the answer is theft, mockery, or erasure, love forbids it, even if no rule explicitly names it.
How do Romans 14 and 1 Corinthians 8 apply to this debate?
Both passages insist that knowledge and freedom must be governed by love. First Corinthians 8 warns that knowledge puffs up while love builds up, and Paul was willing to give up meat for a weaker brother. Romans 14 tells believers not to despise or judge one another over disputable matters, while still pursuing righteousness and peace. Applied to culture, this means being technically allowed is not the same as being wise. Love asks what your use does to others, not merely whether a rule forbids it.
