In his letters, Paul stressed that there is only one Gospel and everyone has to be faithful to that Gospel: there can be no tampering with the truth.

Yet here in Athens, we see him trying to preach the Gospel by taking his starting point from the local situation. His efforts obviously failed miserably, and this seems to have affected him and his thinking about missionary methodology. He reflects a little on this problem of method in his First Letter to the Corinthians when he asserts: that he was sent to preach the Gospel, "not by wisdom of language" (1Cor 1:17). He must have pondered the whole question deeply. At Thessalonika, he discovered that using the term "kingdom of God" or referring to Jesus as "King" could give his enemies an opportunity to foster misunderstanding, thus leading to anti-Christian rioting. He obviously had to find other ways in which to preach the truth without allowing terminology to become a hindrance. All of this is a clear reminder to us that the whole question of inculturation or of adapting the Gospel to special needs, even to our own personal spiritual formation, can be a rather complicated matter, requiring great reflection and circumspection.