The Greek word Hellas refers to Greece โ the land and culture of the Greek people. In the New Testament, it appears in Acts 20:2 as Paul travels through the region during his third missionary journey.
Greece (Hellas) and the Greeks (Hellenes) are theologically significant in the New Testament as the primary non-Jewish recipients of the gospel and the cultural context in which most of the New Testament was written. Paul's letter to the Romans addresses both Jews and Greeks (Romans 1:16 โ 'to the Jew first and also to the Greek'). The Hellenistic world provided the koine Greek language that made the universal spread of the gospel possible โ God's providential preparation. When Paul stands at the Areopagus in Athens (Acts 17), the encounter of the gospel with Greek philosophy reaches its dramatic climax. Greece represents the 'wisdom of the world' that God says He will bring to nothing through the foolishness of the cross (1 Corinthians 1:18โ25).