Much to agree on here. And just to lay some further things to rest that I doubt anybody here would dispute (please correct if not) - I doubt that Luke has any agenda of “critique” of his after conversion protagonists, whether Peter or Paul or anybody else. Yes - he does speak of contentious times (as in Acts 15) and even of struggles and disagreements (as in between Paul and Barnabas regarding Mark). But I’m pretty sure Luke isn’t trying to make anybody look bad or less than ideal beyond his obligatory “historian’s eye” view of just trying to be as complete as he can. So we need not fuss over Luke’s perspective of whether or not Paul was “in his prime” or following the Spirit in any of his discourses or letters whether in Athens or to various churches. Paul was being Paul - and Luke sees Paul being used of God wherever he goes.
Our trying to glean something of an apologetic style endorsement from Luke (or Paul in his letters for that matter) is definitely us “reading between the lines” of these authors and probably going beyond any agenda they would have had in mind. Their agenda was: “Hey! This Christ fellow that we all crucified and then wrote off as gone? … He’s back! And he’s God! So now we’d better reflect on and pay extra special attention to everything about him and his teachings!”
I think we also agree that we are in a different context now - and while the essential message above still remains, the way to spread this good (but no longer shocking or unheard of in much of the world by now) news is different than it was for the early apostles and disciples. Perhaps (contra Penner and possibly Kierkegaard), modernists have their place and bringing human rationality and argumentation to bear into the service of this message was “of God” as it were, and modernism takes its place as just yet another season of apologetics in its due time. Or (if Penner is correct), the enlightenment along with all its ostensibly good stuff, also brought in some humanistically intellectual themes that actually pollute or debase the gospel, robbing it of its most important power even while it poses as a defender of important propositional truths on a new front. It is true that Paul’s world did not face the avalanche of disenchantment skepticism that the enlightenment world faced. Or if it did - Paul just didn’t bother interacting much with those people. (Any record of Paul reaching out specifically to the Sadducees who tended not to believe in all the spiritual stuff?) Both he and even Jesus (aside from answering their question about marriage in the after-life) did not spend much (or any?) powder or shot on the very “unbelievers” of their time who might have most anticipated or been like modern skeptics.
Again - this is all reading “between the lines” to try to fish out what our exemplars might have done if faced with what we now face. That’s a legitimate, if risky endeavor. But it’s what we’re sussing out together here.