Acts chapter 17 v 16-21:

Acts chapter 17 v 16-21:

V16:  While he waits for his team, Paul’s spirit is stirred up at the massive evidence of idolatrous worship which dominates Athens. ” Provoked”, surely both with anger at the dishonour to God, and with grief at the blindness of men in the grip of such false religion. Are we similarly ” provoked ” at the equally rampant, if different, ungodliness and rejection of the truth all around us?

V17:  Beginning as always in the synagogue, Paul reasons with the Jews and Gentile God-fearers there, but from the first also speaks daily in  the market-place – the forum, where, in Athens above all, it was normal for ideas of any kind to be proclaimed ( rather like ” Speaker’s Corner” in London.)

V18:  Some from 2  schools of Greek philosophy talk with Paul. The Epicureans had a materialistic ” pleasure seeking” attitude – in effect, “eat, drink and be merry”, for who can know what lies beyond death? The Stoics had a sterner creed, the gods were distant and uncaring, all we can do is put up with our lot in this world, uncomplainingly – so, our word ” stoical”. Some find Paul’s words ” mere babbling”, others think he proclaims ” foreign gods” – nothing to do with us!

V19:  However, they bring Paul to the Areopagus, a hill “sacred” to the god Mars ( known as Ares to the Greeks previously ), seemingly a place of more formal debate, where he is asked to explain his ” new teaching “ more fully. God is at work in it all, to provide Gospel opportunities.

V20-21:  While this teaching is ” strange “ to them, they want to hear more, but humanly this is mere curiosity – the Athenians love to discuss any new ideas, we’re told.