Acts 17:16-33

PAUL AT ATHENS

16-33. While Timothy and Silas prosecute the work in the upper country, Paul and Luke spend the time at Athens, the world's grand emporium of science, literature, philosophy, and idolatry. While he preaches in the forum all the week and in the synagogue on the Sabbath, his very soul is stirred within him, in contemplation of the city crammed full of idolatry. The scene of those majestic marble temples to Jupiter, Minerva, Theseus, Hercules, Bacchus, Niobe and other divinities thrilled me with curiosity, admiration and edification three years ago, after the roll of eighteen hundred years. so many having perished, been spoliated and transported. What must have been the scene in Paul's day when the city was at the acme of her magnificence and the Grecian gods at the zenith of their glory! Ever and anon he is confronted in the Forum by the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers, the latter absolute fatalists, teaching that even the gods as well as all people were subject to inexorable fate, and the former downright materialists, denying all spirituality. Because Paul preached Jesus and the resurrection, to them utter novelties, they pronounced him “an expositor of strange demons.” This word tells the dark secret that heathen nations always have and this day worship demons, Satan being the god of this world and the air thronged with demons, the idolatrous millions and even the fallen churches drifting away into demoniacal worship.