urean and Stoic philosophers met him. {Acts 17:16-18a}
Paul is more than greatly distressed, for he experiences what one theologian terms as "a paroxysm in his spirit", a provocation of anger or grief or both, because the glory due to God alone is being given to idols. The Lord reacted the same way to idolatry in Israel (Deut 9:7, 18, 22; Ps 106:28-29; Is 65:2-3) (IVP, 133-136).
This passage is a powerful revelation of why the gospel needs to be presented to every culture and every age of the world.
As the apostle walked around the city he saw the gods of Athens, the idols that were being worshipped, some 30,000 gods in Athens (Hamilton, 44).
Luke tells us that Paul's spirit was moved when he saw this. Each idol revealed that these men and women of Athens had a great capacity for God. They knew there was something beyond man, and they were seeking for it.
Culture and History Relating to Greek Thought (vs.22-23)
Paul's evangelism again follows the pattern of "reasoning" about Jesus and the resurrection (compare Acts 17:2-3). Epicurean and Stoic philosophers, as mentioned, represented two major philosophical schools of thought in Paul's day, and here's how some of the leaders react to Paul's message: "What is this babbler trying to say? The Stoics are curious: He seems to be advocating foreign gods."
Epicureans, atomic materialists, viewed reality as an endless chance combining and dispersion of atoms. They would find the concept of bodily resurrection laughable (Epicurus Epistle to Menoeceus 123-32)(American Journal, 87-90). The Stoics, materialist pantheists, identified the divine as the principle of reason pervading all and, in the form of fate, governing all. Because of either their cyclic eschatology (belief that there were periodic conflagrations of the universe after which history simply repeated itself) or their later adoption of the Platonic concept of the soul's immortality, they could not conceive of a ...