Acts 17:16

Now while Paul waited for them in Athens, his spirit was provoked within him as he beheld the city full of idols.

How differently the great apostle viewed Athens, when contrasted with the attitude of the ordinary tourist who would have been enraptured by the magnificent architecture and artistic glory of the city. This great citadel of Gentile intellectualism was, in Paul's view, a pile of idols; and his holy heart was filled with indignation. However, "On this account, Paul did not seize an axe and destroy the images of the gods, and the altars, like the iconoclastic Puritans."[30] Paul was not concerned with removing the idolatrous art from the city, but with removing the worship of idols from men's hearts.

"Petronius satirically said that it was easier to find a god than a man in Athens; and Xenophon called Athens one great altar to the gods."[31] It was a situation to arouse indignation in any spiritual person.

Here in the great pagan, metropolitan Athens, Paul found a disgusting confirmation of what he already knew, namely, that "The world through its wisdom knew not God" (1 Corinthians 1:21).

[30] John Peter Lange, op. cit., p. 328.

[31] H. Leo Boles, Commentary on the Acts (Nashville: Gospel Advocate Company, 1953), p. 276.