Acts 17:16

Now while Paul waited for them at Athens, his spirit was provoked within him when he saw that the city was given over to idols.

1. Paul arrives in Athens, Greece and waits for Silas and Timothy to catch up with him.

2. His spirit was troubled at what he saw happening in Athens.

3. The city was almost completely filled with idol worshipers. Idols were everywhere.

4. Idols literally lined both sides of the main streets. B. W. Johnson writes, "The Greek historian Pausanias says that there were more idols in Athens than in all the rest of Greece combined. Many other writers bear the same testimony. Paul would see them wherever he turned his eyes."

5. John Gill adds, "And Petronius (Sat. xvii.) says humorously of the city, that "it was easier to find a god than a man there." See Kuinoel. In this verse we may see how a splendid idolatrous city will strike a pious mind. Athens then had more that was splendid in architecture, more that was brilliant in science, and more that was beautiful in the arts, than any other city of the world; perhaps more than all the rest of the world united."