Verse 16
Athens stood five miles inland from its port of Piraeus, which was on the Saronic Gulf of the Aegean Sea. Athens had reached its prime 500 years before Paul visited it, in the time of Pericles (461-429 B.C.). During this time the events of the Book of Nehemiah transpired (ca. 445-420 B.C.), and the post-exilic prophets (Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi) ministered. However Athens was still the cultural and intellectual center of the Greek world. Paul observed many of the temples and statues that still stand there today. Now these objects are of interest mainly for their artistic value, but in Paul’s day they were idols and places of worship that the Greeks regarded as holy.
"It was said that there were more statues of the gods in Athens than in all the rest of Greece put together, and that in Athens it was easier to meet a god than a man." [Note: Barclay, p. 141.]
Paul’s Jewish upbringing and Christian convictions made all this idolatry repulsive to him.
"The intellectual capital of the world was producing idolatry." [Note: Toussaint, "Acts," p. 402.]
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