Acts 17:16-21: a reflection

16Now while Paul waited for them at Athens, his spirit was provoked within him as he saw the city full of idols. 17So he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the devout persons, and in the marketplace every day with those who met him. 18Some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers also were conversing with him. Some said, “What does this babbler want to say?” Others said, “He seems to be advocating foreign deities,” because he preached Jesus and the resurrection. 19They took hold of him and brought him to the Areopagus, saying, “May we know what this new teaching is, which you are speaking about? 20For you bring certain strange things to our ears. We want to know therefore what these things mean.” 21Now all the Athenians and the strangers living there spent their time in nothing else, but either to tell or to hear some new thing.

Waiting in Athens, Paul looks around the city and is deeply troubled: his spirit was provoked within him as he saw the city full of idols. But notice what his distress moves him to do: not to withdraw in disgust, nor to simply despair, but to engage. He reasons in the synagogue and, day by day, in the marketplace with whoever will talk with him, engaging the philosophers and passersby, seeking to point them to the true God. His grief over the idolatry moved him toward the people, not away from them.

Notice how Paul's distress led to engagement, not withdrawal. Seeing the idolatry that dishonored God grieved him deeply; but rather than retreating in disgust or writing off the Athenians, he went out among them, reasoning, conversing, seeking to win them. His holy grief did not curdle into contempt or despair; it moved him toward the people in loving engagement, longing to bring them the truth.

That is a model for how we respond to a world that grieves us. Much around us may distress us, the idols of our age, the ways people dishonor God, the brokenness we see. And there are two wrong responses: to withdraw in disgust, writing off the world, or to sink into despair. Paul shows a third way: to let our grief move us toward people in loving engagement, seeking to point them to the truth. When you are grieved by the world around you, do not withdraw in contempt or despair. Let your grief, like Paul's, move you toward people, to engage, to reason, to love, to point them to the God they do not yet know. Holy distress should drive us not away from the lost, but toward them.

Lord, when Paul saw Athens full of idols, his spirit was provoked within him, and his grief moved him not to withdraw in disgust or despair, but to engage, reasoning day by day with whoever would talk with him, seeking to point them to you. Give me that response to a world that grieves me. Much around me distresses me, the idols of my age, the ways people dishonor you, the brokenness I see. Keep me from the wrong responses: withdrawing in contempt, or sinking into despair. Let my grief, like Paul's, move me toward people in loving engagement, seeking to bring them the truth. When I am grieved by the world, help me not to turn away from the lost, but toward them, to reason, to love, to point them to the God they do not yet know. Turn my distress into loving engagement.