Provoked by Idols

Paul is alone in Athens waiting for Timothy and Silas to join him. It looks like he is there long enough to look around the city a while. We don’t know how long he was there but it seems that he was looking at Athens through a spiritual lens. It says that his spirit was “provoked.” He was bothered. Uneasy. Broken over what he saw. Athens was a place full of all kinds of real idols of worship. They were obvious to Paul. My guess is that the people of Athens did not think of them as “idols” but as necessary gods. Things that made their life better. But Paul saw through the culture and it broke his heart.

 

Idols. We don’t really have statues of gods and goddesses around us but we do have idols. Thing that we give great value to because we think they make our life better. The problem is that we become so accustomed to them that we don’t see them for what they are. I read a book this year that identified some of the idols of cultures like ours. They were things like a bigger house, a newer car, the latest gadget. Or when we can’t afford those things idols become things like our kids doing better than someone else’s in sports or school … the pursuit of all things that make the “American Dream.” We start to wrap our lives around these things because they are necessary for life and value.

 

I want God to show me my idols and the idols of my community and then provoke my spirit within me. It would be so good to not care about stuff that “makes me look good” and care only about doing and having what honors Jesus Christ.

 

Father today I pray that I would see the idols and be bothered deep in spirit by them and be changed to love them less and you more.