Packing my guide book to Greece and a map of Athens in preparation for a trip that will be occurring as you read this, I am carried back in time to when Paul was making his own preparations to visit that same city.

By the time the Apostle of the Gentiles set out for Athens, most of its glory was already past. The buildings on the Acropolis were 400 years old when Paul first glimpsed them and the great age of Greek theatre was long past. Direct democracy, something we Americans have yet to taste, had been instituted 500 years before.

Paul came into a city now under the power of Rome, walked around it and marveled at the multiplicity of deities honored within the timeless walls of Athens. He made his way to the Areopagos and preached a marvelously well-planned sermon on the unknown god respected by the Athenians and which he cleverly told them he had come to announce.

I have often wondered how many hours of thought and prayer went into that talk which we read in Acts 17. He quotes from their poets, Aratus and Epimenides of Crete, as he urges them to look for a deity not made of silver or gold. His logic is impeccable, he uses local examples to draw in his hearers, and he obviously refers to their city with respect. Paul does everything right—and he fails.

I cannot forget that as I follow the tremendous success of this indefatigable apostle of the Word. Paul fails in Athens. His words instigate no riots as in Ephesus, draw no house churches together as in Corinth, inaugurate no community life as in Philippi. No, Paul fails.

He is dismissed with a somewhat fatigued wave of the hand and a "We will hear you again about this." The boredom and the ennui are evident in that vague rejection. Paul knows what it meant. He leaves Athens and seemingly never returns. As we read through the list of letters to church communities he cared about so deeply, we have no letter to the Church in Athens. Why?

Paul could handle direct attack; he could bear persecution and physical pain; he could challenge former pagans into Christian living. He could not counteract those too bored to care, those too concerned with novelty to see him as anything more than another interesting pastime.

As you read these words that Marble Church trip will already have left Athens and will be heading for Ephesus where a riot among the silversmiths was their response to Pauline preaching. Paul must have felt so empowered in Ephesus where he "argued daily" in the lecture hall of Tyrannus. He must have been in his element as he matched wits with those who cared enough to challenge the ideas he preached.

Paul was anything but bored. He could say, "I Will most gladly spend and be spent for you." (2 Corinthians 2:15)

And where do we stand? Languid Athenians or energetic Ephesian? Which one better describes the current status of your spiritual journey?