and burned them publicly, even though they were expensive, as a testimony to others (Acts 19:19). Many pagan intellectuals had become thoroughly disenchanted with their religious heritage and had moved into philosophical speculation. Paul encountered such at Mars Hill in Athens. Luke reports: “For all the Athenians and strangers which were there spent their time in nothing else, but either to tell, or to hear some new thing” (Acts 17:21). Although these erudite scholars had the time, money, and intelligence