NOTES for Act 17:32
The reaction of the Athenian lovers of philosophy to Paul's words about the resurrection is telling: they begin to laugh at him. Of course, one could explain this by saying that Paul was trying for the first time to preach in an environment in no way connected with the Synagogue, an environment for which words such as "Judgment," "Messiah," and "Kingdom" were empty sounds. But was that the only issue? After all, even there two people were found who were able to hear and at least wanted to understand. So the issue was not only an environment unaccustomed to this kind of witness.
The issue, as one can see, was also in the very atmosphere of gatherings of this kind, of which the Athenian Areopagus was perhaps the most famous in antiquity. And the problem here is not philosophy as such. The problem is philosophers, or rather those who considered themselves philosophers. First of all, the problem is that for the Athenian lovers of wisdom, philosophy had long since ceased to be a search for truth, as it had been for those whom these people regarded as their spiritual predecessors. For Socrates, his philosophy was a matter of life and death, and one day he gave his life for the truth he had discovered. For Paul's listeners, philosophy was only an interesting intellectual pastime. None of them was going to give his life for any truths; in general, they apparently did not even imagine that philosophy could become for them a source of any real discomfort in life.
And now, in Paul's words, they must have sensed a certain seriousness. The very seriousness that at times even an idle reader or listener feels behind words read or heard. This feeling may not be very clear or distinct, but it makes one understand that what has been read or heard now demands a response. If one begins to read or listen closely to these very words, they will surely and irreversibly change one's life. The reaction to such words can be either spiritual awakening, when the reader or listener shakes off intellectual half-sleep and begins to read or listen more and more attentively, trying to understand what to do next, or rejection of what has been heard and read, rejection so that nothing will ever again disturb one's accustomed peace. Two people were awakened by Paul's words. Is that many or few? God knows. In any case, the first step had been taken.