Acts 17
Preaching Christ at Thessalonica
1
Now when they had passed through Amphipolis and
Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where
there was a synagogue of the Jews.
2
Then Paul, as his custom was, went in to them,
and for three Sabbaths reasoned with them from
the Scriptures,
3
explaining and demonstrating that the Christ had
to suffer and rise again from the dead, and
saying, “This Jesus whom I preach to you is
the Christ.”
4
And some of them were persuaded; and a great
multitude of the devout Greeks, and not a few of
the leading women, joined Paul and Silas.
Assault on Jason’s House
5
But the Jews who were not persuaded, becoming
envious, took some of the evil men from the
marketplace, and gathering a mob, set all the
city in an uproar and attacked the house of
Jason, and sought to bring them out to the
people.
6 But when they did not find them, they
dragged Jason and some brethren to the rulers of
the city, crying out, “These who have turned the
world upside down have come here too.
7
Jason has harbored them, and these are all
acting contrary to the decrees of Caesar, saying
there is another king—Jesus.”
8
And they troubled the crowd and the rulers of
the city when they heard these things.
9
So when they had taken security from Jason and
the rest, they let them go.
Ministering at Berea
10
Then the brethren immediately sent Paul and
Silas away by night to Berea. When they arrived,
they went into the synagogue of the Jews.
11
These were more fair-minded than those in
Thessalonica, in that they received the word
with all readiness, and searched the Scriptures
daily to find out whether these things
were so.
12
Therefore many of them believed, and also not a
few of the Greeks, prominent women as well as
men. 13
But when the Jews from Thessalonica learned that
the word of God was preached by Paul at Berea,
they came there also and stirred up the crowds.
14
Then immediately the brethren sent Paul away, to
go to the sea; but both Silas and Timothy
remained there.
15
So those who conducted Paul brought him to
Athens; and receiving a command for Silas and
Timothy to come to him with all speed, they
departed.The Philosophers at Athens
16
Now while Paul waited for them at Athens, his
spirit was provoked within him when he saw that
the city was given over to idols.
17
Therefore he reasoned in the synagogue with the
Jews and with the Gentile worshipers, and
in the marketplace daily with those who happened
to be there.
18
Then certain Epicurean and Stoic philosophers
encountered him. And some said, “What does this
babbler want to say?”
Others said, “He seems to be a proclaimer of
foreign gods,” because he preached to them Jesus
and the resurrection.
19
And they took him and brought him to the
Areopagus, saying, “May we know what this new
doctrine is of which you speak?
20
For you are bringing some strange things to our
ears. Therefore we want to know what these
things mean.”
21
For all the Athenians and the foreigners who
were there spent their time in nothing else but
either to tell or to hear some new thing.
Addressing the Areopagus
22
Then Paul stood in the midst of the Areopagus
and said, “Men of Athens, I perceive that in all
things you are very religious;
23
for as I was passing through and considering the
objects of your worship, I even found an altar
with this inscription:
TO THE UNKNOWN GOD.
Therefore, the One whom you
worship without knowing, Him I proclaim to you:
24
God, who made the world and everything in it,
since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not
dwell in temples made with hands.
25
Nor is He worshiped with men’s hands, as though
He needed anything, since He gives to all life,
breath, and all things.
26
And He has made from one blood every nation of
men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and
has determined their preappointed times and the
boundaries of their dwellings,
27
so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope
that they might grope for Him and find Him,
though He is not far from each one of us;
28
for in Him we live and move and have our being,
as also some of your own poets have said, ‘For
we are also His offspring.’
29
Therefore, since we are the offspring of God, we
ought not to think that the Divine Nature is
like gold or silver or stone, something shaped
by art and man’s devising.
30
Truly, these times of ignorance God overlooked,
but now commands all men everywhere to repent,
31
because He has appointed a day on which He will
judge the world in righteousness by the Man whom
He has ordained. He has given assurance of this
to all by raising Him from the dead.”32
And when they heard of the resurrection of the
dead, some mocked, while others said, “We will
hear you again on this matter.”
33
So Paul departed from among them.
34
However, some men joined him and believed, among
them Dionysius the Areopagite, a woman named
Damaris, and others with them.
