ActsChapter 17

Tap any verse to comment or suggest a better wording.

¹Paul and Silas went through Amphipolis and Apollonia. Then they came to Thessalonica. There was a Jewish synagogue there. ²Paul went into the synagogue, as he usually did. On three Sabbaths he talked with them from the Scriptures. ³He explained and proved that the Messiah had to suffer and rise from the dead. "This Jesus I am telling you about is the Messiah," he said. ⁴Some of the Jews believed and joined Paul and Silas. So did a large number of Greeks who feared God and quite a few leading women. ⁵But the Jews became jealous. So they got some troublemakers from the marketplace. They formed a mob and threw the city into an uproar. They broke into Jason's house looking for Paul and Silas. They wanted to bring them out to the crowd. ⁶But they could not find them. So they dragged Jason and some other brothers to the city officials. They shouted, "These men have turned the world upside down! Now they have come here, ⁷and Jason has welcomed them into his home. They are all going against Caesar's laws. They say there is another king, named Jesus!" ⁸When the crowd and city officials heard this, they were very upset. ⁹They made Jason and the others pay money as a promise. Then they let them go. ¹⁰As soon as it was night, the brothers sent Paul and Silas away to Berea. When they got there, they went into the Jewish synagogue. ¹¹The people of Berea were more noble than the people of Thessalonica. That is because they were very eager to hear the message. Every day they studied the Scriptures. They wanted to see if what Paul said was true. ¹²So many of them believed. Quite a few important Greek women and men believed too. ¹³But the Jews in Thessalonica heard that Paul was preaching the word of God in Berea too. So they went there to stir up the crowds and upset them. ¹⁴Right away the brothers sent Paul to the coast. But Silas and Timothy stayed in Berea. ¹⁵The men who went with Paul took him to Athens. Then they went back with a message for Silas and Timothy. They were to join Paul as soon as they could. ¹⁶Paul was waiting for them in Athens. He was very troubled in his spirit. He saw that the city was full of idols. ¹⁷So he talked in the synagogue with the Jews and with Gentiles who feared God. Every day he also talked in the marketplace with anyone he met. ¹⁸Some Epicurean and Stoic thinkers also started to argue with him. Some of them asked, "What is this babbler trying to say?" Others said, "He seems to be talking about foreign gods." They said this because Paul was preaching the good news about Jesus and his rising from the dead. ¹⁹So they took Paul to the Areopagus. There they asked him, "May we know what this new teaching is that you're giving? ²⁰You are telling us some strange ideas. We want to know what they mean." ²¹All the people of Athens and the foreigners who lived there spent their time doing nothing but hearing and talking about the newest ideas. ²²Then Paul stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus. He said, "Men of Athens, I see that you are very religious in every way. ²³As I walked around, I looked closely at the things you worship. I even found an altar with these words on it: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. So what you worship as something unknown, I am now telling you about. ²⁴God made the world and everything in it. He is the Lord of heaven and earth. He does not live in temples made by human hands. ²⁵Human hands do not serve him as if he needed anything. That is because he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else. ²⁶From one man he made every nation of people. He made them to live all over the earth. He set the times when they would live and the edges of their lands. ²⁷God did this so they would seek him. Maybe they would reach out for him and find him. Yet he is not far from any one of us. ²⁸'For in him we live and move and are who we are.' As some of your own poets have said, 'We are his children.' ²⁹So since we are God's children, we should not think God is like gold or silver or stone. He is not an idol shaped by a man's skill and ideas. ³⁰In the past, God overlooked the times when people did not know better. But now he commands all people everywhere to repent. ³¹For he has set a day when he will judge the world fairly. He will do it through the Man he has chosen. He has proved this to everyone by raising him from the dead." ³²They heard Paul talk about the dead rising. Some of them began to make fun of him. But others said, "We want to hear you talk about this again." ³³Then Paul left the Areopagus. ³⁴But some people joined him and believed. One was Dionysius, a member of the Areopagus. Another was a woman named Damaris. Some others were with them.