17
Thessalonica
1 Now when they had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where there was a synagogue of the Jews.
2 So Paul, as was his custom, went in to them and for three Sabbaths reasoned with them from the Scriptures,
3 explaining and demonstrating that the Messiah had to suffer and rise again from the dead, and that “this Jesus whom I proclaim to you is the Messiah.”
4 Some of them were persuaded and joined Paul and Silas, as did a large number of devout Greeks and not a few of the prominent women.
5 But the disobedient Jews rounded up some wicked men from the marketplace, and forming a mob they created an uproar in the city; and attacking the house of Jason, they wanted to bring them out to the crowd.
6 But not finding them they dragged Jason and some other brothers before the city officials vociferating: “These who have upset the whole world have come here too,
7 to whom Jason has given lodging. These all act contrary to the decrees of Caesar, saying there is another king—Jesus.”
8 Well they agitated the crowd and the city officials when they heard these things.
9 Then they took a security bond from Jason and the rest and let them go.
Berea
10 Immediately, during the night, the brothers sent both Paul and Silas away to Berea; on arriving they went into the synagogue of the Jews.
11 Now these were more noble-minded than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all goodwill, examining the Scriptures daily to see whether these things might be 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 also being proclaimed by Paul in Berea, they came too, agitating the crowds.
14 So then, without delay, the brothers sent Paul away, as if to go by sea, while both Silas and Timothy remained there.
15 But those who were conducting Paul actually took him all the way to Athens; and receiving a command to Silas and Timothy that they should come to him as quickly as possible, they started back.
Athens
16 Now while Paul was waiting for them in Athens, his spirit was increasingly aroused within him as he observed that the city was full of idols.
17 So he reasoned both in the synagogue with the Jews and devout persons, and in the marketplace day by day with those who happened to be there.
18 Then certain philosophers, both Epicureans and Stoics, encountered him. Some said, “What might this idea-scavenger want to say?” Others said, “He seems to be a proclaimer of foreign deities”—because he was preaching Jesus and the resurrection.
19 So taking him in tow they led him to the Areopagus and said: “May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting?
20 Because you are bringing some strange things to our ears, and we would like to know what they might mean.”
21 (Now all Athenians and resident foreigners spent their time in nothing else but to tell, or else to hear, some novelty.)
Paul's Areopagus address
22 So standing in the middle of the Areopagus Paul said: “Men of Athens, I perceive that in all things you are very religious;
23 because as I went along and scrutinized the objects of your worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO UNKNOWN GOD. Now then, the one you worship as ‘unknown’, this is the One I proclaim to you:
24 The God who made the world and everything in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples built by hands,
25 neither is He cared for by men's hands, as though He needed anything, since He Himself has always given life and breath to all.
26 And from one blood He made every ethnic nation of men to dwell on all the surface of the earth, having determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings,
27 so that they should seek the Lord, if perhaps they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us;
28 because 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 God's offspring, we ought not to think that the divinity is like gold or silver or stone—something shaped by human skill and imagination.
30 Such times of ignorance God did indeed overlook, but now He commands all people everywhere to repent,
31 because He has appointed a day in which He will judge the inhabited 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 Well when they heard about the resurrection of the dead, some started scoffing, while others said, “We will hear you again about this.”
33 And with that Paul went out from among them.
34 However some men believed and joined him, among them Dionysius the Areopagite, also a woman named Damaris, and others with them.