Acts Chapter 17

Acts Chapter 17

Now they had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica to the synagogue.  Paul went there and talked to them for three Sabbath days.   Oh look it’s a preview of his letters to the Thessalonians! He opened by pointing out “that Christ must needs have suffered” Thank you bible grammar!  Sorry I just really hate struggling through the poor grammar.  He pointed out that Christ has to have suffered and risen from the dead, and he was Jesus, I preach about him to you, he’s Christ.   Some of them believed and consorted with Paul and Silas and there were a lot of devout Greeks, including chief women. 

But the Jews didn’t believe, and were envious, they took up some of the lewd, baser sort, and gathered a group and set the city in a uproar.  They assaulted the house of Jason and tried to bring them out to the people.  Well it turns out they weren’t at Jason’s house.  So they grabbed Jason and certain brethren to the rulers of the city, saying the people who have turned the word upside down have come here. Jason took these guys in  even though Caesar didn’t want anyone to do that, and he says there is another king, Jesus. 

Well that troubled the people and the rulers of the city.  They let Jason go.  The brethren send Paul and Silas that night to Berea who went into the synagogue.

These were more noble than the people of Thessalonica, because they were ready to receive the word, and searched the scriptures daily to make sure it was true. Manhy of them believe, honorable Greek women and men.  The Jews of Thessalonica heard about Paul preaching at Berea so they came and stirred up the people.  So they sent Paul to go to the sea but Silas and Timotheus stayed there.

So Paul goes to Athens and sends for Silas and Timotheus to quickly come to Athens.  While he was waiting, Paul’s spirit was stirred, because the city was given idolatry.  He disputed with the Jews in the synagogue,  and with the devout people, and in the market with anyone who met him

Certain philosophers of the Epicureans and of the Stoics encountered him.  Some of them asked “What will this babbler say?”  Others thought that he was setting forth strang gods, because he preached about JC and the resurrection.  They took him to Areopagus asking to see the new doctrine. “You talk about strange things, we want to know what it means.”(because all of the Athenians and strangers who spend their time in nothing else, except to hear something new)

Paulie stood in the middle of Mars’s hill and said “ You men of Athens, I see that you are too superstitious about everything.  As I passed by and saw your devotions, I found alter with and inscription TO THE UNKNOWN GOD.  You idiots worship him!  And unknown god!  God who made the world and everything  in it, seeing that he’s the Lord of heaven and earth, doesn’t dwell in temples made with hands, neither is worshipped with men’s hands, as if he needed anything, he gave life and breath to all things!  And he made one blood of all the nations o man who dwell on the face of the earth, and had determined their time on earth and they should seek the Lord, he’s not far from us and the people who find him are happy.”

“Because we live and move and are beings, like the poets say, we are his offspring, and as his offspring, we shouldn’t think that the Godhead is like gold or silver or graven by art and man’s device”

That had to have been a tough sell to the Greeks who were a little bit famous for their fancy art and gorgeous carving abilities.  Anyway what does god have against artists?  Is he jealous because they want to create things too?

“God used to wink at your ignorance but now he commands everyone to repent!  He has appointed a day  that he will judge the world in righteousness by the men he’s ordained, he’s given assurance to all men, they he raised him (JC I assume) from the dead.”  When they heard about the reserection of the dead, some of them mocked him and others said they would listen to it again.  So Paul left them. But certain folk followed him like Dionysius the Areopagite, and a woman named Damaris.