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The Acts of the Apostles 17

17 Paul, Silas, and Timothy traveled through the cities of Amphipolis and Apollonia. Then they came to the city of Thessalonica. There was a Jewish meeting place there. 2 On the Sabbath day, Paul went to the meeting place as he usually did. For three weeks he went there on each Sabbath day. He proved to the people from the Scriptures that Jesus was the Messiah. 3 Paul showed very clearly that in the Scriptures the prophets wrote that the Messiah would have to die but then become alive again. He said, “I am telling you about Jesus. This man is the Messiah.” 4 Some of the Jews in the synagogue believed what Paul said about Jesus. They began to meet with Paul and Silas. Many non-Jewish people who worshiped God and many influential women also believed the message about Jesus. They too began to meet with Paul and Silas.

5 But some leaders of the Jews became jealous because so many people were believing what Paul taught. So they went to the open area of the city and found some bad men to help them. They used those men to gather a crowd and cause a great disturbance in the city. The crowd ran to the house of a man named Jason, where they thought Paul and Silas were staying. They wanted to bring Paul and Silas outside to where the crowd of people was. 6 They discovered that Paul and Silas were not at the house. However, they found Jason and dragged him and some of the other believers who were with him to where the city rulers were. They told the rulers, “These men who have been disturbing the way that people live have now come here also, 7 and this man Jason has invited them to stay at his house. These other men whom we have brought to you are also friendly with them. They are all disloyal to Caesar our king. They say that another person, whose name is Jesus, is the real king!” 8 When the city rulers and the crowd of people that had gathered heard that, they became very upset. 9 The city rulers made Jason and the other believers pay a fine. But they told them that they would give the money back to them if Paul and Silas did not cause any more trouble. Then the city rulers let Jason and the other believers go.

10 So that same night, the believers sent Paul and Silas out of Thessalonica to the town of Berea. When Paul and Silas arrived there, they went to the Jewish meeting place. 11 Most of the Jews in Thessalonica had not been willing to listen to God’s message. But the Jews who lived in Berea were very willing to listen. They listened carefully to the message about Jesus. Every day they read the Scriptures for themselves to find out whether what Paul said about Jesus was true. 12 Because of Paul’s teaching, many of the Jewish people believed in Jesus, and also some of the important non-Jewish women and many non-Jewish men believed in him.

13 But then the Jews in Thessalonica heard that Paul was in Berea preaching the message from God about Jesus. So they went to Berea and said things to the people there that made them very angry with Paul. 14 So right away some of the believers in Berea took Paul to the seacoast to go to another city. But Silas and Timothy stayed in Berea. 15 When Paul and the men who were taking him arrived at the coast, they got on a boat and went to the city of Athens. Then Paul said to the men who had come with him, “Tell Silas and Timothy to come to me here in Athens as soon as they can.” Then those men left Athens and returned to Berea.

16 In Athens, Paul waited for Silas and Timothy to come. In the meantime, he walked around in the city. He became very distressed because there were many idols in the city. 17 So Paul went to the Jewish meeting place and talked about Jesus with the Jews there. He also spoke with the Greeks who had accepted what Jews believe. He also went every day to the open area of the city and had conversations with the people he met there.

18 Paul met some teachers who liked to talk about what people believe. Some of them called themselves Epicureans, and others called themselves Stoics. They told Paul what they believed, and they asked him what he believed. Then some of them said to one another, “He really does not know what he is talking about.” But others said, “He seems to be teaching a philosophy about some gods that we have never heard of.” Those others said that because Paul was telling them that Jesus had died and then had become alive again, and they thought that Resurrection was the name of a god.

19 So they invited Paul to come with them to the place where the philosophers in the city met. They told Paul, “Please come with us, because we would like to know what this new message is that you are teaching people. 20 You are teaching us some things that we do not understand. We want to know what they mean.” 21 The people of Athens and the people from other regions who had come to live there greatly enjoyed talking about new ideas.

22 The philosophers asked Paul to stand in the middle of their group. He did, and then he said, “People of Athens, I have seen many of the things you do, and I can tell how religious you are. 23 I say that because, while I was walking through your city, I saw the things that you worship, I even saw an altar on which someone had carved these words: THIS HONORS A GOD WHOM WE DO NOT KNOW. So now let me tell you about that God whom you worship but whom you do not know.

24 He is the God who made the world and everything in it. He rules over all beings in heaven and on earth. He does not live in temples that people have built. 25 He does not need to have people do anything for him. He is the one who makes people alive. He gives them everything they need.

26 In the beginning, God created one couple, and from them God produced all the people groups that now live everywhere on the earth. God determined where and when each people group would live. 27 He wanted people to realize that they need him. Then maybe they would look for him and find him. People will find God if they sincerely look for him, because he is very close to each one of us. 28 It is because of God that we live, move, and exist, as one of you has said, ‘Because we are his children.’

29 Therefore, because we are God’s children, we should not think that God is like an idol that a person would design and make out of gold, silver, or stone. 30 In the past, people did not know what God wanted them to do. So God did not punish them for what they did. But now God commands all people everywhere to stop doing wrong things. 31 God tells us that on a day that he has chosen, he is going to judge all of us justly. God will have Jesus, the man he has chosen, do the judging. God has made sure that we understand this by making Jesus alive again after he died.”

32 When the philosophers heard Paul say that a man had become alive again after he had died, some of them laughed at him. But others asked him to come back and tell them about it another day. 33 After they said that, Paul walked away. 34 However, some of the people went with Paul and believed the message about Jesus. Among those who believed in Jesus was a man named Dionysius who was a member of the council. Also, there were a woman named Damaris and some other people with them who believed.

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