Acts 17
Paul argues from scripture in the synagogues of Macedonia, is driven out by mobs, and finally stands before the philosophers of Athens on the Areopagus to speak about the Unknown God.
Summary
Travelling through Amphipolis and Apollonia, Paul comes to Thessalonica, where there is a Jewish synagogue. On three sabbaths he reasons with them from the scriptures, explaining that it was necessary for the Messiah to suffer and rise from the dead, and that this Jesus is the Messiah. Some Jews are persuaded, and a great many devout Greeks and not a few leading women join Paul and Silas. The unpersuaded Jews assemble a mob, attack Jason's house looking for Paul, and drag Jason and some brothers before the city authorities: these men who have turned the world upside down have come here too. Jason is made to post bond and the missionaries are sent away by night to Beroea. In the synagogue there they find people more noble-minded than those in Thessalonica; they receive the word eagerly and examine the scriptures daily to see whether these things are true. Many of them believe, along with many Greek women of high standing and not a few men. When the Thessalonian Jews learn that Paul is preaching in Beroea, they come there too and stir up the crowds. Paul is sent off immediately toward the coast while Silas and Timothy remain.
Brought to Athens, Paul is provoked by the sight of the city full of idols. He reasons in the synagogue and in the marketplace every day with those he meets. Some Epicurean and Stoic philosophers encounter him. Some say: what does this babbler wish to say? Others say: he seems to be a preacher of foreign divinities. They take him to the Areopagus and ask him to explain his new teaching. Paul stands before the council: men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious. For as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription: To the Unknown God. What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands. He made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. As even some of your own poets have said: for we are indeed his offspring. Being then God's offspring, we ought not to think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone. He has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead. When they hear of the resurrection of the dead, some mock; others say we will hear you again about this. Some join him and believe, including Dionysius the Areopagite and a woman named Damaris.
- Acts 1Chapter 1 is a prologue and a hinge.
- Acts 2Pentecost is the structural and theological engine of the whole book.
- Acts 3Chapter 3 is the first miracle narrative in Acts, and its structure follows a pattern the book will repeat: the sign, the crowd, the sermon, and the opposition (which comes in chapter 4).
- Acts 4Chapter 4 is the first formal opposition scene in Acts, and it establishes a pattern: arrest, interrogation, the apostles' refusal, release, prayer, and the Spirit's confirmation.
- Acts 5Chapter 5 is one of the most dramatically concentrated in the book.
- Acts 6Chapter 6 is transitional but efficient.
- Acts 7Chapter 7 is the theological and dramatic climax of the Jerusalem section.
- Acts 8Chapter 8 is the first chapter of the middle section — Judea and Samaria — and it works by juxtaposition.
- Acts 9Chapter 9 contains the first telling of Paul's conversion (the other two are in chapters 22 and 26), and it is worth reading all three consecutively to see how Luke shapes each one for its audience.
- Acts 10Chapter 10 is the structural pivot of the first half of Acts and one of the most carefully constructed chapters in the New Testament.
- Acts 11Chapter 11 has two movements.
- Acts 12Chapter 12 is the last major Peter chapter in Acts, and it works as a deliberate counterpoint to the Herod material.
- Acts 13Chapter 13 is the beginning of the long Pauline section, and it opens with a scene worth pausing over: the Spirit speaks during a worship service in Antioch — while they are worshipping and fasting — and sets Barnabas and Saul apart for a specific but unnamed work.
- Acts 14Chapter 14 completes the first missionary journey and its most memorable episode is the Lystra scene (verses 8-20).
- Acts 15Chapter 15 is the structural centre of Acts and one of the most important chapters in the New Testament.
- Acts 16Chapter 16 is one of the richest in Acts.
- Acts 17Chapter 17 covers three cities and demonstrates the range of Paul's rhetorical repertoire.
- Acts 18Chapter 18 is relatively measured in tone after the drama of chapter 17.
- Acts 19Chapter 19 is the longest account of Paul's settled ministry in any city and falls into two parts.
- Acts 20Chapter 20 is the most elegiac in Acts.
- Acts 21Chapter 21 is the beginning of the long arrest sequence that occupies the rest of the book.
- Acts 22Chapter 22 is the second telling of Paul's conversion (the first is in chapter 9, the third in chapter 26).
- Acts 23Chapter 23 is structurally a thriller: the Sanhedrin hearing (verses 1-10), the night vision in the barracks (verse 11), the assassination plot (verses 12-22), and the extraordinary military escort to Caesarea (verses 23-35).
- Acts 24Chapter 24 is the first of three formal hearings in Acts — before Felix (24), before Festus (25), and before Agrippa (26) — and it establishes the pattern the others follow: Jewish accusation, Paul's defence, Roman incomprehension of the internal religious question, and a procedurally inconclusive result.
- Acts 25Chapter 25 is a pivot chapter.
- Acts 26Chapter 26 is the third and final telling of Paul's conversion (compare chapters 9 and 22) and the most rhetorically elaborate.
- Acts 27Chapter 27 is one of the most detailed sea narratives in ancient literature and is written in the first person plural (the we-passage resumes at verse 1), which gives it its immediacy.
- Acts 28Chapter 28 is the ending the book has been building toward, and it rewards slow reading.