Acts Chapter 17

From The Open Bible Project

17:1 Now when they had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where there was a Jewish synagogue.

• (1) The casting out of Silas and Paul was the saving of many others.

17:2 Paul, as was his custom, went in to them, and for three Sabbath days reasoned with them from the Scriptures,

17:3 explaining and demonstrating that the Christ had to suffer and rise again from the dead, and saying, "This Jesus, whom I proclaim to you, is the Christ."

• (2) Christ is therefore the mediator, because he was crucified and rose again: and he is certainly not to be rejected because the cross is shameful.

17:4 Some of them were persuaded, and joined Paul and Silas, of the devout Greeks a great multitude, and not a few of the chief women.

17:5 [64] But the unpersuaded Jews took along [See Acts Footnotes 64] some wicked men from the marketplace, and gathering a crowd, set the city in an uproar. Assaulting the house of Jason, they sought to bring them out to the people.

• (3) Although the zeal of the unfaithful seems ever so virtuous, yet at length it is found to have neither truth nor fairness. Yet the wicked cannot do what they wish, for even among themselves God stirs up some, whose help he uses for the deliverance of his own.
• (a) Certain companions which do nothing but walk the streets, wicked men, to be hired for every man’s money to do any mischief, such as we commonly call the rabble and very cesspools and dunghill knaves of all towns and cities.

17:6 When they didn't find them, they dragged Jason and certain [65] brothers [See Acts Footnotes 65] before the rulers of the city, crying, "These who have turned the world upside down have come here also,

• (b) Into whatever country and place they come, they cause sedition and tumult.

17:7 whom Jason has received. These all act contrary to the decrees of Caesar, saying that there is another king, Jesus!"

17:8 The multitude and the rulers of the city were troubled when they heard these things.

17:9 When they had taken security from Jason and the rest, they let them go.

• (c) When Jason had put them in good assurance that they would appear.

17:10 The brothers immediately sent Paul and Silas away by night to Beroea. When they arrived, they went into the Jewish synagogue.

• (4) That is indeed the wisdom of the Spirit which always sets the glory of God before itself as a mark with which it directs itself, and never wavers from it.

17:11 Now these were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of the mind, examining the Scriptures daily to see whether these things were so.

• (5) The Lord sets out in one short period of time, and in one people, different examples of his unsearchable wisdom to cause them to fear him.
• (d) He compares the Jews with the Jews.

17:12 Many of them therefore believed; also of the prominent Greek women, and not a few men.

17:13 But when the Jews of Thessalonica had knowledge that the word of God was proclaimed by Paul at Beroea also, they came there likewise, agitating the multitudes.

• (6) Satan has his who are zealous for him, and those who one would least suspect.

17:14 Then the brothers immediately sent out Paul to go as far as to the sea, and Silas and Timothy still stayed there.

• (7) There is neither counsel, nor fury, nor madness against the Lord.

17:15 But those who escorted Paul brought him as far as Athens. Receiving a commandment to Silas and Timothy that they should come to him very quickly, they departed.

• (8) The sheep of Christ also watch their pastor’s health and safety, but yet in the Lord.
• (e) It is not for nothing that the Jews of Berea were so commended, for they brought Paul safe from Macedonia to Athens, and there is in between these two places all of Thessalia, and Boeotia, and Attica.

17:16 Now while Paul waited for them at Athens, his spirit was provoked within him as he saw the city full of idols.

• (9) In comparing the wisdom of God with man’s wisdom, men scoff and mock at that which they do not understand: and God uses the curiosity of fools to gather together his elect.
• (f) He could not forbear.
• (g) Slavishly given to idolatry: Pausanias writes that there were more idols in Athens than in all Greece; yea they had altars dedicated to Shame, and Fame, and Lust, whom they made goddesses.

17:17 So he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the devout persons, and in the marketplace every day with those who met him.

• (h) Whoever Paul met with that would allow him to talk with him, he reasoned with him, so thoroughly did he burn with the zeal of God’s glory.

17:18 Some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers [66] also [See Acts Footnotes 66] were conversing with him. Some said, "What does this babbler want to say?" Others said, "He seems to be advocating foreign deities," because he preached Jesus and the resurrection.

• (10) Two special sects of the philosophers set themselves against Christ: the Epicures, who mock and scoff at religion: and the Stoics, who decide religious matters according to their own thinking.
• (i) Literally, "seed gatherer": a borrowed kind of speech taken from birds which spoil corn, and is applied to those who without any skill blurt out the knowledge which they have gotten by hearing this man and that man.

17:19 They took hold of him, and brought him to the Areopagus, saying, "May we know what this new teaching is, which is spoken by you?

• (k) This was a place called, as one would say, Mars hill, where the judges sat who were called Areopagita upon important matters, who in ancient time arraigned Socrates, and afterward condemned him of impiety.

17:20 For you bring certain strange things to our ears. We want to know therefore what these things mean."

17:21 Now all the Athenians and the strangers living there spent their time in nothing else, but either to tell or to hear some new thing.

• (11) The wisdom of man is vanity.

17:22 Paul stood in the middle of the Areopagus, and said, "You men of Athens, I perceive that you are very religious in all things.

• (12) The idolaters themselves provide most strong and forcible arguments against their own superstition.
• (l) To stand in too foolish and slavish a fear of your gods.

17:23 For as I passed along, and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription: 'TO AN UNKNOWN GOD.' What therefore you worship in ignorance, this I announce to you.

• (m) Whatever men worship for religion’s sake, that we call religion.
• (n) Pausanias in his Atticis makes mention of the altar which the Athenians had dedicated to unknown gods: and Laertius in his Epimenides makes mention of an altar that had no name entitled upon it.

17:24 The God who made the world and all things in it, he, being Lord of heaven and earth, doesn't dwell in temples made with hands,

• (13) It is a most foolish and vain thing to compare the Creator with the creature, to limit him within a place who can be comprehended in no place, and to think to allure him with gifts, from whom all men have received all things whatever they have: and these are the fountains of all idolatry.

17:25 neither is he served by men's hands, as though he needed anything, seeing he himself gives to all life and breath, and all things.

17:26 He made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the surface of the earth, having determined appointed seasons, and the boundaries of their dwellings,

• (14) God is wonderful in all his works, but especially in the work of man: not that we should stand amazed at his works, but that we should lift our eyes to the workman.
• (o) Of one stock and one beginning.

17:27 that they should seek the Lord, if perhaps they might reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us.

• (p) For as blind men we could not seek out God except by groping, before the true light came and enlightened the world.

17:28 'For in him we live, and move, and have our being.' As some of your own poets have said, 'For we are also his offspring.'

17:29 Being then the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold, or silver, or stone, engraved by art and design of man.

• (q) Which things (gold, silver, and stones) are custom engraved as much as a man’s mind can devise, for men will not worship those things as they are, unless by some art it has formed into an image of some sort.

17:30 The times of ignorance therefore God overlooked. But now he commands that all people everywhere should repent,

• (15) The oldness of the error does not excuse those that err, but it commends and sets forth the patience of God, who nonetheless will be a just judge to those who condemn him.

17:31 because he has appointed a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness by the man whom he has ordained; of which he has given assurance to all men, in that he has raised him from the dead."

• (r) By declaring Christ to be the judge of the world through the resurrection from the dead.

17:32 Now when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked; but others said, "We want to hear you again concerning this."

• (16) Men, to show forth their vanity, are affected and moved differently by the very same Gospel, which nonetheless does not cease to be effectual in the elect.

17:33 Thus Paul went out from among them.

17:34 But certain men joined with him, and believed, among whom also was Dionysius the Areopagite, and a woman named Damaris, and others with them.