Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Acts 17:1
Now when they had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where was a synagogue of the Jews:
Act 17:1-9. Paul and Silas journey through Amphipolis and Apollonia to Thessalonica, where some of the Jews raise an uproar against them and Jason their host
1. they had passed through ] The verb occurs in N. T. only here and in Luk 8:1. The use of the same expressions is a noticeable point in support of the identity of authorship of the two books.
Amphipolis and Apollonia ] The journey is made to the south and west. Amphipolis was about 33 miles distant from Philippi, along the Egnatian road. It had been a famous place in the time of the Peloponnesian war, and was in St Paul’s time a great Roman military station. Its name was given to it because it was as nearly as possible enclosed by the winding stream of the river Strymon. Apollonia was about 30 miles farther on, in the district of Macedonia known as Mygdonia, and was about 37 miles from Thessalonica. The Apostle and his companions appear not to have made any stay in these towns.
Thessalonica ] The modern Saloniki; to the Christians of which place St Paul afterwards addressed the two earliest of his extant epistles. From very early times Thessalonica had been a famous place. Its old name was Therma, and it was called Thessalonica after a sister of Alexander the Great. It is now one of the most important towns in European Turkey, and it played a great part in the history of the Middle Ages as the bulwark of Christendom in the East. It was captured by the Saracens a.d. 904, then by the Crusaders in 1184, and lastly by the Turks in 1430. Even now there is a large Christian element among its population, and a still larger number of Jews.
a synagogue ] The Text. Rec. gives the definite article “ the synagogue,” though it is overlooked in the A.V., and we cannot always be sure that we represent the force of the Greek article by the English one. ( R. V. retains “ a synagogue”). But there was apparently no synagogue at Philippi, and it may very well be that in Thessalonica dwelt the greatest number of Jews and therefore the facilities for their worship had there alone been advanced so far as to secure them a building for their meetings, which would be known therefore as “ the synagogue.”
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Amphipolis – This was the capital of the eastern province of Macedonia. It was originally a colony of the Athenians, but under the Romans it was made the capital of that part of Macedonia. It was near to Thrace, and was situated not far from the mouth of the river Strymon, which flowed around the city, and thus occasioned its name, around the city. The distances laid down in the Itineraries in regard to these places are as follows: Philippi to Amphipolis, 33 miles; Amphipolis to Apollonia, 30 miles; Apollonia to Thessalonica, 37 miles. These distances are evidently such as might have been traversed each in one day; and since nothing is said of any delay on the road, but everything to imply that the journey was rapid, we conclude (unless, indeed, their recent sufferings made rapid traveling impossible) that Paul and Silas rested one night at each of the intermediate places, and thus our notice of their journey is divided into three parts. The position of Amphipolis is one of the most important in Greece. It stands in a pass which Traverses the mountains bordering the Strymonic Gulf, and it commands the only easy communication from the coast of that gulf into the great Macedonian plains, which extend, for 60 miles, from beyond Meleniko to Philippi. The ancient name of the place was Nine Ways, from the great number of Thracian and Macedonian roads which met at this point. The Athenians saw the importance of the position, and established a colony there, which they called Amphipolis, because the river surrounded it.
And Apollonia – This city was situated between Amphipolis and Thessalonica, and was formerly much celebrated for its trade.
They came to Thessalonica – This was a seaport of the second part of Macedonia. It is situated at the head of the Bay Thermaicus. It was made the capital of the second division of Macedonia by Aemilius Paulus, when he divided the country into four districts. It was formerly called Therma, but afterward received the name of Thessalonica, either from Cassander, in honor of his wife Thessalonica, the daughter of Philip, or in honor of a victory which Philip obtained over the armies of Thessaly. It was inhabited by Greeks, Romans, and Jews. It is now called Saloniki, and, from its situation, must always be a place of commercial importance. It is situated on the inner bend of the Thermaic Gulf, halfway between the Adriatic and the Hellespont, on the sea margin of a vast plain, watered by several rivers, and was evidently designed for a commercial emporium. It has a population at present of 60,000 or 70,000, about half of whom are Jews. They are said to have 36 synagogues, none of them remarkable for their neatness or elegance of style. In this place a church was collected, to which Paul afterward addressed the two epistles to the Thessalonians.
Where was a synagogue – Greek: where was the synagogue ( he sunagoge) of the Jews. It has been remarked by Grotius and Kuinoel that the article used here is emphatic, and denotes that there was probably no synagogue at Amphipolis and Apollonia. This was the reason why they passed through those places without making any delay.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Act 17:1-9
And when they had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia.
From Amphipolis to Thessalonica
The beautiful town of Amphipolis lies to the south of a splendid lake under sheltering hills, three miles from the sea, and thirty three from Philippi, and on the edge of a plain of boundless fertility. The strength of its natural position, nearly encircled by a great bend of a river, the mines which were near it, and the neighbouring forests, made it position of high importance. If St. Paul had ever read Herodotus, he may have thought with horror of the sacrifice of Xerxes–the burial alive at this place of nine youths and nine maidens; and if he had read Thucydides, he would have gazed with peculiar interest on the sepulchral mound of Brasidas, and the hollowing of the stones in the wayworn city street, which showed the feet of men and horses under the gate, and warned Kleon that a sally was intended. If he could read Livy, he would recall the fact that in this town Paulus AEmilius–one of the family from which his own may have derived its name–had here proclaimed that Macedonia should be free. But all this was little or nothing to the Jewish missionaries. At Amphipolis there was no synagogue, and therefore no means of addressing Jews or Gentiles. They therefore proceeded the next day thirty miles further, through scenery of surpassing loveliness, along the Strymonic Gulf, through the wooded pass of Aulon, when St. Paul may have looked at the tomb of Euripides, and along the shores of Lake Bolbe to Apollonia. From thence they proceeded forty miles further to the far-famed Thessalonica, the capital of all Macedonia, whose position on the Egnatian road, commanding the entrance to two great inland districts, and at the head of the Thermaic Gulf, made it an important seat of commerce. Since the days when Cassander had refounded it, and changed its name from Therma to Thessalonica, in honour of his wife, the sister of Alexander, it had always been a flourishing city, with many historic associations. Here Cicero had spent his days of melancholy exile. Here a triumphal arch, still standing, commemorates the victory of Octavianus and Antony at Philippi. From hence, as with the blast of a trumpet, not only in St. Pauls day (1Th 1:8), but for centuries afterwards, the Word of God sounded forth among the neighbouring tribes. Here Theodosius was guilty of that cruel massacre for which Ambrose, with heroic faithfulness, kept him for eight months from the cathedral of Milan. Here its good and learned Bishop Eustathius wrote those scolia on Homer which place him in the front rank of ancient commentators. It received the title of the orthodox city, because it was for centuries a bulwark of Christendom; but it was taken by Amurath II in 1430. Saloniki is still a great commercial port of seventy thousand inhabitants, of whom nearly one-third are Jews. At this city, blighted now by the curse of Islam, but still beautiful on the slopes of its vine-clad hills, with Pelia and Olympus full in view, the missionaries rested; for here was the one Jewish synagogue which sufficed for the entire district. (Archdeacon Farrar.)
Pauls preaching at Thessalonica
His preaching–
I. Was evangelic.
1. His grand theme was Christ.
(1) He showed the necessity of His suffering and His resurrection. He exhibited the Cross of Christ in all its high aspects.
(2) He showed that He was Messiah. Is Christ.
2. His grand authority was the Scriptures. He did not attempt to derive his arguments and illustrations from general literature or philosophy. He would, perhaps, quote the old prophecies (Gen 49:10; Isa 40:1-10; Isa 53:1-12; Dan 9:24-27; Mic 5:6, etc.), and show that in the life of Jesus those wonderful prophecies were fulfilled. Reasoning with the Jews, his authority was Scripture, and with the Gentiles, Nature, as at Athens.
3. His grand method was reasoning. He reasoned with them. Opening means to explain, to unfold. Alleging means laying down the proposition. He laid down his propositions, and he argued their truth from the Scriptures. This is model preaching. Let ministers give to men now the Christ of the Scriptures, not the Christ of their theology.
II. Won converts (verse 4). The devout Greeks were those who had become proselytes to the Jewish religion, proselytes of the gate. The chief women were members of families of high rank. The converts were–
1. Numerous. A great multitude.
2. Influential. Chief women. Some of the leading women of the city.
3. Thoroughly united. They consorted with Paul and Silas. Common beliefs awaken common sympathies. Christ gathers men of different types of character and grades of life together.
III. Awoke opposition (verse 5). In this we see–
1. The force of envy, This malignant passion of evil natures had been excited in the Jews by the moral conquest which the apostles had won in their synagogue. This passion has always been the inspiration of all persecutions. It shows itself now in a thousand forms.
2. The servility of mobs. These Jews took unto them certain lewd fellows of the baser sort, unprincipled idlers that are found lounging about places of public resort, the lazy rabble that fill workhouses with paupers and jails with prisoners, who are always ready instruments to the hands of evil men in power. The demagogue can cajole them, and the rich can purchase their services with cash.
3. The revolutionising power of the gospel (verse 6). These men spoke a truth, though unintentionally. The gospel does turn the world upside down, for the moral world is in the wrong position.
4. The falsehood of wickedness (verse 4). The charge they brought against them was that of sedition and rebellion against the Roman emperor, high treason against the crown. These men covered their envy under the garb of patriotism. (D. Thomas, D. D.)
Paul in Thessalonica
I. The manner of a primitive preacher (verse 2). What was the matter? On Sabbath days he entered the synagogue. In his last letter to these Thessalonians, he reminds them that he did not make himself chargeable to them (2Th 2:9). So on weekdays he was earning his living–improving, no doubt, every opportunity for conversation with such as came in his way; but the Sabbath brought him leisure, and gave him an audience. How did he use these Sabbath opportunities? He reasoned with the people. The Christians faith should not be blind. It has its true home in both the intellect and the heart. The Church of today, and of all days, needs the help of thinking men, ready to give to every man that asketh a reason for the hope that is in them. Whence did Paul draw his arguments? Out of the Scriptures; because most of those he addressed were either Jews or proselytes, and accepted the Old Testament. It does not follow that in every case we should start just where he did. At Lystra and Athens he came in contact with heathen, who neither knew nor cared for the Jewish Scriptures. With them Paul himself began with the book of nature. Thus we learn how necessary it is to find some common ground on which we and those we would convince can stand together.
II. A good sign of true faith in a Christian convert (verse 4). Nothing could be more natural nor wise. Loving the same objects, cherishing the same hopes, why should they not delight in each others company? Those who are of one heart and aim need no precept to bring them together. Each is to the other as a magnet and a support. A common religious faith may be expected to lift above minor differences, and draw men into a common fold. In many things the educated and unlearned, the rich and poor, greatly differ in their tastes. But when Christ enters the heart, you see them forgetting differences and becoming a single spiritual family. Michael Faraday came to be honoured as a prince in the aristocracy of intellect. And yet he never lost his interest in a little group of obscure Christians. These believers at Thessalonica consorted with Paul and Silas also for spiritual support and safety. For both these reasons we expect to see modern converts seeking membership in the Church. This is a good sign, and a good rule.
III. The too common spirit and arts of opposers of the gospel. The Jews saw that Pauls teaching and influence were undermining theirs. Whether the teaching was true and the influence good they did not consider. Very few keep in mind how malignant envy can be. It was for envy that the Jews delivered Jesus to be crucified, and that Joseph was sold into bondage. Then note the arts of these opposers of the apostle. They took to themselves vile fellows of the rabble–loungers, boys and men without occupation or sense of responsibility–and set them on. There are always ready tools of unscrupulous leaders. Just here is the greatest peril which now menaces society. Against them all good citizens should provide a safeguard, by pushing forward Christian work. In self-defence, if for no higher reason, we need to carry it to the homes and haunts and hearts of the lowest and worst.
IV. A marked effect always to be expected from successful gospel work (verse 6). The words were meant in a bad sense. But unwittingly they tittered a great truth; paid the very highest possible compliment to the gospel. The faithful utterance of the gospel does produce strife, and our Saviour predicted that it would; for the simple reason that men are neither willing to submit to its claims nor to suffer others to do it. The gospel was meant to turn the world upside down; for in the world there is much that needs to be overturned. It is to the praise of the gospel that it tends to effect this. Before it vice slinks away; virtue lifts up its head; joy supplants sorrow; society is purer and safer; heaven begins here and now. Old things pass away; more and more all things become new. (Sermons by the Monday Club.)
Paul at Thessalonica
1. Luke was evidently left at Philippi, where he might have a good deal of doctors work to do. Paul and Silvanus and Timotheus moved on. We wonder whether Paul will fight any more, or whether he will spend the remainder of his days in pious reflections; for a period is occupied in passing through Amphipolis and Apollonia, where nothing was attempted. The fight seems to be over, and the smitten warriors are going home to anoint their wounds and wash their stripes in secret. But they came to Thessalonica, and, in the synagogue, Paul saw a battlefield, and instantly he stripped to the fight! We see now what he was looking for at the other places, and why he did not pause there.
2. And Paul, as his manner was, went in. Paul was not an occasional attendant. Jesus Christ did not go now and then to the synagogue. It was a dull time to the early Christian when the Church was closed. Paul is here, as everywhere, the very model of a true Christian preacher. He reasoned with them out of the Scriptures. He did not talk something which he had invented; he had a Book, an authority, and he believed that every word he said was written for him by the pen and ink of Heaven. Once let that thought go, and preaching becomes vain. A sermon is great only as it begins, continues, and ends in the Scriptures. Then he crowns his ministry by enforcing a distinct personal appeal. This Jesus, whom I preach unto you, is Christ. This was a sword with a point, a sermon with an accent. The preacher must have an object in view. Whatever Paul did was contributory to this great end. The difficulty with the Christian preacher is that nobody wants to hear his doctrine, but his particular way of putting it. I sat with reverence before the foremost judge of his day. His voice was feeble and indistinct; at times I had great difficulty in hearing him; but, oh, the anxiety not to miss one word! It was dry, it was argumentative, there was not a single flower of speech in the whole. Every one was there to hear what the judge would say, not how he said it. When a mumbling speaker reads a will, does anyone say anything about his manner? Each wants to know what he in particular is to get. Oh, could I persuade my hearers that I am reading the will of God, and that men were wise, that they understood these things!
3. Note the opposition which Christianity awakens. You may form a tolerable judgment as to the merits of a controversy by observing the way in which it is conducted. However quiet the town when the apostles entered it, they left it in a serious uproar. They came not to send peace on the earth, but a sword. Look at the opposition. It was–
(1) Little-minded. Where is the noble challenge to discuss a great question upon equal terms? How is Paul moved? By love. How is the opposition moved? By envy.
(2) Unscrupulous. Any stick will do to beat a dog with. The Jews, who would not have spoken to those lewd fellows, made use of them to put down this religion of the Cross. If they had not been lewd fellows, etc., they would have seen that they were being made use of. How Envy can stoop to take up polluted weapons, and search in the mud for stones to throw at Goodness! There is nothing too despicable for it to use to express itself in denunciation and contempt and penalty.
(3) Lawless. Never mind the dignity of the city, or the politarchs who reign over it magistrates cannot stand against an uprising city; they will either dismiss the case, or take bail, or do something to get out of it. So the opposition prosecutes its mission to the end. This is true of all opposition to the Christian cause. There may be an honest opposition to some special ways of representing it; but to its purity, its self-sacrifice, its nobleness, its purpose, there can be no honest opposition. Yet how the Lord makes the wrath of man to praise Him! What said the enemy? These that have turned the world upside down. There! that is a tribute to their power. Even the Jews did not dare to call it a flash in the pan, a nine days wonder. They saw in it a world-exciting force, and we who are Christians become fearful just in proportion as we lose our conception of the grandeur of the cause which we have to handle. Then they become themselves again, saying that there is another king. That is a lie! The apostles never said so, in the sense now put upon that word by their accusers, You can use the right words with a wrong meaning. We must not only speak the words of the gospel, we must speak them in gospel tones. Then the accusers proceeded to say, one Jesus. There they were right. The apostles, then, had left no false or vague impression. Amid all the tumult, and uproar, and opposition, they had got this word well into the public memory–Jesus.
4. Is this the end? It is hardly the beginning. The very first letter that Paul wrote was 1 Thessalonians What does he say to them? For our gospel came not unto you in word only, etc. Paul spent at least three weeks in Thessalonica; how did he live during that time? He had no money; how did he live? How we ought to live–by working! How are you to live–by writing begging letters? This is how Paul lived (1Th 2:9). These were not the men to be put down: they did not live on patronage. We now live on subscribers, and therefore we do not live at all, and we breed a small race of men. Paul, Silvanus, Timotheus, fell to working, not eight hours a days and eight shillings for pay, but, according to the time bill, night and day. Two hours longer, Silvanus, said Paul, and this tent will be done. If we sit up till three oclock tomorrow morning, we shall just get bread enough to keep us going until the synagogue is open again. These were not the men to be put down!
5. When they said good-bye to Thessalonica, was it a final adieu? Read 1Th 2:17. They wanted to go back to the old battlefield. When anything occurs nowadays, we become suddenly not very well, and must go down to the seaside over Sunday. We think it better to be out of the way. How did Paul view the people whom he had won there? Said he, For what is our hope, or joy, or crown of rejoicing? Are not even ye, etc. These are the relations which Christianity would establish amongst us if we would allow it. Christianity would make a compact society of us–not living under formal rules, but under gracious inspiration. (J. Parker, D. D.)
The Thessalonians
are types of those–
I. Who reject truths because they are novel and unpalatable. The propositions that Paul laid down (verse 2) were novel and unpalatable, and therefore the Jews rejected them. How many today consider it a sufficient reason for rejecting a doctrine (whether of religion, politics, science, etc.) because they have never heard of it before! How many reject truths because they do not like to believe them! But we cannot by unbelief make a truth vanish, any more than we can put out the sun by winking.
II. Who endeavour to silence opponents by force. The Jews could not confute Paul by argument, and therefore they stirred up a riot against him. This is still a popular method, though the force employed may be the more refined method of ostracism. A brickbat is not the only method that will break a head.
III. Who stoop to base alliances to ensure their triumph. The Jews did not storm Jasons house, but market loungers, whom they would not, on ordinary occasions, have touched with a stick, were enlisted. Not the only occasion on which professed defenders of religion have condescended to use dirty tools.
IV. Who endeavour to overthrow opponents by misrepresentation (verses 6, 7). How clever was this misrepresentation, because there was so much truth in it.
V. Who pursue a controversy with embittered malignity. (R. A. Bertram.)
The Thessalonians and the Beroeans
I. Reasoning from the Scriptures. From the change in the personal pronouns, and from 1Th 3:6, it is evident that Luke and Timothy remained at Philippi to comfort and strengthen the new converts in the faith. Let us look at–
1. Pauls journey (verse 1). Their road lay through a region rich in historic associations. The birthplace of Aristotle and the tomb of Euripides were close to their route. At one point, Xerxes had offered to the river Strymon a sacrifice of white horses, and had buried alive nine youths and maidens. At another they had in view the peaks of Ossa and Pelion, often pointed to with trembling superstition as the home of the gods. But the Christian heroism of Paul has done more to make the land live in the memory than all of its connection with famous classical names.
2. Pauls custom (verse 2). At Thessalonica he acted as though at Philippi he had received no treatment except that which was kind and encouraging. Paul counted his converts more than he did his stripes. All the effect was to make him wax bold in his God. This one thing I do, was Pauls motto.
3. Pauls reasoning (verse 3). After the crucifixion, the Saviour showed from the Scriptures that His sufferings and death were just what had been foretold. How did Paul show that it behoved Christ to suffer? Some of the passages must have been Psa 22:1-31; Psa 69:1-36 and Isa 53:1-12. Possibly he may have used the argument to be found in Heb 8:1-13; Heb 9:1-28; Heb 10:1-39. To a candid mind, the argument is convincing.
4. Pauls success.
(1) With the Jews. Some became convinced that their conception of the Messiah has been wrong. They gave up their notion of a splendid temporal king to accept the lowly one of Nazareth and of Calvary. When anyone becomes a follower of the Saviour, he immediately begins to consort with those who are of the same faith. He will be found with them in all Christian efforts.
(2) With the Greeks. Those who had become worshippers of the true God were far more ready than the Jews. They did not have to give up the wrong conception of centuries.
II. Rejecting the Scriptures.
1. The assault (verse 5).
(1) The cause. The Jews were jealous when they saw women of rank joining the new way. They saw their own influence being undermined.
(2) The attack. Envy is a base passion, and does not hesitate to use base means. It was the same sort of crowd that now in a city can easily be gathered to smash in the windows of a mission church and maltreat its minister.
(3) The arrest (verse 6). If they could not have the principals, they would have their abettors.
(4) The complaint. What a testimony they incidentally bore to the work of Paul and Silas! The world had been wrong side up since sin had entered the garden of Eden, and now they were engaged in turning it once more right side up.
(5) The result (verse 9). Shadowy as was the support for the complaint, the accusers succeeded in troubling the multitude and the rulers. But, as at Philippi, the action came too late to be of any avail. The Church already was planted, and the Epistles to the Thessalonians show how deeply it had taken root.
III. Searching the Scriptures. At first it seems hard that the missionaries so soon should have been driven away. But that was Gods way for the wider and more expeditious spreading of the gospel.
1. Preaching the Word (verse 10). Scourged in Philippi, and nearly mobbed in Thessalonica, but just as ready to preach the Word in Beroea.
2. Searching the Word (verse 11). At Beroea the missionaries had a glimpse of sunshine. Here they found the Jews ready to receive the truth, but not without investigation. They took hold of the matter with zeal and thoroughness. The result was that many of them believed, not only Jews, but Greeks of rank and position.
3. Persecuted for the Word (verse 13). We see in this illustrations of–
(1) The intensity of the hatred of those who oppose the gospel.
(2) The way in which God continually is using His enemies. They thought that they were stamping out the gospel, whereas they only were spreading it. (M. C. Hazard.)
A tale of two cities
Thessalonica was a large and powerful town; Beroea was a little village. The inhabitants of the one place were wealthy and educated; of the other, comparatively illiterate and poor. But the contrast is altogether to the advantage of the latter.
I. The city that was upset. Philip of Macedon won a magnificent victory in Thessaly on the day he heard of the birth of his daughter, and instantly sent word that the child was to be called Thessalonica. By and by she was married to Cassandra, who rebuilt the old town Therma, and then named it after his bride.
1. (verse 1). A new opportunity creates a fresh duty. Right through Amphipolis and Apollonia went these preachers, and not a sermon did they try to preach. Why? Because there was no synagogue; the synagogue of that region was at Thessalonica. When Paul reached so influential a centre, he seemed again to rouse himself to combat like an old soldier.
2. (verse 2). Every man can do good best after his own manner. What a fine thing it is to have a habit of teaching Christ so as to have a manner. How foolish it is to reproduce the method of others.
3. (verse 3). Christ and His Cross is all our theme. Paul invariably showed that the Messiah must be born at a particular time, of the line of Judah, at a place predicted beforehand; that He must die and be buried, and must rise again from the dead. Then he set out to prove that Jesus had met all these requirements, and therefore must necessarily be the true Hope of the nation, and the only-begotten Son of God. This was his manner (2Co 2:1-5).
4. (verse 4). Success in preaching must be estimated not by applause, but by conversions. On that day was founded the Church to which afterwards the two Epistles to the Thessalonians were written. Meantime Paul supported himself by working at his trade of tent making, preaching days, toiling nights (1Th 2:9).
5. (verse 5). The wrath of man is often forced to praise God. Opposition intensified the friendship of adherents. It was easy to get up the nosiest crowd; but they only advertised them and strengthened their friends.
6. (verse 6). A wicked mans lie frequently contains the Christian mans motto. When infidels exclaimed, Yours is only a book religion, the brave Chillingworth answered, The Bible is the religion of Protestants–the Bible only! Thessalonica was upset from turret to foundation stone that day.
II. The city that was set up. Notice–
1. (verse 10). The indefatigable zeal of the early Christians.
2. (verse 11). The promising character of the fresh friends Paul and Silas made.
(1) These people listened to the Word attentively.
(2) They studied the Word assiduously.
(3) They accepted the Word intelligently.
(4) They believed the Word implicitly.
3. (verse 12). The excellent results of persistent study of the Scriptures. The word therefore is intensive; they were ennobled by their conversion, and they were converted because they studied and believed (Joh 5:39).
4. (verse 13). Satan betrays the secret of his special hate. His friends journeyed all this tiresome distance merely because they knew the Word of God was going to be preached by those indefatigable apostles. The devil hates nothing so much in this world as the pure word of Divine truth in the Bible. (C. S. Robinson, D. D.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
CHAPTER XVII.
Paul and his company, passing through Amphipolis and Apollonia,
come to Thessalonica, were they preach the Gospel to the Jews,
several of whom believe, 1-4.
Others raise a mob, and bring Jason, who had received the
apostles, before the magistrates, who, having taken bail of
him and his companions, dismiss them, 5-9.
Paul and Silas are sent away by night unto Berea, where they
preach to the Jews, who gladly receive the Gospel, 10-12.
Certain Jews from Thessalonica, hearing that the Bereans had
received the Gospel, come thither and raise up a persecution,
13.
Paul is sent away by the brethren to Athens, where he preaches
to the Jews, 14-17.
He is encountered by the Epicureans and Stoics, who bring him
to the Areopagus, and desire him to give a full explanation of
his doctrine, 18-20.
The character of the Athenians, 21.
Paul preaches to them, and gives a general view of the essential
principles of theology, 22-31.
Some mock, some hesitate, and some believe, and, among the
latter, Dionysias and Damaris, 32-34.
NOTES ON CHAP. XVII.
Verse 1. Passed through Amphipolis] This city was the metropolis of the first division of Macedonia, as made by Paulus AEmilius: see the note on Ac 16:10. It was builded by Cimon, the Athenian general, who sent 10,000 Athenians thither as a colony. It stood in an island in the river Strymon, and had its name of Amphipolis because included between the two grand branches of that river where they empty themselves into the sea, the river being on both sides of the city.
Apollonia] This was another city of Macedonia, between Amphipolis and Thessalonica. It does not appear that St. Paul stopped at any of these cities: and they are only mentioned by the historian as places through which the apostles passed on their way to Thessalonica. It is very likely that in these cities there were no Jews; and that might have been the reason why the apostles did not preach the Gospel there, for we find them almost constantly beginning with the Jews; and the Hellenist Jews, living among the Gentiles, became the medium through which the Gospel of Christ was conveyed to the heathen world.
Thessalonica] This was a celebrated city of Macedonia, situated on what was called the Thermaic Gulf. According to Stephanus Byzantinus, it was embellished and enlarged by Philip, king of Macedon, who called it Thessalonica, the victory of Thessalia, on account of the victory he obtained there over the Thessalians; but, prior to this, it was called Thermae. But Strabo, Tzetzes, and Zonaras, say that it was called Thessalonica, from Thessalonica, wife of Cassander, and daughter of Philip. It is now in possession of the Turks, and is called Salonichi, which is a mere corruption of the original name.
A synagogue of the Jews.] , THE synagogue; for the article here must be considered as emphatic, there probably being no other synagogue in any other city in Macedonia. The Jews in different parts had other places of worship called proseuchas. as we have seen, Ac 16:13. At Thessalonica alone they appear to have had a synagogue.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Araphipolis, a city near to Philippi; so called, because the sea came up to it on both sides.
Apollonia, a city near to Thessalonica.
This
Thessalonica was one of the chiefest cities of Macedonia: unto the church in this place St. Paul wrote two of his Epistles. This city was built by Philip, in memory of a victory he obtained over the Thessali.
Where was a synagogue of the Jews: it seems that there was no synagogue in either of the other places, but that the Jews of the other cities resorted unto the synagogue in this, all these three cities being in Macedonia. The sending away of Paul and Silas, Act 16:39, to gratify the mad multitude, was a means to bring the word of salvation to those places.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
1. when they had passed throughAmphipolisthirty-three miles southwest of Philippi, on theriver Strymon, and at the head of the gulf of that name, on thenorthern coast of the gean Sea.
and Apolloniaaboutthirty miles southwest of Amphipolis; but the exact site is notknown.
they came toThessalonicaabout thirty-seven miles due west from Apollonia,at the head of the Thermaic (or Thessalonian) Gulf, at thenorthwestern extremity of the gean Sea; the principal and mostpopulous city in Macedonia. “We see at once how appropriate aplace it was for one of the starting-points of the Gospel in Europe,and can appreciate the force of what Paul said to the Thessalonianswithin a few months of his departure from them: “From you, theword of the Lord sounded forth like a trumpet, not only in Macedoniaand Achaia, but in every place,”” (1Th1:8) [HOWSON].
where was a synagogue of theJewsimplying that (as at Philippi) there was none atAmphipolis and Apollonia.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Now when they had passed through Amphipolls,…. A city of Macedonia, where it is placed by Pliny q; according to Ptolomy r, it was in that part of Macedonia, which is called Edonis, and was near Philippi, and lay in the way from thence to Thessalonica; Harpocratian s says, it was a city of Thrace, formerly called “the Nine Ways”; it was upon the borders of Thrace, and had its name Amphipolis from the river Strymon running on both sides of it, making it a peninsula; it was also called Crademna, and Anadraemum; it is now in the hands of the Turks, and by them called Empoli; this city was originally built by Cimon the Athenian, into which he sent ten thousand Athenians for a colony, as the writer of his life reports t. The apostle only passed through this place; it does not appear that he at all preached in it, or at any other time, nor do we read of it in ecclesiastical history, nor of the following place:
and Apollonia; this is also placed by Pliny u in Macedonia, and is said by him to have been formerly a colony of the Corinthians, and about seven miles from the sea; and by Ptolomy w, in that part of Macedonia called Mygdonia, and with him its name is Apollonia of Mygdonia; it was situated by the river Echedorus, and was famous for Augustus Caesar’s learning Greek here, and is now called Ceres: there was another of this name in the region of Pentapolis, and was one of the five x cities in it; and another in Palestine mentioned by Pliny y, along with Caesarea; and by Josephus z, with Joppa, Jamnia, Azotus, c. but this was near Thessalonica it is said to be about twenty miles from it: here also the apostle did not stay to preach the Gospel, nor is there any mention made of it elsewhere in the Acts of the Apostles, and yet Marcus, sister’s son to Barnabas, is said to be bishop of Apollonia; [See comments on Lu 10:1], but whether the same place with this, or whether fact, is not certain;
they came to Thessalonica; a free city of Macedonia a; it was formerly called Halis b, and sometimes Therme; it had its name of Thessalonica from the victory which Philip king of Macedon obtained over the Thessalians; and not from his daughter Thessalonica, the wife of Cassander, who also had her name from the same victory: in this place a sedition being raised, and some magistrates killed, Theodosius the Roman emperor suffered seven thousand men to be slain; and when he came to Milain, Ambrose bishop of that place having heard of it, would not suffer him to enter into the church and receive the Lord’s supper, until he repented of his sin, and made public confession of it c. Thessalonica has been since the head of a new kingdom erected by Boniface marquis of Montferrat; it was for some time in the hands of the Venetians, but was taken from them by Amurath emperor of the Turks d. The Italians call it now Saloniki; it has been since inhabited by Christians, Turks, and Jews, and chiefly by the latter, their number, according to their own account, is fourteen thousand, and their synagogues fourscore. There always were many Jews in this place, and so there were when the apostle was here, for it follows;
where was a synagogue of the Jews; it seems as if there was none, neither in Philippi, nor in Amphipolis, nor in Apollonia: why these two last places should be passed through by the apostle, without making any stay at them, cannot be said; it is very likely he had, as in some other instances before, some particular directions from the Spirit of God, there being none of the chosen vessels of salvation to be called there, at least, at this time, when there were many at Thessalonica.
q Nat. Hist. l. 4. c. 10. r Geograph. l. 3. c. 13. s Lexic. Decem. Orat. p. 20, 104. Vid. Plin. Nat. Hist. l. 10. c. 8. t Cornelius Nepos in Vita Cimon. c. 2. u Nat. Hist. l. 3. c. 23. w Geograph. l. 8. c. 13. Vid. Plin. l. 4. c. 10. x Plin. Nat. Hist. l. 5. c. 5. y Ib. c. 13. z Antiqu. l. 13. c. 15. sect. 4. & de Bello Jud. l. 1. c. 8, sect. 3. a Plin. l. 4. c. 10. b Ptolom. l. 3. c. 13. c Magdeburg. Hist. Eccles. cent. 4. c. 3. p. 82. d Petav. Rationar. Temp. par. 1. p. 462, 475.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
| Paul and Silas at Thessalonica. |
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1 Now when they had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where was a synagogue of the Jews: 2 And Paul, as his manner was, went in unto them, and three sabbath days reasoned with them out of the scriptures, 3 Opening and alleging, that Christ must needs have suffered, and risen again from the dead; and that this Jesus, whom I preach unto you, is Christ. 4 And some of them believed, and consorted with Paul and Silas; and of the devout Greeks a great multitude, and of the chief women not a few. 5 But the Jews which believed not, moved with envy, took unto them certain lewd fellows of the baser sort, and gathered a company, and set all the city on an uproar, and assaulted the house of Jason, and sought to bring them out to the people. 6 And when they found them not, they drew Jason and certain brethren unto the rulers of the city, crying, These that have turned the world upside down are come hither also; 7 Whom Jason hath received: and these all do contrary to the decrees of Csar, saying that there is another king, one Jesus. 8 And they troubled the people and the rulers of the city, when they heard these things. 9 And when they had taken security of Jason, and of the other, they let them go.
Paul’s two epistles to the Thessalonians, the first two he wrote by inspiration, give such a shining character of that church, that we cannot but be glad here in the history to meet with an account of the first founding of the church there.
I. Here is Paul’s coming to Thessalonica, which was the chief city of this country, called at this day Salonech, in the Turkish dominions. Observe, 1. Paul went on with his work, notwithstanding the ill usage he had met with at Philippi; he did not fail, nor was discouraged. He takes notice of this in his first epistle to the church here (1 Thess. ii. 2): After we were shamefully treated at Philippi, yet we were bold in our God to speak unto you the gospel of God. The opposition and persecution that he met with made him the more resolute. Note of these things moved him; he could never have held out, and held on, as he did, if he had not been animated by a spirit of power from on high. 2. He did but pass through Amphipolis and Apollonia, the former a city near Philippi, the latter near Thessalonica; doubtless he was under divine direction, and was told by the Spirit (who, as the wind, bloweth where he listeth) what places he should pass through, and what he should rest in. Apollonia was a city of Illyricum, which, some think, illustrates that of Paul, that he had preached the gospel from Jerusalem, and round about unto Illyricum (Rom. xv. 19), that is, to the borders of Illyricum where he now was; and we may suppose though he is said only to pass through these cities, yet that he staid so long in them as to publish the gospel there, and to prepare the way for the entrance of other ministers among them, whom he would afterwards send.
II. His preaching to the Jews first, in their synagogue at Thessalonica. He found a synagogue of the Jews there (v. 1), which intimates that one reason why he passed through those other cities mentioned, and did not continue long in them, was because there were no synagogues in them. But, finding one in Thessalonica, by it he made his entry. 1. It was always his manner to begin with the Jews, to make them the first offer of the gospel, and not to turn to the Gentiles till they had refused it, that their mouths might be stopped from clamouring against him because he preached to the Gentiles; for if they received the gospel they would cheerfully embrace the new converts; if they refused it, they might thank themselves if the apostles carried it to those that would bid it welcome. That command of beginning at Jerusalem was justly construed as a direction, wherever they came, to begin with the Jews. 2. He met them in their synagogue on the sabbath day, in their place and at their time of meeting, and thus he would pay respect to both. Sabbaths and solemn assemblies are always very precious to those to whom Christ is precious, Ps. lxxxiv. 10. It is good being in the house of the Lord on his day. This was Christ’s manner, and Paul’s manner, and has been the manner of all the saints, the good old way which they have walked in. 3. He reasoned with them out of the scriptures. They agreed with him to receive the scriptures of the Old Testament: so far they were of a mind. But they received the scripture, and therefore thought they had reason to reject Christ; Paul received the scripture, and therefore saw great reason to embrace Christ. It was therefore requisite, in order to their conviction, that he should, by reasoning with them, the Spirit setting with him, convince them that his inferences from the scripture were right and theirs were wrong. Note, The preaching of the gospel should be both scriptural preaching and rational; such Paul’s was, for he reasoned out of the scriptures: we must take the scriptures for our foundation, our oracle, and touchstone, and then reason out of them and upon them, and against those who, though they pretend zeal for the scriptures, as the Jews did, yet wrest them to their own destruction. Reason must not be set up in competition with the scripture, but it must be made use of in explaining and applying the scripture. 4. He continued to do this three sabbath days successively. If he could not convince them the first sabbath, he would try the second and the third; for precept must be upon precept, and line upon line. God waits for sinners’ conversion, and so must his ministers; all the labourers come not into the vineyard at the first hour, nor at the first call, nor are wrought upon so suddenly as the jailer. 5. The drift and scope of his preaching and arguing was to prove that Jesus is the Christ; this was that which he opened and alleged, v. 3. He first explained his thesis, and opened the terms, and then alleged it, and laid it down, as that which he would abide by, and which he summoned them in God’s name to subscribe to. Paul had an admirable method of discourse; and showed he was himself both well apprized of the doctrine he preached and thoroughly understood it, and that he was fully assured of the truth of it, and therefore he opened it like one that believed it. He showed them, (1.) That it was necessary the Messiah should suffer, and die, and rise again, that the Old-Testament prophecies concerning the Messiah made it necessary he should. The great objection which the Jews made against Jesus being the Messiah was his ignominious death and sufferings. The cross of Christ was to the Jews a stumbling-block, because it did by no means agree with the idea they had framed of the Messiah; but Paul here alleges and makes it out undeniably, not only that it was possible he might be the Messiah, though he suffered, but that, being the Messiah, it was necessary he should suffer. He could not be made perfect but by sufferings; for, if he had not died, he could not have risen again from the dead. This was what Christ himself insisted upon (Luke xxiv. 26): Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into his glory? And again (v. 46): Thus it is written, and therefore thus it behoved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead. He must needs have suffered for us, because he could not otherwise purchase redemption for us; and he must needs have risen again because he could not otherwise apply the redemption to us. (2.) That Jesus is the Messiah: “This Jesus whom I preach unto you, and call upon you to believe in, is Christ, is the Christ, is the anointed of the Lord, is he that should come, and you are to look for no other; for God has both by his word and by his works (the two ways of his speaking to the children of men), by the scriptures and by miracles, and the gift of the Spirit to make both effectual, borne witness to him.” Note, [1.] Gospel ministers should preach Jesus; he must be their principal subject; their business is to bring people acquainted with him. [2.] That which we are to preach concerning Jesus is that he is Christ; and therefore we may hope to be saved by him and are bound to be ruled by him.
III. The success of his preaching there, v. 4. 1. Some of the Jews believed, notwithstanding their rooted prejudices against Christ and his gospel, and they consorted with Paul and Silas: they not only associated with them as friends and companions, but they gave up themselves to their direction, as their spiritual guides; they put themselves into their possession as an inheritance into the possession of the right owner, so the word signifies; they first gave themselves to the Lord, and then to them by the will of God, 2 Cor. viii. 5. They adhered to Paul and Silas, and attended them wherever they went. Note, Those that believe in Jesus Christ come into communion with his faithful ministers, and associate with them. 2. Many more of the devout Greeks, and of the chief women, embraced the gospel. These were proselytes of the gate, the godly among the Gentiles (so the Jews called them), such as, though they did not submit to the law of Moses, yet renounced idolatry and immorality, worshipped the true God only, and did not man any wrong. These were hoi sebomenoi Hellenes—the worshipping Gentiles; as in America they call those of the natives that are converted to the faith of Christ the praying Indians. These were admitted to join with the Jews in their synagogue-worship. Of these a great multitude believed, more of them than of the thorough-paced Jews, who were wedded to the ceremonial law. And not a few of the chief women of the city, that were devout and had a sense of religion, embraced Christianity. Particular notice is taken of this, for an example to the ladies, the chief women, and an encouragement to them to employ themselves in the exercises of devotion and to submit themselves to the commanding power of Christ’s holy religion, in all the instances of it; for this intimates how acceptable it will be to God, what an honour to Christ, and what great influence it may have upon many, besides the advantages of it to their own souls. No mention is here made of their preaching the gospel to the Gentile idolaters at Thessalonica, and yet it is certain that they did, and that great numbers were converted; nay, it should seem that of the Gentile converts that church was chiefly composed, though notice is not taken of them here; for Paul writes to the Christians there as having turned to God from idols (1 Thess. i. 9), and that at the first entering in of the apostles among them.
IV. The trouble that was given to Paul and Silas at Thessalonica. Wherever they preached, they were sure to be persecuted; bonds and afflictions awaited them in every city. Observe,
1. Who were the authors of their trouble: the Jews who believed not, who were moved with envy, v. 5. The Jews were in all places the most inveterate enemies to the Christians, especially to those Jews that turned Christians, against whom they had a particular spleen, as deserters. Now see what that division was which Christ came to send upon earth; some of the Jews believed the gospel and pitied and prayed for those that did not; while those that did not envied and hated those that did. St. Paul in his epistle to this church takes notice of the rage and enmity of the Jews against the preachers of the gospel, as their measure-filling sin. 1Th 2:15; 1Th 2:16.
2. Who were the instruments of the trouble: the Jews made use of certain lewd persons of the baser sort, whom they picked up and got together, and who must undertake to give the sense of the city against the apostles. All wise and sober people looked upon them with respect, and valued them, and none would appear against them but such as were the scum of the city, a company of vile men, that were given to all manner of wickedness. Tertullian pleads this with those that opposed Christianity, that the enemies of it were generally the worst of men: Tales semper nobis insecutores, injusti, impii, turpes, quos, et ipsi damnare consuestis–Our persecutors are invariably unjust, impious, infamous, whom you yourselves have been accustomed to condemn.–Apologia, cap. 5. It is the honour of religion that those who hate it are generally the lewd fellows of the baser sort, that are lost to all sense of justice and virtue.
3. In what method they proceeded against them. (1.) They set the city in an uproar, made a noise to put people in a fright, and then every body ran to see what the matter was; they began a riot, and then the mob was up presently. See who are the troublers of Israel–not the faithful preachers of the gospel, but the enemies of it. See how the devil carries on his designs; he sets cities in an uproar, sets souls in an uproar, and then fishes in troubled waters. (2.) They assaulted the house of Jason, where the apostles lodged, with a design to bring them out to the people, whom they had incensed and enraged against them, and by whom they hoped to see them pulled to pieces. The proceedings here were altogether illegal; of Jason’s house must be searched, it ought to be done by the proper officers, and not without a warrant: “A man’s house,” the law says, “is his castle,” and for them in a tumultuous manner to assault a man’s house, to put him and his family in fear, was but to show to what outrages men are carried by a spirit of persecution. If men have offended, magistrates are appointed to enquire into the offence, and to judge of it; but to make the rabble judges and executioners too (as these Jews designed to do) was to make truth fall in the street, to set servants on horseback, and leave princes to walk as servants on the earth–to depose equity, and enthrone fury. (3.) When they could not get the apostles into their hands (whom they would have punished as vagabonds, and incensed the people against as strangers that came to spy out the land, and devour its strength, and eat the bread out of their mouths), then they fall upon an honest citizen of their own, who entertained the apostles in his house, his name Jason, a converted Jew, and drew him out with some others of the brethren to the rulers of the city. The apostles were advised to withdraw, for they were more obnoxious, Currenti cede furori–Retire before the torrent. But their friends were willing to expose themselves, being better able to weather this storm. For a good man, for such good men as the apostles were, some would even dare to die. (4.) They accused them to the rulers, and represented them a dangerous persons, not fit to be tolerated; the crime charged upon Jason is receiving and harbouring the apostles (v. 7), countenancing them and promoting their interest. And what was the apostles’ crime, that it should be no less than misprision of treason to give them lodging? Two very black characters are here given them, enough to make them odious to the people and obnoxious to the magistrates, if they had been just:– [1.] That they were enemies to the public peace, and threw every thing into disorder wherever they came: Those that have turned the world upside down are come hither also. In one sense it is true that wherever the gospel comes in its power to any place, to any soul, it works such a change there, gives such a wide change to the stream, so directly contrary to what it was, that it may be said to turn the world upside down in that place, in that soul. The love of the world is rooted out of the heart, and the way of the world contradicted in the life; so that the world turned upside down there. But in the sense in which they meant it, it is utterly false; they would have it thought that the preachers of the gospel were incendiaries and mischief makers wherever they came, that they sowed discord among relations, set neighbours together by the ears, obstructed commerce, and inverted all order and regularity. Because they persuaded people to turn from vice to virtue, from idols to the living and true God, from malice and envy to love and peace, they are charged with turning the world upside down, when it was only the kingdom of the devil in the world that they thus overturned. Their enemies set the city in an uproar, and then laid the blame upon them; as Nero set Rome on fire, and then charged it upon the Christians. If Christ’s faithful ministers, even those that are most quiet in the land, be thus invidiously misrepresented and miscalled, let them not think it strange nor be exasperated by it; we are not better than Paul and Silas, who were thus abused. The accusers cry out, “They are come hither also; they have been doing all the mischief they could in other places, and now they have brought the infection hither; it is therefore time for us to bestir ourselves and make head against them.” [2.] That they were enemies to the established government, and disaffected to that, and their principles and practices were destructive to monarchy and inconsistent with the constitution of the state (v. 7): They all do contrary to the decrees of Csar; not to any particular decree, for there was as yet no law of the empire against Christianity, but contrary to Csar’s power in general to make decrees; for they say, There is another king, one Jesus, not only a king of the Jews, as our Saviour was himself charged before Pilate, but Lord of all; so Peter called him in the first sermon he preached to the Gentiles, ch. x. 36. It is true the Roman government, both while it was a commonwealth and after it came into the Csar’s hands, was very jealous of any governor under their dominion taking upon him the title of king, and there was an express law against it. But Christ’s kingdom was not of this world. His followers said indeed, Jesus is a king, but not an earthly king, not a rival with Csar, nor his ordinances interfering with the decrees of Csar, but who had made it a law of his kingdom to render unto Csar the things that are Csar’s. There was nothing in the doctrine of Christ that tended to the dethroning of princes, nor the depriving them of any of their prerogatives. The Jews knew this very well, and it was against their consciences that they brought such a charge against the apostles; and of all people it ill became the Jews to do it, who hated Csar and his government, and sought the ruin of him and it, and who expected a Messiah that should be a temporal prince, and overturn the thrones of kingdoms, and were therefore opposing our Lord Jesus because he did not appear under that character. Thus those have been most spiteful in representing God’s faithful people as enemies to Csar, and hurtful to kings and provinces, who have been themselves setting up imperium in imperio–a kingdom within a kingdom, a power not only in competition with Csar’s but superior to it, that of the papal supremacy.
4. The great uneasiness which this gave to this city (v. 8): They troubled the people and the rulers of the city, when they heard these things. They had no ill opinion of the apostles or their doctrine, could not apprehend any danger to the state from them, and therefore were willing to connive at them; but, if they be represented to them by the prosecutors as enemies to Csar, they will be obliged to take cognizance of them, and to suppress them, for fear of the government, and this troubled them. Claudius, who then held the reins of government, is represented by Suetonius as a man very jealous of the least commotion and timorous to the last degree, which obliged the rulers under him to be watchful against every thing that looked dangerous, or gave the least cause of suspicion; and therefore it troubled them to be brought under a necessity of disturbing good men.
5. The issue of this troublesome affair. The magistrates had no mind to prosecute the Christians. Care was taken to secure the apostles; they absconded, and fled, and kept out of their hands; so that nothing was to be done but to discharge Jason and his friends upon bail, v. 9. The magistrates here were not so easily incensed against the apostles as the magistrates at Philippi were, but were more considerate and of better temper; so they took security of Jason and the other, bound them to their good behavior; and perhaps they gave bond for Paul and Silas, that they should be forthcoming when they were called for, if any thing should afterwards appear against them. Among the persecutors of Christianity, as there have been instances of the madness and rage of brutes, so there have been likewise of the prudence and temper of men; moderation has been a virtue.
Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary
When they had passed through (). First aorist active participle of , common verb in the Koine (Polybius, Plutarch, LXX, etc.), but in the N.T. only here and Lu 8:1. It means literally to make one’s way () through (). They took the Egnatian Way, one of the great Roman roads from Byzantium to Dyrrachium (over 500 miles long) on the Adriatic Sea, opposite Brundisium and so an extension of the Appian Way.
Amphipolis ( ). So called because the Strymon flowed almost around () it, the metropolis of Macedonia Prima, a free city, about 32 miles from Philippi, about three miles from the sea. Paul and Silas may have spent only a night here or longer.
Apollonia ( ). Not the famous Apollonia in Illyria, but 32 miles from Amphipolis on the Egnatian Way. So here again a night was spent if no more. Why Paul hurried through these two large cities, if he did, we do not know. There are many gaps in Luke’s narrative that we have no way of filling up. There may have been no synagogues for one thing.
To Thessalonica ( ). There was a synagogue here in this great commercial city, still an important city called Saloniki, of 70,000 population. It was originally called Therma, at the head of the Thermaic Gulf. Cassander renamed it Thessalonica after his wife, the sister of Alexander the Great. It was the capital of the second of the four divisions of Macedonia and finally the capital of the whole province. It shared with Corinth and Ephesus the commerce of the Aegean. One synagogue shows that even in this commercial city the Jews were not very numerous. As a political centre it ranked with Antioch in Syria and Caesarea in Palestine. It was a strategic centre for the spread of the gospel as Paul later said for it sounded (echoed) forth from Thessalonica throughout Macedonia and Achaia (1Th 1:8).
Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament
PAUL’S FIRST LABORS IN THESSALONICA V. 1-4, 1Th 1:8-10
1) “Now when they had passed through,” (Diodeusantes de) “Then traveling progressively thru,” traveling overland from Philippi, through the cities of Macedonia, westward along the Roman road, without stopping as follows:
2) “Amphipolis and Appolonia,” (ten Amphipolin kaiten Apollonian) “Appolonia – a small city about 30 miles SW from Amphipolis. And Amphipolis, about 30 miles SW of Philippi;” on the river Strymon. It became the capitol of the second of the four districts of Macedonia.
3) “They came to Thessalonica,” (elthon eis Thessaloniken) “They came by choice to Thessalonica,” The “they” were Paul and Silas who came to Thessalonica a seaport city in western Macedonia where there was a colony of Jews. It was a free city, capitol of Macedonia, about 28 miles west from Appolonia, now known as Salonica, with a population of some 600,000.
4) “Where was a synagogue of the Jews: (hopou en sunagoge on loudaion) “Where there was (existed) a synagogue of the Jews,” implying that there was none in Philippi, Amphipolis, or Appollonia. A building belonging to the Jewish community, used for worship and public teaching and exhortation, especially as such related to morals, ethics, and dogmas of the Law of Moses, Mat 13:54; Luk 4:16; Luk 7:5; Act 14:1.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
−
1. They came to Thessalonica. We know not why Paul attempted nothing at Amphipolis and Appollonia, which were, notwithstanding, famous cities, as appeareth by Pliny; save only because he followed the Spirit of God as his guide; and took occasion by the present matter, as occasion he did also essay to do some good there, but because it was without any good success, therefore Luke passeth over it. And whereas being beaten at Philippos, [Philippi,] and scarce escaping out of great danger, he preached Christ at Thessalonica, it appeareth thereby how courageous he was to keep the course of his calling, and how bold he was ever now and then to enter into new dangers. −
This so invincible fortitude of mind, and such patient enduring of the cross, do sufficiently declare, that Paul labored not after the manner of men, but that he was furnished with the heavenly power of the Spirit. And this was all so wonderful patience in him, in that, entering in unto the Jews, whose unbridled frowardness he had so often tried, [experienced,] he proceedeth to procure their salvation. But because he knew that Christ was given to the Jews for salvation, and that he himself was made an apostle upon this condition, that he should preach repentance and faith, first to the Jews and then to the Gentiles, committing the success of his labor to the Lord, he obeyeth his commandment, (though he had no great hope to do good.) He seemed before to have taken his last farewell of the Jews, when he said, It was behoveful that the kingdom of God should be first preached to you; but because ye receive it not, behold we turn to the Gentiles; but that harder sentence must be restrained to that company who had wickedly rejected the gospel when it was offered unto them, and made themselves unworthy [of] the grace of God. And toward the nation itself Paul ceaseth not to do his embassage; by which example we are taught, that we ought to make so great account of the calling of God, that no unthankfulness of men may be able to hinder us, but that we proceed to be careful for their salvation, so long as the Lord appointeth us to be their ministers. And it is to be though that even now there were some who on the first Sabbath refused sound doctrine, but their frowardness − (241) did not hinder him, but that he came again upon other Sabbaths. −
(241) −
“
Pravitas,” depravity, perverseness.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
THE MINISTER WHO MADE A SENSATION
Act 17:1-9.
THERE was nothing tame about Paul, the preacher. When it was announced that he was to speak, audiences were not lacking. When he finished an address, friends had been made who would die with him, and enemies created who would fain kill him. There were as many prisons in his path as there were pulpits; more mobs than peaceable assemblies.
In Philippi, the chief city of Macedonia, he went with his traveling companion to the riverside, and addressed the women accustomed to go there for prayer; but among them was a damsel possessed with the spirit of divination, which Paul, in the Name of Jesus Christ, cast out. The result was a prison cell for both himself and Silas. He seldom entered a city without creating a sensation.
The average minister enjoys an occasional ovation, or, once in a long while, stumbles upon an ardent opposition. Paul created both upon every appearance! How and why? Our text answers these questions.
It traces it first of all to
HIS MANNER
Now when they had passed through Amphipolis and Apolloma, they came to Thessalonica, where was a synagogue of the Jews:
And Paul, as his manner was, went in unto them, and three sabbath days reasoned with them out of the Scriptures.
As his manner was is a significant phrase. A remarkable man always has a marked manner.
With Paul it was that of an enthusiast. As his manner was, [he] went in unto them. Joseph Parker reminds us that Paul might be expected to change his manner. He got into trouble in Philippi. Will he keep out now? He has passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia in silence; has the smitten warrior learned discretion? Since his experience at Philippi has he decided to say nothing to which men can take exception? So it is with the average; but Paul was not the average! The synagogue of the Jews was a possible battle-field, and instantly he stripped for the fight.
The world in the church and the world out of the church is always joining forces to suppress Christian enthusiasm. Their combined attack crushes the spirit of the small man. The country is full of Gospel ministers who boast their discretion, when they ought, rather, to talk of their cowardice; who pride themselves on their prudence when puerility is the word. They have been in Philippi. The opposition there was such that they have decided to save themselves from a like experience; so, when they go to Thessalonica, they will avoid all subjects of controversy and do to suit everybody, the devil included. That is an end to enthusiasm and death in the ministry. There is many a pulpit into which that North Carolina negro should be admitted for prayer. When the white minister had concluded his service in a colored church, he called upon this deacon to lead in petition, and the black brother proceeded after the following manner, Oh, Lord; gib him de eye of de eagle dat he spy out sin afar off. Glue his hands to de Gospel plow. Tie his tongue to de line of truf. Nail his ear to de Gospel pole. Bow his head way down tween his knees, and his knees way down in some lonesome, dark and narrer valley, where prayer is much wanted to be made. Noint him wid de kerosene ile of salvation and sot him on fire. There are all too many men in the ministry who have suffered their fellows to wet-blanket the fires of God. They need anointing!
Pauls manner was that of a logician. Three Sabbath days he reasoned with them out of the Scriptures. Mark the phrase, Paul reasoned. The country is filling up with little men, made in the mold of the modern theological seminary, who think that reasoning is a mental process characterizing the skeptic only. If a man doubts Gods Word, then he reasons; he may boast himself a Rationalist, but if he believes the Book, he is to be dubbed credulous, mentally soft, a traditionalist, if you please. It is remarkable how men can construct theories without regard to facts; and how folly affects an egotist! Reason! What boasted Rationalist of the past is to be so much as mentioned with Paul? Logic was native to the great Apostle. His Epistles are 1900 years old, yet they are worthy a place in the logicians text-book. Reason was Pauls custom. He reasoned with the Thessalonians out of the Scriptures (Act 17:2); he reasoned in the synagogue every sabbath, and persuaded the Jews and the Greeks (Act 18:4); he came to Ephesus and entered into the synagogue and reasoned with the Jews (Act 18:9); before Felix he reasoned of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come (Act 24:25). Here is a man who is an exponent of revelation, yet his method of presenting the same is by reasoning!
Truly, there is a reason for the hope that is within us, and Gods best ministers can make that so evident that men shall not be able to resist their argument. O. P. Gifford said truly that an appeal to the will that is not preceded by instruction to the intellect amounts to little in the long run. The church has a right to demand of its minister that he grapple with the reasonable doubts of men. He illustrated: Some years ago I spent a week in the City of Washington, and passed a midnight with a friend, the astronomer of the Naval Observatory. We walked through the streets of the deserted city and climbed the winding stairway under the dome. He stepped up into the chair where he spent nights and nights of his life and trained the telescope until within its lens swung the red face of the god of war. He slipped from his place and lifted me into it, and in a moment I had the benefit of years of his training and the best telescope in the American Republic. The churches of Jesus Christ have a right to demand leaders who can carry their people up to the heights and show them the face of God. When you can do that there will be no further occasion of criticism. Until you can do that there will be occasion of nothing else. In other words, reason confirms faith. The manner of the minister should be that of the logician; his arguments, like those of Paul in the fifteenth chapter of I Corinthians, ought to proceed from premise to conclusion, carrying increasing conviction with every additional sentence.
His manner was that of a Bible teacher. Three sabbath days Paul reasoned with them out of the Scriptures. The greatest sensation of the first century church was produced by the men who knew the Book. Peter, in the streets of old Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost, based his whole appeal upon the plain statements of Scripture; Stephen pointed his sermon by an appeal to sacred history, beginning with Abraham and concluding with Jesus; Philip, in the streets of Samaria, taught the things concerning the Kingdom of God and the Name of Jesus Christ.
The sensation of the twentieth century is along the same lines, and if it be worth while, it is associated with a knowledge of and impartation of the Sacred Scriptures. It is not produced by the man who discusses the subject, Dam It; Did She Swear? as one minister recently did. It does not occur out of such subjects as The Ass, the Man and the Boya sermon from one of sops fables. The theme is too asinine! It was a sensation, of course, and yet only a shocking one, when years ago Bishop Potter used the doxology to dedicate a saloon. It may have been a sensation when Crapsey departed from the plain teaching of the Book and was excluded from the Episcopal church, but, after all, it was only an episode, and already the public has almost entirely forgotten that small critic of Scripture. R. J. Campbells New Theology was justly described by a fellow critic as a tempest in a teacup. Who concerns himself now that a certain fellow introduced the dance into his church, and what other interest than disgust does one feel over the conduct of a Reverend of Los Angeles, who followed his Sunday evening service with a parsonage Smoker? When secular Journals must excoriate the conduct of so-called ministers for their immoral methods of reaching men, the whole Church of God has occasion to blush, and Christianity shrinks for very shame. Instead of getting down to the level of the habitue of the dance, the patron of the theatre, the crowd about the card table, it might be well, as the Los Angeles Time once suggested, for ministers to take higher ground and attempt to lift people up, under the conviction that the dwellers in the dank marines would be profited by the pure and bracing air of the high hills of God.
The first essential, then, for the minister who would create a sensation that is worth while is a knowledge of the Book. As one has written, Law has its literature, medicine its literature; and so the church has its literature, and it is one Book. A man may not know Hebrew or Greek, and yet if he knows the Spirit of the Book, he has mastered its power. And a man may know both Hebrew and Greek and stand high in Oriental scholarship, and not have a conception of the Spirit of the Book. You know the difference between the preacher who skates in a spirit of criticism over the frozen surface of the intellectual side of the Bible, and the man who has come out of its tides as Naaman came out of the Jordan with his flesh like the flesh of a little child. It is possible for a man to know that the Bible has a coat of many colors and not know Joseph; but the churches have a right to demand that the man who teaches should know Joseph whether or not he is posted on his clothing.
Newcomb, the astronomer, says we should cultivate a receptive attitude towards the universe. Go out and lie on your backs on a moonless night in an open space and study the whole dome spangled with fire until it draws you to itself as the sun draws the moisture from the throbbing sea. So should we cultivate a receptive spirit toward the great dome of truth we call the Bible, spangled with history, prophecy, proverb and psalm, with epistle and gospel, until we are drawn from earth into the heat of it, and feel the power of its endless life.
I tell you that the minister who does that will make a sensation. The sorest spiritual need of the twentieth century is reasoning out of the Scripture. There is nothing more anomalous than that a man should enter the ministry and essay to teach Christianity without being familiar with the textbook and conforming both his opinions and instruction to the sentences of the same. It was affirmed of Polycarp that there was a remarkable agreement between what he said and what the Scriptures taught. Such agreement did more than make a sensation; it rendered the name of Polycarp almost as immortal as that of Peter and Paul. Pauls injunction to Timothy, then, is not out of datePreach the Word!
HIS MESSAGE
Christ is the sinners substitute. Opening and alleging that Christ must needs have suffered. It would be interesting to take the subjects of Pauls sermons, as recorded in the Book of Acts, or as revealed in his Epistles, beginning with Romans and concluding with Hebrews, and compare them with the pulpit themes announced in the church column of the daily paper. Paul does not seem to have had time to discuss the ephemeral questions of the day. He kept eternity in his vision, and hence spoke of Christ as the sinners substitute. Theodore Cuyler, the grand old man, in late life said, The atonement is the cardinal doctrine of the New Testament; the very core of Christianity is the sacrificial death of its Divine Founder. All its paths converge on Calvary. The Gospel does not underrate ethics, or the duties of human brotherhood, or the sublimest display of the Divine love, and it transcends all other revealed truths in saving power. If I could deliver but one discourse to a congregation composed of all nations of the globe, this should be my text, Christ Jesus died for our sins. This is the touchstone for every pulpit. The highest success in preaching lies just there. Pauls keynote, struck amid the idolatries of Corinth and in defiance of Caesars lictors at Rome, has been the secret of converting power everywhere. Luther preached this Gospel of atoning blood to slumbering Europe, and it awoke the dead. Amid all his emphasizings and defenses of the Divine sovereignty, Calvin never ignored or belittled the atonement. Cowper sang of it in sweet strains among the water-lilies of the Ouse, and Bunyan made the Cross the starting point for the Celestial City. John Wesley proclaimed it to the colliers of Kindwood, and the swarthy miners of Cornwall. Moodys bells all chimed to the keynote of Calvary. Spurgeon thundered his doctrine of vicarious atonement into the ear of peer and peasant with a voice like the sound of many waters. The heart of Gods church has in all ages held to this as the heart of all Christian theology, Christ Jesus died for our sins This sublime central truth is no more obsolete today than yonder sun in the firmament!
That message has never yet failed to produce a sensation. It succeeded in old Jerusalem; it stirred the Samaritans; it failed not in Philippi; it wrought marvelous things in Thessalonica; it accomplished converts in Corinth; it brought even the novel loving Athenians into new love and light. It is the sensation of the agesthe sensation of life from the dead!
His message made Christ to be Victor over the grave. He was no Rationalist resenting a miracle; he counted it not a thing incredible that God should raise the dead. Had he been in London when R. J. Campbell denied this doctrine, or in the Modern Seminary that does the same, he would have charged him and it with preaching another gospel, and pronounced against such teaching the Divine curse. A school examiner asked this question, What is false doctrine? to which a small boy replied, Please, sir; it is when the doctor gives the wrong stuff to the people who are sick. There is no mistake about it; and the doctor of divinity, whose message assures no victory against the grave, deals in the potion of death. If, as Paul himself, in his Epistle to the Corinthians, says, Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins. They also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished. If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable (1Co 15:17; 1Co 15:19).
This is also a doctrine which produced sensations in the Apostles day. Paul preached it in Antioch, in Pisidia, affirming that God raised Him from the dead, and the sensation brought the whole city out the next Sabbath Day to hear the Word of God. But the Jews, filled with envy, spake against those things which were spoken by Paul. Paul preached it at Thessalonica; it created enthusiasm on the one side and opposition on the other. Paul preached it at Athens. Some mocked, and others said, We will hear thee again of this matter. Paul preached it before Agrippa, and Sadducees and Pharisees were at once at enmity one with another. Paul preached it before Felix until that auditor was filled with fear, knowing that after the resurrection, the judgment. It is a singular thing that after twenty centuries we have come upon another time of such apostacy in the faith that no doctrine so instantly divides audiences and affects controversy as this same blessed truth of the resurrection from the dead. If one wants a sensation that is worth while, let him preach what the Scriptures say concerning the resurrection from the dead. He will excite accusers and accomplish converts, and they combine to make a sensation; but it is a sensation that will honor God, since it is according to the Holy Word.
His message affirms Jesus of Nazareth to be the Christ. This Jesus, whom I preach unto you, is Christ. That is what Peter said on the day of Pentecost. That is what Stephen asserted when they stoned him to death. That is what Philip affirmed, and hence his converts to the faith! That is the only Gospel! The late Dr. A. H. Strong wrote after this manner, I am distressed by some common theological tendencies of our time, because I believe them to be false to both science and religion. How men who have ever felt themselves to be lost sinners, and who have once received pardon from their crucified Lord and Saviour, can thereafter seek to pare down His attributes, deny His Deity and Atonement, tear from His brow the crown of miracle and sovereignty, relegate Him to the place of a merely moral teacher who influences us only as does Socrates, by words spoken across a stretch of ages, passes my comprehension. Here is my test of Orthodoxy: Do we pray to Jesus? Do we call upon the Name of Christ as did Stephen and all the early church? Is He our Living Lord, omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotent? Is He Divine only in the sense in which we are divine, or is He the only begotten Son, God made manifest in the flesh, in whom is all the fulness of the Godhead bodily? What think ye of the Christ? This is still the critical question, and none are entitled to the name of Christian who, in the face of the evidence He has furnished us, cannot answer that question aright.
If one had told us twenty-five years ago that the time would come when evangelical ministers would look askance at one in their fellowship who held to the belief in a physical resurrection of Jesus Christ and His undoubted Deity, I should have scorned his suggestion. To me the most remarkable evidence at the awful defection from the truth, which has swamped the church, exists in the circumstance that to preach these doctrines to-day is to excite surprise. Certainly we cannot be far from the final apostasy!
HIS MEETING
I ask you to follow the Apostle and see what is the effect of such a manner, of such a message! We have here the record of one of his meetings, and the features of it are plainly described.
It was characterized by converts. And some of them believed, and consorted with Paul and Silas; and of the devout Greeks a great multitude, and of the chief women not a few. That is the test of every mans manner, of every mans message! Has he made converts to the faith that is in Jesus? There are men who can make converts to themselves, but Paul made converts to Christ; they believed not on Paul but on Jesus. In a recent great Tabernacle meeting I saw twelve hundred confess Christ publicly. Men ceased from their drinking, turned back from their profanity, left off their lechery, and are trying to live godly in this present world. Oh, for meetings that make men clean, honest, Christian! A Japanese contractor, who was building a railroad in Japan, is credited with having said, I have charge of a thousand men and do everything in my power to awaken a sense of honor; but the only men I trust without watching are those who have accepted the Jesus teaching. Truly, when a man once accepts the Jesus teaching you need to watch him no more! He is a convert; his works are in accord with his faith; in him the truth of God has found acceptance; the Christ of God, a conqueror.
This meeting excited intense apposition. The Jews which believed not, moved with envy, took unto them certain lewd fellows of the baser sort, and gathered a company, and set all the city on an uproar, and assaulted the house of Jason, and sought to bring them out to the people. There were two classes in that oppositionthe cultured, designing Jew, who hated the truth, and the lewd fellows of the baser sort, who could be bought up to execute the wrath of their superiors. It is always so! There is no more interesting study than to run through the Book of the Acts and see what sort of men opposed Paul. Elymas, the sorcerer, set himself against him; the Jews and the Gentiles combined to use him despitefully, and to stone him. Certain officials from Antioch and Iconium stoned the Apostle and threw him out of the city, supposing him to have been dead. The owners of the damsel, possessed with the spirit of divination, resented his work and saw to his imprisonment. At Athens the cultured mocked him; at Achaia, Gallio, the deputy, made insurrection against Paul and brought him to the judgment seat. In Asia, Demetrius, the silversmith, saw that his business was endangered by the Apostles preaching, and he would be made to suffer the loss of the sale of his images of Diana, and he opposed him, and so on. These are not the lowest elements of society; they are called respectable folk; not a few of them well-to-do. From such, opposition to the truth may be expected.
I notice that whenever an evangelist preaches the things that excite controversy and produce dissension, the people in the church and out of the church are almost certain to accept it as evidence against him. He has been indiscreet; he has been overbearing; he has been offensively personal. But be it understood that these phrases are not always confirmed by the facts. The Gospel is a sword; its point pricks; its edge cuts when it is skillfully yielded, and sinners turn. There is many a church in this country that would be stirred from top to bottom if Paul preached in it a fortnight. In fact, there is many a church in this country that would not endure one sermon from this peerless Apostle. The truth throws light on conduct; the truth uncovers character; the truth does more than call to judgmentit is the judgment. The Church of God does not behave always as well as Felix did, hearing the truth with fear and trembling; it does not behave always with the civility of AgrippaWith a little persuasion thou wouldst make me a Christian. Sometimes it behaves after the custom of Herodias and cuts off the head of the messenger of truth. Such conduct proves the value of the meeting.
A mans ministry may be as much judged by the enmity excited as by the converts made. The minister who is loved by an unregenerate world, and accepted with favor by gross sinners, has surrendered his Divine commission, silenced the voice of the Gospel and sold the Son of God to a second crucifixion!
This meeting disturbed the whole city. When they found them not, they drew Jason and certain brethren unto the rulers of the city, crying, These that have turned the world upside down are come hither also; whom Jason hath received; and these all do contrary to the decrees of Caesar, saying that there is another king, one Jesus. It is not difficult to trouble the average city, not hard to put its rulers to confusion. The moment you let in light upon a dank hole where serpents and vermin creep, you disturb and anger them; and the moment a man preaches the Gospel, which is light, in a city where men love darkness rather than light, excitement will result. There are not a few folk who would rather see men possessed by the demon of drink, by the demon of gambling, by the demon of lust, by a legion of demons, than to lose their swine; who would rather destroy young women by the score and degrade young men by the hundred than to forfeit their rent from property employed for the most hellish of purposes. These are the people who cry, Peace, Peace, when there is no peace! and make the greatest ado when one uncovers their conduct and shows the spots on their cash.
If one listened to street conversations, or studied certain newspapers, he would imagine that a righteous mayor was a municipal trouble-maker; that those clean citizens who demand that crime should be called to judgment are a controversial crowd and should be silenced. It is not difficult to see the ground of such a philosophy, or to define its intent.
In a car four men were playing cards, drinking and indulging in profane and obscene speech. Just back of them, yet where he was looking into the faces of two, sat a young Christian. He was a fine tenor singer. Suddenly he lifted his voice and began:
There is a fountain filled with blood,Drawn from Immanuels veins,And sinners plunged beneath that flood,Lose all their guilty stains.
One of the four turned and shouted, What are you making that noise for? Why, said the young man, you are proclaiming whose servants you are, and I thought I must not be behind you in showing my colors! I am a servant of the Lord Jesus Christ and I am not ashamed of it. The passengers applauded and the quartette scowled, but slunk away to the smoking car. That was the place for such; only a smoking car ought always to be the tail end of the train.
Trouble! Yes, trouble! The true Gospel of the Son of God makes it; but who is to blame? Positive preaching creates it, but whose is the crime? It is disturbing! But the peace of death, the peace of moral dissolution, moral decay is not to be desired.
Finally,
This meeting exalted Jesus the Christ to rulership. They claimed that Paul and his confederates had put Jesus before Caesar, and it was true! That is where He belonged, Far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come. Is it not written, There is none other name given under heaven, among men, whereby we must be saved? Pauls ministry was meant to bring men to believe on that Name. The sin of sins is when men fail to accept Jesus as Saviour. A young man went to Dr. Goodwin for advice. He frankly confessed a black catalogue of iniquities, and finally said, I think now I have finished with all my sins. Dr. Goodwin said, There is one blacker than any you have mentioned, and yet you have committed it. He inquired despondently, What is it, Doctor? What can it be? Dr. Goodwin answered, It is the sin of rejecting Jesus. Surely that is the sin of sins! Drink in itself will never doom a mans soul; dishonesty in itself will never doom a mans soul; lust in itself will never lose a mans life; blasphemy in itself will never destroy; all manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men: but the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men (Mat 12:31). Do that and you are doomed; do that and you are destroyed forever from the presence of God. Unbelief bars the way to salvation. Faith swings its doors ajar!
Fuente: The Bible of the Expositor and the Evangelist by Riley
CRITICAL REMARKS
Act. 17:1. They.Paul, Silas, and Timothy, Luke having remained behind at Philippi. (See on Act. 16:40.) Passed through.The road traversed was the Via Egnatia, a great military road, the Macedonian continuation of the Appian Way. Amphipolis.Thirty miles southwest of Philippi, on the eastern bank of the Strymon, which flowed almost round it and gave to it its name (Hackett). Apollonia.To be distinguished from a town of the same name in Galatia (Ramsay). Thirty miles south-west of Amphipolis. At each of these towns the travellers most likely passed a night, but not more, as it appears the Jews were not at either town in sufficient numbers to maintain a synagogue, or perhaps even an oratory (Lewin). Thessalonica.Now Saloniki. The capital of the second division of Macedonia; a rich commercial city near the mouth of the Ecedorus, on the Thermaic Gulf, about twenty-eight miles west of Apollonia. Weizscker, badly off for an objection to the historic credibility of the Thessalonian visit, finds it strange that Paul went, of all places, to the capital of the province which had just given him such a bad reception; from which it may presumably be inferred that the German critic would not have proved so courageous as the Christian apostle. A (according to the best MSS. the definite article is wanting, though Hackett and Alford favour its retention) synagogue of the Jews.Doubtless the only one in town.
Act. 17:2. As his manner was.Compare Act. 13:5-14, Act. 14:1. Out of, or from the Scriptures.The source whence Paul drew his teaching (compare Act. 28:23).
Act. 17:3. Opening.I.e., giving the sense of Scripture, and allegingi.e., propounding, maintaining, or setting forth as the sum of their teaching. Christ should be the Christ. That this Jesus, etc, should be, that this is the Christviz., the Jesus whom I preach or proclaim unto you.
Act. 17:4. Believed.Rather, were persuaded. Consorted with.Attached themselves to (Olshausen, Hackett), though the more correct interpretation is were added by lot to (Winer, De Wette, Meyer, Alford, Holtzmann, Zckler)viz., by God (compare Act. 13:48; Joh. 6:44; Joh. 17:6). Of the devout Greeks reads in the Alexandrine Codex of the devout and of Greeks, which, however, is not to be preferred (see Act. 13:43). Of the chief, or first women.See on Act. 13:50.
Act. 17:5. The Jews who believed not.The best MSS. omit the relative clause, as an insertion from Act. 14:2. Lewd fellows of the baser sort.Lit., certain disreputable men of the market idlerssuch as Cicero calls subrostrani, Plautus sub-basilicani, Xenophon the market-place mob, , and Demosthenes the knaves of the market, . Jason was Pauls host (Act. 17:7), as Lydia had been his hostess at Philippi. Whether this Jason was Pauls kinsman (Rom. 16:21) cannot be determined.
Act. 17:6. When they found them not.Probably because Paul and Silas were then absent from their lodging. The rulers of the city, politarchs = the of Act. 16:19.Not in this case, as in that of Philippi, prtors, because Thessalonica was not a colony, but a free city, possessing the right of self-government in all its internal affairs, within the territory that might be assigned to it, and having magistrates with whose jurisdiction the provincial governor had no right to intermeddle. An inscription found on an arch at Thessalonica mentions that the city magistrates were called politarchs, and gives as three of these individuals bearing the names of three of Pauls friendsSosipater (Act. 20:4), Gaius (Act. 19:29), and Secundus (Act. 20:4).
Act. 17:7. Another King, one Jesus.Virtually a charge of high treason, a more alarming charge than that preferred against them at Philippi (Act. 16:21), and recalling the accusation of the Jerusalem Jews against Christ (Joh. 19:15).
Act. 17:9. When they had taken security.Lit., having taken the sufficient (sum or pledge) = satisdatione accepta, either by sureties or money. They let them go (compare Act. 13:3).Pauls language in 1Th. 2:14-16 appears to contain a reminiscence of his experience in Thessalonica.
HOMILETICAL ANALYSIS.Act. 17:1-9
Paul and Silas at Thessalonica; or, Mixed Experiences
I. Their arrival in the city.
1. How they reached it. By passing through Amphipolis and Apollonia, towards which they directed their steps on departing from the house of Lydia (Act. 16:40). The first of these towns lay thirty-three miles from Philippi in a south-westerly direction, the second thirty from Amphipolis and thirty-seven from Thessalonica. In all a journey of a hundred miles was undertaken, which might easily have been performed in three or four days. The first town, anciently called the Nine Ways, from the number of Thracian and Macedonian roads which converged at it, stood back three miles from the sea, on the east bank of the Strymon, which, flowing round it, gave it its name. The exact site of the second town has not been ascertained, although the road to it must have lain through scenes of surpassing loveliness.
2. How they found it. In those days Thessalonicathe modern Saloniki, with a population of 70,000, of whom a third are Jewswas a rich commercial city, near the mouth of the Echedorus. Originally called Therma, its name was changed by Cassander, the son of Antipater, and one of Alexanders generals, who rebuilt it, into Thessalonica, after his wife, who was a daughter of Philip. For the historic associations connected with Thessalonica see Conybeare and Howsons Life and Epistles of St. Paul, i. 298. When Paul and Silas for the first time entered this town it was the most populous of all the cities of Macedonia, and the capital of the whole province, where the Roman Proconsul, attended by six lictors and their fasces, held his court, attended by his privy council, or Board of Advice, composed of select illustrious Romans, with whom he conferred on all matters of state (Lewin). Its dense heathenism, moreover, was relieved by the presence of only one Jewish synagogue, while its streets were crowded by lewd fellows of the baser sort, vile fellows of the rabble, or market-place tramps.
3. How long they remained in it. At least three Sabbaths (Act. 17:2), and possibly three full weeks, during which, it may be safely assumed, the four missionaries were not idle, and Paul specially kept working night and day (1Th. 2:9). There is even ground for thinking Paul must have stayed several months in Thessalonica, as during that period he twice received pecuniary assistance from Philippi (Php. 4:15-16).
II. Their procedure in the city.
1. Their lodging. This, the procuring of which naturally formed their first concern, they found in the house of one Jason, a Grcised form of Jesus, a Jew, to whom they may have brought letters of introduction from the disciples at Philippi (Lewin), or who may have been a kinsman of Pauls (Rom. 16:21), though too much significance may be attached to similarity of name. If the individual here mentioned was a relative of Pauls he must have been with the apostle at Corinth when he wrote the epistle to the Romans 2. Their living. This may have been provided gratuitously by Jason, though that is unlikely. The epistle to the Thessalonians (1 Act. 2:9) rather shows that Paul and his companions laboured night and day, if not at their ordinary trades, at some form of manual labour, to furnish for themselves such scanty supplies as their modest wants demanded. The Philippians, indeed, once and again forwarded money contributions (Php. 4:15-16) to the apostle while in Thessalonica; but if, as he himself states, he had suffered the loss of his whole worldly property in Philippi (Php. 3:8), and if, as there is reason to believe, while he was there, wheat stood at famine prices in Thessalonica, a peck of wheat being sold, according to Eusebius, for six drachm, or four shillings and sixpence, being six times the usual price (see Lewin, vol. i., p. 258), the amounts received from his grateful converts would hardly dispense him or his companionsSilas, Timothy, and Lukefrom the necessity of supporting themselves by their own hands.
3. Their preaching. Here the narrative loses sight of Silas and speaks exclusively of Paul, concerning whose ministrations it furnishes the amplest details.
(1) The place in which they were held was the synagogue, the only one then, though now Saloniki can boast of nearly forty Jewish churches.
(2) The time was the Sabbath, the ordinary season for worship, in selecting which Paul followed his usual custom of seeking the earliest hearing for his gospel from his countrymen (compare Act. 13:5; Act. 13:14; Act. 14:1).
(3) The text book from which his expositions and exhortations were drawn was the Scriptures of the Old Testament, which he regarded as the word of God and the New Testament Churchs manual of salvation.
(4) The thesis in support of which he reasoned said that Jesus of Nazareth was the Hebrew Messiah who had been promised to the fathers, obviously a suitable starting-point from which to address a Jewish audience. A preachers success with his hearers depends, to no small extent, on the way in which he opens his discourse.
(5) The method in which he sought to establish this proposition was not by noisy declamation or dogmatic assertion, least of all by vulgar sensationalism, but by calm reasoning, appealing to the Scriptures for the evidence on which he based his proposition, expounding the meaning of the prophecies that spoke of the Messiah, and showing how they all had received their fulfilment in Jesus of Nazareth.
(6) The proof which he deduced from Scripture consisted in this, that according to these prophecies Christ must needs have suffered and risen again from the dead (compare Act. 2:24-31; Act. 3:18; Act. 13:27-37; Luk. 24:44), and that, according to actual fact, Jesus of Nazareth had risen from the grave.
(7) The effect produced by his disputations was such that a considerable number of his hearers were converted. First, some of the Jewish worshippers came over to his side, among them Secundus (Act. 20:4), Aristarchus (Act. 19:29; Act. 20:4; Col. 4:10; Phm. 1:24), and perhaps Gaius (Act. 19:29). Next, a great multitude of the Greek proselytes (according to another reading of the devout and of Greeks) attached themselves to the new faith. Lastly, not a few of the chief (or first) womeni.e., occupying a leading position in the town (compare Act. 13:50), espoused the new cause. N.B.As all the above, unless the other reading be adopted, were practically gathered from Judaism, while Paul speaks of the Thessalonian Christians as having been drawn from those who worshipped idols (1Th. 1:9; 1Th. 2:14), it has been surmised that Acts preserves the result only of Pauls three Sabbaths reasonings in the synagogue, and that either he preached to the Gentiles during the week (Neander) or spent a longer time in Thessalonica preaching to the Gentiles after he had been excluded from the synagogue, and before the incidents next recorded (Paley). See above, Act. 1:3.
III. Their treatment in the city.
1. Their work hindered. Perceiving the success which had attended the apostles preaching in drawing away from the synagogue so large a body of converts, a greater multitude of adherents than they had won during many years to the doctrines of Moses (Farrar), indignant at seeing the strange missionaries teaching the Gentiles (1Th. 2:16), and perhaps furious at their losing the resources, reverence, and adhesion of the leading women of the city (Farrar), the unbelieving Jews followed the example of their co-religionists at Antioch (Act. 13:50), Iconium (Act. 14:2), and Lystra (Act. 14:19), and excited against the evangelists a fresh persecution, calling to their aid certain lewd fellows of the baser sort, the roughs and scoundrels, loafers and loiterers of the city, the men of the market-place, the street-walkers, and raising a hue and cry against the objects of their rage (see Critical Remarks).
2. Their lodging assaulted. Jasons house, surrounded by the mob, was broken into in hope of finding his hated guests (compare Gen. 19:4-11). The ostensible ground of attack was that Jason had granted these wandering preachers a lodging; the real purpose was to fetch these out before the people, demos, or popular assembly, in which their condemnation would at once have been secured. Had the apostles, at the moment, been within Jasons house, they would certainly have been arrested. As, however, they were absent, Jason and certain brethreni.e., Thessalonian converts with him at the timewere apprehended and forcibly dragged before the city-rulers, or politarchs (see Critical Remarks).
3. Their names traduced. The absent missionaries were chargednot with being Christians, which had not yet become a crime in the Roman empirebut with being
(1) revolutionaries, men who were aiming at turning, and who in some measure actually had, turned the world upside down; and
(2) rebelspersons who acted contrary to the decrees of Csar, saying, There is another king, one Jesus, and who therefore were, to all intents and purposes, guilty of high treason. The decrees of Csar were the Julian Laws, which enacted that whosoever violated the majesty of the State, or insulted the emperor by casting a stone at his image, would be counted as a traitor. As intended by its promoters, the accusation was, of course, false (compare Luk. 23:2; Joh. 19:12; Joh. 19:15), though it found a seeming warrant in the character of Pauls preaching at Thessalonica, which talked about Christs kingdom and glory (1Th. 1:10; 1Th. 2:19; 1Th. 3:13; 1Th. 4:13-18; 1Th. 5:1; 1 Thessalonians 2; 2Th. 1:5; 2Th. 1:7-10; 2Th. 2:1-12); in another sense than theirs it was perfectly true (see below, Hints, etc.).
4. Their departure rendered necessary. The magistrates, alarmed for the peace of the city, demanded securityperhaps by sureties or by a sum of moneyfrom Jason and his brethren, not that Paul and Silas would appear for trial, since these were forthwith sent away from the town, but that no attempt would be made against the supremacy of Rome, and that the quiet of the town would not be disturbed. As this could hardly be secured while Paul continued preaching within its precincts, it was necessary for him to depart. This, accordingly, he did, taking with him Silas and Timothy, the brethren in Thessalonica sending them off secretly, under cover of the darkness, and, no doubt, with affectionate farewells, to the out-of-the-way town of Bera.
Learn
1. The unwearied diligence which Christs ambassadors should exhibit.
2. The value of the Old Testament as a storehouse of proofs of Christs Messiahship and divinity.
3. The proper subject of Christian preachingthat Jesus is the Christ.
4. The most effective style of preachingthat which is based on Scripture and aims at the heart, through the understanding.
5. The success which commonly results from faithful preaching.
6. The inveterate hostility of the evil heart towards the gospel.
7. The slanders which are often hurled against the followers of Christ.
HINTS AND SUGGESTIONS
Act. 17:3. The Death and Resurrection of Christ a Necessity.
I. His death necessary.
1. To fulfil Scripturewhich as Gods word could not be broken (Joh. 10:35).
2. To accomplish Gods counselwhich had foreordained that Christ should die (Act. 4:28; 1Pe. 1:19-20; Gal. 4:4).
3. To atone for the sins of menby the shedding of His blood (2Co. 5:21; Col. 1:14; Heb. 9:12).
4. To perfect His example of holinesssince in thus taking the sinners place He gave to mankind the highest demonstration of self-sacrificing love (1Pe. 2:21; 1Jn. 3:16).
II. His resurrection necessary.
1. To fulfil Scripture, which had foretold His rising from the dead.
2. To demonstrate His Divine sonship, without which He could not have been a Saviour for man.
3. To attest the acceptance of His atoning work, evidence of which would have been awanting had He not risen.
4. To perfect Him as a Saviour, by showing Him to have life in Himself and all power in heaven and on earth, and therefore to be able to save to the uttermost, etc.
Act. 17:6. Turning the World upside down.
I. A malicious calumny.As used by the Thessalonian Jews about Paul and Silas, and as still directed by the unbelieving world against ministers, missionaries, and Christian people generally, who are not either
1. political revolutionaries, in their tenets or their actions, Christianity enjoining submission for conscience sake and Christs sake to the powers that be (Rom. 13:1); or
2. social agitators, their religion teaching them to follow peace with all men (Heb. 12:14), to lead a quiet and peaceable life (1Ti. 2:2), and to study the things that make for peace (Rom. 14:19).
II. A glorious truth.In a sense not intended this indictment expressed the truth concerning Paul and Silas, as it still does about Christian preachers and professors. It is the aim of these, as it was of Paul and Silas, to turn the world upside down.
1. In its beliefs, leading it from trust in idols to faith in God and Jesus Christ.
2. In its actions, turning them from sin to holiness, and from the bondage of Satan to serve the living God.
3. In its hopes, directing it to seek its chief good above and not below, in heaven rather than on earth.
Act. 17:7. Another King, one Jesus.
I. His sovereignty.Rests on
1. The appointment of Heaven. Christ is a king by Divine right (Psa. 2:6; Act. 5:31; Php. 2:9-11).
2. The affections of His subjects. His enemies do not wish Him to reign over them, but His friends do (Luk. 19:27).
II. His empire.
1. Its extent. The universe (Mat. 28:18), including the nations (Dan. 7:14), and the Church (Joh. 1:49; Joh. 18:36; 1Co. 15:24; Col. 1:18), as well as angels, principalities, and powers (1Pe. 3:22).
2. Its character. Spiritual, not of this world, a kingdom of truth and righteousness (Joh. 18:36).
3. Its duration. Eternal. It shall never pass away (Rev. 11:15) till the end of this mediatorial dispensation (1Co. 15:28).
III. His rule. A rule
1. Of righteousness (Psa. 45:6; Isa. 32:1).
2. Of love (Psa. 110:3).
3. Of salvation (Zec. 9:9).
Illustration.After an absence of twenty months Andrew Melville returned to Scotland and resumed his office at St. Andrews. He was repeatedly elected Moderator of the General Assembly and Rector of the University. A remarkable instance of his plain speaking took place at Cupar, in 1596. Melville was heading a deputation to remonstrate with the king. James reminded the zealous remonstrant that he was his vassal. Sirrah! retorted Melville, ye are Gods silly vassal; there are two kings and two kingdoms in Scotland; there is King James, the head of this Commonwealth, and there is Christ Jesus, the King of the Church, whose subject James 6 is, and of whose kingdom he is not a king, nor a lord, nor a head, but a member. (Chambers Encyclopdia, art. Melville, Andrew).
Act. 17:1-9. Pauls Visit to Thessalonica.
I. A time of uninterrupted labour.
1. Providing for his own maintenance
2. Publishing the gospel.
3. Arranging for the welfare of his converts.
II. A period of growing influence. Extending
1. Among his own countrymen.
2. Next among the Gentiles.
3. Finally among the leading citizens.
III. A season of spiritual joy. Because of
1. The hearty reception which his message received;
2. The numerous converts it gained; and
3. The practical influence these exerted in the community.
Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell
12.
PASSING THROUGH THE CITIES OF AMPHIPOLIS AND APOLLONIA. Act. 17:1 a.
Act. 17:1
Now when they had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia,
Act. 17:1 a
For a brief description of these towns you are referred to Cunningham Geikie, pages 398401, a part of which we quote here:
Leaving Philippi, with its mingled memories of suffering and happiness, Paul and Silvanus and Timotheus took an easy days journey of about three and thirty miles to the beautiful town of Amphipolis. It lies to the south of a splendid lake, under sheltering hills, three miles from the sea and on the edge of a plain of boundless fertility. The strength of its natural position, nearly encircled by a great bend of the river, the mines which were near it, and the neighboring forests, which furnished to the Athenian navy so many pines, fit to be the mast of some great Admiral made it a position of high importance during the Peloponnesian wars . . . They proceeded the next day thirty miles further, through scenery of surpassing loveliness, along the Strymonic Gulf, through the wooded pass of Aulon, where St. Paul may have looked at the tomb of Euripides, and along the shores of Lake Bolbe to Apollonia. Here again they rested for a night, and the next day, pursuing their journey across the neck of the promontory of Chelcidice, and leaving Olynthus and Potidaea, with their heart-stirring memories, far to the south, they advanced nearly forty miles further to the farfamed town of Thessalonica, the capital of all Macedonia, and though a free city, the residence of the Roman Proconsul.
613.
How far from Philippi to Amphipolis? From Amphipolis to Apollonia? What was Amphipolis?
614.
Why not stop in the two above towns?
13.
IN THESSALONICA. Act. 17:1 b Act. 17:10 a.
Act. 17:1 b
they came to Thessalonica, where was a synagogue of the Jews:
Act. 17:2
and Paul, as his custom was, went in unto them, and for three sabbath days reasoned with them from the scriptures,
Act. 17:3
opening and alleging that it behooved the Christ to suffer, and to rise again from the dead; and that this Jesus, whom, said he, I proclaim unto you, is the Christ.
THESSALONICA.
Situated on a bay of the Aegean Sea, called the Thermaic Gulf, the city had for its original name Therma and was called Thessalonica after the sister of Alexander the Great. It was the metropolis of Macedonia and under the name of Saloniki is a strategic Balkan metropolis today; present population is about 200,000. The emperor Augustus Caesar made it a free city as a reward for aid given him by it during his war with the Roman Senate. From its position on the much used Roman road, the Via Egnatia, and as a port it was an important trade center as well as a center of influence over the surrounding country. (1Th. 1:7-8) It was almost on a level with Corinth and Ephesus for a port of trade. There were many Jews here in Apostolic time and there is yet a large Jewish population.
Act. 17:4
And some of them were persuaded, and consorted with Paul and Silas; and of the devout Greeks a great multitude, and of the chief women not a few.
Act. 17:5
But the Jews, being moved with jealousy, took unto them certain vile fellows of the rabble, and gathering a crowd, set the city on an uproar; and assaulting the house of Jason, they sought to bring them forth to the people,
Act. 17:6
And when they found them not, they dragged Jason and certain brethren before the rulers of the city, crying, These that have turned the world upside down are come hither also;
Act. 17:7
whom Jason hath received: and these all act contrary to the decrees of Caesar, saying that there is another king, one Jesus.
Act. 17:8
And they troubled the multitude and the rulers of the city, when they heard these things.
Act. 17:9
And when they had taken security from Jason and the rest, they let them go.
Act. 17:10 a
And the brethren immediately sent away Paul and Silas by night
Act. 17:1 b Act. 17:3 As has already been observed the reason for coming to Thessalonica was that here was a synagogue of the Jews, and hence there was afforded an opening for the gospel. To Paul the presence of a synagogue was an invitation to preach Christ. Being acquainted with the service of the synagogue, and most especially with the law, he was able to utilize this opportunity to the fullest. The order of service in the synagogues allowed opportunity for free expression by any deemed worthy to speak. This chance was eagerly sought by the apostle. In the large town of Thessalonica the numerous Jews must have maintained a thriving place of worship. In this place as in all other Jewish assemblies it was necessary not only to convince the Jew that a certain man from the city of Nazareth in Galilee was the Messiah, but totally apart from that startling fact, that when the Messiah did come He was not to rule from an earthly throne but to hang from a Roman cross. Indeed, the cross to the Jews was a stumbling block. Like the eyes of the two on the road to Emmaus they were holden to these things. And if, as in the case of the two, the Messiah Himself were to open the scriptures to them, and show from the law, the prophets and the Psalms that it behooved the Christ to suffer, and to rise again from the dead, they would scarcely believe.
615.
How is it Paul could speak so readily in the synagogues?
616.
What two facts had to be established in the Jewish mind before they could become Christians?
617.
Why was the cross a stumbling block to the Jew?
For three sabbaths Paul opened and alleged these very truths, or we might say, giving scriptural statement and proving that these things were so. For three weeks Paul made an appearance in the synagogue and without a doubt he was found on the streets going from house to house. He further states in his epistle to the Thessalonians that while there he spent some time laboring at his trade as tentmaker. This was done by way of example and that he might not be a burden to any of the brethren. It might be well to refer to the two letters of Paul to the Thessalonians and read a first hand account of the effect of his preaching upon these folks.
Note: It would at the same time be interesting and profitable to read the many geographical and historical comments given concerning these various towns (Conybeare and Howson is one of the best), but it is not the purpose of this book to emphasize that portion of the study.
Act. 17:4 Upon consideration of the scriptural facts presented by Paul some among the Jews believed and embraced Christianity. They cast their lot with these two strangers. Of the many, many interested Gentiles who attended the services a vast multitude were added to the Lord. Yea, among these would-be-proselytes there were some from among the influential women of the town who became Christians. These Gentiles were the ones Paul said turned from dumb idols to serve the true and living God. Conspicuous among the Jews to accept Christ was Aristarchus who was with Paul at Ephesus, at Jerusalem, and sailed with him to home and imprisonment.
Act. 17:5 But there was a monster abroad in the town which would influence certain of the leaders among the Jews and having done so would use them as his ambassadors to oppose and persecute the work of God. I refer to the monster of jealousy or envy.
The disbelief of these men involved more than a mere refusal to accept the promise of Pauls message; it had in it a hatred for the man himself. Why was it, they thought, in three weeks a new doctrine so full of apparent contradictions of the law, could secure such a following when we who have been teaching the law and traditions of God for all these years have not interested half so many? There is only one thing to do; these heretics must go, and with them their influence and teaching.
No amount of argument from the Old Testament would suffice to remove these men. There must be a general opposition from the town itself, and on such a scale as to involve the power of the city magistrates. Thessalonica being a Free City of Rome had complete control of its civic affairs and the word of the seven Politarchs was final. It was also true that the conditions of the town were particularly adaptable to the ends of these jealous Jews. In this town and in other such Roman cities it was considered disgraceful to participate in manual work. But all did not have the money to live the life of the noblethe result? A town full of idlers and parasites, men who would literally do anything for a price. These idlers or certain vile fellows gathered a crowd. To this crowd a word was sufficient, and a cry was soon raised against Paul and Silas: Why such an opposition was raised no one really seemed to know; something about treason against Caesar. We have no king but Caesar was doubtless soon on the lips of everyone.
They were led by the Jews to the house of one, Jason, where it was known that these men were staying. Somehow the Lord saw to it that on this day Paul and Silas were not home. Jason was home and they found certain others whom they took to be followers of the Way. Pulling and hauling these through the streets they soon appeared before the authorities.
618.
What is the meaning of opened and alleged?
619.
How long did Paul preach before he was persecuted?
620.
Who supported Paul while he was here? Why?
621.
Who was in the majority among the converts, the Gentiles or the Jews?
622.
What noted co-laborer of Paul was converted here in Thessalonica?
623.
What was the monster abroad in the town? How did it effect the Jews? Paul and company?
Act. 17:6-9 In dealing with the seven Politarchs, under the very shadow of the proconsular residence, they were dealing with judges of much higher position and much more imbued with the Roman sense of law than the provincial duumviri of Philippi. These men were not going to be rushed into anything rash and the whole affair looked to the critical eye of these men too ludicrous for belief that hard-working citizens like Jason and his friends could be seriously contemplating revolutionary measures.
Not only to the rulers did it thus appear but also to the ordinary citizens of the town. A short hearing soon proved that it was only a matter of religious opinions and of no such proportions as at first suggested. But even so, such a thought must not be left afloat in the town. A certain bond was taken from Jason and the others as security against a continuation of this preaching of another king, one Jesus. That such a bond was taken is no evidence that Jason wanted to discourage their preaching, but when Paul and Silas arrived home and learned of the events of the day, they forth- with decided that this was indication that they were to move on to another field.
624.
Who were the Politarchs?
625.
Who were the helpers of the Jews in their opposition to the apostles, how secure their help?
626.
Who was Jason?
627.
What difference is noticed between the judges here and those in Philippi?
628.
What was the accusation?
629.
Why take security from Jason?
Act. 17:10 a The extreme care of the apostle that he might not burden any of you (1Th. 2:9) would seem to have an application here. After all, the hard earned money of these citizens meant something. All things are lawful; but not all things are expedient. So it was that that same night Paul and Silas were taken out of the city and they set their course toward a country town called Berea. It could have been that Timothy was left behind here, as Luke was in Philippi, to strengthen and confirm the church.
Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series
XVII.
(1) Now when they had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia.The two cities were both on the great Roman roads known as the Via Egnatia. Amphipolis, formerly known as Ennea Hodoi, or the Nine Ways, was famous in the Peloponnesian War as the scene of the death of Brasidas, and had been made, under the Romans, the capital of Macedonia prima. It was thirty-three Roman miles from Philippi and thirty from Apollonia, the latter being thirty-seven from Thessalonica. The site of Apollonia is uncertain, but the name is, perhaps, traceable in the modern village of Polina, between the Strymonic and Thermaic Gulfs. A more famous city of the same name, also on the Via Egnatia, was situated near Dyrrhacium. It seems clear that the names indicated the stages at which the travellers rested, and that thirty miles a day a somewhat toilsome journey for those who had so recently been scourged) was, as with most men of ordinary strength, their average rate of travelling. It would seem that there was no Jewish population to present an opening for the gospel at either of these cities, and that St. Paul, therefore, passed on to Thessalonica.
Thessalonica, where was a synagogue of the Jews.The city, which had previously borne the names of Emathia, Halia, and Therma, had been enlarged by Philip of Macedon, and named after his daughter. It was situated on the Thermaic Gulf, and had grown into a commercial port of considerable importance. As such, it had attracted Jews in large numbers. The MSS. differ as to the presence or absence of the Greek article before synagogue, but, on the whole, it is probable that we should read, the synagogue, that which served for the Jews of the neighbouring cities, who were not numerous enough to have one of their own. The old name survives in the modern Saloniki, and there is still a large Jewish population there.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
Chapter 17
IN THESSALONICA ( Act 17:1-9 ) 17:1-9 When they had taken the road through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica where there was a synagogue of the Jews. Paul, as his custom was, went in to them and, for three Sabbaths, he debated with them from the scriptures, opening the scriptures to them and presenting the evidence that Christ had to suffer and to rise from the dead, “and this man,” he said, “is the Christ, Jesus whom I proclaim to you.” Some of them believed and threw in their lot with Paul and Silas. Thus it was with many of the worshipping Greeks and with a considerable number of women who belonged to the most influential ranks of society. The Jews resented this. They got hold of some of the low characters who haunted the market place and they formed a mob and set the city in an uproar. They surged up to Jason’s house and kept demanding that they should bring them before the people. When they did not find them, they dragged Jason and some of the brethren to the city magistrates, shouting, “These men who have upset the civilized world have arrived here too; and Jason has received them as his guests. These are all teaching against the decrees of Caesar for they say that there is another emperor Jesus.” They disturbed the mob and the chief magistrates as they heard this. So they took surety from Jason and the others and let them go.
The coming of Christianity to Thessalonica was an event of the first importance. The great Roman road from the Adriatic Sea to the Middle East was called the Egnatian Way; and the main street of Thessalonica was actually part of that road. If Christianity was firmly founded in Thessalonica it could spread both east and west along that road until it became a very highway of the progress of the kingdom of God.
The first verse of this chapter is an extraordinary example of economy of writing. It sounds like a pleasant stroll; but in point of fact Philippi was 33 Roman miles from Amphipolis; Amphipolis was 30 miles from Apollonia; and Apollonia was 37 miles from Thessalonica. A journey of over 100 miles is dismissed in a sentence.
As usual Paul began his work in the synagogue. His great success was not so much among the Jews as among the Gentiles attached to the synagogue. This infuriated the Jews for they looked on these Gentiles as their natural preserves and here was Paul stealing them before their very eyes. The Jews stooped to the lowest methods to hinder Paul. First they stirred up the rabble. Then, when they had dragged Jason and his friends before the magistrates, they charged the Christian missionaries with preaching political insurrection. They knew their charge to be a lie and yet it is couched in very suggestive terms. “Those,” they said, “who are upsetting the civilized world have arrived here.” (King James Version: “these men who have turned the world upside down”). The Jews had not the slightest doubt that Christianity was a supremely effective thing. T. R. Glover quoted with delight the saying of the child who remarked that the New Testament ended with Revolutions. When Christianity really goes into action it must cause a revolution both in the life of the individual and in the life of society.
ON TO BEROEA ( Act 17:10-15 ) 17:10-15 The brethren immediately sent Paul and Silas away to Beroea by night. When they arrived there they came into the synagogue of the Jews. These were men of finer character than those in Thessalonica and they received the word with all eagerness. They daily examined the scriptures to see if these things were so. Many of them believed, as did a considerable number of well-to-do Greek women and men. When the Jews of Thessalonica knew that the word of God was preached by Paul in Beroea they came there too in an attempt to stir up and disturb the people. The brethren then immediately sent Paul away as far as the sea coast, while Silas and Timothy remained there. Those who conducted Paul brought him as far as Athens; and, when they had received an order to tell Silas and Timothy to come to him with all speed, they went away,
Beroea was 60 miles west of Thessalonica. Three things stand out in this short section. (i) There is the scriptural basis of Paul’s preaching. He set the people of Beroea searching the scriptures. The Jews were certain that Jesus was not the Messiah because he had been crucified. To them a man who had been crucified was a man accursed. It was no doubt in passages like Isa 53:1-12 that Paul set the people of Beroea to find a forecast of the work of Jesus. (ii) There is the envenomed bitterness of Jews. They not only opposed Paul in Thessalonica; they pursued him to Beroea. The tragedy is that undoubtedly they thought that they were doing God’s work by seeking to silence Paul. It can be a terrible thing when a man identifies his aims with the will of God instead of submitting his aims to that will. (iii) There is the courage of Paul. He had been imprisoned in Philippi; he had left Thessalonica in peril of his life, under cover of darkness; and once again in Beroea he had had to flee for his life. Most men would have abandoned a struggle which seemed bound to end in arrest and death. When David Livingstone was asked where he was prepared to go, he answered, “I am prepared to go anywhere, so long as it is forward.” The idea of turning back never occurred to Paul either.
ALONE IN ATHENS ( Act 17:16-21 ) 17:16-21 When Paul was waiting for them in Athens, his spirit was deeply vexed as he saw the whole city full of idols. He debated with the Jews and the worshippers in the synagogue and every day he talked in the city square with everyone he met. Some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers took issue with him. Some of them said, “What would this gutter-sparrow of a man be saying?” Others said, “He seems to be the herald of strange divinities.” This they said because he told the good news of Jesus and the resurrection. So they took him and brought him to the Areopagus saying, “May we know what is this strange new teaching you are talking about? For you are introducing things which sound strange to us. We want therefore to know what these things mean.” (All the Athenians and the strangers who stay there have no time for anything other than to talk about and to listen to the latest idea).
When he fled from Beroea, Paul found himself alone in Athens. But, with comrades or alone, Paul never stopped preaching Christ. Athens had long since left behind her great days of action but she was still the greatest university town in the world, to which men seeking learning came from all over. She was a city of many gods. It was said that there were more statues of the gods in Athens than in all the rest of Greece put together and that in Athens it was easier to meet a god than a man. In the great city square people met to talk, for in Athens they did little else. Paul would have no difficulty in getting someone to talk to and the philosophers soon discovered him.
There were the Epicureans (see Epikoureios G1946) . (i) They believed that everything happened by chance. (ii) They believed that death was the end of all. (iii) They believed that the gods were remote from the world and did not care. (iv) They believed that pleasure was the chief end of man. They did not mean fleshly and material pleasure; for the highest pleasure was that which brought no pain in its train.
There were the Stoics. (i) They believed that everything was God. God was fiery spirit. That spirit grew dull in matter but it was in everything. What gave men life was that a little spark of that spirit dwelt in them and when they died it returned to God. (ii) They believed that everything that happened was the will of God and therefore must be accepted without resentment. (iii) They believed that every so often the world disintegrated in a conflagration and started all over again on the same cycle of events.
They took Paul to the Areopagus ( G697 — the Greek for Mars’ Hill). It was the name both of the hill and the court that met on it. The court was very select, perhaps only thirty members. It dealt with cases of homicide and had the oversight of public morals. There, in the most learned city in the world and before the most exclusive of courts, Paul had to state his faith. It might have daunted anyone else; but Paul was never ashamed of the gospel of Christ. To him this was another God-given opportunity to witness for Christ.
A SERMON TO THE PHILOSOPHERS ( Act 17:22-31 ) 17:22-31 Paul stood up in the midst of the Areopagus and said, “Men of Athens, I see that in all things you are as superstitious as possible. As I came through your city and as I saw the objects of your worship. I found amongst them an altar with the inscription, ‘To the Unknown God.’ So then, what you worship and do not know, this I preach to you. God, who made the universe and everything in it, this God is Lord of heaven and earth and does not dwell in temples made with hands; nor is he served by the hands of men, as if he needed anything, but he himself gives to all life and breath and all things. He made of one every race of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and he fixed the appointed times and boundaries of their habitations. He made men so that they might search for God, if they might perchance feel after him and find him; and indeed he is not far from any one of us. For by him we live and move and are. As some of your own poets have said, ‘We too are his offspring.’ Since then we are the offspring of God we should not think that the Divine is like gold or silver or stone, engraved by the art and design of man. So then God overlooked the times of ignorance but now he gives orders to men that all men everywhere should repent. Thus he has fixed a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he ordained for that task, and he has given proof of this by raising him from the dead.”
There were many altars to unknown gods in Athens. Six hundred years before this a terrible pestilence had fallen on the city which nothing could halt. A Cretan poet, Epimenides, had come forward with a plan. A flock of black and white sheep were let loose throughout the city from the Areopagus. Wherever each lay down it was sacrificed to the nearest god; and if a sheep lay down near the shrine of no known god it was sacrificed to “The Unknown God.” From this situation Paul takes his starting point. There are a series of steps in his sermon.
(i) God is not the made but the maker; and he who made all things cannot be worshipped by anything made by the hands of man. It is all too true that men often worship what their hands have made. If a man’s God be that to which he gives all his time, thought and energy, many are clearly engaged in worshipping man-made things.
(ii) God has guided history. He was behind the rise and fall of nations in the days gone by; his hand is on the helm of things now.
(iii) God has made man in such a way that instinctively he longs for God and gropes after him in the darkness.
(iv) The days of groping and ignorance are past. So long as men had to search in the shadows they could not know God and he excused their follies and their mistakes; but now in Christ the full blaze of the knowledge of God has come and the day of excuses is past.
(v) The day of judgment is coming. Life is neither a progress to extinction, as it was to the Epicureans, nor a pathway to absorption to God, as it was to the Stoics; it is a journey to the judgment seat of God where Jesus Christ is Judge.
(vi) The proof of the preeminence of Christ is the resurrection. It is no unknown God but a Risen Christ with whom we have to deal.
THE REACTIONS OF THE ATHENIANS ( Act 17:32-34 ) 17:32-34 When they heard of a resurrection of dead men, some mocked and some said, “We will hear about this again”; but some attached themselves to him and believed. Amongst these were Dionysius the Areopagite and a woman called Damaris. together with others.
It would seem on the whole that Paul had less success in Athens than anywhere else. It was typical of the Athenians that all they wanted was to talk. They did not want action; they did not even particularly want conclusions. They wanted simply mental acrobatics and the stimulus of a mental hike.
There were three main reactions. (i) Some mocked. They were amused by the passionate earnestness of this strange Jew. It is possible to make a jest of life; but those who do so will find that what began as comedy must end in tragedy. (ii) Some put off their decision. The most dangerous of all days is when a man discovers how easy it is to talk about tomorrow. (iii) Some believed. The wise man knows that only the fool will reject God’s offer.
Two converts are named. There is Dionysius the Areopagite. As already said, the Areopagus was composed of perhaps not more than thirty people; so that Dionysius must have been one of the intellectual aristocracy of Athens. There was Damaris. The position of women in Athens was very restricted. It is unlikely that any respectable woman would have been in the market square at all. The likelihood is that she turned from a way of shame to a way of life. Once again we see the gospel making its appeal to all classes and conditions of men and women.
-Barclay’s Daily Study Bible (NT)
Fuente: Barclay Daily Study Bible
4. Founding of the Second European Church Thessalonica , Act 17:1-9 .
1. Now Our apostle leaving Luke at Philippi, banished but triumphant, attended by Silas and Timothy, takes the high Egnatian Road westward. In accordance with his plan, rather to plant the Gospel in the greater capitals of the world, he rapidly passes the lesser towns of Amphipolis and Apollonia, lying on the great way. From Philippi to Amphipolis was thirty-three miles; from Amphipolis to Apollonia thirty miles; and from Apollonia to Thessalonica thirty-seven miles. Resting by nights and travelling rapidly by day, the apostle might have been three days upon his journey from Philippi to Thessalonica.
Thessalonica No city on the great Egnatian Way surpassed THESSALONICA in importance. Under its ancient name of Therma it was the passage way of the great army of Xerxes in his invasion of Greece. It received its new name, Thessalonica, from a sister of Alexander the Great, on being rebuilt by her husband, and this name it still retains in the abbreviated form of Saloniki. The apostle found it the most populous city of Macedonia, and until the founding of Constantinople it was virtually the capital of Northern, if not of entire, Greece.
A synagogue Rather, the synagogue. For at Philippi, Amphipolis, and Apollonia there were probably only proseuchae, and here was the synagogue of this region of country. Paul’s own account in his epistles to the Thessalonians interestingly reveals what his entrance was after he had been shamefully entreated at Philippi. He used no flattering words, no cloak of covetousness. Labouring night and day, probably at his handicraft of tent-making, he refused to be chargeable unto any. Holily, and justly, and unblamably living himself, he could enjoin holy living upon others with a boundless authority.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
PART THIRD.
CHRISTIANITY AMONG THE GENTILES. From Chapter Act 13:1, to End of Acts.
Through the remainder of his work Luke’s subject is the evangelization of the Gentiles, and his hero is Paul. His field is western Asia and Europe; his terminal point is Rome, and the work is the laying the foundation of modern Christendom. At every point, even at Rome, Luke is careful to note the Gospel offer to the Jews, and how the main share reject, and a remnant only is saved. And thus it appears that Luke’s steadily maintained object is to describe the transfer of the kingdom of God from one people to all peoples.
I. PAUL’S FIRST MISSION From Antioch, through Cyprus, into Asia, as far as Lystra and Derbe, thence back to Antioch, Act 13:1 Act 14:28.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
‘Now when they had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where there was a synagogue of the Jews, and Paul, as his custom was, went in to them, and for three sabbath days reasoned with them from the Scriptures.’
Moving down along the Via Egnatia from Philippi, parallel with the coast of the Aegean Sea, they came after thirty three miles to Amphipolis, were they may have remained overnight, unless they camped out by the roadside. But that was only intended to be a stop en route, so as soon as may be they moved on a further twenty seven miles to Apollonia, whose site is as yet unidentified (it was a popular name for cities). From there they then moved on to the port of Thessalonica, the capital of the whole province of Macedonia, the largest city of the area, on the Thermaic Gulf. If they travelled on horseback they might have done this one hundred mile journey with two overnight stops. If they were on foot it would have taken a good deal longer.
It would appear that the reason that Thessalonica was their intended destination was because they had learned that there was a synagogue there, and a synagogue meant not only Jews but God-fearers, people wide open to the Good News. Thus on arrival there they waited for the Sabbath day and then went to the synagogue. From what we have already seen it would seem that this was Paul’s usual strategy, and that he rarely employed open-air preaching except when it was forced on him by events. In those days such preaching could only too easily turn into a riot.
Paul makes clear in his letter how he was careful not to be a financial burden on anyone. Unlike many travelling preachers he supported himself (1Th 2:9).
This ministry in the synagogue continued for three Sabbath days, during which, when the appropriate time came after the prayers and reading of the Scriptures, he reasoned with those present from the Scriptures.
‘Three Sabbath days.’ This may be specific, or it may have been using ‘three’ in its other meaning of ‘a good many’. (In common use ‘two’ could mean a few, ‘three’ a good many, and ‘ten’ a number of – compare 1Ki 17:12; Gen 31:41; Dan 1:12. It is only the modern day who are more mathematically particular). Three also indicates a complete ministry.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Paul’s Ministry in Europe and Then In Ephesus (17:1-19:20).
Ministry in Europe (17:1-18:22).
Fruitful Ministry in Thessalonica and Berea (17:1-14).
Having been requested to leave Philippi, Paul and his party took the Roman Road, the Via Egnatia, out of Philippi, a road which went through Amphipolis, the capital city of the region, and Apollonia, before it came to Thessalonica, a city with a population of roughly 200,000. It would seem that the reason that he stopped at neither of these cities for any length of time was because he discovered that there was no synagogue there, and possibly even no recognised Jewish meeting place. Finally he arrived at Thessalonica, roughly one hundred miles from Philippi, where on discovering that there was a synagogue he remained.
Indirect confirmation of the accuracy of Luke’s narrative in this regard comes out in that we have no Pauline ‘letter to the Amphipolisians’ or ‘letter to the Appollonians’ but we do have letters to the Philippians and the Thessalonians.
However, being cityfolk in a busy port, and tied up with their own affairs the Thessalonians had to be ‘reasoned with’. This contrasts with the Bereans who lived in a more leisurely way and found time to look into the Scriptures in order to discover the truth of what Paul had said (Act 17:11). They lived in a smaller city on a by-road off the Via Egnatia.
The alteration from ‘we’ to ‘they’, although not being conclusive, (the ‘they’ could simply have been a natural continuation of how the Philippian narrative ended) suggests that Luke remained in Philippi. What tends more to confirm this is that the ‘we’ narratives recommence when Paul arrives back in Philippi (Act 20:5-6). The suggestion that Luke lived in Philippi must, however, be seen as doubtful, otherwise Paul would have stayed with him, but he may have been connected with the medical school, and he may well have lived elsewhere in Macedonia.
It is in fact noticeable that the ‘we’ narratives tend not to occur on missionary journeys, (although we must note that Luke was very much involved in the spiritual activity at Philippi), but rather on voyages and periods of continuous travel. His subsequent presence with the party may thus partly have resulted from the fact that he wanted to visit the destinations which Paul had in mind (Caesarea, Jerusalem), possibly partly with a view to building up accurate information about the past for his writings. He was, however, present at the briefing meeting in his own right (Act 21:18). Thus he was more than just a fellow-traveller. So he may well have remained to minister in Philippi. Whatever the case it is certain that he later remained steadfast and loyal to Paul at the time of his deepest need when no one knew what might happen next (Act 27:1 to Act 28:16; 2Ti 4:11; Col 4:14; Phm 1:24).
When reading these narratives we must always be aware of what lies beneath the surface, the continuing expansion of ‘the word’, which is brought out by constant reference to it, and by the special references such as Act 19:20. But Luke is describing the vivid events make up the total picture, and sometimes we therefore read them and gain a first impression of failure, as though a work began and was blown away. But a careful reading soon brings out that even while these things are going on, much time passes, churches are being successfully established and taught, fellow-workers are left to continue ministering to churches, and what the opposition does is merely to ensure that the Good News continues to spread. In Act 8:1 Paul had been the persecutor, ensuring that the word spread, now others were the persecutors of Paul, but again it ensured that the word spread. The word continues to grow mightily and prevail (Act 19:20).
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
The Expansion Of The Word In Cyprus and Asia Minor, With Satan’s Counterattack Being Defeated at an Assembly In Jerusalem, Which is Then Followed By Further Ministry (13:1-18:22).
Jerusalem having forfeited its Messiah and its right to evangelise the world, the torch now passes to Antioch. For in his presentation of the forward flow of ‘the word’ Luke now had to find the next great forwards movement and he found it at Syrian Antioch. From there at the instigation of the Holy Spirit (the Holy Spirit too has as it were moved to Antioch) Barnabas and Saul are to be sent out and will successfully and powerfully minister, first to Jews and then to Gentiles throughout Asia Minor, achieving great success, while confirming the dictum that ‘we must through much tribulation enter under the Kingly Rule of God’ (Act 14:22). Having suffered for Christ’s sake, these Apostles will then finally report God’s great successes back to Antioch. It will then be followed after the Gathering at Jerusalem by a second round of missionary activity reaching into Europe.
The first section of Acts (chapters 1-12) had dealt with the going forward of the Good News from Jerusalem, resulting finally in Jerusalem having rejected its last chance and being replaced in the purposes of God. As we saw it followed a chiastic pattern (see introduction to chapter 1)..
This next section of Acts deals with the going forward of the Good News from Antioch and also follows a chiastic pattern covering the twofold ministry of Paul, with two missions from Antioch sandwiching the Gathering at Jerusalem of the Apostles and elders in order to decide the terms on which Gentiles can become Christians, thus emphasising the freedom of the Gentiles from the Law of Moses. It analyses as follows:
a Paul and Barnabas are sent forth from Antioch (Act 12:25 to Act 13:3).
b Ministry in Cyprus results in their being brought before the pro-consul Sergius Paulus who believes their word (Act 13:4-13).
c Ministry in Pisidian Antioch results in a major speech to the Jews with its consequences, including a description of those who desire to hear him again (Act 13:14-52).
d Successful ministry in Iconium results in the crowd being stirred up and their having to flee (Act 14:1-6).
e A remarkable healing in Lystra results in false worship which is rejected and the crowds being stirred up by the Jews. Paul is stoned and flees the city (Act 14:7-21).
f Ministry in Derbe is followed by a round trip confirming the churches and return to Antioch (Act 14:21-28).
g The Gathering in Jerusalem of the Apostles and elders of Jerusalem and the Antiochene representatives resulting in acknowledgement that the Gentiles are not to be bound by the Law or required to be circumcised because God had established the everlasting house of David (Act 13:15).
f Paul and Silas (and Barnabas and Mark) leave Antioch to go on a round trip confirming the churches (Act 15:36 to Act 16:5).
e A remarkable healing in Philippi results in true worship which is accepted (the Philippian jailer and his household) and in Paul’s stripes being washed by a Roman jailer. The authorities declare them innocent and they leave the city (Act 16:6-40).
d Successful ministries in Thessalonica and Berea result in the crowds being stirred up and their having to flee (Act 17:1-14).
c Ministry in Athens results in a major speech to the Gentiles with its consequences including a description of those who desire to hear him again (Act 17:15-34).
b Ministry in Corinth results in their being brought before the pro-consul Gallio who dismisses the suggestion that their actions are illegal (Act 18:1-17).
a Paul returns to Antioch (Act 18:18-22).
We note here from ‘c’ and parallel the movement from Jew to Gentile in the proclamation of the word. Athens is no doubt partly chosen because although small, its reputation was worldwide.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
The Mission to Europe (16:6-19:20).
Paul’s plans now seemed to begin to go awry. All doors seemed to be closing to him as in one way or another he was first hindered from going one way, and then another. But unknown to him it was to be the commencement of the mission to Europe. Why then does Luke emphasise these negative responses? It was in order to underline that when the move to go forward did come it was decisively under God’s direction. He was saying, ‘the Spirit bade him go’.
We need not doubt that new Christians had already entered Europe, as converts at Pentecost and other feasts had returned to their home cities taking the Good News with them, and that Christian traders and travellers also spread the Good News, but as far as we know this was the first direct Spirit-impelled attempt to evangelise Europe as a whole. Europe, as it were, now lay within God’s sights. It was a prepared Europe, a Europe using one main language, Greek, with good main roads and an established system of justice. What it lacked was the truth.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Paul in Thessalonica Act 17:1-9 gives us the account of Paul’s ministry at Thessalonica. We must understand that this was a free city, which meant that there were no Roman soldiers stationed there. Therefore, it was autonomous in all of its internal affairs. So, when we read about the trouble that Paul encountered in this city, we must understand that there was no official tribunal that he was taken before, as was done when he appeared before Gallio, the Roman deputy of Achaia who was seated in Corinth, or when he appeared before Felix and Festus, the Roman governors over Judea who were seated in Caesarea Philippi. This trouble in Thessalonica was rather disorganized and haphazard. Nevertheless, Paul was advised to leave the city in order to promote peace.
The “We” Passages in Acts – At this point in Act 17:1 the “we” sections discontinue. We do not find them again until Paul returns to the city in Act 20:5-6. For this reason scholars suggest that Paul left Luke behind in Philippi to tend this young flock in his absence. Luke the Gentile would have been the perfect candidate out of the three, with Silas being a Jew by birth and Timothy being half Jew. This is because the city of Philippi was a Roman colony and a military outpost with little tolerance for ethnic groups. This is why it did not have an established synagogue in the city.
Act 20:5-6, “These going before tarried for us at Troas. And we sailed away from Philippi after the days of unleavened bread, and came unto them to Troas in five days; where we abode seven days.”
Act 17:1 Now when they had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where was a synagogue of the Jews:
Act 17:1
Act 17:1 Comments – Marcus N. Tod says Paul was traveling along the Via Egnatia, the great Roman road leading from the coast of the Adriatic to the river Hebrus (Maritza), one of the main military and commercial highways of the empire. [219] After passing through Amphipolis, one had to travel thirty Roman miles to reach Apollonia and an additional thirty-eight Roman miles to reach Thessalonica. Thus, Paul and his companions travelled several days to reach each city.
[219] Marcus N. Tod, “Amphipolis,” in International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, ed. James Orr (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., c1915, 1939), in The Sword Project, v. 1.5.11 [CD-ROM] (Temple, AZ: CrossWire Bible Society, 1990-2008).
Act 17:2 And Paul, as his manner was, went in unto them, and three sabbath days reasoned with them out of the scriptures,
Act 17:2
Rom 1:16, “For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.”
Act 13:46, “Then Paul and Barnabas waxed bold, and said, It was necessary that the word of God should first have been spoken to you: but seeing ye put it from you, and judge yourselves unworthy of everlasting life, lo, we turn to the Gentiles.”
The following verses in the book of Acts illustrate how often Paul followed this pattern of evangelism:
Act 13:14 – On first journey, Paul went to Synagogue in Antioch in Pisidia.
Act 14:1 – On first journey, Paul went to synagogue in Iconium.
Act 16:12-13 – In Philippi, a Roman Colony, no synagogue is mentioned.
Act 18:4 – Paul in Corinth in a synagogue.
Act 19:8 – Paul in Ephesus in a synagogue.
Act 13:5 – Paul in a synagogue in Salamis (first journey).
Act 9:20 – Paul at conversion in a synagogue in Damascus.
Act 17:10 – Paul and Silas at a synagogue in Berea.
Act 17:17 – Paul at a synagogue in Athens.
Act 17:3 Comments – When Paul told the Jews in Thessalonia in Act 17:3 that Jesus is “Christ,” he was referring to the fact that Jesus is the Messiah, whom the Jews are expectantly awaiting. Paul used the Old Testament Scriptures to prove that Jesus the Messianic passages.
Act 17:5 “and assaulted the house of Jason” – Comments – Jason took them in, as Jesus taught the disciples in Mat 10:11.
Mat 10:11, “And into whatsoever city or town ye shall enter, enquire who in it is worthy; and there abide till ye go thence.”
Act 17:5 Comments – The Gospel brings division between those who seek God and those who reject God. Our Gospel preaching will bring division also.
Mat 10:34, “Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword.”
Luk 12:51, “Suppose ye that I am come to give peace on earth? I tell you, Nay; but rather division:”
Act 17:6 And when they found them not, they drew Jason and certain brethren unto the rulers of the city, crying, These that have turned the world upside down are come hither also;
Act 17:6
[220] Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church, vol. 1: Apostolic Christianity A.D. 1-100 (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1955), 735.
Act 17:9 Comments – These “politarchs,” as Luke titles them, reasoned that the best remedy for this unstable situation was to take a security bond from Jason, although they probably cared little about such religious bickering. Their goal was to keep peace in the city. This bond may have been issues under the conditions that Jason guarantee the departure of Paul, or perhaps a more simple guarantee that there would be no more trouble from them. However, once the rulers of the city stood against Paul and his companions, it was time to leave. Paul respected this order of authority by leaving.
Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures
The Church’s Organization (Perseverance): The Witness of the Church Growth to the Ends of the Earth Act 13:1 to Act 28:29 begins another major division of the book of Acts in that it serves as the testimony of the expansion of the early Church to the ends of the earth through the ministry of Paul the apostle, which was in fulfillment of Jesus’ command to the apostles at His ascension, “But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth.” (Act 1:8) However, to reach this goal, it required a life of perseverance in the midst of persecutions and hardship, as well as the establishment of an organized church and its offices.
Outline – Here is a proposed outline:
1. Witness of Paul’s First Missionary Journey (A.D. 45-47) Act 13:1 to Act 14:28
2. Witness to Church at Jerusalem of Gospel to Gentiles (A.D. 50) Act 15:1-35
3. Witness of Paul’s Second Missionary Journey (A.D. 51-54) Act 15:36 to Act 18:22
4. Witness of Paul’s Third Missionary Journey (A.D. 54-58) Act 18:23 to Act 20:38
5. Witness of Paul’s Arrest and Trials (A.D. 58-60) Act 21:1 to Act 26:32
6. Witness of Paul’s Journey to Rome (A.D. 60) Act 27:1 to Act 28:29
A Description of Paul’s Ministry – Paul’s missionary journeys recorded Acts 13-28 can be chacterized in two verses from 2Ti 2:8-9, in which Paul describes his ministry to the Gentiles as having suffered as an evil doer, but glorying in the fact that the Word of God is not bound.
2Ti 2:8-9, “Remember that Jesus Christ of the seed of David was raised from the dead according to my gospel: Wherein I suffer trouble, as an evil doer, even unto bonds; but the word of God is not bound.”
Paul followed the same principle of church growth mentioned in Act 1:8, “But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth.” He first placed churches in key cities in Asia Minor. We later read in Act 19:10 where he and his ministry team preaches “so that all they which dwelt in Asia heard the word of the Lord Jesus, both Jews and Greeks”.
Act 19:10, “And this continued by the space of two years; so that all they which dwelt in Asia heard the word of the Lord Jesus, both Jews and Greeks.”
In Rom 15:20-28 Paul said that he strived to preach where no other man had preached, and having no place left in Macedonia and Asia Minor, he looked towards Rome, and later towards Spain.
Rom 15:20, “Yea, so have I strived to preach the gospel, not where Christ was named, lest I should build upon another man’s foundation:”
Rom 15:23-24, “But now having no more place in these parts, and having a great desire these many years to come unto you; Whensoever I take my journey into Spain, I will come to you: for I trust to see you in my journey, and to be brought on my way thitherward by you, if first I be somewhat filled with your company.”
Rom 15:28, “When therefore I have performed this, and have sealed to them this fruit, I will come by you into Spain.”
Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures
The Witness of Paul’s Second Missionary Journey (A.D. 51-54) In Act 15:36 to Act 18:22 we have the testimony of Paul’s second missionary journey.
Outline Here is a proposed outline:
1. Paul and Barnabas Split Up Act 15:36-41
2. Timothy Joins Paul and Silas Act 16:1-5
3. Paul at Philippi Act 16:6-40
4. Paul in Thessalonica Act 17:1-9
5. Paul in Berea Act 17:10-15
6. Paul in Athens Act 17:16-34
7. Paul in Corinth Act 18:1-17
8. Paul Returns to Antioch Act 18:18-22
Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures
Paul and Silas in Thessalonica and Berea.
Preaching at Thessalonica:
v. 1. Now when they had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where was a synagogue of the Jews;
v. 2. and Paul, as his manner was, went in unto them, and three Sabbath-days reasoned with them out of the Scriptures,
v. 3. opening and alleging that Christ must needs have suffered and risen again from the dead; and that this Jesus, whom I preach unto you, is Christ.
v. 4. And some of them believed, and consorted with Paul and Silas, and of the devout Greeks a great multitude and of the chief women not a few. As the change of pronouns at this point indicates, Luke remained at Philippi, and it may be that Timothy remained there with him. There was much to be done in establishing the congregation and in organizing it for successful work, and these two disciples labored with great success in bringing about stable conditions. But Paul and Silas traveled toward the southwest, first of all to Amphipolis, thirty-three miles from Philippi, the capital of this district, but second in importance to the metropolis. The missionaries did not, stop in this city, probably because there was no synagogue there, but pushed on, first to Apollonia, thirty miles farther along the coast, and then to Thessalonica. They went along the Roman military road, the famous Egnatian Way, which ran for a distance of five hundred miles from the Hellespont to Dyrrachium on the Adriatic. The two intermediate places are probably mentioned as Paul’s resting-places for the night. Thessalonica, formerly called Thermae, situated at the head of the Thermaic Bay, was during Roman times the capital of the second of the four districts of the province of Macedonia, the largest as well as the most populous city in the province, a great commercial center. The city, now known as Saloniki, is important to this day. Paul, with his usual wisdom and foresight, chose this center of civilization and government in the district as a place from which the Gospel-message might radiate in every direction. Here was also a synagogue of the Jews, and the apostle continued his method of choosing the Hellenist Jews as the medium through which he might reach the Gentiles. According to his custom, therefore, Paul went in unto them, he visited their congregation in the synagogue. For three Sabbaths, and during the week when there was an assembly of the Jews, and thus for a matter of almost four weeks, he reasoned or argued with them from the Scriptures, basing all his remarks upon the acknowledged canonical text of the Old Testament. His method was to open up the meaning of the Scriptures, to explain them by bringing forward the proof-passages, and thus to set forth clearly the connection between prophecy and fulfillment. He showed the progress of prophecy concerning Christ; he proved clearly that Christ had to suffer, that this was predicted, and was an essential mark of the true Messiah; and he explained that, according to prophecy, it was just as necessary for Christ to rise from the dead. Then he applied the prophecy to Jesus of Nazareth, showed the exact fulfillment, and presented the conclusion that this same Jesus whom he preached could be none other than the Messiah. This form of argument, effective at all times in preaching the Gospel, was especially demanded by the position of the Jews, to whom the cross and the crucifixion was an offense and a stumbling block, and their prejudices had to be removed by a convincing presentation based upon their acknowledged Scriptures. And Paul’s method was fully justified by the results: some of the hearers were persuaded and associated with Paul and Silas as disciples of the faith, not only Jews, but also of the God-fearing Greeks, the proselytes of the gate, a large multitude, and even a considerable number of the leading women of the city, such as were socially prominent. The prominence assigned to women in Macedonia is altogether in accord with the best historical accounts. The preaching of Jesus Christ, the Crucified and Resurrected, on the basis of the Bible, is the one means of gaining true converts for Christ and His kingdom, and must never be replaced by the methods in vogue at the present time, by which Jesus Christ is relegated to a very hazy and obscure background, methods which are altogether out of harmony with the dignity of the Gospel, and will never result in real additions to the Church.
Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann
EXPOSITION
Act 17:1
Amphipolis. This was the ancient capital of that division of Macedonia (Macedonia Prima); see Act 16:12, note. It was situated on the Via Egnatia, thirty-four miles southwest from Philippi, and three miles from the AEgean Sea. It lay in a peninsula, surrounded on three sides by the Strymon, whence its name, Amphipolis; its modern name is Neokhoria, now a village. Its original name was , The Nine Ways. Originally a Thracian city, it was conquered by the Athenians, then by the Lacedaemonians, then fell under the dominion of Philip of Macedon, and finally, with the rest of Macedonia, became part of the Roman empire. Apollonia; now probably Polina, thirty miles due west of Amphipolis, on the Via Egnatia. The modern track from Amphipolis to Thessalonica does not pass through Polina, but beneath it. Thessalonica; on the Via Egnatia, now the important seaport of Saloniki, on the Aegean Sea or Archipelago, thirty-eight miles from Apollonia, and con-raining about sixty thousand inhabitants. Its ancient name was Therma (whence the Thermean Bay), but it took the name of Thessalonica under the Macedonian kings. It continued to grow in importance under the Romans, and was the most populous city of the whole of Macedonia. It was the capital of Macedonia Secunda under the division by AEmilius Paulus (Act 16:12, note), and in the time of Theodosius the Younger, when Macedonia consisted of two provinces, it was the capital of Macedonia Prima. But from its situation and great commercial importance it was virtually the capital of “Greece, Macedonia, and Illyricum” (Howson, in ‘ Dict. of Geog.’). Its trade attracted a great colony of Jews from before the time of St. Paul, and through the Roman and Greek and Turkish empires, down to the present day, when “one-half of the population is said to be of Israelitish race “(Lewin). Thessalonica had a terrible celebrity from the massacre of its inhabitants by order of the Emperor Theodosius, in revenge for the murder of Botheric, his general, which led to the famous penance imposed upon the emperor by St. Ambrose. It was also taken three times in the Middle Ages: by the Saracens, with fearful slaughter, A.D. 904; by the Normans, with scarcely less cruelty, A.D. 1185; and by the Turks, in 1430. Its ecclesiastical history under its archbishops is also of great interest (see ‘Dict. of Greek and Roman Geog.’). Where was a synagogue. It is needless to point out the exact agreement of this brief statement with historical fact as pointed out above. There is said to have been twenty-two Jewish synagogues at Thessalonica after the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in the fifteenth century, and the number at the present time is stated to be thirty-six. The existence of a synagogue at this time was the reason of St. Paul’s visit and sojourn there.
Act 17:2
Custom for manner, A.V.; for three for three, A.V.; from for out of, A.V. Reasoned (see note on Act 17:17).
Act 17:3
It behooved the Christ to suffer, and to rise for Christ must needs have suffered, and risen, A.V.; whom, said he for whom, A.V.; proclaim for preach. A.V.; the Christ for Christ, A.V. The line of reasoning adopted by St. Paul in his preaching to the Thessalonian Jews was the same as that of our Lord to the disciples and apostles on the day of his resurrection, as recorded in Luk 24:26, Luk 24:27; 44-47, and that of St. Peter (Act 2:22-36; Act 3:18; Act 4:11, etc.), and it is irresistible. The fulfillment of prophecies relating to the Messiah in the person of Jesus is like the fitting of a key to the intricate wards of the lock, which proves that it is the right key. The preacher of the gospel should carefully study and expound to the people the word of prophecy, and then show its counterpart in the sufferings and glory of Christ. This did St. Paul. Opening (); as our Lord had done ( , Luk 24:32), the hidden meaning of the prophecies, and then alleging (), setting before them the propositions which had thus been established. The process is described in Luk 24:27 as interpreting (“expounded,” A.V.). In this verse the opening was showing from the prophets that the Messiah was to die and rise again; the alleging was that Jesus was that very Christ.
Act 17:4
Were persuaded for believed, A.V. (). Consorted with; a word only found here in the New Testament, but, like so many other words in St. Luke’s vocabulary, found also in Pintarch, in the sense of being “associated with,” or “attached to” any one; literally, to be assigned to any one by lot (comp. the use of the simple verb , Eph 1:11). Of the devout Greeks. Observe the frequent proofs of the influence the synagogues had in bringing heathen to the knowledge of the true God (see verse 12; Act 10:2; Act 11:21; Act 13:48; Act 14:1, etc.). The chief women ( ). So in Act 13:50 means “the chief men of the city.” And Lake 19:49, are “the chief of the people” (” the principal men,” R.V.) It has been already remarked that St. Lake especially notices the instances of female piety. In Act 13:12 we have in the same sense as the in this verse.
Act 17:5
Jews for Jews which believed not, A.V. and T.R.; being moved for moved, A.V.; jealousy for envy, A.V. (see Act 13:45, note); vile fellows of the rabble for lewd fellows of the baser sort, A.V.; gathering a crowd, set for gathered a company and set, A.V.; the city for all the city, A.V.; assaulting they for assaulted and, A.V.; forth for out, A.V. The house of Jason; where it appears from Act 17:7, as well as from this verse, Paul and Silas were lodging. If, as is very probable, the Jason here mentioned is the same person as the Jason of Rom 16:21, it would seem that he joined the apostle, either at this time or on his visit to Macedonia mentioned in Act 20:3, and went with him to Corinth, where the Epistle to the Romans was written. He was a relation, , of St. Paul’s, and doubtless a Jew. Jason was a Romanized form of the name Jesus, or Joshua, as we see in the case of the high priest, the brother of Onias (Josephus, ‘ Ant. Jud.,’ 12. 5.1). It was borne also by Jason of Cyrene, the Jewish historian (2 Macc. 2:23), and by another mentioned in 1 Macc. 8:17, etc. St. Luke seems to introduce Jason as a well-known person.
Act 17:6
Dragged for drew, A.V.; before for unto, A.V. Certain brethren; some of the Thessalonian Christians who happened to be in the house of Jason. The rulers of the city ( , and Act 17:8). This is a remarkable instance of St. Luke’s accuracy. The word is unknown in Greek literature. But an inscription on an ancient marble arch, still standing in Thessalonica, or Saloniki, records that Thessalonica was governed by seven politarchs. Thessalonica was a Greek city, governed by its own laws. Hence the mention of the in verse 5. The politarchs also were Greek, not Roman, magistrates. Crying; , often followed by , but whether so followed or not, always meaning “a loud cry” or “shout” (Act 21:34; Luk 3:4, etc.). Turned the world upside down; is used in the New Testament only by St. Luke and St. Paul (Act 21:38; Gal 5:12); to unsettle or disturb; i.e. to make people literally homeless, outcasts, from their former settlements, or, metaphorically, unsettled in their allegiance to their civil or spiritual rulers, is the meaning of the word. In the mouth of St. Paul’s accusers it contains a distinct charge of sedition and disobedience to the Roman law. The world ( the Roman empire (Luk 2:1), viewed as coextensive with the habitable globe (see verse 31; Act 19:20; Act 11:28, note).
Act 17:7
Act for do, A.V. Received; i.e. as the word always means “received as a guest” (Luk 10:38; Luk 19:6; Jas 2:25, etc.). Hence the substantive , an entertainment or reception. The insinuation is that, by harboring these seditious men, Jason had made himself a partner in their sedition. That there is another king, etc. (comp. Joh 19:12, Joh 19:15).
Act 17:8
Multitude for people, A.V. ( , not ).
Act 17:9
From for of, A.V.; the rest for of the other, A.V. The rest, or others, are of course the “certain brethren” of Act 17:6.
Act 17:10
Beraea for Berea, A.V.; when they were come for coming, A.V. Beraea. In the third division of Macedonia, about sixty miles from Thessalonica; its modern name is Verria. Went into the synagogue. No amount of ill usage from the Jews could weaken St. Paul’s love for “his brethren, his kinsmen according to the flesh” (Rom 9:3); and no amount of danger or suffering could check his zeal in preaching the gospel of Christ.
Act 17:11
Now these for these, A.V.; examining for and searched, A.V.; these for those, A.V. Note the immense advantage which the preachers and the hearers had in the previous knowledge of the Scriptures gained by the Beraeans in the synagogue. Note also the mutual light shed by the Old and New Testaments the one upon the other.
Act 17:12
Many therefore for therefore many, A.V.; the Greek women of honorable estate for honorable women which were Greeks, A.V. Honorable; , as Act 13:50, where it is coupled with . Meyer thinks that it is meant that the men were Greeks too; but this is uncertain. The only Beraean convert whose name we know is Sopater (Act 20:4), or Sosipater, who is probably the same (Rom 16:21). If so, he was apparently a Jew, whose Hebrew name may have been Abishua.
Act 17:13
Proclaimed for preached, A.V.; Beraea also for Berea, A.V.; likewise for also, A.V.; stirring up and troubling the multitudes for and stirred up the people, A.V. and T.R.
Act 17:14
Forth for away, A.V.; as far as for as it were ( for ), A.V. and T.R.; and for but, A.V. and T.R.; Timothy for Timotheus, A.V. As far as to the sea. If the reading of the T.R. is right, merely indicates the direction. Literally, .., means “with the thought of going to the sea,” but thence, by a common usage, it describes the action without reference to the thought. The English phrase, “they made for the sea,” is nearly equivalent. The object of going to the sea, seventeen miles from Beraea, was to take ship for Athens. This he probably did either at Pydna or at Dium. Silas and Timothy. Whether Timothy left Philippi with St. Paul, or whether, as is not improbable, he joined him at Thessalonica, cannot be decided. Anyhow, Paul now left Silas and Timothy to watch over the Thessalonian converts.
Act 17:15
But for and, A.V.; as far as for unto (), A.V.; Timothy for Timotheus, A.V.; that they should come for for to come, A.V. They that conducted, etc. ( ). The verb , in its primary sense, means to “place any one” in a given spot; and thence secondarily, to “conduct” or” escort” any one to a place, to “set him down” at such a place. So Homer (‘Odyssey,’ 13:294) uses the word of transporting any one by ship to this or that town (quoted by Meyer). There is fie indication in the word of St. Paul’s defect of sight or infirmity. Receiving a commandment, etc. We learn here that St. Paul sent a message to Silas and Timothy to join him at Athens as quickly as possible, and at Act 17:16 that he waited at Athens for them. From 1Th 3:1, 1Th 3:2, we learn that he sent Timothy from Athens back to Thessalonica; and from 1Th 3:6 we learn that Timothy came to St. Paul at Corinth (where the Epistle to the Thessalonians was written) from Thessalonica. We also learn from 1Th 1:1 that Silas and Timothy were both with him at Corinth when he wrote the Epistle, and from Act 18:5 that they had both come to Corinth from Macedonia, some weeks after Paul himself had been at Corinth (Act 18:4, Act 18:5). All these statements harmonize perfectly (as Paley has shown) on the supposition that Silas and Timothy did join St. Paul at Athens; that for the reasons given in 1Th 3:1-13., when he was unable to return to Thessalonica himself, as he much wished, he sent Timothy back to Thessalonica, and Silas probably to Beraea; and that Silas and Timothy came together from Macedonia to Corinth, where St. Paul had gone alone; where it may be noted, as another undesigned coincidence, that whereas the First Epistle to the Thessalonians implies that Silas did not go to Thessalonica (1Th 3:2), Act 18:5 does not say that Silas and Timothy came from Thessalonica, but from Macedonia. The inaccuracy supposed by Meyer (on this verse) is purely imaginary. Act 18:5 does not say that Silas and Timothy “only joined Paul at Corinth,” but merely relates some change in St. Paul’s procedure consequent upon their joining him at Corinth. Alford (on this verse), in saying that Paul sent Timothy from Beraea, not from Athens, is guided by his own idea of what is probable, not by the letter of the narrative (see further note on Act 18:5).
Act 17:16
Provoked within for stirred in, A.V. (: see Act 15:29, note); as he beheld for when he saw, A.V.; full of idols for wholly given to idolatry, A.V. The Greek occurs only here, either in the New Testament or elsewhere. But the analogy of ether words similarly compounded fixes the meaning “full of idols”a description fully borne out by Pausanias and Xenophon and others (Steph., ‘Thesaur.;’ Meyer, etc.).
Act 17:17
So he reasoned for therefore disputed he, A.V.; and the devout for and with the devout, A.V.; market-place every day for market daily, A.V. Reasoned (, as in Act 17:2; Act 18:19 and Act 24:12). “Disputed” gives the force of better than “reasoned,” because the word in Plato, Thucydides, Xenophon, AElian, etc., is especially used of discussions and arguments in which two persons or more take part. is “discussion;” is the art of drawing answers from your opponent to prove your conclusion; is a “dialogue” (see, however, Act 20:7). The market-place. “The celebrated , not far from the Pnyx, the Acropolis, and the Amopagus, rich in noble statues, the central seat of commercial, forensic, and philosophic intercourse, as well as of the busy idleness of the loungers” (Meyer, in loc.).
Act 17:18
And certain also of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers for then certain philosophers of the Epicureans, and of the Stoicks, A.V.; would for will, A.V.; preached for preached unto them, A.V. and T.R. The Epicureans (so called from Epicurus, their founder) and the Stoics (so called from the , the colonnade or piazza where Zeno their founder taught) were the most numerous scots at Athens at this time; and their respective tenets were the most opposite to the doctrines of the gospel. Encountered him; . In Act 4:15 it is followed by , and is properly rendered “conferred;” here it is followed by the dative, and may be understood to mean “disputed” ( ). It may, however, not less properly be taken in the sense of a hostile encounter of words, as Luk 14:31, and frequently in classical Greek. This babbler (); literally, a picker-up of seeds, applied to a crow. Plutarch too (‘Demet.,’ 28) has , birds picking up seeds. Hence it is used of idle hangers-on in the markets, who get a livelihood by what they can pick up, and so generally of empty, worthless fellows. Hence it is further applied to those who pick up scraps of knowledge from one or another and “babble them indifferently in all companies” (Johnson’s ‘Dictionary,’ under “Babble”). A setter forth of strange gods. There does not seem to be the least ground for Chrysostom’s suggestion that they took Anastasis (the Resurrection) for the name of a goddess. But the preaching of Jesus the Son of God, himself risen from the dead (Luk 14:31), and hereafter to be the Judge of quick and dead at the general resurrection, was naturally, to both Stoics and Epicureans, a setting forth of strange gods. are “foreign deities,” or “daemons,” inferior gods. The word , a setter forth, does not occur elsewhere. But the nearly identical word is used by Plutarch.
Act 17:19
Took held of for took, A.V.; the Areopagus for Areopagus, A.V.; teaching is for doctrine is, A.V.; which is spoken by thee for whereof thou speakest, A.V. Took hold of him. The word means simply to “take hold of” the hand, the hair, a garment, etc. The context alone decides whether this taking held is friendly or hostile. Here the sense is well expressed by Grotius (quoted by Meyer): “Taking him gently by the hand.” The Areopagas. Mars’ Hill, close to the Agora on the north, was so called from the legend that Mars was tried there before the gods for the murder of a son of Neptune. It is (says Lewin) a bare, rugged rock, approached at the south-eastern corner by steps, of which sixteen still remain perfect. Its area at the top measures sixty paces by twenty-four, within which a quadrangle, sixteen paces square, is excavated and leveled for the court. The judges seem to have sat on benches tier above tier on the rising rock on the north side of the quadrangle. There were also seats on the east and west sides, and on the south on either side of the stairs. The Areopagus (the upper court) was the most august of all the courts at Athens. Socrates was tried and condemned before it for impiety. On the present occasion, there is no appearance of judicial proceedings, but they seem to have adjourned to the Areopagus from the Agora, as to a convenient place for quiet discussion.
Act 17:20
Strange things. , in this use of it, means to act or play the foreigner, to imitate the manners and language and appearance of a foreigner (), just as , etc., mean to Judaize, Hellenize, Atticize, etc. Here, then, the Athenians say that St. Paul’s doctrines have a foreign air, do not lock like native Athenian speculations.
Act 17:21
Now for for, A.V.; the strangers sojourning there for strangers which were there, A.V. Spent their time. This gives the general sense, but the margin of the R.T., had leisure for nothing else, is much more accurate. , which is not considered good Greek, is only used by Polybius, and in the sense either of “being wealthy” or of “having leisure” or “opportunity.” In the New Testament it occurs in Mar 6:31 and 1Co 16:12. Some new thing. So Cleon (Thucyd., 3.38) rates the Athenians upon their being entirely guided by words, and constantly deceived by any novelty of speech ( ). And Demosthenes in his first ‘Philippic’, inveighs against them because, when they ought to be up and doing, they went about the Agora, asking one another, “Is there any news? ( ;).“ The comparative ix a little stronger than : “the very last news” (Alford).
Act 17:22
And for then, A.V.; the Areopagus for Mars‘ hill, A.V.; in all things I perceive that for I perceive that in all things, A.V.; somewhat for too, A.V. In the midst is simply a local description. He stood in the midst of the excavated quadrangle, while his hearers probably sat on the scats all round. Ye men of Athena. The Demosthenes of the Church uses the identical address which the great orator used in his stirring political speeches to the Athenian people. Somewhat superstitious. There is a difference of opinion among commentators whether these words imply praise or blame. Chrysostom, followed by many others, takes it as said in the way of encomium, and understands the word as equivalent to , very religious, more than commonly religious. And so Bishop Jacobson (‘Speaker’s Commentary’), who observes that the substantive is used five times by Josephus, and always in the sense of “religion,” or “piety.” On the other hand, the Vulgate (superstitiosiores), the English Versions, Erasmus, Luther, Calvin, etc., take the word in its most common classical sense of “superstitious;” and it weighs for something towards determining St. Luke’s use of the word that Plutarch uses always in a bad sense, of superstition, as in his life of Alexander and elsewhere, and in his tract ‘De Superstitione’ (). Perhaps the conclusion is that St. Paul, having his spirit stirred by seeing the city full of idols, determined to attack that spirit in the Athenian people which led to so much idolatry; which he did in the speech which follows. But, acting with his usual wisdom, he used an inoffensive term at the outset of his speech. He could not mean to praise them for that which it was the whole object of his sermon to condemn. Josephus (‘Contr. Apion.,’ 1.12) calls the Athenians , the most religious of all Greeks (Howson).
Act 17:23
Passed along for passed by, A.V.; observed the objects of your worship for beheld your devotions, A.V. ( : see 2Th 2:4); also an altar for an altar, A.V.; an for the, A.V.; what for whom, A.V. and T.R.; worship in ignorance for ignorantly worship, A.V.; this for him, A.V. and T.R.; set forth for declare, A.V. AN UNKNOWN GOD. There is no direct and explicit testimony in ancient writers to the existence of any one such altar at Athens, but Pausanias and others speak of altars to “unknown gods,” as to be seen in Athens, which may well be understood of several such altars, each dedicated to an unknown god. One of these was seen by St. Paul, and, with inimitable tact, made the text of his sermon. He was not preaching a foreign god to them, but making known to them one whom they had already in-eluded in their devotions without knowing him.
Act 17:24
The God for God, A.V. (surely a change for the worse); he being Lord for seeing that he is Lord, A.V. Made with hands (); see the same phrase in Mar 14:5, Mar 14:8; Act 7:48; Heb 9:11. St. Paul applies it, too, to the circumcision made with the knife, as distinguished from that wrought by the Holy Spirit (Eph 3:11). It is frequent in the LXX. It is a striking instance of St. Paul’s unflinching boldness and fidelity to the truth, that he should expose the hollowness of heathen worship, standing within a stone’s throw of the Parthenon and the temple of Theseus and the countless other temples of gods and goddesses, which were the pride and glory of the Athenian people. Note how he begins his catechetical instruction to the Athenians with the first article of the Creed: “I believe in God the Father almighty, Maker of heaven and earth.”
Act 17:25
Is he served by for is worshipped with, A.V.; he himself for he, A.V. Served by men’s hands. , is “waited upon,” as a man is waited upon by his servant, who ministers to his wants; and are “an attendant.” So in Hebrew: , to serve God; , a servant of God; service as of the Levites in the temple, etc. Anything; or as some take it, as if he needed anybody’s help or service. The argument, as Chrysostom suggests, is similar to that in Psa 1:1-6. 8-12.
Act 17:26
He made for hath made, A.V.; of one for of one blood, A.V. and T.R.; every nation for all nations, A.V.; having determined their appointed seasons for and hath determined the times before appointed, A.V. From the unity of God Paul deduces the unity of the human race, all created by God, all sprung from one ancestor, or one blood (whichever reading we take), and so not to have their several national gods, but all to be united in the worship of the one true and living God, the Father of them all. It may be remarked by the way that the languages of the earth, differing like the skins and the features of the different races, and corresponding to those various bounds assigned by God to their habitations, yet bear distinct and emphatic testimony to this unity. They are variations, more or less extended, of the speech of man. Bounds of their habitation; …: the word only occurs here; elsewhere, though rarely, .
Act 17:27
God for the Lord, A.V. and T.R. (Meyer does not accept this reading); is for be, A.V.; each for every, A.V. If haply they might feel after him. is “to touch, feel, or handle,” as Luk 24:39; Heb 12:18; 1Jn 1:1. But it is especially used of the action of the blind groping or feeling their way by their hands in default of sight. So Homer describes Polyphemus as , feeling his way to the mouth of the cave with his hands after he was blinded by Ulysses (‘Odyssey,’ 9.416). And in the LXX. of Deu 28:29 we read, , “Thou shall grope at noonday as the blind gropeth in darkness.” The teaching, therefore, of the passage is that, though God was very near to every man, and had not left himself without abundant witness in his manifold gifts, yet, through the blindness of the heathen, they had to feel their way uncertainly toward God. In this fact lies the need of a revelation, as it follows Deu 28:30, etc. And hence part at least of the significance of such passages as, “Ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord” (Eph 5:8); “Who hath called you out of darkness into his marvelous light” (1Pe 2:9 ); “God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness hath shined in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2Co 4:6), and many more like passages.
Act 17:28
Even for also, A.V. For in him, etc. This is the proof that we have not far to go to find God, Our very life and being, every movement we make as living persons, is a proof that God is near, nay, more than near, that he is with us and round about us, quickening us with his own life, upholding us by his own power, sustaining the being that we derive from him (comp. Psa 139:7, etc.; Psa 23:4). Certain even of your own poets; viz. Arstus of Tarsus, who has the exact words quoted by St. Paul, and Cleanthes of Asses, who has . As he bad just defended himself from the imputation of introducing foreign gods by referring to an Athenian altar, so now, for the same purpose, he quotes one of their own Greek poets. (For the statement that man is the offspring of God, comp. Luk 3:38.)
Act 17:29
Being then for forasmuch then as we are, A.V.; device of man for man‘s device, A.V. Graven by art, etc. In the Greek the substantive , graven images, things engraven, is in apposition with the gold, silver, and stone, and a further description of them. Art, , is the manual skill, the device; is the genius and mental power which plans the splendid temple, or exquisite sculpture, or the statue which is to receive the adoration of the idolater. Compare the withering sarcasm of Isaiah (Isa 44:9-17).
Act 17:30
The times of ignorance therefore God overlooked for and the times of this ignorance God winked at, A.V.; he commandeth for commandeth, A.V.; men for all men, A.V.; that they should all everywhere repent for everywhere to repent, A.V. and T.R. The times of ignorance; perhaps with reference to Act 17:23, and also implying that all the idolatry, of which he had spoken in Act 17:29, arose from ignorance. God overlooked; or, as it is idiomatically expressed in the A.V., winked at; made as if he did not see it; “kept silence,” as it is said in Psa 1:1-6. 21; made no move to punish it. That they should all everywhere. The gospel is for the whole world- “Their sound went into all the earth, and their words unto the ends of the world” (Rom 10:18); “Preach the gospel to every creature” (Mar 16:15). Repent. The key-note of the gospel (Mat 3:2; Mat 4:17; Act 20:21).
Act 17:31
Inasmuch as for because, A.V. and T.R.; the man for that man, A.V. He hath appointed a day. Hitherto the Athenians seem to have listened with interest while St. Paul was, with consummate skill, leading them onwards from the doctrines of natural religion, and while he was laying down speculative truths. But now they are brought to a stand. They might no longer go on asking, ; A day fixed by God, they were told, was at hand, in which God would judge the world in righteousness, and in which they themselves would be judged also. And the certainty of this was made apparent by the fact that he who was ordained to be Judge was raised from the dead, and so ready to commence the judgment. The time for immediate action was come; God’s revelation had reached them. The man (). So Act 2:22, … And so in Joh 5:27 our Lord himself says of himself that the Father gave him authority to execute judgment “because he is the Son of man;” and in Mat 26:24, “Hereafter shall ye see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power.” (For the connection of the judgment with Christ’s resurrection, see especially Act 10:40-42.) So too the Creeds.
Act 17:32
Now for and, A.V.; but for and, A.V.; concerning this yet again for again of this matter, A.V. Some mocked. Athenian skepticism could not accept so spiritual a truth as the resurrection of the dead; and Athenian levity of purpose deferred to another day the decisive step of accepting the salvation of the risen Savior, just as it had deferred resistance to Philip of Macedon till their liberties were gone and their country enslaved. (For “We will hear thee again,” comp. Act 24:25.)
Act 17:33
Thus for so, A.V. and T.R.; went out for departed, A.V. The meaning is that he left the assembly in the Areopagus. At Act 17:22 we were told that he stood (where see note); now he went out , leaving them still sitting on their benches, while he walked down the steps to the city again from the place where he stood.
Act 17:34
But for howbeit, A.V.; whom also for the which, A.V. Dionysius the Areopagite. The earliest notice we have of him in ecclesiastical writers is the well-known one of Eusebius, ‘Eccl. Hist.,’ 3. 4., in which he says, “We are told by an ancient writer, Dionysius the pastor of the diocese of Corinth, that his namesake Dionysius the Areopagite, of whom St. Luke says in the Acts that he was the first who embraced the faith after St. Paul’s discourse in the Areopagus, became the first bishop of the Church in Athens.” Eusebius repeats the statement in his long notice of Dionysius of Corinth, in 4. 23. Other uncertain traditions speak of him (Suidas) as one who rose to the height of Greek erudition, and as having suffered a cruel martyrdom (Niceph., 3.11). “The works which go by his name are undoubtedly spurious” (Alford). Damaris; “wholly unknown” (Meyer), but certainly not the wife of Dionysius, as Chrysostom (‘ De Sacerd.,’ 4.7) and others have thought (‘Dictionary of the Bible’). And others with them. These would seem to be but few from St. Luke’s way of mentioning them, and from our hearing nothing more in the Acts about the Church at Athens. It is remarkable that this small number of converts coincides with the weakness of the synagogue at Athenstoo weak to persecute, and too weak to make proselytes among the Greeks of Athens. It scorns clear that nowhere else had St. Paul won so few souls to Christ. And yet God’s Word did not return to him wholly void. The seed fell on some good ground, to bring forth fruit unto eternal life.
HOMILETICS.
Act 17:1-15
The strange alliance.
Among the hindrances to the progress of the gospel in the world we have often to notice the combination of the most discordant elements for the purpose of obstruction. Pilate and Herod were made friends together when they united in crucifying the Lord of glory. When the chief priests and Pharisees, in their blind hatred of the Lord Jesus Christ, sought his death, they did not scruple to invoke the aid of the Roman power, the object of their bitterest hatred and continual resistance, and to profess an entire devotion to that detested rule. “We have no king but Caesar.” So in politics, men of the most opposite principles often combine to crush the object of their common dislike. In religion, too, we see extreme parties joining hands to discomfit a third party to which they are equally opposed. In all such combinations there is want of uprightness and truth. There is a culpable indifference to the nature of the weapons which men use to compass their own end. There is a clear evidence that it is not the cause of righteousness and of God’s truth that men are seeking to promote, but some end of their own. When these combinations take place to oppose the progress of Christian truth, though they may be formidable for a time, they carry with them the evidences that they are from beneath and will not prevail. The Church of God need not be afraid of them. The Jews of Thessalonica combined with the heathen rabble of their town, under a pretence of loyalty to Caesar, to silence Paul and Silas. When they fled they pursued them to Beraea, and drove them thence onwards to Athens and Corinth. But the breath intended to extinguish the flame did but make it blaze up from place to place. So will it be with every conspiracy to put out the light of Christ. Philosophy and sensuality, science and lawlessness, atheism and superstition, may join hands and combine to remove the candlestick of God’s Church; it will but shed its light brighter and wider in the places where God wills it to shine, until at last the whole earth shall be filled with the knowledge of God’s glory, as the waters cover the sea.
Act 17:16-34
The cross of Christ in the metropolis of art and philosophy.
There is a singular interest in this first encounter of the gospel with the art and philosophy of Athens, and it is instructive to note the attitude taken by the great preacher in the encounter. Whether St. Paul had artistic taste we have no means of knowing. But probably, as a devout Jew, seeing that sculpture was so largely employed in the images of the gods and the deified emperors, his eye would not have been trained to look with pleasure even upon the masterpieces of Grecian art. In like manner Greek architecture was mainly devoted to glorify the temples of the gods. The Parthenon at Athens, the temple of Diana at Ephesus, the temples of Apollo and Diana at Antioch, at Baalbec, in the many cities of Asia adorned by the Seleucidae, were indeed materially beautiful, but that material beauty was eclipsed by the moral deformity of their consecration to idolatry, to imposture, and to falsehood. The devout eye of the apostle would therefore be more shocked by the dishonor done to God, and the injury to the moral nature of man, than gratified by mere beauty of form, or architectural grandeur and grace. Hence, as far as we learn from the inspired narrative, the dominant effect upon his mind of the sight of the unrivalled statues and temples of Athens was grief and indignation at their homage to idolatry, rather than admiration of the artistic genius which produced them. In like manner he found himself face to face with philosophy. He was treading the courts of the academy where Plato had taught; he was in the city where Socrates had lived and died; there Aristotle had both learnt and taught; there the successors both of Zeno and Epicurus were still inculcating the tenets of their-respective schools. What was to be the attitude of an evangelist in the presence of these august representatives of human intellect? In what language was the apostle of Jesus Christ to address himself to them? In that of apology? In that of compromise? in that of conscious inferiority? or as if the possessors of so much wisdom had nothing to learn from him? Or, on the other hand, was he to speak the language of scorn and indignationwas he to shut his eyes to all that might be true and noble in the sentiments of those men, and to put them on a level with the vilest of mankind, because they were ignorant of the great truths of revelation? The actual conduct of St. Paul was as modest as it was wise, and as dauntless as it was modest. Looking around him at the altars of the gods, he seized upon the one favorable aspect of themtheir witness to a worshipful spirit in the people towards the Unseen. Gathering from Greek literature a true description of the relation of man to the living God, he proceeded with wonderful simplicity and force to enunciate those truths of natural religion which an untainted reason perceives and approves. And then, rising to those higher truths which are the domain of revelation, he preached, as he had done before in the Agora, Jesus and the resurrection. He bid them repent of their sins done in ignorance; he told them of the coming of the day of judgment; he spoke to them of the awful Judge, and of his unerring righteousness. There was no faltering in his speech, no watering down of the severity of the gospel, no wincing at the subtle wits or the pretentious wisdom of those who heard him. He spoke as a man who knew that he had the truth of God, and that that truth would prevail. And such should ever be the attitude of the Christian teacher before the powers of the world. Humble, charitable, confident, and firm; owning all that is good and beautiful and true in the world around him, but always feeling, and acting as if he felt, that the gospel of Jesus Christ is better and truer and more beautiful than all; valuing true wisdom, and prizing the great gift of reason as the brightest jewel of our human nature; yet always remembering that in our fallen state reason could bring no remedy for sin nor cast a light upon the world to come; but that the only Name whereby we may be saved is the Name of Jesus, and that he alone has abolished death, and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel. To him be glory for ever and ever. Amen.
HOMILIES BY W. CLARKSON.
Act 17:1-9
A fulfilled and an unfulfilled prophecy.
These verses would supply us with other material for thought. They present to us:
1. Christian workers patiently and conscientiously proceeding with their mission (Act 17:1, Act 17:2).
2. Christian advocates employing the weapon which was prepared for their use (Act 17:3).
3. Christian laborers reaping a blessed spiritual harvest (Act 17:4).
4. Faithful followers of the Lord partaking of his sufferings (Act 17:5-9). But we rather find here
I. A GREAT PROPHECY FULFILLLED. “Alleging that Christ must needs have suffered,” etc. (Act 17:3); i.e. must needs have so done in order that the Scriptures (Act 17:2) might be fulfilled (see Luk 24:26, Luk 24:46). The death of the Messiah was the realization of
(1) the predictions contained in the Jewish sacrifices (the sin offerings and trespass offerings, and notably the offering of the goat on the great Day of Atonement; the Passover lamb, etc.); and of
(2) such predictions in word as those contained in the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah. The Law must have remained fatally incomplete and prophecy unfulfilled if the Christ had not suffered as Jesus of Nazareth did suffer, if he had not died the death which he underwent. In the crucified Nazarene the greatest of all prophecies had been fulfilled.
II. AN UNCONSCIOUS PROPHECY TO BE FULFILLED. The language of the complainants (verse 6) was unintentionally prophetic. They indeed stated, hyperbolically, as something already accomplished, that which the ambassadors of Christ are engaged in doing. But they indicated, truly and graphically, what the gospel of his grace is doingit is turning the world upside down. We may put the facts thus to our minds:
1. When Christ came evil was everywhere uppermost. The reigning forces of the world at the time of the Incarnation were “not of the Father, but of the world.” Within the one favored and enlightened nation were hypocrisy, superficiality, bigotry and unbrotherliness, spiritual delusion; without that circle were superstition, ignorance, atheism, vice, crueltyall the abominations into which a corrupt heathenism had sunk. Language will not tell the enormity of the world’s condition. Nothing would be of any avail but a radical revolution, the overturning of all existing thoughts, habits, methods, institutionsturning the world upside down, bringing to the dust of humiliation everything that was on the throne of honor.
2. The gospel of Jesus Christ is destined to overturn it.
(1) It has adequate means for so doingDivine truth, the aid of the Divine Spirit, a Divine institution (the Christian Church).
(2) It has the true method, a spiritual one; its weapons of warfare are not carnal, but spiritual, and therefore mighty to pull down strongholds (2Co 10:4). It wins by teaching, persuading, leavening, renewing; acting upon the life through the mind, the heart, the willthrough the whole spiritual nature. This is the one conquering course, the one method which really and permanently subdues.
(3) It has the assurance of success; both in the promise of a Divine Lord, and in the history of its own triumphs. It is turning the world upside down. In many districts “the idols are utterly abolished;” many “islands are waiting for his Law;” hoary systems of idolatry and iniquity are pierced through and through with the shafts of truth, and promise to fall prone as Dagon before the ark of God; the vices of civilized lands are being successfully assailed; the kingdom of error and of evil is disappearing, and the kingdom of Christ is coming. The triumphs of this last missionary century are a distinct assurance that iniquity shall be cast down and righteousness be exalted.C.
Act 17:10-14
The duty of individual research.
This interesting and cheering episode teaches us one lesson in particular; but there are three suggestions we may gain preliminarily.
1. That the Christian pilgrim (and workman) may hope that shadow will soon be succeeded by sunshine; that the tumult of Thessalonica will soon be followed by the reverent inquiry of Beraea.
2. That he must expect sunshine to pass, before long, into shadow; the fruit-gathering of Beraea to yield to the flight to Athens (Act 17:12-14).
3. That true nobility is in excellency of character: “These were more noble” (Act 17:11). The word signifies (derivatively) those of noble birth, and it is here applied to those who had chosen the honorable course and were doing the estimable thing. This is the true, the real nobility. That which is adventitious, dependent on birth and blood, is only circumstantial, is liable to be dishonored by the chances and changes of time, is of no account with God. That which is based on character and born of wise choice, pure feeling, estimable action, is real, human, unalterable, of Divine origin, and enjoying the Divine approval. But the particular lesson of our text is
THE DUTY OF INDIVIDUAL RESEARCH. The Beraeans are commended in the sacred narrative as “more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the Word with all readiness,” etc. (Act 17:11). Their excellency was in their readiness to receive and investigate, to study and search for themselves whether the new teaching was or was not in accordance with the will of God. Whence we infer:
1. That blind opposition to all new doctrine is a sin as well as a mistake. It may be that men who propound views different from those that we have held come to us from God and offer us that which is in the Scriptures, though we have not yet discovered it there. There are more things in that living Word than the wisest man has ever seen yet. Unqualified resistance of doctrine which is different from “that which we have received to hold” may be the rejection of God’s own truth; in that case it is both injurious and wrong.
2. That it is the duty of every Christian man to test all new doctrine by the teaching of the Divine Word. We are to search the Scriptures whether these things are so or not. There is no excuse for declining to do this; for
(1) God has placed his Word well within reach of us all. It is in a small compass; it is printed in our own language (no book so lends itself to translation and is so widely translated); it can be obtained for a small sum.
(2) He has so formed us and so written it that it is level to our understanding; he has given us the necessary mental faculties to comprehend it, and he has made the substance of it so simple, plain, appreciable, that the wayfaring man may rejoice in it. It is not the recondite, abstruse, mystical utterance which some disclosures are.
(3) He is ready to grant us his own Divine aid in mastering and applying it. For what can we ask the help of his Holy Spirit more confidently than for the study of his own Word? When is he more certain to fulfill his promise (Luk 11:13) than when we ask for his enlightening influence as we “search the Scriptures” (Joh 5:39)? It is not only our right but our ditty to listen to all and to try all (1Jn 4:1); to “judge for ourselves what is right” (Luk 12:57). It is God’s plain will concerning us that we should all bring what we hoar to the standard of his own revealed will in his Word. To do this effectually, we must study that Word
(a) diligently,
(b) intelligently,
(c) devoutly.C.
Act 17:15-17
A saddening spectacle: a missionary sermon.
The spirit of Paul was “stirred in him” (Act 17:16) by the statues which crowded the city of Athens. That which would yield intense gratification to any modern traveler plunged the apostle into deep melancholy and gloom. But there is a vast difference between then and now. Then idolatry was regnant; now it is dethroned. Then the worship of the living God had but one representative in that populous city; now there is not one idolater to be discovered there. To Paul those statues, meeting him at every turn and almost at every step, were abominable idols; to us they are interesting relics of a distant age.
I. THE SADNESS OF THIS SPECTACLE AS IT APPEARED TO PAUL. The aspect which Athens wore to the apostle is expressed by the sacred historian. It was a “city wholly given to idolatry,” or filled with idols. He would have discovered on inquiry if he did not already know, that these statues were not worshipped as gods themselves by their devotees. Nevertheless, he would have called them “idols;” for they were distinctly condemned by the commandments of the Lord (Exo 20:4, Exo 20:5); they were prohibited by the Law of God as idolatrous. Though the intelligence of Athens saved its citizens from idolatry in its last and worst stage, the identification of the image with the deity, it had not saved it from the idolatry of an earlier stage, the association of the image with the deity it represented. Against this form of sin, so severely denounced in Scripture, so offensive to God, so dangerous and delusive to man, the spirit of Paul rose in strong rebellion. The sight of its outward manifestation filled him with inexpressible sadness; his “spirit was embittered.”
II. THE ASPECT WHICH THIS ATHENIAN STATUARY WEARS TO US. TO US it is a sad proof that the world by wisdom does not know God. Human wisdom can never hope to go further than it went in Athens. If ever, anywhere, human philosophy, human art, the human imagination could have reached truth and found God, it would have triumphed at Athens. But there was the melancholy exhibition of error and immorality. The utmost exertion of human thought had ended in
(1) the worship of many gods;
(2) the worship of gods to whom lust and cruelty were ascribed;
(3) the worship of these gods with debasing rites.
No city in the world gives surer or sadder proof that sin so injures and disables us that our unaided manhood cannot rise to the sacred heights of truth and purity.
III. THE SAD SPECTACLE IT SUGGESTS TO US NOW‘. If Athens needed the ministry of Paul so terribly then, how much must all heathen cities require the gospel of Christ today! In the vast populations of the Asiatic and African continents, and among the hundred “islands of the sea,” where human intelligence has never attempted to scale the heights which Grecian philosophers tried to reach, what awful degradations must exist and do exist! If Athens was an idol-covered city, what must be the condition of the barbarous towns and villages of an unevangelized world? What sights are there to stir our spirits now! What idolatry, what superstition, what cruelty, what lasciviousness, what falsehood, what dishonesty! what utter absence of piety, holiness, and love! what an absolute reversal of God’s first thought of human nature and human life! What infinite reason to address ourselves to
IV. THE SACRED DUTY TO WHICH IT CALLS US. “Therefore disputed he daily” (Act 17:17). The Christian Church must gird itself to the work of meeting pagan error with Divine truth. It is a great task to undertake. But as the lonely apostle went on, single-handed, with his mission, trusting in him “to whom all power is given in heaven and in earth,” and knowing that “the foolishness of God is wiser than man,” and that “the weak things of the world can confound the things which are mighty,” even so must we. If only the Church went forth to this its work with half the zeal with which the spirit-stilled apostle wrought out his life-work, the time would not be counted by centuries when the idols would be utterly abolished, and the Lord Jesus Christ would alone be exalted.C.
Act 17:18
Christianity and Epicureanism.
Against the doctrine of Epicurus, the truth as it is in Jesus teaches us
I. THAT ALL THINGS PROCEED FROM THE INTELLIGENT OPERATION OF THE LIVING GOD, and are by him sustained. That all our springs are not in any” it,” but “in him“ (Psa 87:7); that “every gift cometh down from the Father of lights, in whom,“ etc. (Jas 1:17); that he (a Divine One) made the worlds, and upholds all things, etc. (Heb 1:2, Heb 1:3; Gen 1:1; Gen 1:24; etc.).
II. THAT THE HUMAN SPIRIT, AS DISTINCT FROM THE HUMAN‘ BODY, IS THE ONE OBJECT OF INESTIMABLE VALUE.
III. THAT THE CHIEF GOOD AND FINAL END IN HUMAN‘ LIFE IS RIGHTEOUSNESS. Not through , but righteousness by faith and love.
1. The being counted right (or righteous) by God.
2. The possession of inward, spiritual rectitude.
3. The exhibition of integrity in word and deed. This
(1) by faith in Jesus Christ, and
(2) as the outgrowth of love to him.
IV. THAT THE POSSESSION OF RIGHTEOUSNESS ISSUES IN PEACE AND JOY. We are not to regard a state of mental equability as the great end to be diligently and persistently attained, as the one supreme accomplishment; but to “seek first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness,” in the assurance that, thus reeking, we shall find a “peace which passes understanding,” and a joy which cannot be taken from us.
V. THAT THERE IS AN ASSURED FUTURE FOR THE FAITHFUL, WHICH WILL REALIZE THE LARGEST HUMAN HOPE: that the mind does not perish with the body, but lives on in another world, entering a brighter realm, moving in a broader sphere, living a fuller life, in the home of God, in the abode of purity and blessedness.C.
Act 17:18
Christianity and Stoicism.
While there were points in Stoicism which harmonized with the doctrine of the great Teacher, there was very much indeed in which it was wholly dissimilar and even antagonistic. The fact that it conducted so freely and frequently to suicide is a melancholy confession of its failure; something more and something other was needed to meet the wants of the soul than its proud, self-sufficient, but insufficient egoism. Christianity differs from it in that it teaches
I. THAT A DIVINE FATHER, AND NOT AN INEXORABLE FATE, IS THE RULING POWER IN THE UNIVERSE. It is not true that Deity is subject to all-conquering fate; it is true that all circumstance is under Divine control.
II. THAT CONTROLLED AND CONSECRATED FEELING, NOT AN INFLEXIBLE APATHY, IS THE HIGHEST ATTAINABLE CONDITION. We are not to quench our feeling, or to impose on ourselves or others by the appearance of apathy. We are to weep and to rejoice; but
(1) our sorrow and our joy are both to be regulatedwe are to “let our moderation appear unto all men;” and
(2) our sorrow and our joy are both to be consecrated to God,the one is to be borne with a resignation which is not a sullen endurance of the inevitable, but a filial acceptance of the decision of the wise and faithful Father of spirits; the other is to be accepted with thankfulness, and dedicated to the service of the Supreme One and the surrounding ones.
III. THAT A TRUE SPIRITUAL CONDITION IS ATTAINABLE, NOT BY UNAIDED INDIVIDUAL WILL, BUT BY HELP OF THE DIVINE SPIRIT. (2Co 12:10; Php 4:13.)
IV. THAT NEITHER ULTIMATE ABSORPTION, NOR UTTER DESTRUCTION, BUT AN EVER–LIVING SPIRIT IN A GLORIFIED BODY, IS THE HOPE OF THE WISE AND TRUE. “He preached unto them Jesus, and the resurrection.“C.
Act 17:18-21
Curiosity at the feet of Christ.
In the company which gathered on Mars’ Hill, to listen to the Christian teacher, we have a picture of curiosity sitting at the feet of Christ. For it is clear that this was not a court sitting to try a prisoner, but a chance company of citizens, wishing to hear what new and strange doctrine this visitor had brought them.
I. THE CURIOSITY WHICH IS CONTEMPTUOUS. “What will this babbler say?” said some using the language of superciliousness. They evidently thought it was hardly worth while to pause m their gossip to listen to this new speaker; nevertheless they condescended to hear him for five minutes or a quarter of an hour! When men assume this attitude toward Christ and his gospel, they may expect to gain nothing at all from him. “God resisteth the proud.” Except we be converted from the spirit of contemptuousness, we shall not enter the kingdom of heavenly truth.
II. THE CURIOSITY WHICH IS FRIVOLOUS. The audience on the Acropolis included some who were not contemptuous, but simply curious; they wanted to hear “some new thing” (Act 17:21), to learn what was to be said of these “strange gods” which this Jew was “setting forth” (Act 17:18). If there is nothing directly unfavorable, there is nothing actually favorable in this spirit of undevout inquisitiveness. No one attending the sanctuary in this temper has any right to expect a blessing. The disciple who brings nothing better than this to the feet of the Master may expect to go away unenlightened. But he may not depart unblessed.- Of the men who clave to Paul and believed (Act 17:34), there were probably some who came on no high purpose bent, and who found more than they sought. Better come and listen, even from empty curiosity, than refuse to hear; better bring in the multitude with this inducement, than leave them outside in ignorance and error.
III. THE CURIOSITY WATCH IS EARNEST. Shall we not think that among the “certain men” who did believe, there were found a few who went up the steps of Mars’ Hill sincerely desirous of learning what was true? Was not Dionysius or Damaris one whose heart had some “hunger after righteousness”? Certainly it is they who come in order that they may know the truth, who are curious to hear that they may be prompt to do the will of Godit is they who are likely to “be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding.” “Of such is the kingdom of heaven;” and to such it is that the Master says,” Seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.” Those who earnestly desire to know
(1) what is the character and the attitude of God,
(2) what are the real conditions of salvation and eternal life,
(3) how they may best live to please God and to benefit the world,these shall not return empty-minded; they shall be filled (Mat 5:6).C.
Act 17:22-29
God revealed: his nature and relation.
Paul’s spirit was “stirred” with holy indignation, and with pure and strong compassion, as he witnessed the abounding signs of superstition in the streets of Athens. But he had the wisdom to begin his address to these “men of Athens” by an expression which they would take to be complimentary. He told them that he perceived they were abundantly religious. He did not conclude this from witnessing their numerous divinities, but from the inscription he had read on an altar, “To the unknown God.” Adroitly seizing on this as proof positive that they were in ignorance as to the true object of worship, he said that he could declare to them the Deity whom they were ignorantly or unconsciously worshipping. Then he spoke out the everlasting truth concerning the living God, which he had learned, and in the knowledge of which he stood superior, not only to those degenerate philosophers, but to the wisest man that had ever spoken their language and immortalized their city.
I. THE NATURE OF GOD.
1. Paul taught the unity of the Godhead. “God that made the world,” etc.; a very noticeable singular, He taught, concerning his nature, that this was:
2. Spiritual; such that it is a vain and senseless thing to try to make any likeness of him. “God is a Spirit,” we ourselves being his children, and it is not in gold or stone or silver to produce any sort of semblance of him (Act 17:29).
3. Independent; so that he does not need the service of human hands. Except as expressions of our feelings of penitence, or trust, or gratitude, or homage, all offerings are an insult to his majesty and his power (Act 17:25; and see Psa 1:1-6 :8-13).
4. Omnipresent. We need repair to the interior of no temple walls to find him, for he is “Lord of heaven and earth” (Act 17:24), filling immensity with his presence. He is net far from any one of us; he compasses our path and our lying down; he besets us behind and before; we cannot go where he is not (Act 17:27).
5. Sovereign. He is Lord of heaven and earth; he is the Divine Ruler of all.
II. THE DIVINE RELATION TO MANKIND. We not only want to know generally who and what God is; we also and equally want to know what is the particular relation in which he stands to us. And what, we ask, does he desire we should be to him? Here is the answer:
1. He is the Maker of the world in which we live: he “made the world and all things therein” (Act 17:24).
2. He is the Divine Benefactor from whom all blessings flow: “He giveth to all life,” etc. (Act 17:25).
3. He is the Divine Provider and Arranger of all human affairs (Act 17:26). His intelligence has foreseen, and his wisdom directed everything.
4. He is the Father of all human spirits: “We are also his off spring” (Act 17:28). And we are so in that
(1) he is the Author (Act 17:26) of our common humanity (Act 17:26);
(2) he is sustaining us all in constant existence: “In him we live,” etc. (Act 17:28);
(3) he is deeply interested in us, and desires our approach to him; he has so wrought that men should “seek him, if haply they might feel after him and find him.” He desires to be sought and found of us, that we may commune with him and rejoice in him, that we may attain to his likeness and prepare for his nearer presence. If such is the nature of God, and such the relation in which he stands to us, then:
(1) How pitiful a thing is
(a) heathenism, the ignorance of God; and
(b) atheism, the denial of God; and
(c) indifference, the rejection of God!
(2) How excellent and how wise a thing is
(a) reverence for God;
(b) obedience to God;
(c) an earnest effort to obtain the Divine favor, and to live in his love!C.
Act 17:30
God revealed: his attitude toward the sinner.
It is worth while to note, preliminarily, that Paul speaks of the pre-Christian ages as “times of ignorance.” We know that these included much human learning. The words of the apostle were uttered on that spot where there was everything to call this to remembrance. But he would have said, and would have had us consider also, that any age in which God remained unknown was an age of ignorance. “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” No art, no philosophy, no science, no literature, no intellectual attainments or achievements of any kind whatever will compensate for ignorance of God; the soul that knows not him is an ignorant man; the time that knows not him is an ignorant age. But the text suggests and answers a very urgent questionWhat is the attitude of the holy Father of spirits toward his sinful children? His holiness would lead to impartial severity; his fatherhood to exceeding tenderness and clemency. The answer is found in the words of the apostle here.
I. GOD‘S ATTITUDE IN THE PRE–CHRISTIAN AGES. This was one of magnanimous forbearance. God “winked at” (as the text unhappily renders it), he overlooked, bore with all that was so painful in his sight, all the unimaginable iniquity of forty centuries of human sin. Not, indeed, without many proofs of his Divine displeasure; not without manifestations of his holy wrath. He sent sickness, sorrow, calamity, death, as marks of his meaning in regard to sin. But for long ages of evil, in which men were everywhere sinning directly against him by their idolatries and their atheisms and their practical infidelities, and indirectly against him by their sins against one another and the wrongs they did themselves, God’s chief attitude toward his rebellious subjects was that of Divine magnanimity.
1. He did not punish them in proportion to their ill deserts. He “kept silence” (Psa 1:1-6 :21). He “dealt not with them after their sins,” etc. (Psa 103:10).
2. He did confer on them great and continuous loving-kindness through every age (Act 14:16, Act 14:17).
II. HIS ATTITUDE SINCE THE COMING OF HIS SON. He “now commandeth all men everywhere to repent.” The entrance of the “kingdom of God” was attended with the utterance of this strong imperative, “Repent”. The last, solemn commission of the ascending Lord was to sound this note of repentance “among all nations” (Luk 24:47). The apostle of the Gentiles, divinely taught, preached to Jew and Gentile “repentance toward God,” etc. (Act 20:21). And wherever this gospel is preached unto men, there is announced the Divine mandate, “Repent.” We know:
1. Its real significance. It is the turning of the heart, and therefore of the life, from sin and folly to God and to his service.
2. Its breadth of application. It is coextensive with the race; it reaches to the remotest land and to the most distant age; none so pure of heart and life that they need not, none so base that they may not, none so old that they cannot repent.
3. The consequences of impenitence. They are
(1) God’s displeasure now, and
(2) his final condemnation and punishment.C.
Act 17:31
God revealed: his holy purpose.
We ask not onlyWho or what is he? what is his character and spirit? what is his present attitude towards us? we ask alsoWhat is his purpose concerning us? That one infinite God, “in whom we live, and move, and have our being,” who holds our destiny in his sovereign hand,is it his intention that the lamp of his lighting, the human spirit (Pro 20:27), shall go out utterly at death, or that that spirit shall shine in another sphere? And if so, what are to be the conditions of that life beyond the river? The reply is
I. THAT GOD WILL CONTINUE TO US OUR EXISTENCE IN ANOTHER STATE, AND WILL JUDGE US FOR OUR. ACTIONS HERE. “He hath appointed a day in which he will judge the world.” We do not suppose that time hereafter will be measured as it is now, and that the “day” of the other life will correspond with “a day “of our present experience. But the time will come in the future life when “we shall appear before the judgment-seat.” God has “appointed unto man once to die,” and “after this the judgment.” Clearly enough, in the thought and purpose of God, this life is only the commencement of our existence, the probation period on which the long results of the eternal world depend. So far from this being the be-all and end-all of humanity, it is but the preface to the large volume that succeeds; it is but the river which runs down to and is lost in the sea.
II. THAT GOD‘S JUDGMENT OF US WILL BE ONE OF PERFECT RIGHTEOUSNESS. “In righteousness.”
1. There will be no trace of partiality, no smallest shade of favoritism; none will fare the better, none the worse, for class, or sex, or parentage, or nationality.
2. Regard will be had to all the particulars of human action. “God will bring every work into judgment with every secret thing” (Ecc 12:14): all thoughtsthe “work” of the understanding; all feelingsthe “work” of the heart; all choicesthe “work“ of the will; as well as all wordsthe “work” of the tongue; and all deedsthe “work” of the hand.
3. Respect will be had to all that enhances or lessens responsibility; to all special privilege and opportunity on the one hand, and to all privation and disadvantage on the other.
III. THAT GOD WILL JUDGE THE WORLD BY HIS SON, OUR SAVIOR JESUS CHRIST. “By that Man,” etc., even the Son of man, to whom all judgment is committed (Joh 5:22), who will have authority to execute judgment “because he is the Son of man” (Joh 5:27). Christ will be our Judge. His special relationship to us eminently fits him for that supreme position.
1. He is the Lord of our nature.
2. He knows our nature perfectly (Heb 4:15).
3. He claims that we shall all come into living relation to himself; we must all be “found in him” (Php 3:9; Joh 15:4, Joh 15:6; 1Jn 2:28).
IV. THAT GOD HAS GIVEN US STRONG ASSURANCE OF HIS DIVINE PURPOSE. “Whereof he hath given,” etc. We have an assurance of such intention in:
1. Our own consciousness of ill desert and incomplete retribution. We feel that sin demands condemnation and punishment, and that our own individual guilt has not received its due penalty. For how much and how many things do we deserve the reproval of the Divine voice, the infliction of the Divine hand!
2. Our observation of the course of abandoned and wicked men. How many are they who go down to the grave with (as it assuredly appears) unpunished sins on their soul!
3. The general apprehension of mankind.
4. But the assurance of God’s purpose is in the language and the life of Jesus Christ; more especially in the fact of his resurrection, preceding, predicting, and ensuring our own.
(1) How foolish to treat as if it were the whole of our career that which is no more than the commencement!
(2) How wise to live in view of that great day of account!
(3) How needful to be rightly related to the supreme Judge!C.
HOMILIES BY E. JOHNSON
Act 17:1-9
Paul at Thessalonica.
I. HIS WORK. The synagogue was here again the scene of labor; the substance of the evangel again the theme of his discourse.
1. This is in contents ever the same; founded on the Scriptures. His special function as an apostle did not set him free from the authority of the past. Religion at any epoch is the fulfillment of all that has gone before and the prophecy of all that is to be. But let us beware of the slavery of the letter, and seek the truth of the freely developing Spirit. Fresh light and truth are to break forth at every epoch from the Scriptures. Preaching culminates in Christ. The Messiah must suffer and rise. Paul had no other theme than the crucified and risen One. The triumph of the spiritual element in mankind in and through, in spite of and over, suffering,this is the eternal message of Christianity to mankind.
2. The results the same. Some believe, others not. The good ground for the seed is there or it is not there. Vain to seek to penetrate below this mystery. Women again are specially named as favorable to the gospel. It is fair to argue that, when the feelings and the intuitions lead the judgment, the verdict will be for Christ and his religion. Divine grace does not court those in high station; certainly it does not repel them.
II. THE BEARING OF THE ENEMIES OF THE GOSPEL.
1. Instinctive perversion of the truth. As before, jealousy, whether proceeding from self-interest or sectarian pride, attacks the apostles. Their enemies would misrepresent the emissaries of peace, as public disturbers and revolutionaries.
2. Glaring inconsistency. They commit the very offence of which they accuse the apostles. They play on the feelings of the mob. It is a sign of weakness or of insincerity when men must drag the fickle multitude into such questions. The mob may be turned momentarily to any account. If they favor the gospel, they are despised as stupid (Joh 7:47-49). If they can be stirred up against it, their clamor is equally used as evidence.
III. THE EPISODE or HOSPITALITY. Good Jason shelters these dangerous guests. The guest who is loved and cherished in spite of danger to the host, will bring a blessing on the head of the latter. Be mindful of hospitalitythe true hospitality, which gives without asking in return (Heb 13:2).J.
Act 17:10-15
Nobility of soul at Beraea.
Beraea stands out as a bright oasis in the dreary landscape of persecution. When Paul and Silas enter the synagogue, they find themselves in a new atmosphere. They find “men of nobler soul” then the dishonest cavilers and intriguers of Philippi and of Thessalonica. What were the elements of this nobility of soul?
I. WILLING AND UNPREJUDICED RECEPTION OF NOVEL VIEWS, This spontaneous receptiveness springs only from the rooted love of truth. Let us not forget how startling and how shocking was the story of a crucified Messiah to Jewish prejudice; it may help us to appreciate the candor of these men.
II. INDEPENDENT INQUIRY. They did not carry on a battle of notions with notions; they went to the sources, they studied the documents and facts. Let Protestants learn a lesson, and be true to themselves. In our time people are only beginning to understand the Scriptures in the new light thrown by history upon them. The study of the Bible is a right, a duty, and a profound science. Hasty generalizations and fixed opinions must give way before larger light.
III. TRUE FAITH AND FREE INQUIRY GO HAND–IN–HAND. It is only the profound believer who can afford to doubt. The faith which condemns inquiry, or stops it at a certain point, or is afraid of” going too far,” is a blind faith. On the other hand, the “free-thinking,” which owns no religions impulse, is never deep nor sound thinking. The sincere spirit of inquiry, as seen in the noblest scientific men, is closely allied to the true evangelical temper. What we all need is a living love in all our studies, as opposed to a dead and notional knowledge. The enthusiasm for truth is a noble form of faith; and each who pursues it for himself will enjoy a measure of its rewards. We must try the grounds of faith as we try the metal of coins, and with the greater attention, in that more is at stake. No resting upon the ipsi dixit even of an apostle satisfied the Beraeans, nor ought it to satisfy us.J.
Act 17:16-34
Paul at Athens.
Paul stands in Athens, amidst the master-pieces of Greek art and the memorials of Greek wisdom. It is not admiration or aesthetic delight which is awakened in him, but moral indignation. Christianity is not opposed to art; but Christianity does not approve the worship of sensuous or ideal beauty apart from moral earnestness. In the true relation, religion absorbs art into itself; when art is substituted for religion, there is moral decay. Nor is Christianity hostile to philosophy. On the contrary, there was in Greek philosophy a preparation for Christ. There were germs of truth in the Epicurean and the Stoic schools which Christianity incorporated, while it corrected the one-sidedness of these philosophies. The Epicurean built his practical system on human weakness, the Stoic his on pride. The gospel will not excuse sin on the ground of weakness; nor found a righteousness of man’s own on pride (see the noted discussion of these schools, and the relation of the gospel to them, in Pascal’s ‘Pensees’). Between these extremes, as between those of Sadducecism and Phariseeism, the gospel ever makes its way. These academicians of Athens might well be anxious to know what the “ugly little Jew” had to say. Long had the mighty logos or dialectic of Plato and Aristotle and their successors and rivals ruled the world. What could the fanatical Jew have to say? An immortal discourse is the reply to these questions of curiosity.
I. GOD UNKNOWN, YET KNOWABLE. The speaker recognizes the reverence of the Athenians. The heathen were prepared for the gospel, all the more from the weariness and failure of their age-long “groping after God.” In the inscription on the altar was the witness of the desire to worship all forms of divinity, whether to them known or unknown. Both Greeks and Romans recognized, above and beyond the definite gods and goddesses of the Pantheon, the indefinable in Deity, the mystery of that Essence, to us and to all, as to them, incomprehensible. So far we are all on a level with the Athenians. But there are special senses in which God is unknown to the worshipper.
1. To the sensual and sin-loving heart. Many there are whose heart is like the Agora of Athens or a Pantheon; one idol stands beside another. Wrath, pride, lust, avarice, treachery, ambition,these are their gods. And again, science, art, money, the husband, the wife, the goods of this world. And in a neglected corner stands the altar with the inscription, “To the unknown God!”
2. To the wise in their own conceit. “For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God;” “He resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the lowly.”
3. To the formalists and externalists in religion. For the drama of an external ritual is rather a screen between the soul and God, if the soul be not bent on finding him.
4. To all who seek him otherwise than with the pure and lowly heart, coming by the Way, the Truth, and the Life to the Father. Though in one sense” God is great; I know him not,” must be the confession of all hearts, from the lowliest to the wisest, in another the good news of the gospel proclaimsGod may be known, is known; and every name by which he is known resolves itself into love. He is concealed, yet revealed; unknown, yet known; defined, yet indefinable. ‘Tis a great yet a small part of his ways that we can understand.
II. GOD REVEALED IN THE CREATION. He has made the world and all things therein. Animate and inanimate nature, body and spirit, all have the stamp of omnipotence and of omniscience in the unity of a Mind. Every step in science makes more clear this unity; and in the last resort this unity is not conceivable as “law“ or “force” merely, but only as the living and the loving God. In his infinite majesty, heaven is his throne, earth his footstool. He is in himself both Temple and Inhabitant. The voice of God bursts asunder the system of idolatry and superstition. The latter denies that God can be found only in fixed places, by means of fixed rites and mediations. The true temple is everywhere; “The walls of the world are that.” In the Church, where the gospel of his Son is heard, and above all in the heart, where he indwells in the power of his Spirit, is the temple of the living God.
III. GOD REVEALED IN THE GOVERNMENT OF THE WORLD, As love. Needing nothing from men’s hands; they incessantly feel the need of him. Life itself is sweet, and in that sweetness we have an instance of his love. There is a joy in breathing, moving about, looking, learning, experiencing manifold experiences in this “fair world of God.” And each and every pleasure, lower and higher, leads up to God and his love. The tie that binds us to our kind is an expression of the same love. Sympathy is possible, is actual, between men of every color and clime. The mechanism of thought and feeling is alike in all. All men suffer and rejoice from the same causes. The unity of the human race reflects the unity of God’s mind in wisdom and in love. Men form one people, one race: this is the great thought the gospel throws upon the world, and teaches us to say, in deeper senses than the heathen knew, “I am a man; nothing human is foreign to me.” He has set bounds to man’s habitations. All the effects of climate, of physical configuration of the earth, distribution of land and water, so interesting to the student of man and his dwelling-place, are conditions fixed by the same wise and loving hand. God is in history. His thoughts alone are living. Athens was not for ever, nor Rome; but the Divine thought, whence proceeded the culture of Greece, the law and order of Rome, lives on, and is revealed in changing forms from age to age. And towards the “far-off goal” of an infinite love, we doubt not, the whole of creation and of history moves. The end of all is the union of man with God. Though in one sense he “needeth not anything,” in another he needs allthe whole love of his whole rational universe. The process of thought in the world is a process of “groping after” and of finding God. God wills that we should find him, but only as the result of our seeking. Therefore he “half reveals” and” half conceals” himself. He is far off, yet near; in each and all the spheres of our knowledge. Our being rests on his; ours are borrowed lives (Isa 54:6; 1Co 8:6). “In the Father,” says Cyprian, “we are, from him all life comes; in the Son, who lives, we have life; in the Spirit, who is the Breath of all flesh, we have our being.” His offspring we areby creation in his image, by redemption through his Son. This truth we know from Scripture, from the human heart, from life; and the effect of this knowledge may well be to produce holy humility, mixed with confidence and joy.
IV. TRUE THEOLOGY AND WORSHIP.
1. The heathen draw a wrong inference freer, the true saying on men being the offspring of God. If we are of Divine origin, they seemed to argue, then the gods are of human kind, and images of them may be made. On the contrary, Paul argues, those who are of Divine origin despise themselves if they render worship to any but the supreme Head and Lord. When we say that God is in affinity with man, we do not affirm that man can represent him in thought, much less in images of plastic art. The philosopher Xenophanes had said that if the animals had gods, they would imagine them in their own likenessthe god of the horse would be a horse, etc. The truth is that only our ideal or higher nature is the mirror of God.
2. In conscience we find his clearest reflex. And ignorance of him in this nearest sphere of knowledge is not excusable, as St. Paul teaches in Rom 1:1-32. Men did not like to retain God in their knowledge. At the same time, the conscience needs light from without. There are dark ages of the world, when men have comparatively little light, and which may be viewed as ages of God’s forbearance, wherein he “overlooks” much that men do, “not knowing what they do.”
3. But Christ is a Turning-point of history. Before him, the period of “ignorance;” with him and after him, the true light. Before him, forbearance; henceforward, the just judgment of the world. The description of the person and functions of Christ. He is Man; a member of humanity, a partaker of human flesh and blood, subject to death. As High Priest, he is one “touched with a feeling of our infirmities.” And as Judge, he is qualified on the same grounds. It is a common feeling which requires that a man should be judged by his peers. Knowledge and pity, severity and compassion, are united in Christ.
4. The call to repentance. It is an urgent call. The more indifferent and light-hearted the listeners, the more urgently it must sound. It is an absolute call, admitting of no exceptions. No ignorance and no philosophy, no dignity or rank, can exempt men from the immediate command of God to repent. Amidst the depths of sin and the heights of virtue, in paganism and in Christendom, the new heart and the new life are indispensable.
V. THE RECEPTION OF THE GOSPEL AT ATHENS. (Rom 1:32.)
1. Some scoffed, some procrastinated. These are ever the two main classes of those who turn a deaf ear to the Divine Word. Some make light of the truth, some put off attention to it until the “more convenient season.” “Faith in to-morrow, instead of Christ, is Satan’s nurse for man’s perdition.” Paul departed from among them, and came not back; the “tender grace” of the day of salvation vanished, not again to be found.
2. But some believed. Of whom Dionysius among men alone is mentioned; and of the women, Damaris, with some others. We need, however, to remind ourselves that great numbers are no sign of the true Church. There are many more of common stones than of jewels in its structure, according to the ordinary valuation; but God’s measures are not ours. According to ancient testimonies, a bright light went forth from the Church at Athens. The splendid intellectual culture of Athens remains the heritage of the few; the gospel pours its common blessing on mankind. The relation of the Christian to the art and science of the world.
(1) He is not to despise them. The master-works of genius are gifts of God; and in their way they bear testimony to the universal striving of the human spirit after the reconciliation of sense and spirit, the human with the Divine. The aberrations of great spirits are more instructive than the meaningless commonplaces of ordinary minds.
(2) At the same time, he is to apply to them the Christian scale of judgment. Christianity cannot countenance immoral art or godless science. If tile heart of the artist and scientific man be sanctified, their works and studies will tend to the glory of God.J.
HOMILIES BY R.A. REDFORD
Act 17:1-9
Thessalonica.
Interest of the occasion, in view of the two Epistles afterwards written. The contrast between the Thessalonian and Philippian populations partly due to the presence of the Jewish synagogue. The Greek proselytes numerous. The Jews divided into two classes, the devout and the fanatical. The political element always ready to be called into use against the gospel, so that the multitude and the rulers were troubled.
I. Take the whole narration as affording a glimpse into THE STATE OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE at that time.
1. The elements of hope in itthe Jewish religion and synagogue worship, the openness of Gentile mind to inquiry; the two forces of Roman order and Greek intellectual culture.
2. The elements of corruption. The rabble at the mercy of evil-minded men stirring them up. The decrees of Caesar mere despotic acts of power. Ignorance and indifference to religious questions. Had they understood Christianity, they would never have supposed it to be against civil order.
3. The certainty foreshown. The spiritual power must prevail. Such a world must be overturned.
II. THE CHRISTIANITY WHICH PAUL PREACHED.
1. Founded on the Old Testament Scriptures, and therefore seeking a basis in the synagogue.
2. Setting forth the redeeming work of Jesus Christ as its substance.
3. Adapted to all, Jews and Greeks alike, and calling the influence of women to its service.
4. Though itself peace, yet, by its contrast with the world, turning it upside down. We must be quiet and orderly in our methods, but we must expect that spiritual forces will stir up opposition. The end is with the truth.R.
Act 17:6
The power of God in the world.
“These that have turned,” etc. Thessalonians excitable, especially on the subject of political change (see Epistles). The misrepresentations of spiritual work proceed from two causes:
(1) fanatical opposition to the truth as it is in Jesus;
(2) the ignorant fears of sordid and selfish minds. Yet the progress of the work must be maintained.
I. THE THOUGHTS OF MEN CONTRASTED WITH THE THOUGHTS OF GOD.
1. Of the religious fanatics and superstitious. The fears for truth leading to false alliances. Compromise of principle.
2. Of rulers. Government is apt to fear for itself, because it knows not its own true basis. Decrees of Caesar must sometimes be resisted.
3. Of the populace. Mistaken ideas of their own interests. Deceivableness under the influence of demagogues or those who pander to their lowest feelings. The blessing was rejected. Jesus was a better King for the people than Caesar.
II. THE MISSION OF THE GOSPEL IN THE WORLD.
1. To explain the Divine dealings with mankind, and reveal the purpose running through both the Jewish and Gentile histories.
2. To lift up the multitudes and deliver them from despotism and deception.
3. To proclaim a new world in place of the old, the coming of the kingdom, which is not the exaltation of an imperial throne, but the reign of God on the earth, in the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ.
4. To stir up in the hearts of men a desire for the better things. The world within us must be turned upside down before the true peace is built up.R.
Act 17:10-15
Beraea.
The different state of mind among the Jews. The unbelief and opposition of men overruled by God to the fulfillment of his purposes. The footsteps of the apostolic messengers quickened. The sudden stride of the message from Beraea to Athensscarcely likely to have been taken by Paul without an impulse in the circumstances driving him forward. Yet, as so much depended on the one man’s work, as no one else so fitted to lay the foundations of Christianity in Greece, he must be lifted above the level of his own thoughts and plans. The whole passage illustrates the union of providence and grace.R.
Act 17:12
Preparation for the truth.
“Therefore many of them believed.” Contrast between the ignoble prejudice and the noble openness of mind. Responsibility for our faith. Knowledge and practice bound up together.
I. THE TRUE PREPARATION FOR DIVINE BLESSINGS.
1. A state of mind. At liberty to think. Open to teaching. Desire for instruction. The two kinds of skepticism (skepsis), inquiry for truth, inquiry for reasons against faith.
2. A course of action and habit. Reading of the Scriptures daily, with a set purpose, devoutly, in connection with the preached Word, with an intention to follow their guidance.
II. THE TRUE FAITH SETTLED ON ITS BROAD FOUNDATION.
1. As distinguished from mere individual self-assertion and ignoble pride.
2. As accepting the standard of revealed truth.
3. As apostolic, seeing that “those things were so,” i.e. as Paul represented them. The Pauline faith was the only faith which linked together the Old Testament and the New.
III. RESULTS FOLLOWING THE USE OF MEANS. A lesson to both preachers and hearers.R.
Act 17:16-34
Paul at Athens.
Consider
I. The connection of the whole with THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY. The Greek mind evangelized. The function of Greek thought in the development of doctrine. The contrast between the gospel and philosophy. The step towards the conquest of the world.
II. The illustration of THE APOSTOLIC METHOD. Adaptation of the truth to every class of mind. Difference of the preaching when the foundation of the Jewish Scriptures was for the time forsaken. Important difference of results, showing that there must be something intervening between idolatry and Christian faith, besides natural religion. The resurrection must stand on its true foundation, or it is mocked at. The spiritual truth is mere “babbling” to those who look upon it from the naturalistic point of view.
III. The picture of HUMAN HELPLESSNESS presented. Intellectual restlessness of Athens. The judgment of God overhanging the moral corruption. Times of ignorance. Idolatry, the more hideous in its decorations of artistic beauty. Worship of the human body. Social miseries of the Greek world. The one man among the multitude, type of the spiritual force which, though a grain of mustard seed in apparent magnitude, was a germ of life in the midst of the universal decay and death. So in the decline and fall of the Roman empire. A great lesson on
(1) the sufficiency and power of the gospel;
(2) the responsibility of man.R.
Act 17:18
The world’s want supplied.
“He preached unto them Jesus, and the resurrection.” Paul at Athens a typical fact. No place so representative. No preacher so equal to the occasion. His spirit stirred within him. Idolatryturning human greatness into ruin. “To the unknown God.“ Great opportunity well employed. No dreary denunciations. No lowering the gospel by admixture with human speculations. He presages the time when the intellect of Greece and the power of Rome would both alike be Christ’s. He dared their mockery, to win their hearts.
I. A PERSONAL SAVIOR. Jesus:
1. Presented as Divine. “Setter forth of strange gods.” The facts of the gospel so described as to reveal the Divinity.
2. Set forth as an Object of trust. Just what such minds required, to look away from self and the vagaries of the mind. Names enough in the ancient world. This Name above every name.
II. A PRACTICAL APPEAL.
1. To a true worship in place of the false. Religion universal. Paul’s preaching was not intended merely to change the forms, but the substance; to place religion on its true foundation, not as man’s offering to propitiate the Deity, but as his acceptance of God’s lovein fellowship. Jesus is in the midst of us, therefore we worship no longer an unknown God.
2. To a new life in place of the old. A great city like Athens reminds us of the world’s wantspower to live a better life. He did not preach a mere story of the past, but a proclamation of a new kingdom of grace, which should make all life afresh. Words! Examples! They had them. But they wanted power. There was a new fact before their eyes, a living man changed and made from a persecutor into a missionary. Nothing like it in Greece.
3. To a great future. The resurrection. Personal prospect. A fact more than arguments. Messages to Corinth. “In Christ shall all be made alive” (1Co 15:1-58.). May such doctrine prove its sufficiency in us!R.
Act 17:23
The worship of faith.
“Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you.” Christianity aggressive. Insufficiency of all forms of religion apart from true knowledge. The true philanthropy of the missionary spirit.
I. THE WORLD‘S IGNORANCE OF GOD INCONSISTENT WITH ACCEPTABLE WORSHIP OF HIM.
1. Athens the representation of the moral helplessness of men without revelation. Knowledge which is ignorance.
2. The practical view of the Divine character. Indifference to righteousness, vain trust in benevolence, mere sentiment of dependence.
II. THE FAITH OF THE CHRISTIAN THE TRUE BASIS OF RELIGION.
1. As a simple acceptance of Divine teaching.
2. As a growth of knowledge through experience and practical endeavor. “If any man will do his will,” etc.
3. The actual fellowship of the spiritual life. Influence of the higher mind and larger soul upon the lower. Effect of loving self-sacrifice in opening the mind to larger views of the Divine character.
4. The opportunities of the world rightly used. Nature leading to God, not enslaving the soul. Culture lilting up the intellect and desires. “All things are ours.”R.
Act 17:28
Man in God.
“In him we live, and move, and have our being.” The greatness and humility of the apostlean illustration of the nature and method of Christianity. Over all the glory of Athens the pall of spiritual death. An unknown God amongst them. The pride of the ancient world still clung to empty superstitions, only half, if at all, believed in. Boldness of the messenger. Polytheism is false. The human heart is claimed for God. From their own altar to the Christian announcement of coming judgment. An appeal to reason, conscience, experience, the universal spirit of humanity.
I. A GREAT PRIMARY TRUTH set forth in two aspectsnatural and spiritual
1. All religion rests on a natural foundation. We are creatures of God. Threefold view of humanityas life, as activity, as being or character. Unsatisfactory view of human nature which omits any of these. We live not alone for earth, but far eternity. Not alone to exist, but to unfold our possibilities, intellectual, moral, spiritual. God the God of providence. History. Social life. But natural religion insufficient. Has proved itself somust be so.
2. Religion is the work in man of the spiritual. The great fact of a moral ruin cannot be overlooked. Ancient heathen admitted the irreconcilable Opposition of heaven and earth. Refuge in Promethean pride. Despondency They openly said “It is better to die than to live” Errand of the gospel was one of hope. Proclamation of the life of man in God. Spiritual power at hand. The message written out in the facts of the gospel. Paul led up his hearers to Christ. To us religion is Christ. The resurrection is the seal on the promise of life.
II. Consider THE APPLICATIONS OF SUCH A TRUTH.
1. The essential and supreme question of every man’s existence is what he is to God, and what God is to him. Our life in him.
2. There is only one religion which meets man’s wants, that which has come from God.
3. The religion of Christ is adapted to the humblest as well as the highest mind, to the lowest as well as the loftiest condition.R.
Act 17:32, Act 17:33
Opportunity.
“Now when they heard,” etc. The hearing of truth is the demand of man’s position. Temptation “of such minds as the Athenians” to regard themselves as able to be their own teachers. Facts often stranger than fiction. Philosophy has been a great obstacle to Christianity. So still intellectual pride and prejudice. The two classes of hearers still representedmockers and triflers.
I. RESPONSIBILITY IN HEARING.
1. Application of mind. Concentration on the subject. Openness to persuasion.
2. Surrender of the heart to truth. The message not addressed simply to reason. A speculative spirit may easily admit a cloud of objections and difficulties which obscure the Word. Procrastination means indifference. Enough is already understood and felt to justify practice.
II. SPECIAL CRISIS OF OPPORTUNITY. Whether in listening to the Word, or in receiving Divine invitation through providential circumstances, opportunity at times gathers to a point where resistance becomes guilt. So it was in the Jewish nation at the advent of Christ. So at Athens by the visit of Paul. The Word may be taken away:
1. By the work of sin within us, hardening the heart.
2. By changes in the outward life.
3. By summons into eternity. “Take heed how ye hear;” “Work while it is yet day;” “Now is the accepted time.”R.
HOMILIES BY P.C. BARKER
Act 17:2, Act 17:3
The work of three sabbath days.
It was a great idea, and much more than mere idea with Paul, to “redeem the time.” He would not have stayed a continuous three weeks in one place doing nothing at all, much less doing what was good for nothing, or for very little. The time he gave, therefore, to a subject, and the stress he laid upon it, may fairly measure to a certain degree his persuasion of the value of it. There are subjects which depend upon their very mode of treatment, not in the merely ordinary sense for producing greater or less impression, but for apprising us of the estimate they purport to put on themselves. And this thought may certainly help to guide us, even in these days. It may help work conviction as to the reality of things long “believed among us,” but perhaps never more attacked or less boldly grasped than at this present. For we here may notice that
I. PAUL TAKES THE OLD TESTAMENT SCRIPTURES AS HIS TEXT–BOOK.
1. It would have been particularly like Paul to have dealt with his subject or subjects through a period of upwards of three weeks, on their own merits, and not have laden them with any unimportant connection with things that had gone before. His method shows that the connection was not deemed unimportant by him.
2. If Paul does deal with great subjects, which might have been discussed on their own merits, in very close connection with their associations with the Old Testament, it were inevitable that those associations must cling to them. They will in a sense bring with them the atmosphere, or the flagrance of it, to which they have been accustomed.
3. There can be no doubt, no contradiction, as to the connection of the promised Messiah in the Old Testament with the sacrifices, which are really its most unique feature; nor can there be any doubt of the great sacrifices themselves, that they were in the main propitiatory.
II. THE DEATH OF CHRIST IS THE OLD TESTAMENT TOPIC SELECTED OUT OF ALL OTHERS BY PAUL. For what conceivable purpose should the apostles have taken all the trouble and encountered all the dangers they did in order to reconcile the minds of the Jews, to whom they preached, to the identity of the foretold Messiah of the Scriptures with the Jesus crucified of late at Jerusalem? There could be no satisfactory reason for this but one, that the suffering of Christ unto death was the central requirement of the whole position. While the Jew from first to last objected to the subject
(1) because the crucifixion of Christ lay at his door and on his conscience;
(2) and because the Jew had never consented to believe in such a King as Christ, such a grandeur as the grandeur of the cross for him, or such a method of recovering and exalting the distinction of his own nation, as the method which went right down to the root of its decay, disorder, misery! It would surely seem that nothing could be more nugatory than to labor as apostles labored, and to suffer as they suffered, and to be filled with zeal as they were filled with zeal, if it were for mere persistence sake in the matter of an unwelcome historical identification. Whether for Jew or Gentile, the death of Christ was with the apostles the foundation theme. But with the Jew it was argued as now, with all the light and necessarily with the associations that his Scriptures must throw upon it.
III. THE INVARIABLE SEQUEL–SUBJECT OF THE DEATH OF CHRISTTHE RESURRECTIONIS PREACHED BY PAUL. AS much as all the deepest traceable significance of the death of Christ tends to humble those to whom it is preached, as “the way of salvation,” so much avails the significance of his resurrection to comfort and to raise them! The glory of glories for Christ, it is, and it is ever scripturally exhibited as, the joy of joys for the believer in Christ. These, then, were the great topics upon which Paul and his companions and other apostles were constantly insisting. Let it be explained as it may, these purport to be the message of Heaven to earth; let it be objected to as it may, nothing else comes in their place. The forces that lie hidden, yet scarcely hidden, in both of these are now at least testified by an unsurpassed mass and variety of practical and irrefutable evidence. Men’s hearts have been softened, humbled, and won to the exercise of profoundest trust and firmest faith by the fact of the sufferings and death of Christ. Their highest nature has answered to the quickening influence of the clearly revealed and clearly exhibited fact of the Resurrection, and so far forth its correlative, immortality. The pride of man rarely finds its gain or its object in rejecting the latter, yet is it abundantly doubtful whether any man come to it rightly, much less come to it to the purest and truest advantage, except through that approach which Paul found so often “to the Jews a stumbling-block, and to the Greeks foolishness,” but to “some” others even at Thessalonica (Act 17:4) “the power of God and the wisdom of God.”B.
Act 17:11, Act 17:12
A comparison justly invidious.
In harmony with the directions of Jesus Christ himself, and with the dictates of wisdom as against presumptuousness. Paul and Silas, when endangered by their ministrations in one place, sped on in all fidelity and zeal to another. It may also be not without its significant interest that, as we are told, they were “sent away,” or “sent on,” by the brethren. Had they gone away at any time and ceased from their work, they and their motives and their love might well have been objects of suspicion. But the continuity of their devotion, and the renewal again and again of work after disappointment upon disappointment, protect them from suspicion, and even add to their praise. It is one of the greater practical difficulties of life to resist successfully the distressing and disintegrating natural operation of perpetual disappointments, and it is one of the severer tests of an uplifted faith and enduring purpose that “often foiled” is not accepted as failure, and that “cast down” does not mean “destroyed.” On the other hand,
(1) had the apostles been enabled to hold their ground against every attack of the spirit of persecution, this would have been equivalent to an unceasing repetition of miracle; and the enmity of the human heart might have been silenced indeed, but long before it was destroyed, or had proved its own intrinsic collapse. And
(2) those apostles would not have covered anything like the same ground, nor secured anything like the same experience of human nature. The language of these verses is one result, simple enough and direct, of the experience that came from the comparison of one people with another. The contrast is brought sharply into prominence by the conduct of Beraea, in quick succession upon that of Thessalonica. The people of Berea are boldly pronounced “more noble than those of Thessalonica.” Let us consider the ennobling reasons.
I. READINESS TO RECEIVE THE WORD.
1. There is, indeed, a “readiness to receive” which marks greed.
2. There is a readiness to receive which marks credulity.
3. There is a readiness to receive which marks the inertness of indifference.
4. There is a readiness to receive which marks a nature conscious of need, and responsive to the proper supply of that need, when proffered. The readiness to receive which now distinguished the Bereans marked thus a good and a healthy and a spiritual instinct. For their readiness was turned toward receiving a “word” that was true and pure and not flattering, but faithful to reprove and to teach, as well as to stimulate and uplift by promises. Such readiness as this is noble and ennobling. It saves souls pining. It saves wasted energies. It obviates vagrant pursuits. And for all such it substitutes a genuine education.
II. DETERMINATION TO BE COMPETENT TO “GIVE A REASON OF THE HOPE” WHICH THERE HAD BEEN “READINESS TO RECEIVE.”
1. The very attitude of the inquirer has something of the noble in it, when compared with the custom of the decrier.
2. The mastery of prejudice is in itself a sign of nobility, while the reign of prejudice means an obstructiveness which infers to none greater loss than to the subject of it.
3. The searcher into truth does in the very act ingratiate himself with truth. “Happy is the man” who seeks for it as for silver, and searches for it as for hid treasure (Pro 2:2-5).
4. Openness to evidence comes inevitably of inquiring honestly, as surely as prejudice makes a shut heart and undiscerning mind. Many persons do not see because they never set themselves to look. They scarcely think it is given them to use their own natural powers.
5. Inquiringness has it in it to infer advantage
(1) to individual happiness;
(2) to social kindliness;
(3) to public and general progress.
6. Inquiringness, when it is turned to things of higher and deeper significance, to things invisible and spiritual, to the great themes of the soul and its need of a Savior, to the grand themes of God and his pitying love to manthis inquiringness carries its own praise in it. It is bound to enrich him who practices it and extorts conviction from the unwilling, while the spontaneous tribute of commendation is laid at its feet by the just and good. That kind of moral certainty that lies in strong conviction is the price won by all those who will take the trouble, in matters of Divine import, to “search” whether and how they agree and hold together.B.
Act 17:23-32
The gospel’s kindly encounter with novel foes.
The opportunity now presented to Paul he must at once have recognized to be one of the grandest and most critical of his career. He was for a while separated from his two loved companions, and was permitted to face his work alone in the long-time metropolis of the world’s learning, grace, and art. We are perhaps to understand that Paul somewhat sensitively felt his position to be one of a special kind of responsibility. It was certainly none the less one of so much the more honor. He does not delay his work. He appears in the synagogue (Act 17:17) with the Jews and the “devout.” In the market-place also he is found ready to debate with those who may be willing. The citizens of Athens, and the character which now obtained to so remarkable a degree among them, promised ground upon which rapid and easy impression, at all events, might be made, whether lasting or not. This, however, was held in check to a considerable degree by the presence of not a few who not only were naturally likely to fight hard for their pet philosophies, but whose very philosophy it was in some cases to attempt to “prove all things” at least in their own idea or proving. Paul is not long in being brought into the place of chief notoriety. The kind of treatment showed to him by that ancient center of refinement and of intellectual inquiry is vastly different from the treatment to which he had become only too accustomed at the hands of the Jews; and the kindly method and tone of the address of Paul seem to be some reflection of it. Still the gospel is to grapple, and in Athens it had its work before it. The incisiveness of Paul’s style does not fall behind its courtesy. Let us notice what Paul has to say when now brought fairly in contact with all most typical of a heathen world.
I. THE TRUE APOSTLE OF CHRISTIANITY PURPORTS TO “DECLARE” WHAT THE WORLD SAYS IS “UNKNOWN,” i.e. GOD. He “declares:”
1. A personal Creator-God, against Epicureans and all various others who either held the world to have been ever or to have come of chance. Neither Jesus himself nor Scripture records generally from beginning to end presuppose atheism, nor apply themselves to prove the existence of a personal Deity. But when nature, with all her ten thousand voices, has nevertheless let down men to a degraded unbelief, or when men have thus let down nature, these do pronounce and “declare” in no faltering tone this one starting-point of all upward progress, all knowledge, and all goodness (Act 17:24).
2. A Creator-God, the opposite of depending for anything on man, inasmuch as all men depend for all things on him, including the initial breath of life, and thereupon every breath they draw.
3. A Creator-God who, so far as this world is concerned, knows one family alone, but that family the universal one.
4. A Creator-God who does not forsake men to their own inventions, but is the present and ruling Providence among them. There is such a reality as an administration of the wide empire on earth, and that administration in each part, each greater or less distribution, is Divine, is that of God, the sovereign God.
5. A Creator-God who admits of no proxy whatsoever of idol fashion.
II. THE TRUE APOSTLE OF CHRISTIANITY UNDERTAKES TO MAKE AN UNFALTERING AFFIRMATION OF THE THINGS MOST DISTINCTIVE OF CHRISTIANITY. These shall be facts or truths, not grown of reason, not even surmised of reason; very likely not, in all their bearings and all the questions they suggest, such as can be accounted for by reason. They occupy by intention a unique place. They come of the pronouncement of One who brings all-sufficient credentials, and whom to disbelieve rationally is a greater difficulty for reason by far than to believe. This grand, surpassing voice of Heaven is here given as threefold.
1. It bids repentance on the part of man.
2. It declares judgment to come by Jesus Christ.
3. It declares hereunto the resurrection of Jesus Christ; and certainly, if the resurrection of Jesus Christ is here instanced as speaking volumes for his likely judgeship, it will carry all that is necessary for showing men present at his solemn judgment-bar. Evidently nothing so much arrested men, when the world’s clock was then striking, as this announcement of resurrection from the dead for Judge and judged.
III. THE TRUE APOSTLE OF CHRISTIANITY DOES NOT HIDE AWAY THE ELEMENT OF HUMAN RESPONSIBILITY AND THE NECESSITY OF HUMAN CO–OPERATION WITH DIVINE WORK. This is but one among many ways of asserting that man is himself a creation of reason and of heart and of conscience; in brief, of just so much as to constitute him justly responsible to his Creator. Beyond a doubt, we cannot draw the line that says where the exertion of man’s will and the interposition of God’s providence end or begin, nor, in all probability, could we see the line if it were drawn. It is none the less certain that both of these are facts in human life. Paul goes so far as to say that Divine arrangements (Act 17:27) lead to Divine inquirings on the part of men, and are directly adapted to suggest “seeking the Lord.” Notice, therefore:
1. That it lies with men, part of their simplest, first, happiest duty, to “seek the Lord,” in distinction from the vain theory or degrading wish that the belief in the reality of the existence of God should be an absolutely necessary outcome of our life or natural income of our conviction. It is a remarkable fact that in all highest senses it is both one and the other of these things, but that in lower and literal sense, if it were so, it would bereave human knowledge of God of its noblest aspects, noblest tokens, and noblest uses.
2. That there is so much uncertainty about finding him we seek, as might well give zest and energy and trembling vigor to endeavor.
3. That the uncertainty lies much in some moral direction of our nature. To “find God” is not the quest of the intellect merely or chiefly. It will lie nearer the heart, at all events, and it will be greatly dependent on, say, the conscience, what it is in any man and how he heeds it. To “find God” will depend on “feeling after” him. The absence of a certain kind and amount of sensibility will in many a case decide, and “that right early,” our not finding some one or some thing. Some truth and some people are coy. And very indisputable it is that sometimes it is of the highest truth and the highest style of human character that this is most chiefly true.
4. That to win the crown of “finding” finding really, finding blessedly, finding for everis quite among the possibilities; ay, it is among the sure promises exceeding precious to the true seeker.
5. That the grand object “sought,” “felt after,” and “found“ is all the time “not far from” any one, i.e. really near to every one. He is so near us in our breathing life itself. He is so near us in all those qualities which are derived from his parentage. He is so near as in bountiful goodness and in pitying, strong love.B.
Act 17:32-34
Three kinds of hearing.
It is not always given to the hardest and most conscientious labored to reap a large harvest. The day had been a day of hard work and faithful work for Paul. Arrived at sunset, he counts more disappointment than gain. This passage speaks of three kinds of hearers. And it is telling us of factsfacts that were, facts that too often are. Notice
I. THERE ARE WHO HEAR AND MOCK.
1. They mock when they hear something and fear something.
2. They mock when they cannot confute what is spoken into their outer ear, nor silence what speaks of itself in their inner ear.
3. They mock when they don’t understand and don’t try to understand.
4. They mock when they are ready to risk everything, rather than yield anything of self and self-will.
II. THERE ARE WHO HEAR AND PROCRASTINATE.
1. They procrastinate when they are persuadedalmost.
2. They procrastinate when it is no matter of “two opinions” but of active duty or public declaration of themselves.
3. They procrastinate when their mind is quite clear, but their heart neither honest nor earnest.
4. They procrastinate when they feel they must say something, but are not prepared either to do or to say the right something.
III. THERE ARE WHO HEAR AND BELIEVE.
1. They believe when “the Lord has opened their heart to attend to the things spoken.”
2. They believe when they feel that the things spoken are true to their need and are for them.
3. They believe when they are practically ready, if needs be, to “forsake” all the rest in order to “cleave to” that one Being who has “the words of eternal life.”B.
HOMILIES R. TUCK
Act 17:2
Paul’s manner.
“And Paul, as his manner was” (Revised Version, “custom”). Luke thinks it necessary to record St. Paul’s habits in connection with his missionary labors, and his point is, not that the apostle kept the sabbath day, but that he consistently observed the injunction to the first preachers that they should “begin at Jerusalem;” that is, deliver the gospel message first to the Jews. Whenever St. Paul went to a fresh town, “his manner was” to find out the Jews and join them at their meeting-place, whether that were proseuche or synagogue. In either case be would have the opportunity always offered to visitors to say a word of exhortation to the people. Here, at Thessalonica, the fact that St. Paul was allowed to preach for three sabbaths in succession shows the respect commanded by his character as a rabbi, and, it may be, by his earnest eloquence. We dwell on the fact that Luke recognizes a fixed custom and settled habit of the apostle, and seems to feel that anything so orderly and regular it was singular to find in so impulsive a man. A great part of religious duty concerns the formation and the preservation of godly habits, and the subject is one which may be practically and usefully treated in a Christian congregation.
I. SETTLED HABITS. It is singular that our most common association with the word “habit“ should be bad habits, and that a much stronger form of teaching should go in the direction of warning against or curing bad habits, than in that of culturing and nourishing good ones. Moralists have given abundant counsel in respect of common habits of personal and social life, but religious teachers, even of the young, have not worthily recognized that habits may be formed in connection with the religious life, and that direct instruction and guidance in relation to them is imperatively needed. Our Lord bad settled habits of prayer and worship, and no Christian life can be hopefully maintained without them.
II. How HABITS GET SETTLED. By simply doing things again and again with regularity. The philosophical and the practical explanations of the formation of habits may be given; and it may be well to show how the very muscles, nerves, and senses get fixed by continuing to act in the same direction. But the point to dwell on is that habits may be settled by intelligent intention and effort. They may be a product of will, and the formation of good habits is a proper exercise of the regenerate will. It may be further shown that relations of dependence bring on all parents, masters, or teachers, the responsibility of inciting to the formation of good habits and the due nourishment anti strengthening of them.
III. How FAR DOES THE SETTLING OF HABITS DEPEND ON DISPOSITION? In all questions of moral culture or religious duty the natural dispositions of men have to be taken into account. To some habits come easily, and they can be as easily changed. Others only form habits after much self-mastery and conflict. But these are the persons who are best helped by habits when once they get them fixed. Such an impulsive man as St. Paul might even find it necessary to restrain himself by forcing himself into the orderliness of settled habits. Illustrate how differently different persons stand related to the great Christian dutiesprayer, reading God’s Word, worship, almsgiving, etc.
IV. How MAY SETTLED HABITS HELP THE MAY WHO HAS FORMED THEM? Illustrate, especially in relation to the religious life, two points.
1. They help him to master his own varying feeling. A man is not always disposed for private prayer or public worship, but the habit keeps him related to these things, and it is often found that, while engaged in them, the needed mood of feeling will come. Custom only may take us to worship, but eye and heart may be opened when we are there.
2. They help him to overcome adverse circumstances. Hindrances of family or business life seriously affect the man who has no religious habits. They fail to hurt the man who has his life well ordered, and his regular times and ways. The habits soon get recognized, and the incidents of life take shape so as to fit in with them.R.T.
Act 17:3
The three points of Pauline preaching.
In Act 17:18 the point of St. Paul’s teaching to the Gentiles is briefly given, and it is seen that he had but one message, which he endeavored to adapt to his varying audiences. To the Gentiles he preached “Jesus and the resurrection;” to the Jews he preached that “Christ must needs have suffered, and risen again from the dead; and that Jesus is the Christ.” It may be noticed that to a Jewish audience St. Paul could make a twofold appeal:
(1) to Old Testament Scripture; and
(2) to the established facts connected with the life, death, and resurrection of our Lord.
To the Gentiles he could make no appeals to Scripture testimony, seeing that they had no written revelation; but even to them St. Paul could make a twofold appeal:
(1) to the natural sense of religion, of which their idolatries gave witness; and
(2) to the circle of recognized facts connected with the manifestation of Christ in the flesh.
Still our appeal to men is based on
(1) the religious nature;
(2) the older revelation;
(3) the historical facts of Christ’s life. St. Paul “preached the gospel as a herald. Yes, but he preached it also by long arguments, intended and constructed to produce faith or persuasion concerning Christ. Indeed, the Greek word originally means to carry on an argument by way of dialogue; question by the hearer, answer by the preacher, according to his light. That was the real apostolic method of serving Christa very eager, earnest, inevitable method. To preach Christ is to reason out of the Scriptures and, in a secondary degree, out of the great book of human life and experience, and also out of the great book of material nature; but in any case it is to ‘reason,’ to lay out, the matter as it seems to ourselvesto press it home upon all whom it concerns; to remonstrate, expostulate, entreat, and then to leave the issue with God.” Fix attention on St. Paul’s three points.
I. MESSIAH MUST SUFFER. Compare our Lord’s teaching to the two disciples on the way to Emmaus (Luk 24:25, Luk 24:26). This suffering of their expected Messiah was the point of Old Testament teaching which the Jews missed or resisted. It is in the old Scriptures, in psalm and prophecy, plainly enough; but the conception of the Messiah as a national Deliverer and conquering King had so possessed the minds of the people that the prophetic figures of suffering were willingly turned aside, referred to some other individual, or assumed to have been exhausted in the troubles of the writers. Yet the first promise made to men after the Fall gives hint of redemption by suffering (see especially Psa 22:1-31.; Isa 53:1-12.; and the Book of Lamentations). Explain the influence which the writings of David and the conflicts of the Maccabean princes had upon the national sentiment. And yet in this necessity for Messiah’s sufferings is declared the distinction between a temporal and a spiritual Savior. Christ’s weapons are not carnal. Of moral weapons none are mightier than suffering, and few can be used without involving suffering. The necessity for Christ’s suffering may be shown
(1) in his humiliation to man’s nature;
(2) in his sympathy with man’s disabilities;
(3) in his bearing of man’s burden. There was both suffering of feeling and suffering of circumstances.
II. MESSIAH MUST RISE. Of this the older Scriptures give witness. The kind of passages which the apostles took to prove this position are found in St. Peter’s first sermons; and the necessity may be shown
(1) in that the acceptance by God of his life and work on earth must in some way be attested, and
(2) in that we must have good ground of persuasion that Christ is alive and able to continue the good work which he has begun on earth. A Savior for men who was held fast in the death-grip plainly could not deliver man from death, the worst of his foes. Such a seeming Savior could not win our confidence, for it would appear to us that he was defeated at last. And, besides, we cannot trust a thing, a work; we must trust a person who has worked and can work, and therefore Messiah must rise from the dead and be alive for evermore.
III. MESSIAH IS JESUS OF NAZARETH. The things found to be necessary are met in him, and in him alone. Show the correspondence between the facts of the Christian teaching and the requirements of Scripture prophecy, and impress the personal demand which St. Paul makes to follow on his argument; then your loyalty, your trust, your love, your life, are demanded for Jesus Messiah.R.T.
Act 17:11
The nobility of the inquiring spirit.
The people of Beraea are commended for their disposition to inquire and search into the truth of Christianity as it was taught to them by the apostolic missionaries. They were not the slaves of prejudice. “With a quick and clear intelligence they searched the Scriptures daily to see whether they really did speak of a Christ who should suffer anti rise again. The Berean converts have naturally been regarded, especially among those who urge the duty or claim the right of private judgment, as a representative instance of the right relations of reason and faith, occupying a middle position between credulity and skepticism.“ The attitudes of men towards truth, as freshly revealed, or as revealed in fresh forms, are threefold:
(1) some are willfully antagonistic;
(2) some are weakly receptive;
(3) some are intelligently skeptical.
The word “skepticism” may be used in a good as well as in a bad sense. It properly stands for that disposition to question and doubt which is one of the features of the thoughtful and inquiring mind.
I. SKEPTICISM AS DEPENDENT ON NATURAL DISPOSITION. There are, in respect of this spirit, marked diversities in nations and in races. And there are answering differences in families and in individuals. Usually the skeptical spirit is found in men rather than in women, who are as remarkable for their receptivity as men for their tendency to criticism. The beginnings of what will afterwards appear as skepticism are found in children. Some will question the why and wherefore of everything that is told them, while others will open wide eyes, and take in as real, the strangest fairy tales that can be told them. A great part of the responsibility of parents and teachers lies in the need for culturing-cultivating or restrainingthe early signs of the skeptical spirit. Where the skeptical spirit is unduly developed the corrective spirit of faith must be nourished; and where credulity is excessive, the mind must he quickened to doubt. Ministers need to remember that both classes are found in their congregations, and that both classes have to be wisely led to intelligent faith.
II. SKEPTICISM AS FOSTERED BY INTELLECTUAL PRIDE. This is one of the gravest difficulties of our age, in which remarkable advances, in knowledge have been made. Those advances have chiefly borne relation to the sphere of the physical sciences, and in that sphere pride is readily nourished, because, apparently, all depends on men’s own observation and research. It becomes easy for men to sayWhat we observe and know is the truth; and there is no other truth than “truth of fact.” So we find all around us much skepticism in relation to the moral, spiritual, revelational spheres: a disposition to unreasonable doubt; to doubting for doubting’s sake. This needs to be wisely but firmly rebuked, and its real source, in mere pride of intellect, should be pointed out. The physical is not the only sphere through which God has revealed himself to his creatures; and it never can be a sign of human wisdom that the best three parts of God’s revelation are set aside as the dreams of dreamers.
III. SKEPTICISM AS A RESULT OF ASSOCIATIONS. As a disposition of mind, skepticism takes a place among infectious mental diseases, communicated very readily by association. A skeptical workman will infect his fellows. A skeptical student will change the tone of his college. A skeptical member of a family will destroy the recipiency of a whole family. So we, who have any kind of trust of others, need to be watchful over the influence of such persons. A minister’s influence in a congregation may be seriously resisted by the power among the people of one unreasonably critical and skeptical member. He will look with high hope on every sign of the Berean spirit, the spirit of intelligent inquiry and research, but he has fewer things that call for his watchful care than the infection of the skeptical spirit, which will at once impair his influence as a Christian teacher. And the association of books of a prevailing critical and unbelieving character will be found quite as dangerous as that of skeptical persons.
IV. SKEPTICISM AS AN IMPULSE TO INQUIRY. This is its good side; and in this the example of the Beraeans is commended to us. It is the spirit that seeks for two things:
(1) comprehension, or the distinct, clear, and intelligent understanding of any teachings; and
(2) verification, or adequate and reasonable grounds for belief.
But it is characteristic of intelligent inquiry that it seeks its proofs within the spheres of its subjects. If it inquires concerning physical principles, it seeks for proof and illustration in physical facts. If its sphere be moral or spiritual, it asks for moral or spiritual reason and proof. So the Bereans did not confuse the spheres and domains of inquiry. The matter was one of prophetic revelation and of answering historical fact, and therefore their inquiries concerned
(1) the actual contents of the revelation, and
(2) the credibility of the witnesses to the historical facts. Conclude by showing the relations of skepticism to faith. The noble man, the intelligent believer, must have won faith out of skepticismin the sense of humble and earnest inquiry. Those who are simply receptive have their mission in the world, and we desire to institute no unworthy, no discouraging comparisons; but for the active forms of Christian work, and for the emergencies of the Christian conflict, those are needed who have won faith out of fight. The Bereans are commended because they doubted and inquired; and yet this is the very thing which many nowadays would have feared. But one thing made their inquiries so safethey led them to the Scriptures, and to the searching of God’s revealed Word.R.T.
Act 17:19-21
The passion for something new.
Demosthenes said, in one of his speeches, “Tell me, is it all you care for, to go about up and down the market, asking each other, ‘Is there any news?'” The restless inquisitiveness of the Athenian character had all along been proverbial. It did not alone distinguish the Athenians, though it gained a peculiar prominence in their case. It has returned upon man in such power, now that telegraphs and newspapers bind the nations together, that it may profitably be made the subject of Christian meditation.
I. IT SOMETIMES COMES TO BE A DISEASE, A mental disease. A restlessness that we see illustrated in some children, who tire at once of their toys and crave for something new. We see it in the world of fashion, in which garments are speedily set aside, and the last new color, or shape, or material is eagerly sought. It is equally shown in the passion for the newest books, the last newspaper, the freshest opinion, the present excitement. It even afflicts Christian people, who in a crowd run after the newest revivalist, and cry for the latest novelty in doctrine or in Church method. It is a kind of feverish delirium, which palls the appetite, vitiates the taste, and makes patient continuance in well-doing impossible. It needs to be treated as a disease, and its influence in a family, in social life, and in the Church needs to be carefully checked. It is not progress that is usually sought, because true progress ever goes slowly; it is mere novelty that is sought. We may generally say that “the old is better.”
II. IT IS ONE OF THE SIGNS OF OVERDONE CIVILIZATION. It is a marked feature of a nation that is struggling up into civilization, that all its members must be workers, and none can be kept in idleness. To such a nation mere news is the amusement of its resting leisure hours; it cannot be the sober business of its days. But when nations have long reached the high levels of civilization, wealth has increased, multitudes can live in idleness, and, having nothing better to do, they may run after the latest stranger in art, or science, or music, or politics, or religion, and gathering round him say, “May we know what this new doctrine is, whereof thou speakest?” This is well illustrated in the case of the Athenians, who were surfeited with art and philosophy and superstitious religion. A city full of wealthy idlers, no doubt of good taste and cultured minds, who had nothing better to do than to run after the last new thing. The antidote for this evil is the preaching of the responsibility resting on every man to be a worker, and a worker for the general welfare. Nobody has any right to food and life save as they work, in some good way, for it. Workers soon get interest enough to stop their yearning for “something new.” Illustrate how these things may be applied to Church life. Church work is the great remedy for the hindering passion for novelty.
III. YET IT IS AN INDICATION OF THE UNIVERSAL ASPIRATION FOR IMMORTALITY. There is good in it; the evil of it lies
(1) in the forms it takes, and
(2) in the excessive degrees of its exercise.
That something in us all which cannot rest, which must seek for something more; which rises up above all bondages and limitations; which is as
“An infant crying in the night,
An infant crying for the light;”
is but the aspiration of souls made in the image of God, who cry for permanence, for holiness, for rest, for God, and “can find no rest until they find rest in him.” We must seek after something new, on and on, until we find God. And Scripture inspires us to such seeking; for it assures us that “Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath the heart of man conceived, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.” And though, in measure, these have been revealed unto us by the Spirit, yet again we are led on by the Word; for “it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.”R.T.
Act 17:23
“The unknown God.”
For description of the statues and altars to various divinities with which Athens was crowded, see Conybeare and Howson, ‘Life and Epistles of St. Paul,’ vol. 1. pp. 415-417. “Roman satirists say, ‘ It was easier to find a god in Athens than a man.’ Athenian religion ministered to art and amusement, and was entirely destitute of moral power. Taste and excitement alone were gratified. A religion which addresses itself only to the taste is as weak as one that appeals only to the intellect.” In illustration of the altar to which St. Paul here alludes, Aulius Gellius says, “The ancient Romans, when alarmed by an earthquake, were accustomed to pray, not to a specified divinity, but to a god expressed in vague language, as avowedly unknown.” For further illustration, see the Expository portion of this work; and ‘Commentary for English Readers,’ in loc. We now fix attention on
I. THE CONFUSIONS OF POLYTHEISM. Its worshippers can never be quite sure that they have propitiated the right god, seeing that gods are supposed to be related to particular places, nations, events, sins, etc. This confusion tends to create a more and more elaborate ritual, and a wearisome round of ceremonies. All gods who may possibly be related to the matter in hand must be propitiated, and then the right one may be missed.
II. THE RESTFULNESS OF MONOTHEISM. One God stands related to all nature, to all events, to all ages, to all sins; and if we can know him and secure right relations with him, there is no one else to fear, no one else to come on us with claims. Behind God there is nobody and nothing. Rest in him is rest forever.
III. THE NULL SATISFACTION or THE ONE GOD KNOWN IN CHRIST. “Manifest in the flesh.” Show how men in seeking after God want some form under which they may present him to their minds. This necessity is the secret cause of all idol-making. And God has graciously met it, and fully satisfied it, by presenting to us himself, apprehended as the “Man Christ Jesus.” And this incarnation of the one and only God St. Paul preached to the Athenians. The name of the “unknown God’ is Jesus, the Christ.R.T.
Act 17:23
Athenian religion.
“Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you.” The materials for an introduction are found in the following suggestive passage from F.D. Maurice:”This language assumed that the Athenians were in search of God; that they were ignorantly worshipping him; that they had a sense of his being a Father; that they wanted some one living human image of him, to supplant those images of him which they had made for themselves This teaching was adapted to all that was true and sound in the Greek mind. The Greek asked for one who should exhibit humanity in its perfection; and he was told of the Son of man. He felt that whoever did so exhibit humanity must be Divine. The Son of man was declared to be the Son of God. He had dreamed of one from whom the highest glory man could conceive must have proceeded. He was told of the Father. He had thought of a Divine presence in every tree and flower. He heard of a presence nearer still to himself.” We may learn from St. Paul’s speech how we ought to think of the Gentile nations of the earth, and what it lies upon us to do on their behalf. He shows us what “gospel”what “good news of God”has to be taken to the nations; and, by his example, he indicates in what spirit the message should be taken. Speaking amidst the surroundings of idol altars, statues, and temples, St. Paul
I. RECOGNIZES THE RELIGIOUSNESS OF THE ATHENIANS. He was placed in a position of exceeding difficulty. To have attacked those pagan divinities in the very midst of their sanctuaries and altars, and before the very court which guarded the national religion, would have closed the cars of his audience to any message which he might deliver, and might have put him in some personal danger. In his speech he heartily recognizes the worshipping instinct; he sees the dissatisfaction with all existing forms of worship which indicates an aching and yearning of soul to know the full truth of God. To the unrest which the strangely inscribed altar revealed, he made his appeal. He does not attempt to break down their confidence in Zeus, Athene, or their companion divinities. He appeals to the want which no mere deification of human attributes or powers of nature could possibly satisfy. St. Paul admits a real worship in paganism. He admits that the incompleteness and imperfectness of the worship followed from their ignorance, He attempts to guide the worshipping faculty aright, by instructing their understandings, and by declaring positive truths of Divine revelation.
II. THE APOSTLE PLAINLY MARKS THE ERRORS OF THE ATHENIANS. He does not hesitate to say, “ignorantly worship,” even to those who prided themselves on their learning. He accepts their own confession that they did not know the God to whom they raised their altar. They were wrong in their cherished conceptions of God, and wrong in the worship they offered to him. They lowered the very idea of God, by likening him to mere man-made images of gold and silver. They offered things to one who, being a Father, cared for hearts, and for things only as they carried messages of love and trust. The sacrifices of the true God are a “broken and a contrite heart,” and they who “worship the Father must worship him in spirit and in truth.” Three conceptions of God are essential as the foundations of true doctrine and true worship.
1. His unity. “There is no God but God.”
2. His spirituality. “God is a Spirit.”
3. His righteousness, He has been called, and the name has in it good suggestion, “The Eternal who makes for righteousness.”
III. THE APOSTLE DECLARES THE TRUTH WHICH THE ATHENIANS MISSED. “Him declare I unto you.” We may briefly summarize his presentation of the gospel revelation, as adapted to the Athenians.
1. He announces God to be a personal Being: no more force, like the sunlight or the evening breeze. No mere quality or virtue, such as they deified, raising altars to fame, to modesty, to energy, to persuasion, and to pity. God is living. He is one. He is the Source of all life, all breath, all being. You cannot imprison God in a statue, even though you may mould it of priceless gold. You cannot enshrine God in a temple, however gorgeous it may be.
2. Then St. Paul explains God’s seeming indifference to men through the long ages. It was a mystery, but only the mystery of patient, forbearing love, which waited until the children put all their souls into the cry for him.
3. And, finally, he tells them that the waiting-time is quite past, and the great Father has come to the children now, asking their trust and their love. And the Father’s nearness is to be apprehended through the human manifestation of his Son. “He preached unto them Jesus.”R.T.
Act 17:28, Act 17:29
God’s offspring.
“For we are also his offspring.” The source whence St. Patti derived this quotation is given in the Exegetical portion of this Commentary. It may be well to point out how such a classical quotation would secure the sustained attention of his audience. Dean Plumptre suggestively remarks, “The method of St. Paul’s teaching is one from which modern preachers might well learn a lesson. He does not begin by telling men that they have thought too highly of themselves, that they are vile worms, creatures of the dust, children of the devil. The fault which he finds in them is that they have taken too low an estimate of their position. They too had forgotten that they were God’s offspring, and had counted themselves, even as the unbelieving Jews had done (Act 13:46), ‘ unworthy of eternal life.'” The truth set before us in the text is that of the fatherly relation of God to all men, and the answering child-relation of all men to God.
I. THE FACT SEES IS ITS UNIVERSALITY. It is commonly assumed that St. Paul meant no more than to remind his audience that there was only one Creator, and that all men were made in his image. But he must have further designed
(1) to reveal God to them;
(2) to give them the best of names for him;
(3) and to awaken in them the sense of his universal claims to love and trust.
III. THE RELATIONS OF SON AND FATHER THUS INVOLVED. These cannot be made by Christ; they belong to us, and are the very conditions of our being.
1. Christ does enable us to recognize the relation.
2. He does restore it as a broken relation.
3. He does show the glory of the relation in his own human life.
4. He does help us, by his grace and Spirit, to meet and fulfill the claims of the relation. “Because we are sons, God hath sent forth the spirit of his Son into our hearts.”
III. THE ARGUMENT FOR THE SPIRITUALITY OF GOD THUS INDICATED. Work out and illustrate:
1. That a thing can never be superior to its maker. If God made us, he must be better than we are, and we are manifestly better than speechless statues.
2. Man, the son, is a spiritual being; then God, the Father, must be spiritual too.
IV. THE CLAIMS OF GOD ON MEN THUS ENFORCED. Fatherhood means authority. What God commands we must heed. He commands two things.
1. That we should repent.
2. That we should receive his gift of eternal life in Christ. “God hath given unto us eternal life, and this life is in his Son.”R.T.
Fuente: The Complete Pulpit Commentary
Act 17:1. Amphipolis and Apollonia Were two cities of Macedonia; the first was built by Cimon the Athenian, who sent 10,000 Athenians as a colony thither. It stood in an island of the river Strymon, and had the name of Amphipolis, from the river’s running on both sides of the city. The latter was a colony of Corinthians and Corcyreans, near the sea-side. St. Luke seems to have gone no further than Philippi with the apostle at this time; but Silas and Timothy still accompanied him; and passing through these two cities, they came to Thessalonica, another celebrated city, and the metropolis of that part of Macedonia; very famous for its origin, situation, and amplitude: it was a maritime town remarkable for its trade and commerce, in which many Jews had settled. It stood upon the Termaian bay, and was anciently called Thermae; but being rebuilt and enlarged by Philip the father of Alexander the Great, upon his victory over the Thessalians, it was in memory of the fact called Thessalonica, which signifies, “The victory of Thessalia.” It is now, by a corrupt pronunciation, called Saloniki, and is a maritime trading town inthe possession of the Turks. Where was a synagogue of the Jews, might perhaps be rendered more properly, where was the synagogue of the Jews; the only synagogue, possibly, which they had in Macedonia.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Act 17:1 . Amphipolis , an Athenian colony, at that time the capital of Macedonia prima (comp. on Act 16:12 ), around which on both sides flowed the Strymon. Apollonia , belonging to the Macedonian province Mygdonia, was situated 30 miles to the south-west. It is not to be confounded with Apollonia in Macedonian Illyria. Thessalonica lay 36 miles to the west of Apollonia so called either (and this is the most probable opinion) by its rebuilder and embellisher, Cassander, in honour of his wife Thessalonica (Dionys. Hal., Strabo, Zonaras), or earlier by Philip, as a memorial of his subjection of Thessaly (Stephan. Byz., Tzetzes), at an earlier period Therme , on the Thermaic gulf, the capital of the second district of Macedonia, the seat of the Roman governor, flourishing by its commerce, now the large and populous Saloniki , still inhabited by numerous Jews; see Lnemann on 1 Thess . Introd. 1.
] Beza held the article to be without significance. The same error occasioned the omission (approved by Buttmann in the Stud. u. Krit . 1860, p. 360) of in A B D , min. Lachm. But the article marks the synagogue in Thessalonica as the only one in all that neighbourhood. Paul and Silas halted at the seat of the synagogue of the district, according to their principle of attempting their work in the first instance among the Jews.
Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary
D.Labors And Experiences In Thessalonica And Berea
Act 17:1-15
1Now when they had passed [journeyed] through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where was a [the, ]1 synagogue of the Jews: 2And Paul, as his manner [custom] was, went in unto them, and [on] three sabbath days, reasoned2 [discoursed] with them out of the Scriptures, 3Opening and alleging [setting forth], that Christ must needs have suffered, and risen again [that it was necessary () for the Messiah ( ) to suffer and to rise] from the dead; and that this Jesus, whom3 I preach unto you, is Christ, [that This one is the Messiah ( .), Jesus, whom I announce to you]4. 4And some of them believed, and consorted with [were convinced, and were allotted to] Paul and Silas; and of the devout Greeks a great multitude, and of the chief women not a few. 5But the Jews which believed not, moved with envy, took unto them certain lewd fellows of the baser sort [But the Jews5 associated with themselves some base men belonging to the populace of the market], and gathered a company, and set all the city on an uproar [and excited a tumult in the city], and assaulted [placed themselves before] the house of Jason, and sought to bring them out to [them before] the people. 6And [But] when they found them not, they drew [dragged] Jason and certain brethren unto the rulers of the city [before the city magistrates ()], crying, These that have turned the world upside down [stirred up the world] are come hither also; 7Whom Jason hath received [as guests]: and these all do contrary [act in opposition] to the decrees of Cesar [commands of the emperor], saying that there is another king, one Jesus [that another is the king, Jesus]. 8And they troubled [disquieted] the people and the rulers of the city [the city magistrates], when they [who] heard these things. 9And when they had taken security of Jason, and of the others, they let them go [dismissed them]. 10And [But] the brethren immediately sent away Paul and Silas by night unto Berea [Beroea]: who coming [these having come] thither went into the synagogue of the Jews. 11These were more noble [But () these were of a better character] than those in Thessalonica, in that they [; they] received the word with all readiness of mind [om. of mind], and [inasmuch as they] searched the Scriptures daily [day by day], whether those things were so. 12Therefore [Thus then, ] many of them believed; also of honourable women which were Greeks, and of [also of the respectable Grecian women and] men, not a few. 13But when the Jews of Thessalonica had knowledge [ascertained] that the word of God was preached of [by] Paul [also, ] at Berea, they came thither also, and stirred up6 [came thither, and sought there also to disturb]6 the people. 14And [But] then immediately the brethren sent away Paul to go as it were [that he might proceed]7 to the sea: but Silas and Timotheus abode there still [remained there]. 15And they that conducted8 Paul brought him unto [as far as] Athens: and receiving a commandment [charge] unto Silas and Timotheus for to [that they should] come to him with all speed, they departed.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
Act 17:1. Now when they had passed through, etc.Paul and Silas, accompanied by Timotheus, after leaving Philippi, proceeded to Amphipolis, which was situated on the Strymon, by the waters of which it was surrounded. [Not far from the coast, the Strymon spreads out into a lake; between the lower end of this lake and the inner reach of the Strymonic gulf, Amphipolis was situated on a bend of the river. (Conyb. and H. I. 341.). Comp. Thuyc. IV. 102. Its distance from Philippi was 33 Roman miles.Tr.]. Without pausing in this place, they travelled 30 miles further, in a south-easterly direction to Apollonia [the exact position of which has not been ascertained (Conyb., etc. p. 343).Tr.], and, rapidly passing onward, continued their journey until they reached Thessalonica [37 miles distant from Apollonia]; here they remained about four weeks [three sabbath-days, i.e., in succession.Tr.]. This city was situated on [the inner bend of] the Thermaic gulf [half-way between the Adriatic and the Hellespont]; it had become, under the Roman sway, a very populous and wealthy commercial city, was the capital of the second district of the province of Macedonia, and was also the residence of a Roman Prtor. The Jews must have established themselves, in large numbers, in this city; their synagogue appears to have been the only one that existed in northern Macedonia. The definite article before . . ., which is omitted in several manuscripts, because it was not understood by some copyists, means that no synagogue had been built in Philippi, Amphipolis or Apollonia, that the Jews who possibly dwelt in those cities possessed only a place of prayer (), and that they belonged, as it were, to this synagogue in Thessalonica. [Grotius].
Act 17:2-3. As his manner [custom] was.Lukes attention is primarily arrested by a fact which he, accordingly, places prominently before our view, viz., that Paul had here, too, faithfully adhered to his custom of preaching the Gospel first of all in a synagogue, wherever he found one; (hence the unusual and somewhat abstract mode of expression is employed: ). [The construction involves an attraction, and anticipates the subject; see Winer, 66. 4 ff. (Meyer).Tr.]. In this synagogue he conversed, on three successive sabbaths, with the Jews. The word (imperfect, the act being repeated several times) usually indicates a dialogue, less frequently, an independent address. ( . ., that is, deriving his arguments from the Scriptures). His communications consisted in the opening and setting forth of two truths to his hearers, in accordance with the Old Testament, (Bengel says: ut si quis nucleum, fracto cortice, et recludat et exemptum ponat in medio): first, that, according to the prophecies, it was necessary that the Messiah should suffer and rise again; secondly, that This One, namely Jesus, is the Anointed One. It is certainly the most simple interpretation to regard (with Luther, Bengel [and Hackett]) as the subject, and X as the predicate, in which case . . are words that are introduced merely as explanatory of . [See note 4 above, appended to the text.Tr.]. It is a forced construction when the words X are regarded as a predicate (Meyer), in the following sense: This Messiah, described in the Scriptures, who necessarily suffered and rose again. And another construction as little commends itself by any internal evidence, according to which X , not separated by a comma, constitute the predicate (de Wette, Baumgarten [and Alexander]), and the sense would be: This is the Christ Jesus whom I preach.
Act 17:4-5. And some of them believed.The explanations of Paul were partially successful. The arguments adduced from the Old Testament to prove the Messianic dignity of Jesus, convinced (, descriptive of the progress of the argument) some (a few, as it would seem), of the Jews, but also many Hellenic proselytes [comp. Act 13:48; Act 13:50], who visited the synagogue, and not a few respectable women of Hellenic origin, who were also proselytes [of the first women, i.e., first in rank and social position. (Alex.).Tr.]; all these were allotted to Paul and Silas. means to add by lot, sorte lectum adjungere, or, in general, to attach to, and is here to be taken in a passive sense, so that God Himself appears as the author of the allotment; see below Doctr. no 2. [In Act 17:4, is obviously to be taken in a passive sense. (Winer: Gram. N. T. 39. 2. ult.).Tr.]. The majority of the Jews, on the other hand, could not be induced to believe. Their course is accurately described by the readings and [the former in E., the latter in D. G. H.; see above, note 5, appended to the text.Tr.]; and , as the antithesis to , Act 17:4, shows that the believers constituted an exception, and consisted of an inconsiderable minority. , which is, undoubtedly, a spurious reading, is intended to state, in accordance with the analogy in Act 13:45, the feeling or motive which influenced them in their actions. The unbelieving Jews excited a persecution against the messengers of the faith, after having first gained over certain unprincipled and venal idlers and loungers about the market. ( frequently occurs in classic Greek.). [Such men as Aristophanes calls ; Demosthenes, ; Xenophon, ; Plutarch, ; see many other instances in Wetstein, who mentions the modern canaille (canalicol). Cicero calls them subrostrani; Plautus, subbasilicani. (Alf.).Tr.]. With the aid of these men, the unbelieving Jews raised a mob: and now these threatening masses collected before the house of one Jason, where the missionaries lodged. We possess no other information respecting Jason. We learn from the narrative before us that he resided in Thessalonica, that he had connected himself with the Christian congregation which had recently been formed in that city, and that he was the host of Paul and his two companions. It cannot now be determined whether he was a Jew by birth, and changed his Hebrew name Joshua or Jesus, into the Greek form Jason (Ewald) [after the example of the brother of the high priest Onias III. (2Ma 4:7, and Joseph. xii. 5. 1.), which is not probable;Tr.], or whether he was originally a Greek. The mob which assembled before his house, intended to seize the two strangers, and bring them out to the people ( . ), that is, to abandon them to the passions of the excited multitude.
Act 17:6-9. a. And when they found them not.As the principal persons had withdrawn from the house which was threatened, (perhaps in consequence of a timely warning), the Jews seized, in their place, the host himself, together with some other Christians, and dragged them before the magistrates of the city. (It is a remarkable circumstance that the somewhat rare word , which occurs here, is found in a Greek inscription referring to Thessalonica; see Boeckh: Inscript. II. p. 52, No. 1967). [The marble arch on which the inscription is engraved, may have existed at the time of Pauls visit to Macedonia; a copy will be found in Conyb. and H. I. 360. Thessalonica, as an urbs libera, was self-governed, and its supreme magistrates were termed politarchs.Tr.]. The Jews accused Jason and his friends, amid violent and passionate outcries, of having created political disturbances, and already thrown the whole World into confusion. The exaggeration involved in the term , corresponds precisely to the excited feeling that prompted it. The words are intended to make all the Christians indiscriminately, the absent leaders, and these adherents, accountable for a violation of positive enactments of the emperor, namely, for acknowledging another, that is, Jesus, as king. The are those edicts which defined the penalties of high treason. (Meyer). is here a generic term, comprehending both the imperial majesty, and also the royal dignity of the Messiah. [The Greeks applied this term to the emperor, though the Romans never styled him rex. (Hackett).Tr.]
b. These that have turned the world upside down.These charges produced their intended effect; both the people and the magistrates began to entertain serious apprehensions [lest political tumults should attract the vengeance of the Roman authorities. (Conyb. etc. I. 356.)Tr.]. Hence, the magistrates took security of Jason and the other Christians, before they released them. T , like the Latin satisdatio, satis accipere, was the technical term applied in law to any security, whether it consisted of a sum of money deposited in court, or of personal bail; the former is, without doubt, the meaning in the present case. The conjecture of Chrysostom that Jason himself became surety is refuted by the words .For what, however, were Jason and the others required to give security? They were, doubtless, compelled to pledge themselves that they would not attempt to carry out any treasonable plans, but it is scarcely probable that Jason bound himself to refuse his hospitality thenceforward to Paul and his associates. For the motive which led to the immediate removal of Paul and Silas, seems to have been furnished solely by suspicions respecting their opponents, who, as it was apprehended, might adopt further hostile measures against the missionaries. Timotheus, who is not mentioned in Act 17:10, (comp. Act 17:14), probably remained at Thessalonica, and, at a somewhat later period, repaired to Berea.
Act 17:10-12. Berea [, Bera] belonged to the third district of Macedonia, of which Pella was the capital; it was situated on the southern extremity of the province, [about 45 miles] southeast of Thessalonica. The reception which the numerous Jews of this place gave to the preachers of the Gospel, was very different from that which the latter had found at Thessalonica. The resident Jews were than those of the latter city, that is, entertained nobler sentiments; the sense is, not generosiores as to their descent, but magis ingenui. This fact they demonstrated as well by their unconditional willingness ( ) to receive the Gospel, as by the earnestness and perseverance of their zeal in daily ( , comp. Luk 19:47) searching the Scriptures, whether those things were so (, as they were represented to them). The result () was, that many of the Jews became believers ( , and not, as in Thessalonica, Act 17:4, only ); and, besides, many proselytes, men and women of a high position, were converted. [ is constructed with , but, at the same time, refers also to ; see Matthi 441. (Meyer).Tr.]. (, as in Act 13:50, is here again to be taken, not according to the classical usage, in a moral, but in a social sense, precisely like the English word respectable.).
Act 17:13-15. But when the Jews.The Jews of Thessalonica attempted to interfere with the work also in Berea ( , i.e., here, too, as in Thessalonica, exciting the multitude, , the populacedesignedly, not .). The Christians, in order to prevent an outbreak, at once sent Paul away, whilst Silas and Timotheus (who had, in the mean time, joined them, Act 17:10; Act 17:14), remained for the present in Berea. in the phrase ., is not intended to indicate a feint, as if Paul had only seemed to proceed to the sea [in order to elude pursuit], (Bengel; Neander), for he did really go by sea. If he had not taken that route, some mention would unquestionably have been made of the road which he took, and the cities, which he visited. The word , therefore, simply expresses his purpose, i.e., ., to proceed in the direction of the sea. [Erasmus correctly remarks: Probabilius est eum navigasse quia nulla fit mentio eorum, qu Paulus in itinere gesserit, cui fuerint tot civitates peragrand. There is nothing in the subsequent narrative which necessarily implies that Paul traveled to Athens by land. (Meyer). This view Winer adopts, Gram. N. T. 66. 9.See note 7, appended to the text, above.Tr.]. means to transfer or conduct any one elsewhere; , they departed from Athens.
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
1. When Paul set forth the truth to the Israelites, he invariably took the Holy Scriptures as the foundation of his remarks. It is written, is the principle which, like the Redeemer Himself, the apostle adopted. The method which the latter pursued, is here exhibited with more distinctness, than on any other occasion. He begins with the Messiah of the old covenant, the prophecies and types, and proves that the Messiah is, essentially, one who suffers, but also one who necessarily rises again. It was his first object to convey a knowledge of the prophetic word in its true and natural connection, or, simply, to unfold the Christology of the old covenant. This part was, preeminently, a . But, secondly, Paul makes the following declaration: Jesus of Nazareth, whom I preach, is the Messiah; he was crucified, and is risen again; the true conception of the Anointed of God, and the facts connected with his manifestation, concur in Jesus, and in Him alone. This is .
2. The conviction which was produced in many hearers, and their entrance into an intimate communion of faith and life with Paul and Silas, were not human works wrought by the latter, but were the work of God; the passive verb, , incontrovertibly refers to God as essentially the Author of all. It may be added that the leading thought involved in this word, is that which is expressed by . The phrase: associated with Paul and Silas by lot, cannot possibly mean: assigned to them as their lot, as the portion, property, and gain, of the two men; such a conception derives support from no source whatever. On the other hand, the term may possibly include the thought that the lines had fallen in pleasant places [Psa 16:6] to the new converts themselves, and that by being associated with Paul and Silas, God himself had become their portion, and his grace their lot. (Comp. Psa 16:5-6.).
3. The experiences of the messengers of Jesus Christ in Philippi, were repeated in Thessalonica, where they were suspected of having caused political disturbances, and were subjected to the charge of high treason. On both occasions the whole power of the Roman empire appears as a barrier to Christianity, resisting it in its effort to conquer the world. The two cases differ in the following points: 1. In Philippi, public usage and the general habits of a Roman colonial city are represented as circumstances which forbid the introduction of new customs; in Thessalonica, on the other hand, the majesty of the emperor, and the imperial legislation, are represented as adverse to Christianity. 2. In Thessalonica, the Person of Jesus is opposed to that of the emperor; the proclamation of the kingdom of Jesus, as the Messiah, is represented as a crime and as treason against the emperor; this course was not pursued in Philippi. It is possible that the statements of Paul (Act 17:3), which prominently set forth the true conception of the Messiah, and the Davidic royalty of Jesus, may have been so misinterpreted as to sanction these suspicions. 3. Another difference may be found in the circumstance that, at Philippi, the political accusation proceeded exclusively from a heathen source, whereas, in Thessalonica, it was prompted by the Jews; the latter, accordingly, espoused the interests of Rome and the emperor with dishonest intentions, or merely for the purpose of being furnished with a weapon against the Gospel. But, by adopting this plan, they denied the Messianic hope of Israel, and renounced Him, who is, nevertheless, their King and our own: we will not have this man to reign over us [Luk 19:14]. The whole procedure is a type of those hostile movements, the object of which has been to expose Christianity to the suspicion of being a source of political offences, and which have often injured the cause of the Gospel; Christianity has been uniformly represented, in such cases, as a kingdom of this world, and political and religious aspects have been confoundedan old stratagem of the enemies of Christ.
4. Christian nobility of soul () consists in a sincere willingness of mind to receive the word of God, and in an unfeigned and earnest love of the truth. It exhibits the two features, first, of adaptedness to receive, and, secondly, of voluntary action ()humble submission, and independent inquiry. True faith is not like the colliers faithit is not a blind credulityit does not dispense with reason, evidence, and argument. It is, on the contrary, praiseworthyit is a Christian virtueto prove all things with sincerity and earnestness, to investigate, to institute a thorough search. And the authority of a teacher and pastor should never prevail to such an extent, that the hearer is expected to dispense with a personal search, and with personal convictions of his own conscience, as soon as the former has spoken. In the present case, it was an apostle who taught; nevertheless, the people of Berea did not blindly accept his words, but first searched whether his statements were correctwhether he taught the truth. And they are not censured for having adopted this course, but are, on the contrary, commended for the noble spirit which animated them. This is liberty of consciencethe evangelical method of searching the Scripturesthe exercise of the common priesthood of believers.
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
Act 17:1. Came to Thessalonica.Paul himself remarks (1Th 2:2), that although he had been shamefully entreated at Philippi, he had, nevertheless, been bold in his God, when he came to Thessalonica. It is in such a frame of mind that a servant of God should proceed from one work to another, from one trial to another, from one victory to another. (Ap. Past.).
Act 17:2. Three sabbath days reasoned with them out of the Scriptures.Paul always began the preaching of the Gospel, by taking the Scriptures as the basis; his apostolical character did not free him from the control of the latter. He had already borne witness on many occasions by miracles and powers; nevertheless, he held fast to the Scriptures, and drew his testimony concerning Jesus from the prophets. May the Lord closely connect, in our day, the heart and mouth of every witness with the Scriptures. Every departure from the latter, inflicts an irreparable injury on the doctrine or Christian walk. (Ap. Past.).For three whole sabbath days he discoursed with them, unweariedly enduring their contradictions. The fact here stated, may seem to be of comparatively little importance; but the pain which the apostle suffered during those three days, was greater than that which the scourging at Philippi inflicted. The Jewish schools, were schools of patience to him. (Besser).
Act 17:3. That Christ must needs have suffered and risen again.Paul had no other theme than that of the crucifixion and the resurrection of Jesus; and now, after the lapse of so many centuries, we can find no subject that is more important and profitable than that of the sufferings and resurrection of Jesus. Still, when a subject that is so comprehensive, occupies us, we need wisdom in selecting precisely those points which are of most importance to our hearers. In the case of the Jews, the most important point was the necessity of the personal sufferings of the Messiah, (Ap. Past.).
Act 17:4. And some of them believed.The blessing which attends even the best teachers, is gradually developed. At first, a single hearer, then several, then many, are reached; compulsion cannot be applied. (Ap. Past).And of the chief women not a few.Grace does not give the preference to persons in high station, but neither does it repel them, 1Co 1:26-28. (Starke).
Act 17:5. Took unto them certain lewd fellows of the baser sort.The world makes use even of the low populace in executing its plans. When those who belong to the populace accept the Gospel, they are treated with scorn, and the saying is repeated; It is only the ignorant multitude that follows Him (Joh 7:47-49). But when the world is successful in stirring up the populace against the Gospel, and in silencing the voice of truth by loud outcries, that populace is found to be an appropriate instrument. (Rieger).
Act 17:6. These that have turned the world upside down.How greatly the world fears the kingdom of God! How it dreads lest its own works, which are of clay, should be overthrown! It has vast numbers of supporters, and yet, when ten Christians assemble together, it is disquieted by the fear that they will inflict an injury upon it. (Rieger).The apostles did, indeed, arouse the whole world; but their object was, not rebellion, but conversionnot destruction, but salvation. (Starke).Although these bitter enemies endeavored to ruin the apostles by the foulest calumnies, their fury nevertheless impels them to bear honorable witness to the extension and power of the Gospel. Blessed are those witnesses of Jesus, whose preaching is followed by a powerful awakening and a salutary disquietude. (Ap. Past.).Christ came not to send peace, but a sword [Mat 10:34]! I. The Gospel, unquestionably, creates a disturbance: (a) internally, in the heart (Rom. Acts 7.); (b) externally, in the social relations of men (Mat 10:34). II. But this disturbance alone can produce true peace: (a) peace in the heart; (b) peace in the world.The words: These are the men that have turned the world upsied down, comprehend a well-founded complaint against the apostles, and, at the same time, an honorable testimony in their favor: I. A well founded complaint; for the whole internal and external world is transformed by the Gospelthe heart and the conduct; the family and the state; art and science. II. An honorable testimony; for it is their aim, in all these departments, not to subvert and destroy, but to regenerate and glorify.The appearance of Christianity, the greatest, but also the most righteous, revolution recorded in the history of the world: I. The greatest, (a) in view of its extent (embracing the whole world in its plan); (b) in view of its depth (its proper field is the human mind). II. The most righteous, (a) on account of its aim (the salvation of the world); (b) on account of the means which it employs (the weapons of the Spirit).It is a little while, and I will shake the heavens, and the earth, and the sea, and the dry land! This ancient prediction of the shaking of the world (Hag 2:7; Heb 12:26; comp. the twilight of the gods, in the Northern mythology) is verified in Christianity: I. Internally, (the hearts of men are shaken); II. Historically, (the world is transformed); III. Eschatologically, (the renewing of the heaven and the earth.)
Act 17:7. Saying that there is another king, one Jesus.To confound the status politicus with the cause of Jesus, and hinder the progress of his kingdom by arousing the jealousy of the civil government, is an old stratagem of the enemies of Christ. (Ap. Past.).It is true that faithful teachers do preach another King, but it is He who rules only by humility and the cross. By Him the kings of the earth reign, and He makes kings of all His true servantsin heaven. Rev 1:5-6. (Quesnel).
Act 17:9. And when they had taken security of Jason.What a warm friend the Gospel had won for Paul in Jason, in the course of a few days! (Williger).It is a noble act to become surety for persecuted Christians, for the whole world is ashamed of them. (Gossner).
(On Act 17:1-9).Paul in Thessalonica: I. His labors, Act 17:1-4; II. Their close, Act 17:5-9. (Lisco).Evangelical preaching: I. Its matter is at all times the samefounded on the Scriptures, culminating in the Person of Jesus. II. Its result is at all times the samefavorable in individual cases, unfavorable in most cases, (id.).The enemies of the Gospel condemning themselves: I. They are compelled to pervert the truth, before they can complain of it (representing Christ and the apostles as insurgents); II. They commit precisely the sin of which they accuse the disciples (creating disturbances). (id).Paul and Jason, models for guests and hosts: I. The dangerous, and yet beloved guests; II. The endangered, and yet blessed host, Heb 13:2.
Act 17:10. Who coming thither, went into the synagogue.The flight of a servant of God, is merely a change of place, but not of his work, of his mind, of his zeal, or of his love for the cross. (Ap. Past.).
Act 17:11. And searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so.The Holy Scriptures are the true touchstone by which points of faith are to be tested, and the true and exclusive rule by which we are to be governed. (Starke).Pearls may be found in the deep waters of the Scriptures; may God send us additional divers, who can find them! (id.).Thou dost not accept a coin, O man, without examining it; why then shouldst thou lightly accept a creed, which., if false, will hereafter inflict an irreparable loss on thee?That man has a truly noble mind, whose faith is founded, not on man, but on the word of God. (Starke).Hence the apostles did not expect that men should be converted without light; they did not demand the colliers faith; they encouraged, instead of forbidding, their hearers to examine their doctrine, and compare it with the Scriptures. (Ap. Past.).The genuine spirit of inquiry is, in general, allied to the Gospel. Serious inquirers are not easily induced to pronounce a rash judgment respecting the word of God. They refrain, at least, from making those objections to the Gospel which, a superficial mind is always ready to advance. (Williger).
Act 17:12. Women and men.It may be that the women are mentioned before the men, because, as it frequently occurs, they were the first who received the faith, and the men were influenced by them. The growth of the kingdom of God depends, indeed, on the house and family, in which woman, unquestionably, finds an appropriate sphere. (Rieger, Starke, Williger).
Act 17:13. The Jews of Thessalonicacame thither also, and stirred up the people.Believers seldom labor with as much zeal for the truth, as the ungodly exhibit in opposing it; for the path of the former leads upward, and is difficult; that of the latter descends, and is easy. (Quesnel).
Act 17:15. Receiving a commandment unto Silas and Timotheus for to come to him with all speed.Paul did not wish to be alone, and did not believe that he could dispense with the aid of others; he desired fellow-laborers, who might pray, testify, contend, and suffer, in company with himself. (Gossner.).
(On Act 17:10-15).Christian nobility of soul (, Act 17:11): it is revealed, I. In a willing and candid acceptance of the divine word; II. In an independent and personal application of the word and salvation of God.Searching the Scriptures: it is, I. A blessed privilege; II. A sacred duty; III. A rare art of the evangelical Christian.A genuine scriptural faith, and an honest searching of the Scriptures, sustain each other: I. A faith which condemns such searching, is blind; II. A searching which despises the faith, mistakes the true way.The several stages which mark the judicious use of the Scriptures: I. A willing reception, as distinguished from levity and contempt, Act 17:11; II. Diligent searching as distinguished from a blind faith, Act 17:11; III. A living faith, as distinguished from a barren knowledge, Act 17:12.The excitement of the people, produced, respectively, by the Gospel, and by a fanatical spirit; (Act 17:13, compared with Act 17:16); I. The former builds up, Act 17:3-4; the latter destroys, Act 17:13; II. The former controls noble minds, Act 17:11; the latter governs the populace, Act 17:6; III. The former contends with the sword of the Spirit, Act 17:11; the latter, with carnal weapons, Act 17:6.[Act 17:10. The perseverance of Paul, as a preacher of the Gospel: I. Described; (a) no labors wearied him; (b) no dangers alarmed him; (c)no failures discouraged him. II. Its source; (a) a living faith; (b) an ardent love; (c) well-founded hope. III. Lessons taught by it; (a) to Christian pastors; (b) to anxious inquirers; (b) to experienced Christians.Tr.]
Footnotes:
[1]Act 17:1. [ before., of text. rec., from E. G. H., is omitted by Lach. and Tisch. in accordance with A. B. D. and Cod. Sin., but is retained by Alf. as genuine, and with him de Wette agrees,Tr.]
[2]Act 17:2. [of text. rec. from G. H., many minuscules, fathers, etc.] is to be unconditionally preferred to the other readings, viz., [of A. B. Cod. Sin., and adopted by Lach. and Tisch.], and [of D. E., and adopted by Born.], since the aorist could have easily been substituted here [by copyists] for the imperfect, inasmuch as the other verbs in the narrative are in the aorist. [The Vulg. here drops the perfect, and translates disserebat.Tr.]
[3]Act 17:3. a. [The margin of the Engl. Vers. proposes the insertion in Italics of said he after whom. See Winer: Gram. N. T. 63. I. 2. d. ult.; II. 2. and 64. 7.(Tynd., Cranm., Geneva, insert said he; Rheims omits the words).Tr.]
[4]Act 17:3. b. [Lach. and Tisch., but not Alf., omit before X., with A. B. Cod. Sin.; but it is inserted in B. G. H.The text. rec. omits the comma between X, and I., as Alf. also does, with Griesb., Knapp, Tisch., de Wette, etc. Lechler inserts I between commas, as his translation above shows, with Lach., Stier, etc.Tr.]
[5]Act 17:5. The shorter, and, probably, the original reading is simply II E. ., omitting the words ; the latter were, without doubt, prefixed to I . [by copyists] merely to complete the picture and assign the limits of the opposition. The manuscripts, in general, exhibit very considerable variations in the whole passage. [Alf. reads: II. . ; Tisch. inserts after I; Lach. reads Z. I. .; Tisch. and Scholz: II. I.. Born., in accordance with D. and some fathers, reads: . I..Meyer holds that the reading of Lachm. is sustained by external authority (A. B. minuscules; Vulg. viz. Zelantes autem Judi assumentesque de vulgo, etc. Syr. etc.), but believes that all these variations are additions to the original text, viz. II. .I.. He says that the latter is found only in the minuscule numbered 142, but that . is wanting in A. B. minuscules, versions, etc. The Cod. Sin. reads: Z. I. .See below, Exeg. etc. note on Act 17:4-5.Tr.]
[6]Act 17:13. [After , Lach., Tisch. and Born. insert , from A. B. D. Cod. Sin. Vulg.Alf., with text. rec., omits the two words in accordance with E. G. H.; Meyer and de Wette regard them as transferred from Act 17:8, . being a gloss on , and then, with , inserted in the text.Tr.]
[7]Act 17:14. [Instead of from G. H., Lach. and Tisch. adopt from A. B. E. Cod. Sin.; Meyer and Alf. suppose that this proceeded from a misunderstanding of the genuine , as if it indicated only a feint, whereas it really indicates the direction in which Paul went; Vulg. usque ad.; D. omits the word altogether. See Exeg. note below.Tr.]
[8]Act 17:15. [For of text. rec. from D (corrected). E. G. H., Lach., Tisch., and Alf. read , in accordance with A. B. D. (original).Cod. Sin. (original) exhibits only ., and in the next line, ; for the latter a later hand(C) substituted –. On the forms, see Winer, Acts 15 : The same editors omit after with A. B. D. Cod. Sin.; the text. rec. inserts it with E. G. H. Vulg.Tr.]
Fuente: A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures, Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical by Lange
CONTENTS
Paul and Silas prosecute their Circuit of preaching the Word through Thessalonica, Berea, and Athens. We have an awful Account of the latter.
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Now when they had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where was a synagogue of the Jews: (2) And Paul, as his manner was, went in unto them, and three sabbath days reasoned with them out of the Scriptures, (3) Opening and alleging, that Christ must needs have suffered, and risen again from the dead; and that this Jesus, whom I preach unto you, is Christ. (4) And some of them believed, and consorted with Paul and Silas; and of the devout Greeks a great multitude, and of the chief women not a few. (5) But the Jews which believed not, moved with envy, took unto them certain lewd fellows of the baser sort, and gathered a company, and set all the city on an uproar, and assaulted the house of Jason, and sought to bring them out to the people. (6) And when they found them not, they drew Jason and certain brethren unto the rulers of the city, crying, These that have turned the world upside down are come hither also; (7) Whom Jason hath received: and these all do contrary to the decrees of Caesar, saying that there is another king, one Jesus. (8) And they troubled the people and the rulers of the city, when they heard these things. (9) And when they had taken security of Jason, and of the other, they let them go.
It doth not appear that Paul, or any of his company, preached in the two first places noticed in this Chapter. Neither have we any mention made of them anymore than here, in all scripture. And what a striking consideration is it, that both those places are now, and for many a generation have been, in the hands of the Turks! I leave the Reader to his own reflections upon the subject.
Thessalonica was the chief city of Macedonia, larger than Philippi. The Jews, it should seem, were very numerous here, and had a Synagogue. And the Apostle, with Silas, and Timotheus, his companions, (see Act 17:15 ) during their abode among the Thessalonians, attended the worship in the Synagogues, and most ably preached to them Jesus. I say most ably, for we have full proof of it in both Epistles to the Thessalonians, which Paul afterwards sent to the Church there. I need not make quotations from those blessed writings, for it would swell my Poor Man’s Commentary to too large a size. Neither is it necessary, as the Reader can refer to both Epistles in proof. Indeed he would do well to read those Epistles, and this history together. But, of the Apostle’s success, the first Chapter of the First Epistle to the Thessalonians, fully proves. And of his labors among them night and day, the second Chapter of the same Epistle very sweetly testifies.
But while we notice with delight and thankfulness the work of the Lord prospering under the hand of his servants, in the call of the Redeemer’s people in Thessalonica, I pray the Reader no less to notice with myself the rejection made by the unbelieving Jews. Yes! The word of God so points out the solemn truth: and the earth in every age bears testimony in confirmation. As Paul said, so daily experience, both then and now, proves. We are, (said he,) where we make manifest the savor of his knowledge in every place, a sweet savor of Christ in them that are saved, and in them that perish. To the one, we are the savor of death unto death: and to the other, the savor of life unto life. And who is sufficient for these things? 2Co 2:14-16 . Oh! the wonders of distinguishing grace!
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Act 17:6-7
Trust is the postulate of the capacity to help ourselves in any great or noble work. It becomes impossible to do our part bravely without this perfect reliance on the co-operation of God…. No man will dare to follow a gleam of conviction which tends to overturn a world, unless he is sure that he is the interpreter of a Power who gave him that conviction, and who can guard it after his interpreter is gone.
R. H. Hutton, Theological Essays, p. 13.
References. XVII. 9. Expositor (6th Series), vol. vii. p. 115. XVII. 10. Ibid. vol. ii. p. 328. XVII. 10, 11. Ibid. (4th Series), vol. ii. p. 29. XVII. 10-12. Penny Pulpit, No. 1620, p. 9.
Neglect of Reading the Bible
Act 17:11
If we are Christians, we believe that God spoke to the writers of the Old and New Testaments in a way by which He has spoken to no other minds however exalted. There is another light in which I think we are bound to regard the Old and New Testaments; and that is given us in a word used by the Hebrew historian Josephus, and constantly since his time. The word is ‘Theocracy,’ the special government by God Himself. God governs the whole earth, the whole universe; but in a special way, through inspired prophets, priests, and kings, He governed His people Israel, and prepared them for the full and complete knowledge of His truth. If we do not study such a unique collection of writings with the utmost reverence and attention, where is our Christianity? ‘They searched the Scriptures daily, whether these things were so’.
I. That was the mind of the Apostles. Every doctrine, every teaching of the New Testament is founded on the Old, and depends on it. ‘I came not to destroy the Law,’ said our Lord, ‘but to fulfil.’ To all the Apostles, to all the Christians throughout the New Testament, the written word of the old Sacred Oracles is the very breath of the spiritual life, the ground and confirmation of all their hopes, the sanction and authority of all their beliefs.
II. That is entirely and absolutely the mind of the true Catholic Church. That is the mind and habit of all the Fathers. If you ask what about the early Church after the time of the Apostles? Did they treat the writings of Christ’s companions and Evangelists with the same awe and reverence with which Christ and His disciples had treated the Holy Scriptures of the Old Testament? Nothing can be more absolutely certain than that they did.
III. That was the mind of all the great Councils of the Church. Scripture was the standard of orthodoxy; Scripture the test of heresy. Every one of the Fathers who has left writings behind him proves every one of his opinions by appeal to the revealed word. When we come to our own Church, its view of Scripture is equally clear. If you ask in what spirit we are to apply the great and varied lessons of Holy Scripture, no two answers are possible to a Christian. From the time of the Fathers downwards it has been recognised that on the one hand there should be humble prayer for the guidance of the Holy Spirit, and great deference to the interpretations of the greatest theologians; on the other side a right and proper use of Reason.
W. M. Sinclair, Difficulties of Our Day, p. 62.
References. XVII. 11. H. H. Henson, The Value of the Bible, p. 83. Archbishop Benson, Living Theology, p. 19. A. G. Mortimer, The Church’s Lessons for the Christian Year, pt. iii. p. 128. R. F. Horton, Christian World Pulpit, vol. lxxii. p. 289. XVII. 15. B. J. Snell, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xlix. p. 164. Expositor (5th Series), vol. vi. p. 470. XVII. 16. W. H. Lyttelton, Missionary Sermons at Hagley, p. 41. D. Macrae, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xlvi. p. 326. XVII. 17. Expositor (5th Series), vol. ii. p. 269.
The Implications of the Resurrection
Act 17:18
The fact of Christ’s Resurrection being understood as actual and literal, let us ask, then, what are the great truths it implies and symbolises?
The Resurrection of our Lord, recognised as historic fact, has demonstrated its power in some other resurrections. These other resurrections are mighty witnesses to the fact and glory of the primal historic Resurrection.
I. First, then, mark the power of Christ’s Resurrection in the Sphere of Truth.
(1) Mark its revivifying action upon Judaism. Compared with the religions of the surrounding nations, the faith of the Jew was pre-eminent; its revelation of the righteous God, its insistence on the principle of holiness, its foreshadowing of immortality, invested it with unique authority and glory. Yet in course of time it ‘waxed old,’ it became ineffective and obstructive, it cumbered the ground, and the torch of Titus cremated it. But in the Resurrection of Jesus Christ Judaism arose from its ashes in transfiguration splendour. Its sacred literature palpitated with a strange power; from being a petrifaction, its temple became a living Church; its laws were vivified by the law of the spirit of life; from the insignificance of a provincial cult, it passed into supreme and universal authority and influence. ‘The first Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit.’
(2) Once more. Only as the gospel of the Resurrection is preached in heathen lands will the various faiths of the pagan pass into fulfilment. It was by this thought that St. Paul was guided in dealing with the Athenians. He recognised the merit and failure of their natural theology, and ‘preached Jesus and the Resurrection’ as the fulness of the truth after which they were striving. So will it be with the present moribund faiths of the Oriental nations: they will find their consummation in becoming related to the gospel of the Resurrection.
(3) Again, many truths held by our scientists, statesmen, philosophers, and social reformers assert themselves feebly, if they assert themselves at all. They are called by Lord Bacon ‘bedridden truths’; but they are even worse than that: they lie frigid and passive in shrouds, coffins, and catacombs; if not forgotten as dead men, they move society no more than do the dead. What will give them life? The enforcement and reception of the doctrines symbolised by the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. So much truth is paralysed and powerless because it has been divorced from the love, righteousness, and promise of the living God; and it is only as the risen Christ relates it once more to God and eternity, and baptises it with fire, that it lives, flashes, kindles, coerces, consumes, and transfigures.
II. Consider the power of Christ’s Resurrection as demonstrated in the Sphere of Righteousness. The great design of the Advent was to establish among us a Divine righteousness; and the distinct teaching of the New Testament is, that in Christ’s death lies the destruction of sin, and in His Resurrection the power of holiness. Everywhere in the New Testament the Resurrection enforces the claims of righteousness. It does not address our curiosity as clearing up certain intellectual problems which perplex us; nor does it excite the imagination with dramatic splendours, as it might so easily have done; but it appeals directly and exclusively to the conscience. It calls for righteousness sincere, essential, living righteousness in spirit and conduct. ‘We were buried therefore with Him through baptism unto death; that like as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we also might walk in newness of life.’ Purity of the body, of the life, of the mind, such purity as will bear the Divine eye, is the obvious implication of the Resurrection.
III. The power of Christ’s Resurrection as demonstrated in the Sphere of Civilization. According to Carlyle, ‘A nation of degraded men cannot be raised up except by what we rightly name a miracle’. This is the doctrine of Scripture. A nation of degraded men can be raised only by a miracle, and that miracle is the Resurrection of our Lord, which gives to the people a new conception of themselves, awakes in them lofty hopes, and opens to them new fountains of moral strength. The nations will not be saved by any number of little political tricks; nothing short of a resurrection suffices for their regeneration and glorification, and their resurrection becomes an accomplished fact in the power of Christ’s Resurrection.
The trumpet of the Gospel proclaiming the truth of Easter Sunday is the trumpet of national resurrection.
W. L. Watkinson, The Fatal Barter, p. 144.
References. XVII. 18. J. C. M. Bellew, Sermons, vol. ii. p. 36. F. D. Maurice, The Acts of the Apostles, p. 282. Expositor (5th Series), vol. i. p. 238; ibid. vol. ii. p. 222; ibid. vol. ix. p. 373. XVII. 18-23. Ibid. vol. ii. p. 263. XVII. 18-33. Ibid. p. 209. XVII. 20. T. F. Crosse, Sermons, p. 233. XVII. 21. F. Hastings, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xlix. p. 58. XVII. 22. J. Budgen, Parochial Sermons, vol. ii. p. 294. H. H. Snell, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xlvii. p. 372. XVII. 22, 23. J. Wordsworth, The One Religion, Bampton Lectures, 1881, p. 153. T. Binney, King’s Weigh-House Chapel Sermons, p. 113. XVII. 22, 31. Expositor (4th Series), vol. ii. p. 259; ibid. vol. x. p. 110. XVII. 23. F. W. Macdonald, Christian World Pulpit, vol. lvii. p. 374. J. M. Neale, Sermons Preached in a Religious House, p. 27. Expositor (5th Series), vol. i. p. 397; ibid. (7th Series), vol. v. p. 280. XVII. 24, 26, 27 J. Wordsworth, The One Religion, Bampton Lectures, 1881, p. 75. XVII. 24-28. C. Kingsley, The Good News of God, p. 238. G. A. Smith, Christian World Pulpit, vol. lxxiii. p. 321.
Groping After God
Act 17:26-27
Here we have the exquisite thought that God is brooding over the great races of men, that there never was a great nation no kindred, no people, no tongue, no tribe which was not dear to the Father’s heart quite as much as the Jewish people. Paul, in his great sweep of inspiration and Christian statesmanship, was able to think of every nation and race as having been located upon the earth’s surface, and as having been subjected to every blessed influence, that successively every race and every nation might grope after and find God. You must see how great and comprehensive God’s purpose was as conceived by the Apostle that every race was located and circumstanced that it might best find Him. So that brings us naturally to see: I. The Divine incentive to the human soul. That is, God has been moving over men and attracting them to Himself. (1) By His work and creation. (2) There are the daily mercies of Providence. (3) There has been the instinctive craving of the heart, for just as when you bring a shell from the ocean shore and place it in some room of yours in your home in a Midland county, it does not forget the ocean depth from which it came, but as you place it to your ear you are able to detect the roaring and sighing of the great sea, so the heart of man, torn from God, sighs for Him incessantly. (4) God sent great prophets. (5) I come back to Paul’s original conception, history, the stress of war, the incidence of famine, or pestilence, the struggle for supremacy, the failure of a nation to realise its desires, its patience under crushing defeat, its extension, the diminution of its territory, its collision with adjacent tribes, the struggle for survival all this was of God, all this was intended, all this was part of a Divine purpose, by the discipline the awful discipline of history, to drive men to seek Him.
II. Look for a moment at the limitations of natural religion. (1) You will notice that the heathen has a very inadequate idea of God; he is not sure of Him. (2) Natural religion has its limitations here; that men never know when God is satisfied with their offerings; always giving but never satisfied, never sure that their offerings are accepted or their souls forgiven. (3) The heathen mind is not sure about the future. (4) And, chiefly, never forget this, the state of the world is what it, is because natural religion has no dynamic. It is ethic, but not dynamic.
III. The Apostle came upon a familiar theme when he talked about the Man. How can I talk about that Man whom God has ordained? Because there is the evidence that all through the centuries Jesus Christ has influenced and saved men and loosed them from their sin.
F. B. Meyer, Christian World Pulpit, vol. lxxiii. p. 209.
Reference. XVII. 26-31. F. D. Maurice, Sermons, vol. v. p. 111.
The Nearness of God
Act 17:27
I. He is near to us in His essential Presence. As the Eternal Spirit, we believe His presence pervades all space. You remember the inscription on Ruskin’s monument near Derwentwater: ‘The Spirit of God is around us in the air we breathe; His glory in the light we see, and in the fruitfulness of the earth and the joy of His creatures’. This essential presence of God is recognised by every true believer, and is a sustaining power in his life as a Christian man. But it must be recognised as a precious fact of experience; it must be realised to be enjoyed.
II. He is near to us in the workings of His Providence.
III. He is near to us in the manifestation of His Divine Pity.
IV. He is near to us in His spiritual Provision.
T. J. Madden, Church Family Newspaper, vol. xiv. p. 32.
References. XVII. 27. Basil Wilberforce, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xlix. p. 376. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxxiii. No. 1973. J. Vaughan, Fifty Sermons (9th Series), p. 224. Expositor (4th Series), vol. vii. p. 101.
Act 17:28
This text occurs very often in the private letters of Melanchthon. Along with two others, ‘The hairs of your head are all numbered,’ and ‘None shall pluck My sheep out of My hand,’ it may be called the favourite text of his later years. We take a characteristic example of its use from a letter of 1554 to his son-in-law, Dr. Caspar Peucer, who was absent from Wittenberg at the time: ‘Dearest Son, By God’s favour, your daughter, your son, and their mother are all alive and very well. When I look at them and think of the weakness of humanity, I feel indeed how true it is that God is the guardian of our race, for so great is our weakness that we could not be preserved by our own natural strength. Let us, therefore, pray for protection and help from God, remembering that the Son of God said, “The hairs of your head are all numbered,” and it is written, “Cast thy burden upon the Lord and He shall sustain thee”. I have written this beside the cradles and amid the crying of the babies. May God keep them, for in Him we live, and move, and have our being.’
Corpus Reformatorum, vol. viii. No. 5581, col. 266.
References. XVII. 28. F. W. Farrar, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xlvii. p. 65. T. Sadler, Sunday Thoughts, p. 114. J. S. Boone, Sermons, pp. 90 and 107. Expositor (5th Series), vol. iii. p. 383; ibid. (6th Series), vol. iii. p. 393; vol. ix. p. 39. XVII. 28, 29. Ibid. vol. vii. p. 58. XVII. 29. R. F. Horton, This Do, p. 89. Expositor (4th Series), vol. viii. p. 271; ibid. (6th Series), vol. viii. p. 38. XVII. 30. Christian World Pulpit, vol. li. p. 143. J. Martineau, Endeavours After the Christian Life (2nd Series), p. 29. Expositor (5th Series), vol. viii. p. 62. XVII. 30, 31. F. E. Paget, Helps and Hindrances to the Christian Life, vol. L p. 96. Bishop Gore, Christian World Pulpit, vol. lvi. p. 406. J. J. Blunt, Plain Sermons (3rd Series), p. 17. Expositor (4th Series), vol. vii. p. 14. XVII. 31. Ibid. (5th Series), vol. ii. p. 275; ibid. vol. vi. p. 10; ibid. (6th Series), vol. iii. p. 128. XVII. 32. Ibid. vol. vii. p, 296. XVII. 34. J. M. Neale, Sermons Preached in Sackville College Chapel, vol. iv. p. 172. XVIII. 1. B. J. Snell, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xlix. p. 164. F. D. Maurice, The Acts of the Apostles, p. 293. XVIII. 2. Expositor (6th Series), vol. x. p. 418. XVIII. 1-4. T. Binney, King’s Weigh-House Chapel Sermons, p. 113. XVIII. 4-7. Expositor (6th Series), vol. viii. p. 238. XVIII. 5. Ibid. (4th Series), vol. vii. p. 9. XVIII. 8. Ibid. (6th Series), vol. xi. p. 346. XVIII. 9, 10. H. Bailey, The Gospel of the Kingdom, p. 116. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxvi. No. 1666. XVIII. 10. W. Baird, The Hallowing of our Common Life, p. 62.
Fuente: Expositor’s Dictionary of Text by Robertson
Chapter 59
Prayer
Almighty God, we come to thee in the name of Jesus Christ, and breathe our prayer through him who makes all prayer prevalent. We plead not our own case before thee; we stand beside the Cross of the Crucified, and through Christ the Lord our prayer is clothed with might. There is one Intercessor between God and man; there is a Days-Man who can lay his hand upon both and plead the human cause. All we can say is what he taught us “God, be merciful unto me a sinner.” So are we plunged in darkness by our own guilt, and lifted up into light by thy great grace. We are gathered at the Cross. Every hand is touching it; every heart throbs with love towards it; every eye is fixed upon it; it is thy Cross; Lord, meet us at this sacred place. We are here because of sin; we are mourning because of self-accusation, and the only hope that is in us is a light lighted by thine own hand. Our hope is in the Saviour; our confidence is in the Cross; our expectation is from on high. Read Thy Word to us, O Spirit that wrote it. Let us hear, in the hearing of the soul, how it should be read, so that none of its music may be lost. May our ears be greedy to hear the melody of thy truth; may our hearts clamour with vehement love to hear it more perfectly in all its infinite sweetness and tenderness and passion. Thy Word giveth light; thy Word giveth life; thine is the only Word that is true. May all the syllables of our speech be drawn from it and return again to it, to find their completeness and their glory. Help us to live well because wisely. May our life be hidden with God in Christ a mystery to the world, so that time has no effect upon us but to make us young; and all energy employed in thy service is but so much sleep that renews the strength. The Lord take us wholly into his care we would not think for ourselves; we would have no planning or scheming that taxes our poor blind ingenuity, we would rest in the Lord. We are confident of this one thing: that he doeth all things well. We are not waiting, so much as longing; we are standing still, not as an effort, but we are standing still to catch the last phase of beauty, the lingering blessing of the light. Oh, that we might have no wish, or thought, or desire, or anxiety, but live in God and rest in the God of gods. This can be done only by the indwelling and continual ministry of God thy Spirit. Holy One, live in us. Thou knowest what we are, and what we need; thou knowest the trouble at home, the difficulty in the market-place, the sickness we cannot heal, the infirmity that becomes a burden, the joy that makes us laugh, the prosperity that now is a blessing and now a tempta-tion thou knowest us altogether. The strong man; the patient woman; the longsuffering heart; the dreamy spirit; the active soul behold, are not all these standing before thee like plain reading? Have mercy upon us through Christ Jesus, and give each a blessing and make each young again. Thou knowest our silent prayer, for which there are no words dainty and fit enough; prayers that words would debase; the cry of the heart; the yearning of the spirit; the groping of the soul in the dark, seeking for light, and yet almost afraid to find it. Lord, help us in all these passages from the known to the unknown, and from the youth to the maturity of the soul. The Lord look upon us, and we shall be well again. One glance of love, one smile of approbation, one touch of thine hand, and we shall be as the angels. If we may but touch the hem of thy garment, we shall be made whole. Amen.
Act 17:1-9
1. Now when they had passed through Amphipolis [capital of the first of the four districts of Macedonia. On the Strymon; 33 miles S. W. of Philippi by the Egnatian road, which ran from Dyrrhachium to the Hellespont] and Apollonia [a town of the second Macedonian district, 30 miles S. W. again] they came to Thessalonica, where was a synagogue of the Jews [this was why they stopped there. Thessalonica, capital of the second district, afterwards of all Macedonia, lay 38 miles W. of Apollonia. Cassander, who rebuilt it, changed its name from Therma in honour of his wife, Alexander’s sister. Was “the bulwark” of Greek Christendom in the Middle Ages, and the means of converting both Sclaves and Bulgarians]:
2. And Paul, as his custom was, went in unto them, and for three Sabbath days reasoned with [G. held dialogues with; the word Plato uses of Socrates] them from the Scriptures [O. T.],
3. Opening and alleging [Bengel paraphrases, “cracking the nut and bringing out the kernel “] that it behoved the Christ [Messiah] to suffer, and to rise again from the dead; and that this Jesus, whom, said he, I proclaim [G. announce], unto you, is the Christ.
4. And some of them were persuaded and consorted with Paul and Silas; and of the devout [G. “worshipping,” i.e., in the synagogue] Greeks a great multitude [throng], and of the chief women not a few.
5. But the Jews, being moved with jealousy, took unto them certain vile fellows of the rabble [“market loungers”], and gathering a crowd, set the city on uproar; and assaulting the house of Jason [ Rom 16:21 ], they sought to bring them forth to the people [G. “demos”; Thessalonica was a “free city.” The demos (commons) in its ecclesia, church, or duly summoned meeting was the head political power, and appointed the politarchs, here translated “rulers of the city”].
6. And when they found them not, they dragged Jason and certain brethren before the rulers of the city, crying, These that have turned the world upside down [G. “stirred up to sedition,” as in Act 21:28 ] are come hither also;
7. Whom Jason hath received [ Joh 13:20 ]: and these all act contrary to the decrees of Csar [imperial edicts, Luk 2:1 , were binding upon the whole Roman world. But there is no mention in this “free city” of the Roman law and magistracy as at the “colony” Philippi], saying that there is another king, one Jesus.
8. And they troubled the multitude [G. demos, as we say, “The Commons”] and the rulers of the city [the politarchs], when they heard these things.
9. And when they had taken security [had satisfied themselves by examination that no sedition was meant] from Jason and the rest, they let them go.
Paul’s Manner
LUKE was evidently left at Philippi, where he might have a good deal of doctor’s work to do. Paul and Silvanus and Timotheus moved on from Philippi elsewhere. We wonder whether Paul will fight any more, or whether he will spend the remainder of his days in pious reflections? We have some little time for the consideration of that question, for a period is occupied in passing through Amphipolis, where nothing was done, and Apollonia, where nothing was attempted. Surely the fight is over, and the warriors are going home. The warriors travelled some thirty-three miles the first day, from Philippi to Amphipolis; thirty miles a day seemed to be about an apostolic journey. The next day they went some thirty miles, from Amphipolis to Apollonia, but there was not any preaching. The fight seems to be over, and the smitten warriors are going home to anoint their wounds and wash their stripes in secret. But, when they had passed through the cities that had no synagogue, they came to lovely Thessalonica a woman’s name, so named because her great husband loved her. He took away the old name, and said he would call the city Thessalonica, the capital of all proud Macedonia. Then we read: “where was a synagogue of the Jews.” Seeing the synagogue, Paul saw a battle-field, and instantly he stripped to the fight! We see now what he was looking for. We were a little troubled when he passed through Amphipolis and said nothing; and when, the next day, he went through Apollonia and never challenged public attention, we wondered what the matter was. But now that he has come into the lady-city, the capital, now that he sees a synagogue of the Jews, he begins again. The war-horse will paw when he can no longer stand; the war is in his blood. You cannot make war-horses of wood and paint; they are God’s fires! Nor can you put fire into men when there is none. Their industry is but a strenuous idleness, and their walking about is only whirling around in a circle. Truly the Christian war spirit had entered the very soul of Paul! When this Marmion came to die, “he shook the fragment of a blade,” and said, “I have fought a good fight,” and none could deny it. Surely he had been a brave fighter! “I have finished my course,” and finished it gloriously. When are we going to begin the fight the good fight, the battle that means victory? Let us assemble at the synagogue in Thessalonica, and watch events.
“And Paul, as his manner was, went in ” It is difficult to do away with a “manner.” Paul was not an occasional attendant. Jesus Christ did not go now and then to the synagogue. The first Christians lived in the Church, and only existed elsewhere. It was a dull time to the early Christian when the church was closed. Outside he was always waiting for the opening of the gate. They were brave days of old.
Paul is here, as everywhere, the very model of a true Christian preacher. What conditions does he fulfil as such? Here he stands, with a written revelation; “he reasoned with them out of the Scriptures.” The preacher stands in a great tower. If he were standing within a paper castle, which his own fingers had fashioned, it might be burned down or blown away by the tempestuous wind. But the true preacher, who preaches with every drop of his blood, and every spark of his life’s fire, utters the words of Another. So the true preacher is never stale in matter or dull in manner. The sunlight is never other than a quiet miracle; the common air is an uncommon blessing. Paul did not go up and down European or Palestinian cities talking something which he himself had invented; he had a Book, an authority, a written order, and he at least believed that every word he said was written for him by the pen and ink of Heaven. Once let that thought go, and preaching becomes loose and vain, without a centre and without one dominating thought or note, A sermon is nothing that is not a paraphrase of the Bible. It is great only in proportion as it begins, continues, and ends in the Scriptures. Paul is standing in the synagogue, or sitting there, as a man who constructs a historical and religious argument, “opening and alleging” opening words to find their inner secret; alleging, contending, demonstrating, proving, bringing one thing to bear upon another; connecting the golden links and making a chain of them; constructing an argument which should be at once a tower of protection and a home for the soul’s security. Then he crowns his ministry by enforcing a distinct personal appeal. Hear him: “This Jesus, whom I preach unto you, is Christ.” This was a sword with a point. This is a sermon with an accent. The preacher must have an object in view; he should say to himself every time he stands up, “What do I want to do?” Paul always had his answer ready, “I want to preach Jesus and the resurrection, and to get every man to say to Christ, ‘My Lord, my God.’ “So whatever Paul did was contributory to this great end. The difficulty with the Christian preacher is that nobody wants to hear his doctrine. Do not imagine, my young brethren preparing for the ministry, that the people care much to hear your doctrine. They want to hear your particular way of putting it. They could hear the doctrine next door to their own houses; they would never travel miles for the purpose of hearing your doctrine. They know your doctrine, your theology, your thought, but they want to hear your way of putting it. Babies! they want to see your toys! They like your manner, your gentleness, or your force, your voice or eloquence, or rhetorical way; but the doctrine they would listen to you with equal delight if you were uttering the other doctrine! This is the difficulty of the Christian preacher. There are those again who love the doctrine above all things, and they care not how it is spoken; but they are in the inner circle, and of them I am not speaking. My reference is to the great multitudes crowding around the Apostles, and crowding around all Christian ministers, and the question which I have to put is this: Do these people want to hear the thought, or only the happy words which for a moment endeavour to express it? I went the other day to hear the most illustrious judge in England. Every man who can afford the time ought to spend, I think, one hour a week in the law courts; it is an education and a stimulus. I sat with reverence of no common kind before the foremost judge of his day. His voice was feeble and indistinct; at times I had great difficulty, as had others, in hearing him; but, oh, the strain, the anxiety not to miss one word! It was dry, it was argumentative, there was not a single flower of speech in the whole, and yet no man coughed there; every man was silent. Why this anxiety? Because the people wanted to hear what he said. He is interpreting law, or making law, or settling an expensive controversy, and bringing practical questions to an issue. As to his manner no man cared for it; no man went to hear eloquence or poetry; every one was there to hear what the judge would say, not how he said it. You must not compare the judge and the Christian minister. Poor minister, he must please, persuade, pander to many a taste, for who wants to hear the truth? This is the difficulty we all have to contend with, and it will be a growing difficulty with the ages. When a mumbling speaker reads a will to persons probably interested in the disposition of the property, does any one say anything about his manner? Each wants to know what he in particular is to get. Oh, could I persuade my hearers that I am reading a WILL! for that I am surely doing; the will of God, the testament of Christ, the decree of heaven. Oh, that men were wise, that they understood these things!
Contrast with that scene the opposition which it awakens. Sometimes you cannot enter into the merits of a controversy, but you may form a tolerable judgment as to its quality by observing the way in which it is conducted. Let that thought rule our construction of these incidents. Opposition arose again, as it always arose; however quiet the town when the Apostles entered it, they left it in a serious uproar. They came not to send peace on the earth, but a sword. They kindled a fire among the dry wood, and how it burned, how it flamed, how it went up as with a will! Look at the opposition, “moved with envy”; then it was a little-minded opposition. Where is majesty? There is none. Where is the noble challenge to discuss a great question upon equal terms? There is none. How is Paul moved? By love. How is the opposition moved? By envy. The Jews will not have it that a felon so deemed by the law shall be King. The Jew will never kiss the Cross in homage; he hates it; it smites his pride; it blows witheringly upon his national and personal vanity, and he will not accept it.
“Moved with envy, they took unto them certain lewd fellows of the baser sort”; then it was an unscrupulous opposition. Any stick will do with which to beat a dog. The Jews, who would not have spoken to those “lewd fellows” on any account on common ground, will make use of them to put down this religion of the Cross. If they had not been “lewd fellows,” and in very deed “of the baser sort,” they would have seen that they were being made use of. On legal, political, social questions they never would have been consulted for a moment. How Envy can stoop to take up polluted weapons! How Envy can search in the mud for stones to throw at Goodness! Is there anything so lasting as hatred? We are told that Love will outlive it, but it is hard to believe in that survival. We do believe it, or we could not live; but Hate is long-lived; unscrupulous; will say anything, do anything; pervert, twist, corrupt, and poison. There is nothing too despicable for it to use to express itself in denunciation and contempt and penalty.
“Moved with envy, they took unto them certain lewd fellows of the baser sort, and gathered a company, and set all the city on an uproar”; then it was a lawless opposition. Never mind the dignity of the city. Never mind the politarchs who reign over it; they can easily be alarmed, and they will take part with the opposition. Magistrates are bound to be timid; politarchs cannot stand against an uprising city; they will either dismiss the case, or take bail, or do something to get out of it. So the opposition little-minded, unscrupulous, lawless prosecutes its mission to the end. This is true of all opposition to the Christian cause. Do not let us suppose that this was a Thessalonian incident with local beginnings and local endings. Wherever you find opposition to Christianity you find an opposition that is little-minded, unscrupulous, lawless, and dishonest. There can be no honest opposition to Christianity. There may be an honest opposition to some special ways of representing it, but to its purity, its self-sacrifice, its nobleness, its purpose, there can be no honest opposition. Yet how the Lord makes the wrath of man to praise him! What said the enemy? “These that have turned the world upside down.” There! that is a tribute to their power. Even the Jews, “moved with envy,” dare not make a little cause of this Christian mission. They did not dare to call it “a bubble on the water,” “a flash in the pan,” “a nine days’ wonder.” They saw in it a world-exciting force, and we who are Christians will become fearful and timid and self-protecting just in proportion as we lose our conception of the grandeur of the cause which we have to handle. This is a case that touches the world. It is not a parochial accident. This is not an affair you can confine within local boundaries; this is not an incident to be read off in a hurried line and then forgotten. It is a force that causes the whole world to thrill and vibrate with new life.
Then they become themselves again, “saying that there is another king.” That is a lie! The Apostles never said so, in the sense now put upon that word by their accusers. You can use the right words with a wrong meaning. It is not enough to tell me the words a man employed; I must see the man himself; I must hear his own voice; I must get into the music of his utterance before I can tell you what the words really mean. When the Jews said to the Thessalonian politarchs, “These men say there is another king,” they told a lie. But the Apostles did say there was another king. Yes, but not in that treasonable sense; not in the sense of opposing Csar, in the sense of sedition, in the sense of throwing down political constitutions. So you must know the man before you can tell the value of the word. You may report words correctly, so far as they are mere words; you may relate a conversation line for line and word for word, and yet make a lie of it. A conversation is not an affair of words; it is an affair of looks, tones, touches, accents, subtle undertones, and emphases that are full of colour. You are right when you say, “These are the very words he said,” and yet by your telling of them you have created a false impression. We must not only speak the words of the Gospel, we must speak them in Gospel tones. True eloquence is true love; true preaching is true feeling. If you have sympathy with Christ and with his Gospel, you will speak it in words that are more than words; part of an atmosphere; syllables that must be measured in their native air, and must be viewed in relation to all the appointments of the universe.
Then the accusers proceeded to say, “one Jesus.” There they were right. The Apostles, then, had left no false impression as to the Man they were preaching. The Apostles had not left a vague impression that they were preaching about some one who had come, or was coming, or might come. Amid all the tumult and uproar and opposition, they had got this word well into the public memory “Jesus.” They were skilled speakers. They did not lodge in the memory an indefinite article, or an auxiliary verb, or some part of speech that was of no consequence; but whenever there was a lull in the storm they said “Jesus.” Then came the uproar, then another lull, then “Jesus.” So that at the end, whatever word had been unheard or misheard, this word “Jesus” was instamped on the public recollection.
Is this the end? Why, this is not only not the end, it is hardly the beginning. The very first letter that Paul wrote to any of the churches was probably the First Epistle to the Thessalonians. What does he say to them? “For our gospel came not unto you in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Ghost, and in much assurance, for ye know what manner of men we were among you for your sake. And ye became followers of us, and of the Lord, having received the word in much affliction, with joy of the Holy Ghost; so that ye were ensamples to all that believe in Macedonia and Achaia. For from you sounded out the word of the Lord, not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but also in every place your faith to Godward is spread abroad; so that we need not to speak anything. For they themselves show of us what manner of entering in we had unto you, and how ye turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God; and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, even Jesus, which delivered us from the wrath to come. For yourselves, brethren, know our entrance in unto you, that it was not in vain: but even after that we had suffered before, and were shamefully entreated, as ye know, at Philippi, we were bold in our God to speak unto you the gospel of God with much contention.” This is confirmatory evidence; this is a happy corroboration of Luke’s narrative.
Paul spent at least three weeks in Thessalonica; how did he live during that time? He had no money; how did he live? How we ought to live by working! That is the only true way of living. Why ask so foolish a question? If you go into a village without any money, with only one coat for your back, and one staff for your hand, how are you to live? By breaking stones, by sweeping floors, by cleaning boots. How are you to live by writing begging letters to London? This is how Paul lived: “For ye remember, brethren, our labour and travail, for labouring night and day, because we would not be chargeable unto any of you, we preached unto you the Gospel of God.” These were not the men to be put down; they did not live on patronage; they did not consider whether they would offend the “subscribers,” for there were none. We now live on “subscribers,” and therefore we do not live at all, and therefore we breed a small race of men, whose height is to be measured in inches and whose weight is to be announced in ounces. Paul, Silvanus, Timotheus fell to working not eight hours a day and eight shillings for pay, but why, if I read the time-bill aright, their hours were long: “For labouring night and day.” “Two hours longer, Silvanus,” said Paul, “and this tent will be done. If we sit up till three o’clock to-morrow morning, we shall just get bread enough to keep us going until the synagogue is open again.” These were not the men to be put down!
When they said good-bye to Thessalonica, was it a final adieu? Read Paul’s First Epistle to the Thessalonians, second chapter, seventeenth verse: “But we, brethren, being taken from you for a short time in presence, not in heart, endeavoured the more abundantly to see your face with great desire.” They wanted to go back to the old battle-field; they were not afraid of the uproar. When anything occurs nowadays, we become suddenly “not very well, and must go down to the seaside over Sunday.” We think it better to be out of the way. How did Paul view the people whom he had won there? Said he: “For what is our hope, or joy, or crown of rejoicing? Are not even ye in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ at his coming? For ye are our glory and our joy.” They valued the prey which they took in fight; they saved the souls of men. These are the relations which Christianity would establish amongst us if we would allow it. Christianity would make a compact society of us not living under formal rules, but under gracious inspiration. If Christianity had its own way in the world, it would never rest until it had united all hearts, driven out all unforgiveness, expelled every evil spirit It would unite heart to heart, life to life. It would take away every evil memory and every ungenerous thought, and make men, strong men, love one another, hope the best concerning one another. It would lift up the whole level of our life to the plane of Christ’s own character.
Fuente: The People’s Bible by Joseph Parker
XXIV
THE MINISTRY OF PAUL AND HIS COMPANIONS AT
THESSALONICA, BEREA, AND ATHENS
Act 17:1-34
Thessalonica is situated at the head of the gulf leading into the Aegean Sea and is on the great Ignatian Road. It was then, and has been ever since, a great city. It was not only important on account of its strategic position in the days of Paul, but continues so till this day. There are multitudes of both Jews and Christians in it now. About the middle of the tenth century, it was captured by the Saracens, or Mohammedans. Then it was rescued by the Crusaders, and then, finally, in about the middle of the fifteenth century, it was captured by the Turks and they hold it yet. It was a free city, not a colony. The Emperor Augustus made it a free city. The form of its government is indicated by a word that Luke uses, which occurs here only in all literature “polytarchs” which means many chiefs. It was governed by men of its own selection. In the days of the Dutch towns and German free towns, we had something like its form of government governed by the burgesses, or syndicates, elected by the people.
So far as the record goes, it seems that Paul was there three weeks. Anyhow, it says that he preached for three Sundays in the Jewish synagogue. As to the matter that he preached we gather something, but very little, from the record. The record tells us that he “went in unto them, and three sabbath days reasoned with them from the scriptures, opening and alleging that it behooved the Christ to suffer and to rise again from the dead; and that this Jesus whom, said he, I proclaim unto you, is the Christ.” Another clause in the text shows that his enemies said that he taught that there was another king one Jesus. That shows that the manner of his preaching to the Jews was to take the Old Testament and prove from it that the Messiah that was to come would be a sufferer; that he would be put to death; that he would rise again from the dead, and that, risen from the dead, he would become the exalted King of the universe. But that gives you but a faint conception of what Paul preached while he was there. I enjoin upon you, that you quietly sit down and read over the first and second letters to the Thessalonians, and learn from them what he says he preached while he was there with them. At least, you will find these matters were presented especially eschatological matters the doctrine of the last things. It has to do with what will take place at the last, at the end of the world, in connection with the coming of Christ. Very great stress was put upon that in Paul’s preaching, and the reason that he preached that particular thing was that both to him and to them the preaching was in great suffering and persecution, and he was pointing to the fact that, while we must have tribulation upon the earth, at last all will be well for the righteous and evil for the wicked. Another thing that he says that he preached day and night was that whoever professes to be a Christian must live a holy, godly life; that he must not steal; must not lie; must not wrong his neighbor; that he must be industrious; he must not be an idler, nor a busybody. In other words, as much there as anywhere else he ever preached it, he presented the practical side of Christianity. Read his letters where he says to those he is addressing, “You remember I told you this when I was with you.” How thankful we ought to be that we have these two letters to the Thessalonians! We never would get upon our minds the right impression of that three weeks’ meeting if we did not have these letters to tell us how the meeting was carried on.
It is also very important to know how he preached, how he held a meeting, as well as the things he preached about. He presented Christ as prophet, sacrifice, priest, king, and judge, and he presented a holy life, but we want to know the manner in which he preached. It is important, not only to have something to say, but to say it so that it will stick. Note what he says: “Our exhortation is not of error, nor of uncleanness, nor in guile: but even as we have been approved of God to be entrusted with the gospel, so we speak; not as pleasing men, but God, who proveth our hearts. For neither at any time were we found using words of flattery, as ye know, nor a cloak of coveteousness [we didn’t have any financial ax to grind in that meeting], God is witness; nor seeking glory of men, neither from you nor from others” (1Th 2:3-6 ). Then he continues, “When we might have claimed authority as apostles of Christ, we came among you as brethren; we were gentle in the midst of you, as when a nurse cherisheth her own children. So, being affectionately desirous of you, we were well pleased to impart to you not the gospel of God only, but also our own souls, for you were very dear to us. You remember, brethren, and are witnesses how holily and righteously and unblameably we behaved ourselves toward you that believe. You know that we dealt with you, every one of you, as a father with his own children, exhorting you and encouraging you and testifying unto you.” That is a very fine manner. When you hold a meeting, remember how Paul preached in this great city the manner of it as well as the matter.
The manner of the reception of his preaching is found in 1Th 2:13 : “For this cause we also thank God without ceasing, that, when ye received from us the word of the message, even the word of God, ye accepted it not as the word of men, but, as it is in truth, the word of God, which also worketh in you that believe.” It is a great thing when a man is holding a meeting, if he so conducts himself that people will think he is God’s messenger, and they will receive what he preaches, not as the word of men, but as the word of God.
The power of this preaching there is seen also from the letter. The text, 1Th 2:6 , taking the testimony of the enemies, says, “These that have turned the world upside down are come hither also.” That is their testimony to the power. Let us see what the testimony to the power of that meeting is on the part of Paul. In 1Th 1:5 he says: “Our gospel came not unto you in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Spirit, and in much assurance.” The power was so great that the people who believed received assurance as they received faith. The evidences of the Spirit’s work were so marvelous, so manifest, that converts who believed, believed fully; they staggered not with any doubt, having a full assurance of faith. So that must have been indeed a great meeting in its power.
The cost of the meeting was borne in two ways. The first proof 1Th 2:9 , “For ye remember, brethren, our labor and travail: working night and day that we might not burden any of you, we preached unto you the gospel of God.” Paul paid his own expenses. He didn’t do it all the time, as I will prove to you. Toward the latter part of the meeting, that Philippian church that he had just established, sent him a big contribution, which he very gratefully acknowledges when he writes the letter to the Philippians. It was a mission church, hardly out of the cradle yet. He had just left it, and they remembered how poor he was, without money and without purse. They recalled how he had worked, and of their own volition, without a suggestion from him before he left Thessalonica, they took up a big collection and sent it to him. He states that they did it more than once. They sent him another one when he got to Corinth.
What a beautiful church was that Philippian church! Of all the churches that Paul ever established, he appreciated the church at Philippi most, and it loved him most. It not only sent funds to him here at Thessalonica, but at Corinth, and when they heard that he was long afterward arrested and taken to Rome as a prisoner, they sent their pastor with a big contribution to go and find him in the prison and give it to him. So I would call that a Missionary Baptist church.
In 1Th 2:14-16 he refers thus to the character of the opposition: “For ye, brethren, became imitators of the churches of God which are in Judea in Christ Jesus: for ye also suffered the same things of your own countrymen, even as they did of the Jews; who both killed the Lord Jesus and the prophets, and drove out us, and please not God, and are contrary to all men; forbidding us to speak to the Gentiles that they may be saved; to fill up their sins always: but the wrath is come upon them to the uttermost.” Then in the very beginning of the letter he refers to the opposition of the Jews, not the Jewish Christians, but the outside Jews. He held the synagogue for three sabbath days, but they fought him from the very start.
As to the result of that meeting, Act 17:4 says, “And some of them [that is, the Jews, not many] were persuaded and consorted with Paul and Silas; and of the devout Greeks a great multitude, and of the chief women not a few.” The Lord bless the women! And these were great women, rich women, influential women. So there the accessions to the church were just a few Jews, but a great multitude of the proselytes and of the outside Gentiles, and not a few good women. That church ought to have made a fine record.
But we also want to know what about the results afterward. So I cite another passage from the letter, written not long after the meeting. Paul is at Corinth when he writes it. He says, “And ye became imitators of us and of the Lord, having received the word in much affliction, with joy in the Holy Spirit; so that ye [the result] became an example to all that believe in Macedonia and Achaia. For from you hath sounded forth the word of the Lord, not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but in every place your faith to God-ward is gone forth; so that we need not to speak anything. [The report that goes on about the work in your place does the speaking.] For they themselves report concerning us what manner of entering in we had unto you; and how you turned unto God from idols, to serve the living and true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, even Jesus, who delivereth us from the wrath to come” (1Th 1:6-10 ).
There is a certain expression there that I stress. When you talk about the results of that meeting, you have first the multitude; you have, second, the character, and if I had time, I would give you individuals that afterward became famous, who were converted in that meeting. Then we have the fact stated that so marvelous was that effect that the sound went forth, or it sounded forth, sounding all over Macedonia, all over Achaia and everywhere. Thessalonica was a seaport and the news of that meeting went out on every ship. Thessalonica was on the great Ignatian Way, and the travel was incessant east and west, away from Rome and toward Rome, and everybody carried the news of that meeting. It was on the by-way that went up into a high place of Macedonia, and even into Illyrica; they all heard about the meeting they had at Thessalonica, that is, this three weeks’ meeting. Thessalonica was a great city, and many people lived there.
The Jews, having found that they couldn’t stop this meeting by growling and standing out on the edges (you know how opponents do stand out on the fringe of the meeting and make fun and snarl), said that the meeting was overriding them and therefore they went before these polytarchs and preferred a charge a charge of treason Just exactly like the charge they preferred against Christ: that there was another king, and therefore it was against Caesar, saying, “They tell about another king one Jesus.” That is one point. The next point is sedition. They caused the disturbance. Nobody was disturbed but themselves, and they were doing it. If there was anything in the world that a Roman magistrate would become alarmed at, it was turbulences in the streets. The Roman power was very stern about any popular disturbance. They would hear a charge of that crime quicker than they would anything else. And the soldiers were ready to dash in among them at any time to put down any sort of a mob movement. You will see a sample of it, and how a Roman deals with it, when we get to Corinth.
They went to the house of Jason, the man with whom the preachers were staying. Jason was entertaining them. There are still a good many people left in the world like the women in the time of Elisha that built a prophet’s chamber. They are glad to have the preachers. They get benefit in the family. We learn from the letter to the Romans that Paul had a kinsman named Jason, but this one is in Thessalonica, and while it is hardly probable that that kinsman did move over to Rome, as it wasn’t very long till the letter to the Romans was written, I conclude that this Jason was not a kinsman of Paul, but Just one of the brethren, one of the converts. They rushed up to the house, but Paul and Silas were not there, and they captured Jason and others, and brought them up before the magistrates, and put them under bond that there should be no more disturbances, very much like people giving bond now to keep the peace.
I call attention to a word in the Authorized Version of Act 17:5 : “The Jews which believed not, moved with envy, took unto them certain lewd fellows.” In our time that old Anglo Saxon word “lewd” has a meaning of sexual infamy attached to it. That is not the meaning here. Very recently one of the greatest writers on the use of words has published an article in a magazine on the change in the meaning of English words. “Lewd” originally meant the people. After a while it began to mean the common people, and finally it got to mean (and this is the meaning it has here) that part of the people we call loafers people who hang around courthouses or stand and talk at the barroom doors. If you can just think of the word, “town loafer,” you will have the right idea. So, on the whole, the meeting was not successful with the Jews.
Paul’s desire to continue his work at Thessalonica was evinced later. They shipped him off rapidly, leaving Silas and Timothy there, however. Some of the brethren took Paul and carried him down to the sea in order that he might go by sea to Athens. He couldn’t travel by himself, and those young converts were very kind to him. It is like the country brethren sending buggies to meet the preacher, and sending him back when he goes out to hold his meetings. They took Paul all the way down to the seacoast. In his feebleness he couldn’t go by himself. They went with him to Athens, and having domiciled him there, they went back home. When they went back they took a message from him to Timothy and to Silas to come to him at once. Here is what he says on that subject 1Th 2:17-18 : “But we, brethren, being bereaved of you for a short season . . . because we would fain have come unto you, I Paul, once and again; and Satan hindered us.” Then he goes on to say why he wanted to come that he counted that great multitude his hope, his crown of rejoicing; that that would be enough for him when he got to heaven, bringing his sheaves and saying, “Lord, these are from Thessalonica.” And in 1Th 3:2 he refers to it again: “And sent Timothy, our brother and God’s minister in the gospel of Christ, to establish you, and to comfort you concerning your faith.” We see he had sent word to Timothy to join him at Athens. Timothy came, and as soon as he got there, Paul sent him back to Thessalonica: “I can’t bear to think of what would become of that crowd of people; I want to know how they are getting along,” says Paul. “I go to Corinth from Athens, and you can join me there, and tell me about the Thessalonians.” We find after a while that Timothy did come to him at Corinth, and this called forth those letters to the Thessalonians.
Berea was not a place of the importance that Thessalonica was. It was like holding a meeting in the country, and the Jews there being far out of touch with the travel of Jews and the Jerusalem news, liked the preacher that would get up and tell them about the Old Testament. These were more noble than the Jews at Thessalonica. They not only received the word gladly, but they took up their Old Testaments and examined them to see if what Paul preached was true. You have a people in a good fix when you make them pull their Bibles out and brush the dust off and verify what you preach. That is a fine spirit. The character of the work done here at Berea was fine, but there was a distinction in its result from that done in Thessalonica. At Berea a multitude of the Jews were converted, and only a few at Thessalonica.
The work was interrupted when that same Jew crowd of devils at Thessalonica heard he was there holding another meeting and followed him and brought the case up before the officers of the law. If they could have just held the meeting there a while longer with that spiritual force of the Berean Jews, without being interrupted, and with everybody getting out their Bibles as the preacher preached, all the Jews in that country might have been converted. But Paul left Silas and Timothy, while the Berean brethren took him on to Athens.
We are not to think of the Athens of the days of Pericles, the greatest city in the world for its power in art, painting, sculpture, oratory, philosophy, literature, and so great that it has affected the world ever since. We are not even to think of the Athens of the days of Demosthenes, though some of the characteristics were already developed that are now in full sway. Demosthenes, when he was trying to stir them up against Philip of Macedon, told them that Philip of Macedon was a man that was always doing something: “You don’t do anything but just go around and say, What is the news? How on earth are you going to stand before such a man as Philip of Macedon?” We will see that they are of that disposition when Paul reaches Athens. While not in its glory, it still has its Acropolis, high up over that city that marvelous building even today a wonder of the world, its Parthenon, and over on another hill stood a colossal statue of the goddess Minerva, and lower down on the hill was their celebrated court room, Mars’ Hill, the Areopagus (pagos meaning hill, and arcs meaning Mars “Mars’ Hill”), and lower down still was what is called the “Agora,” market place. It was a big market place, with rows and rows of the most beautifully sculptured pillars, and under the porticoes of that market place the philosophers would meet the people and teach. Socrates taught there. The market place was the daily newspaper of the day. It was the schoolhouse, where everybody met everybody and told everybody what everybody knew. It was full of sculptured idols. They were on every hilltop. They were on all the hillsides, and lined both sides of the streets clear down to the bay the Pireus. They were in every house; they were in every garden, and as a writer once said, “It is easier to find a god in Athens than to find a man”; gods to the right of them, gods to the left of them, gods in front of them, and gods behind them, all around them and all over them, and yet the people had lost faith in all those gods.
I have already said that the brethren of Berea brought him overland to the seaport. There he took ship, came around to Athens, sailed through those rough waters of the Aegean those islands of the Aegean about which Byron wrote, “The Islands of Greece, where Paphos and Sapho sang,” said to be the most beautiful islands in the world except the Thousand Islands in one of the northern lakes. When Paul arrived he had no forward thoughts; they were all backward. He was distressed to be there by himself, and he says, “Tell Silas and Timothy to come forthwith.” Then his mind was on that great meeting in Thessalonica and Berea and Philippi; there were two fires always burning in his heart, one pointing to the regions beyond, and one pointing back to the regions behind. But his mind was diverted and his spirit was stirred within him when he saw the city full of idols. Walking up and down the streets, he saw these idols, and reading the inscriptions on them, his spirit was stirred within him. This stirring of the Jew’s heart at beholding the idols in Greece was foretold by what prophet? I preached my educational sermon on that. It is from Zechariah: “I will stir up thy sons, O Zion, against thy sons, O Greece.” He was grieved with its philosophy, and just as it is now, a man that believes in God, in the inspiration of the scriptures and in the integrity of the scriptures, comes, and there is the philosopher of the schools competing. I sent that address to Dr. Strong, at Rochester, and he wrote back and said, “I don’t fear the Greeks as much as you do,” but now he fears the Greeks in his old age, when one of his own sons has gone off after them, and when he sees the whole North swept away with their philosophy, his old age is full of intense concern.
Paul first went into the synagogue and preached to the Jews. Then he went for that market place. That was the place to find the people, and he took them one at a time. He just had to preach. Then it is said that certain philosophers of the Epicureans and Stoics met him. Epicureanism is just exactly what modern evolutionists teach. They are the authors of it, and later, men borrowed from them. In other words, the Epicureans stole all their best ideas. They were materialists and atheists. They didn’t believe in God. They believed all things in the world came about by a fortuitous coming together of atoms. That the earth is governed by chance and not divinely, and that death is the end of man, therefore “Let us eat and drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die,” was their motto. The Stoics were Pantheists and materialists. They believed that matter was eternal; that nothing happened by chance as the Epicureans taught, but that everything comes to pass by an inexorable fate. They beat the Hardshells, saying that “whatever is to be will be if it never happens.” Their great fault was pride.
Mars’ Hill was a place where they held their courts. The Athenian ecclesia assembled there. Raphael’s cartoon of Paul in Mars’ Hill is a great work of art. Raphael was a great painter, one of the masters, and he has left an immortal painting of Paul here at Athens. You see a very imperfect copy of it in some of your Bibles; if you could study the great painting itself, it would evidently be a marvel to you.
Let us analyze Paul’s address on Mars’ Hill. He commences exactly as Demosthenes commenced, “Men of Athens [he knew about Demosthenes], I perceive that in all things ye are very religious. For as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship [objects of your worship: you carry your religion into worshiping a multiplicity of things; that is very religious], I found also an altar with this inscription, ‘To an Unknown God.’ ” Two classical writers declare that they have seen those altars with those inscriptions. Understand that Paul was carried to that courthouse practically unawares. He was not dragged there, but he was taken to the courthouse on this charge: “You seem to be a setter forth of strange gods.” There was a law in Athens that no man must introduce another god. I sympathize with that law. They surely had enough.
Socrates was put to death on that very charge, that he said that a spirit which they called a demon, a supernatural being, instructed him, and as he didn’t call that spirit either Jupiter, Pluto, Saturn, Minerva, or Venus, or any of their so-called gods, that was teaching a strange god, and Socrates was put to death. That charge is brought against Paul. In analyzing his address, you see how adroit he is in evading that: “You accuse me of setting forth strange gods,” and in using their very words, he says, “I set forth unto you a God that you ignorantly worship. I am introducing no new divinity. I am introducing a God that you confess you are ignorant of, for you have an altar on which you have inscribed, ‘To the Unknown God.’ Now that God whom you do not know, I tell you about, and he is not at all like what the Epicureans or the Stoics teach; he created man and everything you see, and he does not need anything from us. We sprung from him, and he made of one blood all the nations that inhabit the earth.”
The Athenians believed that their blood was “blue blood,” and that no other people in the world had the same origin. They taught that they were indigenous that they just came up right there, and that all the rest of the world were barbarians. Standing on Mars’ Hill, where they held such a belief, and such a contempt for the outside world, he made them see the unity of the race, and that they were not separate from the rest of the world in their derivation. And standing there, with a gesture he could point to the statue of the goddess Minerva, and then sweep his hand toward the Acropolis, where hundreds of gods were presented in statues, he says, “God dwelleth not in temples made with hands,” thus quoting Stephen. How well he remembered what Stephen said!
Then he says, “And this God, of whom you have unjustifiable ignorance, not only appointed your nation its place and its season, but every other nation its place and its season, and has put in man a longing for God that they should seek after him. Though they grope in blindness, that he would reach out his hand and touch their hand, if haply they might find him. He is not far off. He is near.” Then he said (the idea of going to the most cultivated place in the world, e. g., to Yale, Harvard, Oxford, and Cambridge combined, and saying to them, “The times of your ignorance God overlooked”), “You are great in a certain way. You know how to paint, and how to make speeches, how to carve in wood, and in stone; you know how to philosophize, but about God, about eternity, about the relation of man to heaven, and to his fellow man, you are just as ignorant as moles and bats.”
And it is -true today, that the places of the greatest culture are the places of the greatest ignorance of God and the hardest places in which to preach.
Paul says, “God overlooked your ignorance, but now, as Christ has come, as life and immortality are brought to light, as the stream of life is brought to your very door, God now commandeth men everywhere to repent, because he hath appointed a day of judgment, and the judge will be this very man that I preach unto you, and the evidence he (God) has given to this man is that he raised him from the dead.”
The Athenians stopped him right there, “Oh, if you are going to talk about the resurrection of the dead, why of course philosophers cannot believe that. If you are going to bring in a miracle like that, why, we can’t accept it.” Paul quoted from two of their poets. Aratus, of Tarsus, Paul’s own city, was one of them, who wrote, With him, with Zeus are filled All paths we tread, and all the marts of men: Filled, too, the sea, and every creek and bay. And all in all things need we help of Zeus, For we, too, are his offspring.
And, second, Cleanthes, who wrote, Thee ‘Tis meet that mortals call with one accord, For we thine offspring are, and we alone Of all that live and move upon this earth Receive the gift of imitative speech.
This address of Paul proves him to have been a very learned man. The logic of his address, the connected chains of thought, prove it. He was acquainted with Demosthenes’ manner of commencing an address, and everything shows that he could speak to the most cultivated audience in the world. But this is the only time that he ever adopted the learned method of preaching, and it was the poorest preaching that he ever did, and had the poorest results. There was one man, Dionysius and one or two women converted. So when he got over to Corinth, the next place, he just got down on his knees and said, “I discard rhetoric; I discard all rounded periods; I lay aside the wisdom of words, and in fear and trembling I cling to the cross of Christ,” and he had another big meeting, but he didn’t have it at Athens. If you were going to preach the commencement sermon at Yale or Harvard, I venture to say that unless somebody warned you, you would get on your stilts and scrape the sky with your rhetoric and oratory. They wouldn’t care anything about that. It is nothing more than the aurora borealis to them nothing more than glowworms. The greatest crowd of intellectualists are like a lot of lightning bugs on a mullein leaf, with their tails together, and imagining that they are illumining the world.
Paul never did get from under the mighty impressions of the Thessalonians and the meeting in Philippi and Berea. Oh, that was a love feast! And he got up on the mountaintop. He saw the city of Jerusalem, the way opened up into heaven, and the power of the world to come got hold of him. But when he got down there at Athens to philosophizing, his heart grew cold. So every time he thought of that meeting, he was whipped. You had just as well try to feed your guests on a painted supper as to preach that way.
This question arises, Did Paul ordain elders in Thessalonica, and what is the proof? I say that he did, but the proof is found in one of his letters to them. That shows how many things Luke leaves out. If we had a letter of Paul about every place he held a meeting we would not be ignorant about what was done. The proof is that when he left Thessalonica he left preachers in charge of it, not only Silas and Timothy, but special men. He didn’t mark and brand cattle to turn them out on the range.
QUESTIONS 1. Where is Thessalonica situated, what its strategic position in the days of Paul and now, what of the Jews there, what its relation to the Mohammedans, and what kind of government did it have?
2. How long was Paul there, and what the proof?
3. What is the matter and what the manner of his preaching there?
4. What is the importance of his method of preaching there?
5. What is the manner of the reception of his preaching?
6. What is the power of his preaching there?
7. How was the cost of the meeting borne, and what church sent contributions to him at various times?
8. What was the character of the opposition at first in Thessalonica?
9. What was the result of the meeting then and thereafter?
10. What expression here stressed by the author, and why?
11. How did the persecution assume the Gentile form, and what the result?
12. What is the meaning of “lewd fellows” in this connection?
13. Who of the mission party had been left at Philippi?
14. On the whole, was the meeting successful with the Jews?
15. How was Paul’s desire to continue his work at Thessalonica evinced later?
16. Give an account of Berea, its importance, the Jews there, the character of the work done there, and the distinction between this result, and the result at Thessalonica.
17. How was the work interrupted?
18. Whom did Paul leave behind?
19. Give an account of Athena.
20. How did Paul reach Athens?
21. What was the state of Paul’s mind when he arrived there?
22. What diverted his mind, and put him to work there?
23. To whom did he first preach?
24. Then to whom did he preach?
25. Who were the Epicureans, and who now represent them?
26. Who were the Stoics, and what did they teach?
27. What was Mars’ Hill?
28. Describe Raphael’s cartoon of Paul on Mars’ Hill.
29. Analyze Paul’s address on Mars’ Hill.
30. What was the result of this effort of Paul?
31. Who were the poets from whom Paul quoted in this speech, and what were their words?
32. Who came to him here?
33. What does this address prove as to Paul’s learning?
34. What evidence have we that Paul discarded later this philosophical method of preaching, and why?
35. What was the respective impressions on Paul’s life about the work in Philippi, Thessalonica, Berea, and Athens?
36. Did Paul ordain elders in Thessalonica, and what the proof?
Fuente: B.H. Carroll’s An Interpretation of the English Bible
1 Now when they had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where was a synagogue of the Jews:
Ver. 1. Where was a synagogue of the Jews ] Who did much hurt there by their crossness, neither pleasing God nor profiting men,1Th 2:151Th 2:15 .
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
1. ] Here (or rather perhaps at , in the preceding verse) we have the first person again dropped, implying apparently that the narrator did not accompany Paul and Silas. I should be inclined to think that Timotheus went with them from Philippi, not, as is usually supposed, joined them at Bera: see below on Act 17:10 .
] The , on which they travelled from Philippi to Thessalonica, was the Via Egnatia, the Macedoman continuation of the Via Appia, and so named from Egnatia (‘Gnatia lymphis iratis exstructa,’ Hor. Sat. i. 5), in the neighbourhood of which the latter meets the Adriatic. It extended from Dyrrha chium in Epirus to the Hebrus in Thrace, a distance of 500 miles. The stages here mentioned are thus particularized in the itineraries: Philippi to Amphipolis, 33 miles: Amphipolis to Apollonia, 30 miles: Apollonia to Thessalonica, 37 miles. See more particulars in C. and H., i. pp. 368 ff.
] Anciently called , Thucyd. i. 100. Herod. vii. 114, lying in a most important position, at the end of the lake Cercinitis, formed by the Strymon, commanding the only easy pass from the coast of the Strymonic gulf into Macedonia. (‘Amphipoleos, qu objecta claudit omnes ab oriente sole in Macedoniam aditus,’ Liv. xlv. 30.) In consequence of this, the Athenians colonized the place, calling it Amphipolis, , Thuc. iv. 102. It was the spot where Brasidas was killed, and for previously failing to succour which Thucydides was exiled: see Thucyd. iv. and v., and Grote’s Hist. of Greece, vol. vi. p. 625 ff., where there is a plan of Amphipolis. After this it was a point of contention between the Athenians and Philip, and subsequently became the capital of Macedonia Prima, see Livy, xlv. 30, where Paulus milius proclaims, at Amphipolis, the freedom and territorial arrangements of Macedonia. It is now called Emboli.
] Its situation is unknown, but was evidently (see the distances above given) inland, not quite half-way from Amphipolis to Thessalonica, where the road crosses from the Strymonic to the Thermaic gulf. Leake saw some ruins at about the right spot, but did not visit them: and Cousinry mentions seeing, on an opposite hill, the village of Polina. Pliny mentions it (N. H. iv. 10), ‘regio Mygdoni subjacens, in qua recedentes a mare Apollonia, Arethusa.’ It must not be confounded with a better known Apollonia near Dyrrhachium, on the western coast, also on the Via Egnatia. See C. and H. i. pp. 376 f.
] At this time the capital of the province Macedonia, and the residence of the proconsul (Macedonia had been an imperial , but was now a senatorial province ). Its former names were Emathia, Halia, and Therma: it received its name of Thessalonica from Cassander, on his rebuilding and embellishing it, in honour of his wife Thessalonica, sister of Alexander the Great. So Strabo, lib. vii. excerpt. 10: who, ib. excerpt. 3, calls it . It was made a free city after the battle of Philippi: and every thing in this narrative is consistent with the privileges and state of an urbs libera . We read of its Act 17:5 , and its Act 17:6 ; not, as at the Roman colony of Philippi, of (lictors), and (duumviri), ch. Act 16:20 ; Act 16:35 . It has ever been an important and populous city, and still continues such (pop. 70,000), being the second city in European Turkey, under the slightly corrupted name of Saloniki. For a notice of the church there, see Prolegg. to first Ep. to the Thessalonians, ii.
[ ] . ] The article is in all probability genuine: implying that there was no other synagogue for the towns lately traversed: and shewing the same minute acquaintance with the peculiarities of this district as our narrative has shewn since the arrival at Neapolis.
Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament
Act 17:1 . : “and they went along the Roman road” (Ramsay): verb only found in Luke, Luk 8:1 , and here, but frequent in LXX, and used also by Polyb. and Plut., cf. Gen 13:17 , etc., so in 1 Macc. three times. The famous road, the Via Egnatia , Horace, Sat. , i., 5, 97, extended for a distance of over five hundred miles from the Hellespont to Dyrrhachium; it was really the continuation through Macedonia of the Via Appia , and it might be truly said that when St. Paul was on the Roman road at Troas or Philippi, he was on a road which led to the gates of Rome; see some interesting details in C. and H., p. 244. The article “certam atque notam viam designat,” Blass, in loco , and Gram. , p. 149, but see also Weiss, in loco. ., thirty-two or thirty-three miles from Philippi. The Via Egnatia passed through it ( cf. C. and H., and Hackett, in loco ). The import of its name may be contained in the term applied to it, Thuc., iv., 102, , conspicuous towards sea and land, “the all around [visible] city”; or the name may simply refer to the fact that the Strymon flowed almost round the town, Thuc., u. s. Its earlier name, “Nine Ways,” , Thuc., i., 100; Herod vii., 114, indicated its important position, and no doubt this occasioned its colonisation by the Athenians in B.C. 437. In the Peloponnesian War it was famous as the scene of the battle in which both Brasidas and Cleon fell, Thuc., v., 6 11, whilst for his previous failure to succour the place Thucydides had himself been exiled (Thuc., i., 26). From the Macedonians it passed eventually into the hands of the Romans, and in B.C. 167 milius Paulus proclaimed the Macedonians free and Amphipolis the capital of the first of the four districts into which the Romans divided the province (Liv., xlv., 18, 29). In the Middle Ages Popolia , now Neochori: B.D. 2 and Hastings’ B.D., C. and H. The route may well have been one of the most beautiful of any day’s journey in St. Paul’s many travels, Renan, St. Paul , pp. 154, 155. : to be carefully distinguished from the more celebrated Apollonia in Illyria apparently there were three places in Macedonia bearing this name. The Antonine Itinerary gives it as thirty miles from Amphipolis, and thirty-seven from Thessalonica, but the other authorities, for example, the Jerusalem Itinerary , differ a little. The Via Egnatia passed through it, and the name is probably retained in the modern Pollina . It is quite possible that the two places are mentioned as having formed St. Paul’s resting-place for a night, see references above. : Saloniki; formerly Therme; the name had been most probably changed by Cassander in honour of his wife Thessalonica, the sister of Alexander the Great, Polyb., xxiii., 4, 4. Under the Romans it became the capital of the second of the four districts of Macedonia Provincia (Liv., xlv., 29), and later it was made the metropolis of the whole when the four districts were united into one. It was the largest as well as the most populous city in Macedonia, and like Ephesus and Corinth it had its share in the commerce of the gean. From its geographical position it could not cease to be important; through the Middle Ages it may fairly be described as the bulwark of Christendom in the cast, and it still remains the second city in European Turkey. St. Paul, with his usual wisdom, selected it as marking a centre of civilisation and government in the district: “posita in gremio imperii Romani,” as Cicero says. C. and H., p. 247 ff.; Zahn, Einleitung , i., p. 151; Lightfoot, Biblical Essays , p. 253 ff.; Schaff Herzog, Encycl. , iv. .: implying that there was no synagogue at Amphipolis or Apollonia, the former being a purely Hellenic town, and the latter a small place. may = simply, but if distinguished from it implies oppidum tale in quo esset (as in distinction to the other places named); see Wendt and Blass. In Agrippa’s letter to Caligula we have plain evidence of the existence of Jews in Macedonia, O. Holtzmann, Neutest. Zeitgeschichte , p. 180; Schrer, Jewish People , div. ii., vol. ii., E.T., pp. 222, 232. As the name remains in the modern Saloniki, manent Judaei quoque (Blass), C. and H., 250, see also in this connection, Ramsay, St. Paul , p. 236.
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson
Acts Chapter 17
We are now brought into somewhat new circumstances. The work of the Lord goes on, the testimony varies in its character, the zeal of the labours is the same, the results differ more or less, and so does the opposition of the enemy.
‘Now, when they had journeyed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where was the synagogue of the Jews’ (ver. 1).
It is remarkable that the more ancient manuscripts (ABD, et al.) omit the article before synagogue, as do the Authorized and Revised Versions; but the testimony to its existence is ample and varied. On the one hand it is well-nigh impossible to conceive its insertion unless it were originally there. On the other it is easy to understand its omission, because of its unusual connection. It would be quite justified if in fact there was but that synagogue in the district, which would give it notoriety. At Philippi we saw that there was none; there was only the place for prayer by the river, where a few used to assemble on the sabbath.
‘And Paul as his custom was went in among them, and on three sabbaths reasoned with them from the scriptures, opening and alleging that the Christ must suffer, and rise again from [among] the dead, and that this Jesus, whom I announce to you, is the Christ’ (vers. 2, 3). Here the apostle returns to a testimony of pointed application to the Jews. No doubt it is of the highest value to everyone, but the form of it exactly suited the place where his discourses were given. A suffering and a risen Christ was proved out of the scriptures, and this not merely as a truth in what they owned to be the word of God, but the absolute necessity because of man’s sin, and the only adequate remedy in God’s grace, with the further and clenching conclusion that ‘This is the Christ Jesus, Whom I announce to you.’ No miracle was needed here to arrest attention. The scriptures are a testimony beyond miracles, and the most permanent of all testimony. Jesus alone, as far as His first advent is concerned, gives full meaning to the word of God, and this it is which completely meets the conscience and the heart of the believer for purging to the one, and giving a blessed and blessing object to the other. But it is not all that the apostle had to say at Thessalonica, as we shall shortly learn, and as it is all which is mentioned here, no more need be added now.
‘And some of them were persuaded and added [joined themselves] to Paul and Silas; and of the devout Greeks a great multitude, and of the chief women not a few’ (ver. 4). Thus, as the apostle wrote afterwards, ‘Our gospel was not with you in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Spirit, and in much assurance’ (1Th 1:5 ). The harvest was considerable, not only from among the Jews, but far more from the Gentiles, including not a few women of rank, In no assembly of apostolic times do we find in fact greater simplicity, freshness, and power of the truth than among the Thessalonians.
But the success of the gospel is ever apt to rouse bitter opposition and nowhere so much as among the Jews, who would keenly feel that rancorous spite which is natural to those who were overwhelmed by their own scriptures, for which they could not account, but to which they would not bow. ‘But the Jews, having been stirred up to jealousy, took unto them certain wicked men of the rabble (lit., market-loungers) and gathering a crowd set the city in confusion, and besetting the house of Jason, sought to bring them out to the people. And not having found them, they dragged Jason and certain brethren before the city-rulers (or, politarchs), crying out, These that have turned the world upside down are come hither also whom Jason has received; and these all do contrary to the decrees of Caesar, saying that there is another king, Jesus. And they troubled the crowd and the city-rulers, when they heard these things. And having taken security for Jason and the rest, they let them go’ (vers. 5-9).
Here we see the usual lack of common honesty, which marks the religious assailants of the truth. The Jews, who professed the fear of God did not scruple, through jealousy, to form a party with wicked men of the lowest sort against the gospel. Abandoned heathens were good enough allies against the truth of their own Messiah, Whom worldly lusts would not let them discern in the suffering, but risen Jesus. God was in none of their thoughts; and self-wit/ wrought to darken and destroy the force of His word. Their degradation could not be hidden in the company with whom they consorted to form a crowd and set the city in uproar. Yet were the Jews the exclusive representatives of divine law before all nations They were now alas! the standing proof of utter failure, not because the law was not holy, the commandment holy and just and good, but because they themselves were unholy, unjust, and evil. Even now, their own Messiah being come, they failed to recognize Him through unbelief urged the Gentiles to crucify Him, and now were also forbidding His servants to speak to the Gentiles that they might be saved. Thus were they filling up their sins always ‘but the wrath is come upon them to the uttermost.’
The host of Paul, Jason, was the special object of their animosity, his house they beset in their desire to bring forward the Lord’s servants unto the people, i.e., the regular assembly of the city. Not finding them, they dragged Jason and certain brethren before the city-rulers,1 a peculiar title of the local authorities, which so much the more attests Luke’s accuracy because the term occurs in no known remains of Greek antiquity. But an inscription still extant on the marble arch of the western or Vardir gate of Saloniki proves that such was the title of the Thessalonian magistrates, and that there were seven. By a remarkable coincidence three of the names of Paul’s companions found here, or in the Epistles, answer to as many in that inscription given from Boeckh, No. 1967, in Conybeare and Howson I. 395. Sosipater, Secundus, and Gaius are common to both, a fact which points to the prevalence of these names in that region. It was a free city anciently called Therma, which afterwards received its name of Thessalonica from Cassander in compliment to his wife, Thessalonica, sister of Alexander the Great, and it remains a flourishing city of the Turkish empire in our day (1887) under the derived name of Saloniki or Salonica.
1 The Greek noun here, , not , is a word, with its cognate verb, of common occurrence in Dio Cassius, for praefect or commandant of a city, besides its broader usage in the past as said of a king or prince. But I do not find it applied to magistrates in Greek cities, only to the praefect of Rome.
The outcry of the assailants in verses 6, 7 is strikingly instructive, at least in its latter part. That the preachers of divine grace ‘turned the world upside down’ was natural to say, and became a standing reproach, however untrue. Yet is it intelligible because the gospel penetrates among high and low, and separates from the world by a divine bond to Christ in heaven. But for that very reason it does not meddle with the authority of the world; to which, on the contrary, it enjoins subjection on every soul as God’s ordinance here below. It simply but completely attaches the heart of those who believe to the rejected One, now glorified in heaven. But we cannot look for truth in a foolish cry raised by envious Jews and idle loungers of the Gentiles. They only sought an appearance sufficient to arouse the fears of the magistrates, and therefore drive away the chief heralds of the truth
But they laid another charge of a more definite kind, which has the more interest because of the light on it furnished by both the Epistles to the Thessalonians: ‘And these all act contrary to the decrees of Caesar, saying that there is another king, Jesus.’
The insinuation was unfounded and malicious undoubtedly; but it had a show of evidence in the prominence given to the kingdom of God in which Jesus was to come. For He was gone, among other objects, to receive that kingdom and to return. Now, whatever the ill-willed folly of representing that this expectation is antagonistic to the rights of Caesar, it is plain that the teaching was very far from modern doctrine, which could never be so misconstrued. Paul and his companions held before the saints the constant looking for Christ to come and reign; and this, not as a secret for the initiated, but as a most influential hope which penetrated all walk as well as doctrine, and to be urged from first to last throughout the whole Christian life. We learn from the earliest chapter of the first Epistle that it characterized the Thessalonian converts from their starting point. They turned to God from idols to serve a living and true God, and to await His Son from the heavens, Whom He raised out of the dead, Jesus our deliverer from the coming wrath. (1Th 1 ) Their conversion was to wait for Jesus no less than to serve God. That hope, therefore, was suited to the youngest believers as truly as to the apostle. It was independent of prophetic scheme, with which neophytes, especially from the heathen, could not be acquainted. Yet was it so much the more a hope bright and unembarrassed in which they lived from day to day.
So surely was this the case, that the apostle reminds them (1Th 2 .) how, as a father his own children, he used to exhort ‘each one of you, and comfort and testify that ye should walk worthy of God, Who calleth you to His own kingdom and glory’. What could more prove His kingdom as bearing on present walk? And in fact it is notorious that the lack of it before the eyes of the saints exposes them to seeking ease and honour, and wealth and all worldliness. With His kingdom and glory before us, we can heartily bear present shame and suffering, and the walk is elevated accordingly. Even the apostle looked for his crown of boasting in the saints only before our Lord Jesus at His coming. Then would holiness have its consummation and display at His coming with all His saints (1Th 3 ). Dead and living saints (1Th 4 ) would be changed and be with Him on high at His coming; and in due time the day of the Lord should fall with sudden destruction on a thoughtless, unexpecting world (1Th 5 ).
If possible, more precise is the intimation about the kingdom in the Second Epistle. The saints in Thessalonica, through various causes, did not then enjoy so much of the brightness of the hope, but the apostle joins his fellow-labourers with himself in boasting of their endurance and faith in all their persecutions and tribulations. This is viewed as a manifest token of the righteous judgment of God to the end that they should be counted worthy of the kingdom of God, ‘for the sake of which ye also suffer’. Retribution will come in its day at the revelation of the Lord Jesus from heaven: He it is Who makes good, manifests, and administers the kingdom (2Th 1 ). But that day cannot be (errorists pretended that it was already present) ere the apostasy come, and the man of sin be revealed.
There was already at work the mystery or secret of lawlessness, the upshot of which will be the revelation of that lawless one, who is yet himself to sit down in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God. This will draw swift judgment on him and his adherents; for the Lord Jesus shall consume him with the breath of His mouth, and annul him by the appearing of His coming (2Th 2 ). This need not alarm the feeblest believers seeing that God has called them by the gospel to obtain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ, though we need the Lord meanwhile to direct our hearts into the love of God, and into the patience of the Christ (2Th 3 ) It is the second advent, as men call it, the manifestation of the Lord in glory, which introduces the kingdom judicially, when in the language of Daniel. the ‘little stone’, having executed judgment on all opposing hostile powers here below, will then expand into a great mountain and fill the whole earth. To expect universal spread and supremacy for God’s kingdom, before the King comes in personal and public overthrow of His foes, is an error of no small magnitude. The error sought early entrance but met with immediate exposure by the apostle who strengthened the Thessalonians in the truth. He from the beginning pressed the coming of Jesus, and God’s kingdom then: a truth as solemn for the world as full of cheer for the saints.
But the world was hostile, though nothing more was done then beyond taking bail1 of Jason and the rest, and letting them go, as the preachers were not found. Persecution soon fell heavily, as the Epistle shows, on the young converts.
1 This is expressed, not in the more ancient Greek technical expression but in the equivalent of the Latin satisdatio, .
‘But the brethren immediately sent away by night Paul and Silas unto Berea, who on their arrival went away into the synagogue of the Jews. Now these were more noble than those in Thessalonica, being such as received the word with all readiness of mind, day by day examining the scriptures whether these things were so. Many out of them therefore believed, and of the Greek2 women of good position, and of men, not a few. But when the Jews from Thessalonica knew that the word of God was announced by Paul in Berea also, they came thither also, stirring up and troubling3 the crowds. And then immediately the brethren sent away Paul to proceed toward4 the sea; but Silas and Timothy abode there. But they that were conducting Paul brought [him] as far as Athens; and having received a charge for Silas and Timothy that they should come as quickly as possible unto him, they departed’ (vers. 10-15).
2 They were not Grecians or Hellenists, but Greeks.
3 ‘And troubling’ has ancient and wide support.
4 Ignorance of the idiomatic use of here probably led to in ABE and some other authorities, and to its omission in D, et al.
It is blessed to mark the unwearied zeal of the Lord’s servants. They had barely escaped the ill-will roused by the Jews at Thessalonica, when we behold them undauntedly repairing to the synagogue in Berea on their arrival. Here they experienced such readiness of heart in searching the scriptures as evinced a greater simplicity and real nobility of soul. To bow to the word, to receive it as God’s word, which indeed it is, is the truest condition of divine blessing; yet did they daily examine scripture, whether the things preached accorded with the things written. Therefore many from among them believed. There is no way so sure or good. And it is of interest to observe that here also not a few Greek women of rank, no less than men, believed, as well as the God-fearing Jews. It was doubtless an unspeakable deliverance from debasing immorality, as well as from empty fable – from a life of selfishness to serve an only and true God, and to await His Son from heaven.
But Jewish rancour could not content itself with driving the apostles from Thessalonica: from Thessalonica came the hostile Jews to Berea in order to counteract the preached word, stirring up and troubling the crowds there also.
Knowledge of old revelation gives no security for receiving the truth God is actually sending or using most at any given time. On the contrary, as we see in these Jews here and elsewhere, if there be pride in what is already possessed, it will act powerfully in rejecting what is meant of God to test the heart now; especially if grace be at work to open the door of faith to those who had no religious standing from of old. Hence the gospel is of all things most repulsive to the ancient people of God, who madly refused the mercy which waited on them first of all, before it was preached to the Gentiles.
Thereon Paul is again sent off by the brethren toward the sea, whilst his companions stayed there still. Athens was the apostle’s destination, whither he had a loving escort, and where he charged Silas and Timothy to rejoin him. But Athens, as we shall see, was not destined to be a fruitful field for the incorruptible seed, the living and abiding word of God.
No! Athens was to be comparatively barren for the gospel: so different are the thoughts of God from those of men. Mere love of novelty, not value for truth, characterized that city once the most renowned seat of the arts, of letters, of philosophy. It was covered with idols: God was not really in their thoughts. Indeed He cannot be known or loved apart from Jesus. But now a herald was come to set the testimony of Jesus before them, yet alas how little heeded!
‘Now while Paul was waiting for them at Athens, his spirit was provoked in him as he observed the city to be full of idols.1 He reasoned therefore, in the synagogue with the Jews and the devout, and in the market-place every day with those that turned up. And certain also of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers2 attacked him. And some said, What would this babbler say? and others, He seemeth to be an announcer of strange divinities, because he was preaching Jesus and the resurrection. And having taken hold of him, they brought [him] up to the Areopagus, saying, May we know what this new teaching [is], that is spoken by thee? For thou bringest certain strange things unto our ears: we wish to know therefore what these things mean. Now all Athenians and the strangers sojourning there spent their time in nothing else than either to tell something or to hear something3 newer’ [i.e., than the last] (vers. 16-21).
1 Actor. Apost.xvii. 16 quod non est, ut quidam opinantur simulacris dedita urbs, sed simulacris referta.’ Zeunius ap. Viger, de pr. Gr. L Idiom. 638, ed iii. Lips. 1822.
2 ‘Also’ has good authority, though omitted in Text. Rec., which inserts ‘the’ before Stoic, and ‘to them’ before ‘preached’.
3 The most ancient authorities support the double ‘something’.
It was an indignant and painful feeling which stirred the apostle’s spirit as he beheld idols everywhere. Companionship he loved and valued, and tidings of Thessalonica he longed for, but at once he goes to the synagogue for the Jews and proselytes, as well as to the market-place every day for those that came by. The Epicureans and the Stoics soon encountered him; the former being really Atheists under the plea of chance, and looking for the dissolution of soul and body; the latter, of a sterner school which cried up necessity or fate, and an intolerant and intolerable egotism, being really Pantheists. Some had recourse to banter: ‘What would this babbler say?’ Others took Paul up more gravely: ‘He seemeth to be an announcer of strange divinities [or demons], because he was preaching Jesus and the resurrection.’ So ignorant were these sages as to count the resurrection a goddess, the counterpart of Jesus, a god. The true God was unknown.
But they were no longer disposed to persecute. Intellectual levity survived the loss of their national independence and political power. Mocking or curiosity alone remained. Still they were sufficiently struck by the apostle’s preaching to lay hold of him and bring him up to the Areopagus, not to try him for his life, as they once did with Socrates, but that they might know what this new doctrine was. Even they could not but avow how strange the sound was to their ears: ‘We wish to know therefore, what these things mean.’ The truth, however, enters not through the ear merely, but the conscience also, and what conscience was there in spending their time for nothing else than either to tell or to hear the last news? We shall see that the apostle brought God, as a personal and living reality, before themselves as morally related to Him. Till conscience is awakened, what groundwork can there be? Otherwise the gospel is degraded into another new thing, and Jesus and the resurrection become the latest additions to the Pantheon of heathen vanities.
‘And Paul stood in the midst of the Areopagus, and said, Men of Athens, in all things I observe that ye are very [i.e., more than others] reverent to divinities [or demons]; for passing through and closely observing the objects of your worship, I found also an altar on which was the inscription, To an unknown God. What [or Whom], therefore, ye without knowing worship, this1 I announce to you. The God that made the world and all things therein, He, being Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands, nor is He served by human2 hands as needing something more, Himself giving to all life, and breath, and all things. And He made of one [blood3] every nation of men to dwell on all3 the face of the earth, having determined appointed4 seasons, and the bounds of their habitation, that they should seek God5, if haply they might feel after and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us. For in Him we live and move and are; as also some of your own poets have said, For His offspring also are we. Being therefore God’s offspring, we ought not to think that the divinity is like gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and device of man. God therefore, having overlooked the times of ignorance, now commendeth men6 that they should all everywhere repent, inasmuch as7 He has appointed a day in which He is about to judge the world [inhabited earth] in righteousness, by a Man Whom He marked out, having given assurance to all in that He raised Him from [the] dead’ (vers. 22-31).
1 The neuter form has more ancient support than the much more general masculine.
2 ‘Of men’ in Text. Rec. must yield in antiquity to ‘human’.
3 ‘Blood’ is not in AB, eight cursives, and most ancient Versions, some reading ‘every face’.
4 ‘Foreappointed’ rests on D and a few more.
5 ‘God’ has ample support of the best kind.
6 Text. Rec. has ‘all men’ with many, but not the best witnesses, as in the text followed.
7 ABDE, et al., ‘because’, has inferior weight.
Though we have only a sketch of the apostle’s discourse, we can readily see its striking difference from that which he was wont to preach to the Jews. He comes down to the lowest point and form of truth, in order, as he had done before (Act 14 ) with the Lycaonian barbarians, to reach the Athenian conscience, the Jews having through the law incomparably more worthy thoughts of God and of their own relationship to Him. Nevertheless the address opens with habitual courtesy whilst there was not a particle to flatter their pride. The apostle laid hold of the only object in that crowd of honours paid to truly strange demons, which confessed the humbling fact about themselves and God. ‘An unknown God’ told the true tale; all else around was but deception and the triumph of the enemy. ‘What, therefore, ye worship in ignorance, this I announce to you.’
The God that made the world and all things therein is the Judge of all the world by the same risen Man Who is Saviour of such as repent and believe the gospel, be they who or what they may. Creation was owned by neither Epicureans nor Stoics: the one holding the absurdity of a fortuitous concourse of atoms, the other conceiving a fixed ever-recurring cycle of generation and dissolution in the universe, which was their god if they can be allowed to have had any. But the Creator of all things is also Lord of heaven and earth; He neither rests in apathy, nor is He the mere active soul of the passive world, but supreme Ruler, not of heaven only, but of the earth. He is not therefore to be limited to human sanctuaries, nor to be served by human hands, as though He needed anything, seeing that He Himself gives to all life and breath and the whole of what they enjoy. Some elements of these truths might be accepted here and there, for man has a conscience, but seen fully and simply they swept away the dark clouds of philosophic dreamers, maintaining for God His own place of sovereign goodness towards man, let him be ever so proud, dark, and miserable.
The apostle adds more. He struck next at a well-known theme of Athenian vanity, by no means however peculiar to that race, or land, or time: ‘And He made of one [blood] every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, having determined appointed seasons and the bounds of their habitation, that they should seek God, if indeed they might feel after Him, and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us.’ The one origin of man goes with the unity of God, as the pretension to distinct races goes with their respective patrons of polytheism. The Jews as they fell away helped on the falsehood in their self-exalting vanity, though to them only was committed the revelation of the twofold truth, which Christianity alone applied thoroughly and carried out according to God. It was not only the mere passing testimony to His goodness in the gift from heaven of rains and fruitful seasons, to which the apostle here pointed, but also to appointed seasons, and the boundaries of the dwelling of the various nations, all under God’s hand with peculiar favours distributed to each, and at least a whisper to seek after (not ‘the Lord’, which is true neither in the Jewish sense of Jehovah, nor still less in the only just revealed exaltation of the rejected Messiah, but) ‘God’, if haply they might grope after and find Him, though He is not far from each of us.
It is not however without interest to compare Job’s treatment of the same truth generally (Job 12:23-25 ): only he dwells rather on the side of the divine sovereignty of Him to Whom the nations, haughtily indifferent about Him though they might be, are ‘as a drop of a bucket’, and are counted ‘as the small dust of the balance’ (Isa 40:15 ). But the glowing heat of the inspired preacher does not fail to urge the moral aim of His beneficent arrangements on the grandest scale, that they might seek after Himself, if perhaps they might feel after and find Him: teaching quite in keeping with his own Epistle to the Romans (Rom 1:20 ). Even in the darkness of heathenism more than one had owned, if not Paul’s fine statement of man’s absolute dependence on God for continued life, activity, and existence, God as the source of the race: a truth already given most distinctly in Luk 3:38 , supposed parabolically in Luk 15:11 , and taught formally in the first clause of Eph 4:6 . The poets among them (the heathen Greeks) had expressed it; not the Cilician Aratus only (whom he cites verbally), but Cleanthes also in nearly similar words, as well as others substantially.
With this acknowledgment of their poetical seers the apostle states the confutation of the folly of idolatry. If man alone of creatures on earth is God’s offspring, how maintain that the divinity is like a work of man’s craft and imagination in gold, or silver, or stone? ‘We ought not’ so to think, he says graciously, not forgetting that Israel too had to bear the sterner irony of Isaiah (Isa 44:9-20 ). A lifeless stock that man forms cannot be, or duly represent, the God Who made him and all things.
Yet the God, Who was thus shamefully misrepresented in the times of the ignorance that was past, would no longer overlook as heretofore such delinquency; He is now charging on men that they all everywhere repent (ver. 30). Here was a death-blow, not only for the self-indulgence of the Epicurean as well as for the self-righteous Stoic, but also for the careless and the proud of all mankind, and not least in that city. And the apostle followed it up with the solemn reason for heed and urgency, ‘because He had appointed a day in which He is about to judge the habitable [earth] in righteousness by a Man Whom He had marked out, having afforded assurance [or, ground of belief] to all in that He raised Him out of [the] dead.’
Here the prevalent thought of Christendom errs greatly. The Jews used to, and perhaps in some measure still, look for a judgment of living men; the mass of Christians, notwithstanding the Creeds, only look (all but exclusively in fact) for a judgment of the dead before eternity. The apostle here and elsewhere pressed the judgment of this habitable scene at our Lord’s appearing to introduce His kingdom in displayed power and glory, as He did Himself in Mat 24 , and 25; Mar 13 ; Luk 17:19 , Luk 17:21 , and other scriptures. The pledge of His thus coming to judge and to reign is His own resurrection, as ours who believe will be at His coming preparatorily to our appearing and reigning with Him.
This scripture shows how vital and fundamental a truth is His resurrection, which so blessedly involves our own, besides being the witness to His victory over death and Satan to the Father’s glory in vindicating His Son to the efficacy of His sacrifice to the believer, and to the displayed condition of man for heaven according to divine counsels. Granted that in the nature of the case it is a fact attested by His own, though with the most abundant and weighty evidence, above all by God’s word long before the fact, as well as by fresh revelation immediately after. Could any other fact be shown possessed of grounds to be compared with these? All that on which the soul stands for ever before God rests on the self-same ground of divinely given testimony; and, consequently, as being addressed to faith, purifies the heart through the operation of the Holy Ghost, as nothing else can do.
What was the effect on the Athenians? ‘Now when they heard of resurrection of dead [men], some mocked, but others said, We will hear thee concerning this yet again. Thus Paul went out from their midst. But some men crave to him and believed; among whom also was Dionysius the Areopagite, and a woman named Damaris, and others with them’ (vers. 32-34)
Nor should we wonder at these heathen philosophers and newsmongers being staggered by a call resting on a basis so irrefragable on God’s part so crushing to human will and unbelief, as resurrection. For human science never rises above sensible causes and effects, or phenomena arrayed according to natural laws. This is all true and interesting in its own sphere. The folly is in denying what is as wholly different in kind, as grace necessarily is from nature, and in rejecting facts attested by the fullest and surest testimony, the most unreasonable course to be conceived in things which must and ought, as facts, to depend on testimony: a course only intelligible in this exceptional case through the desperate antagonism of fallen humanity to God, even when He is waiting on and speaking to man in the richest mercy.
But man, and not least philosophic man, rebels against resurrection. He might endure a whole night’s Socratic discussion of the soul’s immortality; for this gratifies the nobler sort, if it be offensive to the morally degraded. But a dead man raised brings in God; and proves God intervening in the midst of a busy world to mark out the Man Whom they crucified, Who is going to judge this habitable world one day, as also in due time the dead raised later, ere all things are made new for eternity. To science as science, I repeat, this fact is repulsive, because impossible for their idol for what can be the cause of resurrection? Certainly not death, but God in the person of the Son.
Bow, proud man, bow to Him, Who in love sent His Son that we might live through Him, true God as He is, and that He might die for us – for our sins, without which the gift of eternal life had been the merest anomaly, but with it the deep blessing of a full and everlasting salvation of His grace, yet righteous, to the glory of God for ever. There were mockers and triflers then as now. Oh! may you, like the others of old, cleave to the apostle, and find your place with the true Dionysius of Luke, not with the Neo-Platonist impostor who borrowed the scriptural name for his fables and rhapsodies of the sixth century manufacture. Doubtless that blessed place must be shared with a Damaris and others, whose names are written in heaven if unknown on earth. May Christ satisfy your soul, as well He may Who is all, and in all!
Fuente: William Kelly Major Works (New Testament)
Acts
THESSALONICA AND BEREA
Act 17:1 – Act 17:12
‘Shamefully entreated at Philippi,’ Paul tells the Thessalonians, he ‘waxed bold in our God to’ preach to them. His experience in the former city might well have daunted a feebler faith, but opposition affected Paul as little as a passing hailstorm dints a rock. To change the field was common sense; to abandon the work would have been sin. But Paul’s brave persistence was not due to his own courage; he drew it from God. Because he lived in communion with Him, his courage ‘waxed’ as dangers gathered. He knew that he was doing a daring thing, but he knew who was his helper. So he went steadily on, whatever might front him. His temper of mind and the source of it are wonderfully revealed in his simple words.
The transference to Thessalonica illustrates another principle of his action; namely, his preference of great centres of population as fields of work. He passes through two less important places to establish himself in the great city. It is wise to fly at the head. Conquer the cities, and the villages will fall of themselves. That was the policy which carried Christianity through the empire like a prairie fire. Would that later missions had adhered to it!
The methods adopted in Thessalonica were the usual ones. Luke bids us notice that Paul took the same course of action in each place: namely, to go to the synagogue first, when there was one, and there to prove that Jesus was the Christ. The three Macedonian towns already mentioned seem not to have had synagogues. Probably there were comparatively few Jews in them, and these were ecclesiastically dependent on Thessalonica. We can fancy the growing excitement in the synagogue, as for three successive Sabbaths the stranger urged his proofs of the two all-important but most unwelcome assertions, that their own scriptures foretold a suffering Messiah,-a side of Messianic prophecy which was ignored or passionately denied-and that Jesus was that Messiah. Many a vehement protest would be shrieked out, with flashing eyes and abundant gesticulation, as he ‘opened’ the sense of Scripture, and ‘quoted passages’-for that is the meaning here of the word rendered ‘alleging.’ He gives us a glimpse of the hot discussions when he says that he preached ‘in much conflict’ 1Th 2:2.
With whatever differences in manner of presentation, the true message of the Christian teacher is still the message that woke such opposition in the synagogue of Thessalonica,-the bold proclamation of the personal Christ, His death and resurrection. And with whatever differences, the instrument of conviction is still the Scriptures, ‘the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God.’ The more closely we keep ourselves to that message and that weapon the better.
The effects of the faithful preaching of the gospel are as uniform as the method. It does one of two things to its hearers-either it melts their hearts and leads them to faith, or it stirs them to more violent enmity. It is either a stone of stumbling or a sure corner-stone. We either build on or fall over it, and at last are crushed by it. The converts included Jews and proselytes in larger numbers, as may be gathered from the distinction drawn by ‘some’-referring to the former, and ‘a great multitude’-referring to the latter. Besides these there were a good many ladies of rank and refinement, as was also the case presently at Beroea. Probably these, too, were proselytes.
The prominence of women among the converts, as soon as the gospel is brought into Europe, is interesting and prophetic. The fact of the social position of these ladies may suggest that the upper classes were freer from superstition than the lower, and may point a not favourable contrast with present social conditions, which do not result in a similar accession of women of ‘honourable estate’ to the Church.
Opposition follows as uniform a course as the preaching. The broad outlines are the same in each case, while the local colouring varies. If we compare Paul’s narrative in I Thessalonians, which throbs with emotion, and, as it were, pants with the stress of the conflict, with Luke’s calm account here, we see not only how Paul felt, but why the Jews got up a riot. Luke says that they ‘became jealous.’ Paul expands that into ‘they are contrary to all men; forbidding us to speak to the Gentiles that they may be saved.’ Then it was not so much dislike to the preaching of Jesus as Messiah as it was rage that their Jewish prerogative was infringed, and the children’s bread offered to the dogs, that stung them to violent opposition. Israel had been chosen, that it might be God’s witness, and diffuse the treasure it possessed through all the world. It had become, not the dispenser, but the would-be monopolist, of its gift. Have there been no Christian communities in later days animated by the same spirit?
There were plenty of loafers in the market-place ready for any mischief, and by no means particular about the pretext for a riot. Anything that would give an opportunity for hurting somebody, and for loot, would attract them as corruption does flesh-flies. So the Jewish ringleaders easily got a crowd together. To tell their real reasons would scarcely have done, but to say that there was a house to be attacked, and some foreigners to be dragged out, was enough for the present. Jason’s house was probably Paul’s temporary home, where, as he tells us in 1Th 2:9 , he had worked at his trade, that he might not be burdensome to any. Possibly he and Silas had been warned of the approach of the rioters and had got away elsewhere. At all events, the nest was empty, but the crowd must have its victims, and so, failing Paul, they laid hold of Jason. His offence was a very shadowy one. But since his day there have been many martyrs, whose only crime was ‘harbouring’ Christians, or heretics, or recusant priests, or Covenanters. If a bull cannot gore a man, it will toss his cloak.
The charge against Jason is that he receives the Apostle and his party, and constructively favours their designs. The charge against them is that they are revolutionists, rebels against the Emperor, and partisans of a rival. Now we may note three things about the charge. First, it comes with a very distinct taint of insincerity from Jews, who were, to say the least, not remarkable for loyalty or peaceful obedience. The Gracchi are complaining of sedition! A Jew zealous for Caeesar is an anomaly, which might excite the suspicions of the least suspicious ruler. The charge of breaking the peace comes with remarkable appropriateness from the leaders of a riot. They were the troublers of the city, not Paul, peacefully preaching in the synagogue. The wolf scolds the lamb for fouling the river.
Again, the charges are a violent distortion of the truth. Possibly the Jewish ringleaders believed what they said, but more probably they consciously twisted Paul’s teachings, because they knew that no other charges would excite so much hostility or be so damning as those which they made. The mere suggestion of treason was often fatal. The wild exaggeration that the Christians had ‘turned the whole civilised world upside down’ betrays passionate hatred and alarm, if it was genuine, or crafty determination to rouse the mob, if it was consciously trumped up. But whether the charges were believed or not by those who made them, here were Jews disclaiming their nation’s dearest hope, and, like the yelling crowd at the Crucifixion, declaring they had no king but Caesar. The degradation of Israel was completed by these fanatical upholders of its prerogatives.
But, again, the charges were true in a far other sense than their bringers meant. For Christianity is revolutionary, and its very aim is to turn the world upside down, since the wrong side is uppermost at present, and Jesus, not Caesar, or any king or emperor or czar, is the true Lord and ruler of men. But the revolution which He makes is the revolution of individuals, turning them from darkness to light; for He moulds single souls first and society afterwards. Violence is always a mistake, and the only way to change evil customs is to change men’s natures, and then the customs drop away of themselves. The true rule begins with the sway of hearts; then wills are submissive, and conduct is the expression of inward delight in a law which is sweet because the lawgiver is dear.
Missing Paul, the mob fell on Jason and the brethren. They were ‘bound over to keep the peace.’ Evidently the rulers had little fear of these alleged desperate revolutionaries, and did as little as they dared, without incurring the reproach of being tepid in their loyalty.
Probably the removal of Paul and his travelling companions from the neighbourhood was included in the terms to which Jason had to submit. Their hurried departure does not seem to have been caused by a renewal of disturbances. At all events, their Beroean experience repeated that of Philippi and of Thessalonica, with one great and welcome difference. The Beroean Jews did exactly what their compatriots elsewhere would not do-they looked into the subject with their own eyes, and tested Paul’s assertions by Scripture. ‘Therefore,’ says Luke, with grand confidence in the impregnable foundations of the faith, ‘many of them believed.’ True nobility of soul consists in willingness to receive the Word, combined with diligent testing of it. Christ asks for no blind adhesion. The true Christian teacher wishes for no renunciation, on the part of his hearers, of their own judgments. ‘Open your mouth and shut your eyes, and swallow what I give you,’ is not the language of Christianity, though it has sometimes been the demand of its professed missionaries, and not the teacher only, but the taught also, have been but too ready to exercise blind credulity instead of intelligent examination and clear-eyed faith. If professing Christians to-day were better acquainted with the Scriptures, and more in the habit of bringing every new doctrine to them as its touchstone, there would be less currency of errors and firmer grip of truth.
Fuente: Expositions Of Holy Scripture by Alexander MacLaren
NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Act 17:1-9
1Now when they had traveled through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where there was a synagogue of the Jews. 2And according to Paul’s custom, he went to them, and for three Sabbaths reasoned with them from the Scriptures, 3explaining and giving evidence that the Christ had to suffer and rise again from the dead, and saying, “This Jesus whom I am proclaiming to you is the Christ.” 4And some of them were persuaded and joined Paul and Silas, along with a large number of the God-fearing Greeks and a number of the leading women. 5But the Jews, becoming jealous and taking along some wicked men from the market place, formed a mob and set the city in an uproar; and attacking the house of Jason, they were seeking to bring them out to the people. 6When they did not find them, they began dragging Jason and some brethren before the city authorities, shouting, “These men who have upset the world have come here also; 7and Jason has welcomed them, and they all act contrary to the decrees of Caesar, saying that there is another king, Jesus.” 8They stirred up the crowd and the city authorities who heard these things. 9And when they had received a pledge from Jason and the others, they released them
Act 17:1 “through Amphipolis and Apollonia” These two cities were located on the Roman highway, Ignatian Way (i.e., the Road of the Nations), a major east-west road of over 500 miles, which linked the eastern and western parts of the empire and which formed the main street of Thessalonica.
“Thessalonica” See Introduction to this chapter.
“where there was a synagogue” This was Paul’s pattern and sequence for proclamation (cf. Act 17:2; Act 3:26; Act 13:46; Rom 1:16; Rom 2:9-10; Act 9:20; Act 13:5; Act 13:14; Act 14:1; Act 17:2; Act 17:10; Act 17:17; Act 18:4; Act 18:19; Act 19:8), probably because he felt the gospel was first for the Jews (cf. Rom 1:16) because of OT prophecy. Also, many God-fearers also attended, knew, and respected the Old Testament.
Act 17:2 “for three Sabbaths” This means he spoke in this synagogue on only three Sabbaths. He was probably in the city longer than three weeks (cf. Php 4:16), but not for an extended period.
“reasoned with them from the Scriptures” Paul matched Messianic prophecies with Jesus’ life, teaching, death, and resurrection. He took this pattern from Stephen (Acts 7) and his rabbinical training
Act 17:3
NASB”explaining and giving evidence”
NKJV”explaining and demonstrating”
NRSV, NJB”explaining and proving”
TEV”explaining the Scriptures, and proving from them”
The first word is dianoig, which is used of Jesus opening the Scriptures for the two on the road to Emmaus (cf. Luk 24:32; Luk 24:45). It was also used of Jesus opening their eyes so that they recognized Him (cf. Luk 24:31). This same word was used in Act 16:14 for God opening Lydia’s heart to understand the gospel.
The second term, paratithmi, is used often in Luke’s writings for placing food before someone, but here it implies “to place the truth before” or “to commend” (cf. Act 14:23; Act 20:32). Twice in Luke (cf. Luk 12:48; Luk 23:46) it is used of entrusting something to another. Paul carefully and meticulously gave to the hearers the gospel (i.e., deposit, parathk, 1Ti 6:20; 2Ti 1:12; 2Ti 1:14). Some responded (some Jews, some God-fearers, and several leading women).
“Christ had to suffer” The term “had” (dei) is an imperfect active indicative, which denotes necessity (see full note at Act 1:16). A suffering Messiah was predicted in the OT (cf. Gen 3:15; Psalms 22; Isa 52:13 to Isa 53:12; Zec 12:10), but was never clearly seen by the rabbis. It was forcibly asserted by Apostolic preachers (cf. Luk 24:46; Act 3:18; Act 26:23; 1Pe 1:10-12). This truth was the major stumbling block to the Jews (cf. 1Co 1:22-23). See note at Act 3:18.
“and rise again from the dead” This is a common element in all the sermons of Peter, Stephen, and Paul in Acts (part of the kerygma, see Special Topic at Act 2:14). It is a central pillar of the gospel (cf. 1 Corinthians 15).
“This Jesus whom I am proclaiming to you is the Christ” There are many variations in the Greek manuscripts of the last words of this sentence.
1. “the Christ, the Jesus” MS B
2. “the Christ, Jesus” some Vulgate and the Coptic translations
3. “Christ Jesus” MSS P74, A, D
4. “Jesus Christ” MS
5. “Jesus the Christ” MS E and Bohairic Coptic version
6. “the Christ” the Georgean version
Many scholars choose the wording of #1 (Vaticanus) because it is so unusual (UBS4 gives it a “C” rating).
In this synagogue setting “the Christ” would mean the promised Anointed One of the OT, the Messiah (see Special Topic at Act 2:31). There were three anointed offices in the OT: kings, prophets, priests. Jesus fulfills all three of these functions (cf. Heb 1:1-3). This anointing was a symbol of God’s choice and equipping of a ministry task. See SPECIAL TOPIC: ANOINTING IN THE BIBLE (BDB 603) in the Bible at Act 4:27.
The early church acknowledged again and again that Jesus of Nazareth was the promised Messiah (cf. Act 2:31-32; Act 3:18; Act 5:42; Act 8:5; Act 9:22; Act 17:3; Act 18:5; Act 18:28), following Jesus’ own clear and repeated affirmations.
Act 17:4 “joined” This Greek verb (aorist passive indicative) is found only here in the NT. It literally means “to assign by lot.” In this context it connotes “to follow” or “join with.” The “lot” was an OT way of knowing God’s will. The implication of
1. the preposition (pros)
2. the root (klpo)
3. the passive voice implies a divine action
God opened their hearts as He did Lydia’s (cf. Act 16:24; also notice similar thought in 1Pe 5:3).
“God-fearing Greeks” These were followers of Judaism who had not yet become full converts, which involved
1. being circumcised
2. self baptism
3. offering a sacrifice when possible at the Temple in Jerusalem
“and a number” This is another example of Juke’s use of litotes (a purposeful understatement, cf. Act 12:18; Act 15:2; Act 19:11; Act 19:23-24; Act 20:12; Act 26:19; Act 26:26; Act 27:20; Act 28:2), usually in the form of negation. Here the phrase is literally “not a few,” placed at the end of the sentence for emphasis.
“leading women” Women had greater freedom in Macedonia (Lydia) than other parts of the Mediterranean world. The pattern set at Pisidian Antioch was repeating itself (cf. Act 13:43; Act 13:45; Act 13:50). The western family of Greek manuscripts adds a phrase in Act 17:4 asserting that these women were the wives of leading men.
Act 17:5 “the Jews, becoming jealous” Jewish unbelief is sad to me (cf. Act 14:2), but jealousy (cf. Act 5:17) is tragic! These were not motivated by religious zeal like Saul’s, but jealousy! The number of converts (cf. Act 13:45), not the content of the preaching, is what bothered them.
Luke uses the term “Jews” often in a pejorative, negative sense (cf. Act 12:3; Act 13:45; Act 14:2; Act 17:13), as does Paul (cf. 1Th 2:15-16). It becomes synonymous with those who oppose and resist the gospel.
NASB”some wicked men from the marketplace”
NKJV”some evil men from the marketplace”
NRSV”some ruffians in the market places”
TEV”worthless loafers from the streets”
NJB”a gang from the market place”
This term describes one who hangs around the marketplace without working, a lazy good-for-nothing.
“a mob” This word is found only here in the NT and is very rate in Greek literature. It is not found in the Septuagint. “Mob” is the contextually implied meaning. Luke was an educated man with a large vocabulary (i.e., medical, nautical, etc.).
Act 17:6 “dragging Jason” Some speculate that the Jason mentioned in Rom 16:21 is this same person, but this is uncertain.
“and some brethren” This construction implies that Jason was not yet a believer. Exactly how Jason welcomed the missionary team is uncertain. It is possible that
1. Paul or Silas worked for him
2. they rented space from him
3. they stayed in his home
The verb welcome in Act 17:7 means “to receive as a guest” (cf. Luk 10:38; Luk 19:6; Jas 2:25).
“city authorities” This tem “politarch” means city leader. This was the special name for local governmental leaders in Macedonia. It is a very rare word, used only here and in Act 17:8 in the NT, or in Greek literature and its use shows Luke’s knowledge of the area and supports the historicity of Acts (NASB Study Bible, p. 1607, but the word has been found in a Greek inscription on an arch on the Ignatian Way in Thessalonica). Luke was an accurate historian in an age when this was rare. He does have a faith agenda, which believers affirm as inspiration.
NASB”upset the world”
NKJV, NRSV
NJB”turned the world upside down”
TEV”caused trouble everywhere”
This implies a charge of sedition (cf. Act 21:38; also note Act 16:20; Act 24:5). This is a very strong term. Note Paul’s use of it in Gal 5:12. We know from 1Th 2:14-16 that this church faced great persecution.
One wonders if this is hyperbole or they knew of the spread of this new sect of Judaism.
Act 17:7 “to the decrees of Caesar” Some think this relates to Claudius’ (A.D. 41-54) edict of A.D. 49-50, which outlawed Jewish rituals in Rome. This edict, in effect, caused the Jewish population of Rome to leave. However, I think the context is clear that it refers to their preaching of the gospel. It was illegal for anyone to proselytize a Roman.
“saying that there is another king, Jesus” This charge may be due to
1. Paul’s heavy emphasis on eschatology in his preaching at Thessalonica
2. the terms the Christians used for Jesus being the same terms that the Romans used of Caesar (king, lord, and savior)
Act 17:8
NASB, TEV”the city authorities”
NKJV”rulers of the city”
NRSV”city officials”
NJB”the city counselors”
This is the Greek term politarchs, which were annual appointees in the cities of Macedonia. They were not Roman but local leaders (AB, vol. 5, pp. 384-389).
Act 17:9 “a pledge” Probably this was a large monetary security bond, which was put up by the recent converts (cf. Act 17:4; Act 17:6; Act 17:10), to assure that Paul did not continue to preach in the city. Some relate this to 1Th 2:18.
Fuente: You Can Understand the Bible: Study Guide Commentary Series by Bob Utley
passed through. Greek. diodeuo. Only here and Luk 8:1. A medical word.
Amphipolis. About thirty-three miles south-west of Philippi.
Apollonia. Thirty miles further, about midway between Amphipolis and Thessalonica. Thessal. onica. Now Salonica or Saloniki. Rose to importance in the time of Cassander, who rebuilt it and called it after his wife. Has been an important city in the past, and also in recent days during the second Balkan war (1913), and seems destined to play an important part in the immediate future.
synagogue. App-120.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
1.] Here (or rather perhaps at , in the preceding verse) we have the first person again dropped,-implying apparently that the narrator did not accompany Paul and Silas. I should be inclined to think that Timotheus went with them from Philippi,-not, as is usually supposed, joined them at Bera: see below on Act 17:10.
] The , on which they travelled from Philippi to Thessalonica, was the Via Egnatia, the Macedoman continuation of the Via Appia, and so named from Egnatia (Gnatia lymphis iratis exstructa, Hor. Sat. i. 5), in the neighbourhood of which the latter meets the Adriatic. It extended from Dyrrha chium in Epirus to the Hebrus in Thrace, a distance of 500 miles. The stages here mentioned are thus particularized in the itineraries: Philippi to Amphipolis, 33 miles: Amphipolis to Apollonia, 30 miles: Apollonia to Thessalonica, 37 miles. See more particulars in C. and H., i. pp. 368 ff.
] Anciently called , Thucyd. i. 100. Herod. vii. 114, lying in a most important position, at the end of the lake Cercinitis, formed by the Strymon, commanding the only easy pass from the coast of the Strymonic gulf into Macedonia. (Amphipoleos, qu objecta claudit omnes ab oriente sole in Macedoniam aditus, Liv. xlv. 30.) In consequence of this, the Athenians colonized the place, calling it Amphipolis, , Thuc. iv. 102. It was the spot where Brasidas was killed, and for previously failing to succour which Thucydides was exiled: see Thucyd. iv. and v., and Grotes Hist. of Greece, vol. vi. p. 625 ff., where there is a plan of Amphipolis. After this it was a point of contention between the Athenians and Philip, and subsequently became the capital of Macedonia Prima,-see Livy, xlv. 30, where Paulus milius proclaims, at Amphipolis, the freedom and territorial arrangements of Macedonia. It is now called Emboli.
] Its situation is unknown, but was evidently (see the distances above given) inland, not quite half-way from Amphipolis to Thessalonica, where the road crosses from the Strymonic to the Thermaic gulf. Leake saw some ruins at about the right spot, but did not visit them: and Cousinry mentions seeing, on an opposite hill, the village of Polina. Pliny mentions it (N. H. iv. 10), regio Mygdoni subjacens, in qua recedentes a mare Apollonia, Arethusa. It must not be confounded with a better known Apollonia near Dyrrhachium, on the western coast, also on the Via Egnatia. See C. and H. i. pp. 376 f.
] At this time the capital of the province Macedonia, and the residence of the proconsul (Macedonia had been an imperial, but was now a senatorial province). Its former names were Emathia, Halia, and Therma: it received its name of Thessalonica from Cassander, on his rebuilding and embellishing it, in honour of his wife Thessalonica, sister of Alexander the Great. So Strabo, lib. vii. excerpt. 10: who, ib. excerpt. 3, calls it . It was made a free city after the battle of Philippi: and every thing in this narrative is consistent with the privileges and state of an urbs libera. We read of its Act 17:5, and its Act 17:6; not, as at the Roman colony of Philippi, of (lictors), and (duumviri), ch. Act 16:20; Act 16:35. It has ever been an important and populous city, and still continues such (pop. 70,000), being the second city in European Turkey, under the slightly corrupted name of Saloniki. For a notice of the church there, see Prolegg. to first Ep. to the Thessalonians, ii.
[] .] The article is in all probability genuine: implying that there was no other synagogue for the towns lately traversed: and shewing the same minute acquaintance with the peculiarities of this district as our narrative has shewn since the arrival at Neapolis.
Fuente: The Greek Testament
Now when they had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where there was a synagogue of the Jews ( Act 17:1 ):
Now Luke passes that off in one verse. From Philippi to Amphipolis was thirty miles. Another thirty miles on to Apollonia. And another thirty-seven miles on to Thessalonica. So it, no doubt, took them several days to travel almost a hundred miles to Thessalonica.
And Paul, as his manner was, went in unto them [that is into the synagogue], and reasoned them for three sabbath days out of the scriptures, opening and alleging, that Christ [that is the Messiah] must needs to have suffered, and risen again from the dead; and that this Jesus, whom I preach unto you, is the Messiah ( Act 17:2-3 ).
Now Paul took their scriptures and out of their scriptures he pointed out and showed to them the necessity of the Messiah dying. No doubt he was using Isa 53:1-12 as his text and Psa 22:1-31 and the other scriptures where there is that type of the death of Christ. And so he was reasoning to them out of their own scriptures, showing them what the Messiah needed to suffer and die. And Jesus, the one we are preaching to you, is the Messiah.
And some of them believed, and consorted with Paul and Silas; and of the devout Greeks a great multitude ( Act 17:4 ),
So some of the Jews believed, but a great multitude of the Greeks and of the chief women not a few. A very strong church was established at Thessalonica. And for super extra credit you can read Paul’s two epistles to the Thessalonians, which grew out of this ministry. And, of course, if you will read the epistles in conjunction with your reading of Acts, it really begins to put it together, and you begin to really tie the scriptures together, and it’s a very helpful thing.
But the Jews which believed not, were moved with envy, took unto them certain lewd fellows of the baser sort, and gathered a company, and set all the city on an uproar, and assaulted the house of Jason, and sought to bring them out to the people. And when they found them not, they drew Jason and certain brethren unto the rulers of the city, crying, These that have turned the world upside down are come here also ( Act 17:5-6 );
I like the charges that were made against Paul and Silas. Earlier the charges were made against Peter by the high priest that he had filled the city of Jerusalem with the doctrine of Jesus Christ. What a glorious charge! Oh, that we could be arrested in that charge made against us. We have filled Orange County with the doctrine of Jesus Christ. How I wish I could say guilty as charged. That would be great! Here’s another interesting charge: these men who have turned the world upside down. Oh, how I wish that I could be charged with turning Orange County upside down for Jesus Christ. But in reality, I would dispute this charge. I believe Orange County is upside down and needs to be turned right side up.
And so this charge isn’t quite right. They should have said, “These men who have turned the world right side up have come hither.” Men have their priorities all wrong. Men who are living after the flesh are not living as God intended men to live. They’re living a life that is upside down, topsy turvy. They need to be turned right side up and the mission of the church is to turn men right side up, that they might have a right relationship with God, get their priorities straight.
Now Jason has received them into his house: and these all do contrary to the decrees of Caesar, saying that there is another king, a fellow by the way of Jesus. And they troubled the people and the rulers of the city, when they heard these things. And when they had taken security of Jason ( Act 17:7-9 ),
That is, Jason had to post bail.
and of the others, they let them go. And the brethren immediately sent away Paul and Silas by night unto Berea: who coming there went into the synagogue of the Jews ( Act 17:9-10 ).
Those guys just don’t quit, do they?
Now those in Berea were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so ( Act 17:11 ).
In Thessalonica Paul reasoned with them for three weeks. When Paul came to Berea he began to reason with these people, but they were more noble than those in Thessalonica. They went home and did their homework. They read Galatians and first and second Thessalonians. They went home and studied the scriptures to see if what Paul was saying was true.
I strongly encourage that. I have heard more junky garbage on television being passed off for doctrine by some of these evangelists that it’s just disheartening. For people take some of these weird, far out ideas that these guys say and they just run with them. They don’t search the scriptures to see if it be so. “After all, he said the Greek and I don’t know Greek, so it must so.” You know.
One of these evangelists was recently talking about Paul’s thorn in the flesh. And he said, “Now where else in the Bible do we find the word thorn? What was Paul’s thorn? People say a physical infirmity. But where else in the Bible do we find thorn? Going back in Matthew, the parable of the sower. And some fell among the thorns, but what were the thorns in Matthew’s gospel? They were the cares of this life and the deceitfulness of riches and the lust of other things. And so Paul’s thorn was the cares of this life. He had taken too much on himself.”
Great biblical exposition. But get your concordance and you’ll find out that the thorn that Paul talked about in his flesh was literally a tent stake. Where the thorn referred to in Matthew was a little thorn that you might run into in a rose bush. One is a tent stake. Different Greek word entirely, but you know, this evangelist is espousing his doctrine that nobody should ever be sick. And if that is true, then Paul could not have been sick. “And it is never God’s will that a child of God should ever suffer. Suffering is never according to the will of God.” What did they do with Jesus?
And what do they do with 1Pe 4:19 ? “Wherefore let them that suffer according to the will of God” ( 1Pe 4:19 ). Oh, wait a minute, but you just told me nobody ever suffers according to the will of God. Well, Peter, why did you write that? Didn’t you know? Hey, don’t just take what they say. Search the scriptures and see if these things be so. Because a lot of things are being proclaimed as scriptural which are not scriptural.
Be like the Bereans, more noble than they of Thessalonica. Go home and search the scriptures and prove all things and hold fast that which is good. And I encourage you, don’t just take what I say. Prove all things. Hold fast that which is good.
Therefore many of them believed ( Act 17:12 );
Why? Because they searched the scriptures and saw that it was so. They saw the scriptures were confirming.
also of honorable women who were Greeks, and of men, not a few ( Act 17:12 ).
Again, a good work was established in Berea.
But when the Jews of Thessalonica had knowledge that the word of God was preached of Paul at Berea, they came thither also, and stirred up the people. And then immediately the brethren sent away Paul to go to the sea: but Silas and Timotheus abode there still. And they that conducted Paul brought him unto Athens: and received a commandment unto Silas and Timotheus for to come to him with all speed, they departed ( Act 17:13-15 ).
So these brethren brought Paul, they accompanied him down to Athens while Timothy and Silas continued there in Berea to strengthen the brethren. But when Paul came to Athens, these fellows that brought him down said, “When you get back, tell Timothy and Silas to get here in a hurry.” So they left Paul in Athens.
Now while Paul was waiting for them at Athens, his spirit was stirred ( Act 17:16 ),
Provoked, literally.
as he saw a city wholly given over to idolatry ( Act 17:16 ).
It would be the feeling that you would get perhaps in going to portions of Hollywood or San Francisco. When you see an area given over completely to sensual lust. It just provoked him. He was stirred inside.
Therefore he disputed in the synagogue with the Jews, and with the devout persons, and in the market daily with them that met with him ( Act 17:17 ).
So Paul started meeting in the market daily with a group of fellas and started sharing the truth about Jesus Christ.
Then certain philosophers of the Epicureans, and of the Stoicks, encountered him ( Act 17:18 ).
Epicurus actually lived from 342 to 271 B.C. This was happening in 53 A.D. So it had been over 300 years since the death of Epicurus. And in this period of time, his philosophy had degenerated. Originally, Epicurus said that the chief good was pleasure. But he went beyond that. He declared that pleasure came from a simple life. That the more complex our lives become, the more we have to bother with the details. The more possessions we have, the more we have to worry about taking care of them. So if a man can just live a very simple life, that is the key to pleasure, and pleasure is the chief good.
Diogenes, who was following the Epicurean philosophy, was very content and happy to possess nothing more than just a tub to sit in. And Alexander the Great was so totally impressed by Diogenes, because Alexander the Great had conquered the world and was still restless. He vowed to be a disciple of Diogenes for life. Upon which Diogenes handed him two fish and he said, “Carry these around for two weeks and you will then be my disciple.” And Alexander the Great became incensed and went off mumbling to himself about the stupidity of this man. Diogenes just shook his head and said, “What a shame. Such great devotion dissipated over two smelly fish.”
But the simplicity of life. But that is not the way the Epicurean philosophy was now being interpreted. By this time, they had said the chief good of life was pleasure, thus you are to pursue after pleasure above everything else. And as the result, they had given themselves over to sensual lust.
The Epicurean philosophy was expressed in the Roman orgies where you would eat at these feasts all that you could hold of the first course. Savoring and enjoying every bite. And then between courses go out and forcefully regurgitate so you could eat all that you could hold at the second course. And eating for the pleasure of eating. And seeking to measure the intensity of pleasure each taste brought to you. So they were busy measuring degrees and intensity of pleasure.
This degrading of the Epicurean philosophy ended in the pantheism, the worship of everything, anything. The Stoics said that the chief good was virtue. But a man cannot know virtue who is emotionally involved. Therefore, you are not to have feelings, and they sought to become totally unfeeling. To not feel pain, not feel grief, not feel joy, not feel anything, to just be stoic about everything, untouched, unmoved in your emotions about anything. And this lead to an atheism. These are the two philosophies that Paul encountered in Athens.
And some said, What will this babbler say? [The word babbler in Greek is seed picker or cotton picker.] and other said, He seemeth to be a setter forth of strange gods: because he is preaching about Jesus, and the resurrection. And they took him, and brought him unto Areopagus, saying, May we know what this new doctrine, whereof you speak, is? For you are bringing certain strange things to our ears: we would like to know what these things mean. (For all the Athenians, and strangers which were there, spent their time in nothing else, but either to tell or to hear some new thing.) ( Act 17:18-21 )
The Athenians, not committed, just want to listen to anything novel and new.
Then Paul stood in the midst of Mars’ hill ( Act 17:22 ),
Areopagus is about, oh half way up from the Agura marketplace, to the acropolis, the top of the hill where stands the Parthenon. And almost up to the Parthenon, maybe two thirds of the way up is this outcropping of rock where was known the stone of impudence, where men would go to espouse their philosophies and all their ideas. And these guys would sit around in their robes, and here’s the Parthenon above them and the Agura below them and all and there they’re getting into all these philosophical debates and discussions and all. And so Paul is sitting on this stone of impudence and there, “Give your spiel.”
So Paul said, Ye men of Athens, I perceive that in all things ye are too superstitious ( Act 17:22 ).
Now the words too superstitious are a poor translation. The American Authorized has a better translation. It translates it, “You are very religious.” Paul was not insulting these fellas to begin his speech. That’s no way to persuade people. And Paul was going to try to persuade them to his belief in Jesus Christ. And so he said, “I perceive that you are very religious.” Which indeed was evidence in the city of Athens.
There were travelers to the city of Athens who said there were more gods than people in the city. That every street corner had its god and then along the block there were all of these gods. Marble, silver, gold, carved images, idols that were worshipped by the people. Many great temples, which some of them the ruins still stand as magnificent wonders today.
For as I passed by, and beheld your devotions ( Act 17:23 ),
Watching these people stop and pray to these various gods. It’s always interesting to watch the devotions of people. I find it fascinating. In Mexico I find it fascinating to see the veneration that is given to the saints where the mummies and all are in these caskets in the cathedrals. And to watch the people coming on their knees and dropping on their knees and crying and weeping as they’re praying to this saint for some miracle to take place. I find it interesting to watch the Muslims wash their feet, get out their little rugs, and bow towards the East. And Paul was observing their devotions and he said,
I found an altar with this inscription, TO THE UNKNOWN GOD ( Act 17:23 ).
Now, two hundred years later there was an explorer who passed through Athens who was also a historian. Pasolineus And he writes in his books of the number of idols in Athens, and it is he who made the statement, “There are almost more gods than people.” And in describing the city of Athens in his history book, he also speaks of this altar to the unknown god. In fact, he speaks of three of them that he observed in Athens.
Now the Greeks had deified just about everything they could think of. They had deified the forces of nature, they had deified the various emotions of man, they had deified various concepts. There was the god of the arts, the god of the carpenters, the god of the masons, and gods for everything. The god of war, the god of peace, the god of love, the god of hate, the god of jealousy, the god of anger. Gods for everything.
And some fellow, no doubt, though, “Well, we may have forgotten one and it would be a shame to slight one of them. He might get angry with us, so why don’t we build an altar to him? And since we don’t know him, we’ll just inscribe it to the unknown god just so we’re not slighting him in getting angry with us.” And Paul said, “I saw this altar with the inscription to the unknown god.”
Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you ( Act 17:23 ).
Interesting how Paul begins right where they are. “You’re very religious people. I’ve observed that. And here in the Agura down there, I passed by this one little altar to the unknown god. That’s the God I’d like to talk to you about.” And what did he tell them about the unknown God? He said, “You worship Him ignorantly.”
How many people today are still worshipping God in ignorance? You remember Jesus said to the woman of Samaria, “God is a Spirit: and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth” ( Joh 4:24 ). But men are still worshipping Him ignorantly.
God that made the world and all things therein ( Act 17:24 ),
He is not a creation of man; He is the Creator of man. He is not made of marble or gold or silver or things found in the earth. He created these things. He is vastly superior to the gods that you are worshipping, for He is the Creator. Oh, that people would realize that today. You see, I would say that though the polls show that the majority of the people in the United States believe in God, I would dare venture that though the majority of the people in the United States may believe in God, the majority of the people in the United States worship materialism. Now, they may believe in God, but they don’t worship God. They worship the creation of man, the created things by man rather than worshipping God. And so the unknown God, whom you are ignorantly worshipping is the one that made the world and everything that is in it.
seeing that he is Lord of heaven and eaRuth ( Act 17:24 ),
This unknown God rules over all. He is the Lord over the heaven and the earth.
He doesn’t dwell in temples made with hands ( Act 17:24 );
Directly below Paul from Mars’ Hill, at that end of the Agura, was a thesium That glorious Doric temple that still stands pretty much in tact today as a magnificent demonstration of the perfection of architecture. At the far end of the Agura, a block and a half, two blocks away, that great temple to Juneau which ruins are still pretty much in tact today. Above Paul there in the Parth, that great temple to the Athena the goddess, and those marvelous temple structures there on the Acropolis. Paul said, “God, the unknown God, He doesn’t dwell in these temples.”
It is interesting when Solomon built a temple for God, that as Solomon dedicated the temple, he said, “Oh, God, we know that the heaven of heavens cannot contain You. We understand how that You fill the universe. So we haven’t really built this for You to dwell in.” In other words, it isn’t that God is going to dwell here exclusive of someplace else. He dwells in the universe. He fills the universe. “The heavens of heavens cannot contain You. How much less this house that I have built. But God, meet us at this place. Let this be the place where we can come and meet You.”
We, all of us, in a measure are guilty of thinking of God in a locality as being more in one place than another. Like truly God must be more here tonight than He is the bar down the street. Not so. God is just as much in the bar down the street as He is here. We can’t escape the presence of God. No matter where you are, you’re surrounded by Him. And God is never limited to locality.
Now when I was a little kid in Sunday school, I was taught that if I went to a movie the Lord wouldn’t go in with me. And so if I decided to go in and watch that show, I had to leave the Lord outside and just hope that He would be waiting for me when I came out. But I wasn’t assured of that. So I was taught a localized God. There were places where He was and there was places where He wasn’t. Not so. I can’t escape Him. So he declared unto them that He doesn’t dwell in temples made with hands.
Neither is he worshipped with man’s hands ( Act 17:25 ),
Or with man’s handiwork. He isn’t worshipped through idols. He isn’t worshipped through images. Not all of the churches believe that today, do they? And yet, this is what Paul is declaring. He’s not worshipped with ornate altars overlaid with gold. He’s not worshipped in fancy buildings. Careful, that cost eighteen million dollars. You can worship God out there under that tree. You can worship God beside your bed at home. You can worship God sitting at the kitchen table. You can worship God sitting on the sand at the beach. In fact, I find sitting on the sand at the beach a very great environment to worship God. He isn’t worshipped by the works of man’s hands.
as though he needed any thing ( Act 17:25 ),
As though God needed from me to give Him something. What a ridiculous idea. “Oh, Chuck, I need for you to really give to me this week because I’m almost broke. And my program won’t be able to go on another week unless you bail me out, Chuck, and help me out. Please! I’m desperate! I know I’ve sent letters like this before, but this time I mean it!” As though He needed anything.
What can I give to God that He needs? That is the biggest problem. What do you give to someone who’s got everything? David said, “What shall I render unto God for all His benefits toward me?” ( Psa 116:12 ) And you know what he decided he could do? The only thing I can render unto God is just to pray. I’ll call upon the name of the Lord. There’s nothing I can give to God that He needs. As though He needed anything. He’s complete. My giving to God doesn’t really benefit God; it benefits me.
I’m the one who benefited by my giving my life to God; God didn’t benefit by that. So many times we want to make a big deal about our gifts to God. You know, we want men to say, “Oh, aren’t you marvelous. What you gave to God. That’s so glorious.” And we have that kind of a mentality developed of exalting the man who has given to God, as though God needed something. As though He needed anything.
seeing he giveth ( Act 17:25 ),
It’s not what I give to God; it’s what God has given to me. That’s what’s glorious.
for he has given to all life, and breath, and all things ( Act 17:25 );
So our emphasis should not be on what we should be giving to God, but the emphasis should be on what God has given to us. And the ministry should not be emphasizing what you should do for God; we should be emphasizing what God has done for you. What can you do for God?
We’re so weak in these areas, and yet, we hear that as the constant emphasis in ministry. “You ought to be doing this; you ought to be doing that. Now get out and do this, brothers; now do that, brothers.” And extolling the man who has done it rather than extolling what God has done for us. You see, when I realize what God has done for me then I want to respond to God. We make a tragic mistake in thinking I can do something for God and then God is going to respond to me.
“Now, if you’ll just fast for two weeks, then God will start giving you visions and you’ll start doing this and you’ll get this and this and this. On a fast, do this for God and God will respond to you. Now, if you’ll just start the praising the Lord. Lift your hands and praise the Lord because you want God to bless you tonight, and God will bless you when begin to praise Him. The Lord inhabits the praises of His people. So lift your hands! Praise the Lord that you might get a blessing!” And they whip people into these hand-raising, praising experiences that I might be blessed. “Oh yes, God, respond to me, God! Don’t you see my hands are up! Respond, God, respond! Bless me! Look what I’m doing for You.” Not so.
The true praise isn’t, you know, “Okay, God, give me now.” But the true praise is, “God, You have given so much. How can I thank You? Oh, Lord, You’re so good to me.” And it is that which arises spontaneously from the recognition of what God has done for me. That’s true praise. So we need to know, not what we can do for God, but what God has done for us. And then the love of Christ constrains me and I’m responding to that love. I’m responding to that goodness. I’m responding to those blessings. And my life is so rich, my life is so blessed, my life is so full just trying to respond to God as I’m learning more and more the grace and goodness and the love of God that He’s bestowed upon my life.
I’m getting to the place where I can hardly take it. I’m going to be translated one of these days soon. God’s just going to translate me right into glory. His blessings and His goodness upon my life, so rich, so full. And I just am overflowing as I’m trying to respond to Him. Seeing He has given to all life and breath and all things.
And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the eaRuth ( Act 17:26 ),
God has made us all one. There’s neither Jew nor Greek, barbarian, scythian, bond or free, male or female. Jesus is all and in all. He’s made us all one.
and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation ( Act 17:26 );
God sets the limits for our lives. My life is totally bounded by God. He has set the boundaries of my existence. He knew the time of my birth long before my mother ever conceived me. He knows the day of my departing from this tent. He knows the circumstances by which I will depart from this tent. My life is totally bounded by Him.
That they should seek the Lord, if by chance they might feel after him, and find him ( Act 17:27 ),
You know, a lot of people have sought the Lord on just purely a maybe basis. They really didn’t have many promises to hold onto, but just, who can tell? You remember when Jonah preached to the Ninevites. There was no message of repentance. There was no message of hope, no message of grace, no message of salvation. Jonah preached the message of doom and gloom. He said, “Forty days and comes your destruction.” And the people all repented in sackcloth and ashes. And they said, “Who can tell? Maybe God will be merciful and spare us.” No promise of mercy, but just a maybe, if by chance you might really feel God and find God.
though he be not far from every one of us ( Act 17:27 ):
And now he deals with the doctrine of the eminence of God–that all-prevailing presence of God everywhere within His universe that David spoke about in the Psalms. “Thou hast beset me behind and before, and laid thine hand upon me. Whither shall I go from thy spirit? Or whither shall I flee from thy presence? If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there. If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea; even there shall thy hand lead me” ( Psa 139:5 , Psa 139:7-10 ). For He is not far from any of you.
For in him we live, and move, and have our being ( Act 17:28 );
I am totally surrounded by God. I depend upon God for my very existence. In Him I live. God sustains my life. I’m dependent on Him. I move, wherever I move, He is there. I exist in Him, by Him.
as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring ( Act 17:28 ).
Now this is found also in the writing of Aerates and Aclenthes, two of the Greek poets, who declared that we are God’s offspring. Now Paul affirms that these poets were right.
Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man’s device ( Act 17:29 ).
We are God’s offspring. God is not our offspring. We cannot really create our own gods, though man does that. Man is an offspring of God. In the beginning when God created man, He made man in His likeness and after His own image. But man fell, and thus, man is fallen from the image of God. And as we look around today we see man in his fallen state. He was made in the image of God; he was made in the likeness of God, but he has fallen from that.
God made us to be spiritual beings. God made us to live after the Spirit and be ruled by the Spirit. But man fell from that and man followed after the flesh and was ruled by his flesh. And being a body-conscious being, he became as the animal, which is a body-conscious being, and so man looked around for identity and he says, “Oh, there goes my uncle, swinging from that tree!” Because all he thinks about is eating and existing. He has a body-conscious life. And all I need is a place to live and something to eat, you know. And so this body-conscious life, and thus, I relate to the animals. That’s wrong. We are God’s offspring. And I can never have a satisfactory relationship with the animal kingdom. I must relate to God to find myself. I will never find myself in the animal kingdom. I will only find myself as I am relating again to God.
Now, I was created in the image of God. I fell from that image of God, but Jesus came in order that He might restore me into the image of God as I yield my life to Him. “So beloved, now are we the sons of God. It doesn’t yet appear what we’re going to be: but we know when he appears, we’re going to be like him” ( 1Jn 3:2 ). For He is restoring us into that image. “For we with open face are beholding the glory of the Lord and we are being changed from glory to glory into the same image” ( 2Co 3:18 ), because the Spirit of God is conforming me into the image of Christ. And thus, through the work of God’s Spirit, that which man lost through the fall is being restored to Jesus Christ as man is being restored back into the image of God.
And when the Holy Spirit has completed His work in my life, I will be fully restored back into the image of God, and I will stand in His presence faultless with exceeding joy. So this is God’s work. I am God’s offspring. The Greek poets recognized that. Therefore, I should not think of God as some lifeless statue that cannot see, that cannot speak, that cannot walk. Made of marble or gold or silver that is standing here on the corner that men come by and pray to and bow to and worship. You should not think of God in that term, because you’re God’s offspring, the living God.
Now in times past God winked at ( Act 17:30 );
Or overlooked the ignorance. Paul said, “You’re worshipping Him ignorantly. And at one time, God overlooked the ignorance of man concerning Himself, but no more.”
but now he has commanded all men every where to repent ( Act 17:30 ):
When the revelation of God was limited to the nation of Israel, God overlooked the pagan’s ignorance of Himself. But no longer will God overlook man’s ignorance. You have no excuse to be ignorant of God. The agnostic has no excuse for his position. God is knowable. It is just he doesn’t want to know God or he rejects God’s revelation of Himself. But God is knowable, and a position of an agnostic is not an intelligent position. For no man of true intelligence can rest in ignorance. And the word agnostic in Greek translated into Latin is ignoramus.
God may at one time have overlooked the ignorance of man, but not now. God is knowable. God has revealed Himself through Jesus Christ. That revelation has been made known to you, therefore you’re inexcusable. You can know God; you should know God. There’s no excuse for not knowing God. Knowing God is, no doubt, the greatest bit of knowledge man can ever attain. The most important knowledge man can ever attain.
You may be studying various subjects, but the most important subject any of you could ever study would be theology, to know God, to know the truth of God. He is knowable. At one time He overlooked the ignorance of man, but no more, and now God has commanded men everywhere to repent. That is, to turn. To turn from their own selfish ways unto Him.
Because he hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained ( Act 17:31 );
God has appointed a day of judgment. The judgment will be overseen by Jesus Christ, the man that He has ordained for that purpose.
whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead ( Act 17:31 ).
God has declared and then proved His point through the resurrection. And thus, that day of judgment is coming for all men, and thus, God has said, “Repent, turn.”
And when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked: and others said, We will hear thee again of this matter ( Act 17:32 ).
These are two common responses to the Gospel. There are those who mock at the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and then there are those who procrastinate. “Well, interesting. I’ll listen to you again sometime.” Putting off that repentance, putting off that decision. But beware, lest you put it off too long. For God has commanded now that men everywhere should repent. Because a day is coming in which God is going to judge men through Jesus Christ.
So Paul departed from among them ( Act 17:33 ).
Now it is interesting where Paul was persecuted, where they threw him in jail, where they beat him, he was ready to go right back to continue preaching. But to this attitude of, “Well, interesting,” but that noncommittal attitude, Paul had no further words to say. He wasn’t going to cast the pearls before swine. “I’ve given you the message. I’ve borne witness; that’s it.”
I think that one of the worst attitudes is that of complacency. Really a person who is really upset and yelling at you because you’ve witnessed to them about the Lord is far closer to salvation than the person who says, “Well, I think that’s very nice for you and I’m glad that you found something that makes you happy.” That complacent attitude towards Christ is one of the most difficult to deal with. Better the person get stirred, better the person get upset if it shows that it’s getting to him than just that complacency.
Howbeit certain men clave unto him, and believed: among the which was Dionysius the Areopagite, and a woman name Damaris, and others with them ( Act 17:34 ).
So there were a few and, of course, as church history goes, we do find that there was a church established in Athens and some of the early church leaders came from the church in Athens. But Paul established no real work in Athens on this visit. But he moves on to Corinth, and if you want to really get a background to next Sunday night, you can read Corinthians, too, this week. And then we find him going to Ephesus by the end of the chapter, and so the Ephesian epistle would help you there. So you’re going to have to watch a few less soaps and get a little bit more into the Word this week, I guess. But it won’t hurt you.
Isn’t it a shame how much time we waste in front of that stupid tube. I think that that’s one of the greatest contributors to mediocrity in the world today, to dull people, to uncommunicative people. It’s done more to destroy communication, relationships. Man, all the guy can relate to is the T.V. tube. What a shame. He doesn’t learn to converse any more. He doesn’t learn the art of conversation or relationships. We waste so much time. I hate to be radical, but you know, I dare say that if you left the T.V. off this week and when you’re tempted to flip it on and instead just flip open your Bible and read the Corinthian epistles and the Galatian epistle, the Thessalonian epistle and the Ephesian epistle. I would say that next Sunday you would find yourself in such great spiritual spirits, you know.
I’d say that you’d probably come to church just bubbling over. You’d probably have one of the better weeks of the year, and then you wonder, “How is it that this week is going so great?” You’ll never guess. You’ve been feeding the Spirit instead of the flesh. And if you’re feeding the Spirit, then of the Spirit you’re going to reap life everlasting. If you feed the flesh, of the flesh you’re going to reap corruption. Oh, well, it was a thought anyhow. You can hail me before the magistrates, beat me, do what you will; it was still a good idea. Why don’t you try it? You might like it.
May the Lord be with you. May God bless you. May He just fill you with the knowledge and the understanding of Himself. That you may come to know Him in a deeper, fuller, richer way. That your life this week might just be enriched in all things in Jesus Christ. And growing up in Him to maturity you might come into that measure of the stature of the fullness of the image of Christ. As God by His Spirit restores that which was lost because of the fall. So God bless you in your walk and in your relationship with Him this week. May it get better than it ever was before. “
Fuente: Through the Bible Commentary
Act 17:1. , Amphipolis and Apollonia) cities also of Macedonia.- , the synagogue) in which there were not only Thessalonian Jews, but also Jews of other states. For the , where, seems to refer to the city, not to the house [i.e. synagogue refers not to the building, but the men].-, custom) He sought good opportunities in ordinary places.-, Sabbaths) not excluding the intervening days.-, three) A complete number.
Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament
Act 17:1-9
PAUL AND SILAS AT THESSALONICA
Act 17:1-9
1 Now when they had passed through Amphipolis-Paul and Silas left Philippi and passed through Amphipolis and Apollonian They journeyed southwest from Philippi about thirty- three miles and came to Amphipolis, which was a Roman military station; Apollonia was about thirty miles farther on, in the district of Macedonia known as Mygdonia, and was about thirty-seven miles from Thessalonica. It seems that Paul and his company did not stop very long in these cities; some think that it was not wise for them to remain so near Philippi as Apollonia. In neither city was there a synagogue as a center of worship; these cities could be evangelized better from Philippi and Thessalonica. Thessalonica was the largest city in Macedonia; the article before synagogue implies that this was the chief, if not the only, synagogue of the district; hence, it is concluded that the other towns passed through had no synagogues.
2-3 and Paul, as his custom was,-Paul followed his custom of going to the Jews first. Later he wrote: For I am not ashamed of the gospel: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. (Rom 1:16.) Paul preached the gospel to the Jew first and then to the Gentiles. The Jews met in their synagogue and, since Paul was a Jew, he had access to the synagogue and went there and preached Christ; he used the Jewish center of worship as a place from which to radiate the gospel to the Gentiles. Here he remained for three sabbath days, and reasoned from the scriptures, the Old Testament, and proclaimed Jesus as the Christ unto them. It is to be understood that Paul and his company were busy the other days of the week preaching from house to house the unsearchable riches of Christ. Opening and alleging mean that he made plain what was before announced and asserted with reasons for his assertion. He showed from the scriptures that it was necessary for Christ to suffer, to be crucified, buried, and raised from the dead; hence, it was no reproach on Christ that he had been crucified; the prophets had foretold this.
4 And some of them were persuaded,-Some of the Jews believed or were convinced by Pauls reasoning. It seems that Pauls teaching was by arguments which they were unable to refute. Those who believed consorted with Paul and Silas. Consorted is from the Greek proskleroo, which means to assign by lot; hence, those who believed were given to Paul and Silas by the grace of God. These believers cast in their lot with Paul and Silas and decided to be associated with them. A few of the Jews were convinced, but a great number of the devout Greeks, proselytes of the gate, believed; these were heathen by birth who had embraced a part of the Jewish faith. They did not have the religious prejudices which clung so closely to the Jews. Many of the chief women also believed. Many women of the highest social standing became believers here as they did at Philippi and Berea. There seem to have been four classes who were converted at this place: (1) Jews; (2) Greek God-fearing proselytes; (3) other Greeks; (4) honorable women.
5 But the Jews, being moved with jealousy,-This means the unbelieving Jews. Our English words zeal and jealousy are from the same Greek word zelos. These unbelieving Jews were filled with jealousy. They did not like to see so many drawn away from their own party; they were jealous of Paul and Silas as the Jews were jealous of the leadership of Christ. They knew how to raise a mob; they went to certain vile fellows of the rabble and raised a mob and set the city on an uproar. It is strange that the Jewish rabbis would resort to such base methods of opposing the truth; it is also strange how such ones could excite the people so as to cause an uproar in the city. Vile fellows of the rabble mean those who had no calling, but lounged around the market place in the hope of picking up a chance living, and who were ready for anything bad or good that might present itself. There must have been many Jews in Thessalonica. This mob, excited by religious prejudice and jealousy, made an attack on the house of Jason. It seems that he was the host of Paul and Silas; we know nothing more of him than is revealed here. The name is found in the list of those whom Paul speaks of as his kinsmen, but this may be quite a different person. (Rom 16:21.) They sought to bring Jason and his guests out to the people who were infuriated and ready to do them violence.
6-7 And when they found them not,-Paul and Silas were not found; it is not known where they were. They then seized Jason and dragged him and certain brethren before the rulers. Their failure to find Paul and Silas augmented their anger, and they sought to take vengeance on Jason and any other Christians whom they could lay hands on. They brought them before the city officials; Thessalonica was a free city. During these three weeks Paul and Silas had made many disciples and a congregation or church had been formed. They preferred the charge against Paul and Silas that they had turned the world upside down, or had disturbed the peace wherever they had gone. The world means the inhabited earth, and especially the whole Roman Empire, which embraced a very large portion of the known world. Perhaps their accusation was exaggerated, as men moved by the spirit of jealousy do not correctly represent their enemies. They furthermore charged Jason with having received these disturbers of the peace. Jason was charged with aiding and plotting with Paul and Silas as traitors. They specify before the rulers that they were teaching and acting contrary to the decrees of Caesar. Paul in preaching Jesus preached him as a King; these grossly prejudiced accusers did not understand the nature of his kingdom or the sense in which Jesus was King. This was the same charge with which the Pharisees and Herodians had attempted to catch Jesus. (Mar 12:14.) It is the same charge that the Sanhedrin made against Jesus to Pilate. (Luk 23:2.) The Jews here, as before Pilate (Joh 19:15), renounced their hope of a Messianic King.
8-9 And they troubled the multitude-These Jews, by bringing Jason and other Christians before the rulers, caused more disturbance than Paul and Silas had caused; they created confusion; when the rulers heard the accusation they were disturbed. They were ignorant of many of the facts, nevertheless they were troubled about the matter. They would not let Jason and the brethren go until they had put them under bond not to disturb the peace. The exact point of this guarantee is not stated; however, it is implied that they did not want preached that which had caused the disturbance; they may have requested that Paul and Silas leave the city. The charge that they brought against the brethren was serious, but the proof was meager, so all that could be done was to take security of the brethren.
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
At Thessalonica and Berea the apostle visited the synagogues, and again in each case persecution arose from the Jews. A sentence which fell from the lips of the leader of the mob shows with what rapidity the Gospel was winning its way. Said they, “These that have turned the world upside down have come hither also.”
Passing on to Athens, we have the wonderful account of Paul’s action there. The effect on him of what he saw is revealed in the statement, “His spirit was provoked within him as he beheld the city full of idols.” When at last he found himself confronting the wise men on Mars Hill he delivered a message characterized by courtesy and clarity from their standpoint, and at last declared to them the great doctrine of the resurrection. Basing his message on what he found among them, with masterly skill he built a structure which led him to this statement of the resurrection. His address consists first of declarations concerning God; second, of declarations concerning man’s relationship to God; and, third, a declaration of the position of Christ as vindicated by His resurrection.
Fuente: An Exposition on the Whole Bible
Persecution Spreads the Truth
Act 17:1-12
Thessalonica. Slowly Paul made his way among the great cities of Greece. He was sowing seeds of which others would reap the harvest. His one theme was the risen Lord, whether amid the less or the more cultivated, Act 17:3; Act 17:31. This is surely the true method of world evangelization-not to argue but to proclaim the glorious personality of our risen Lord. Notice the distinction in Act 17:3 between the human name, Jesus, and the royal name, Christ. As Jesus, our Lord lived, ministered, and died; as Christ, He was raised from the dead, and as such He is the crowned King of men, Act 17:7. However loyal we may be to the civil government, our first allegiance is to another king, Act 17:7.
Berea. True nobility consists in being open to any new truth that God may reveal to us from His Word. The one test of truth is Scripture as interpreted to the pure heart by the Holy Spirit; but we should examine the Scriptures daily as the Bereans did. It is not to be wondered at that many believed. If only our people would love the Bible, saturating their minds with it and teaching it to their children, what different results would follow the preaching of the gospel!
Fuente: F.B. Meyer’s Through the Bible Commentary
In the opening verses of Acts 17 we read of Pauls ministry in the Macedonian city of Thessalonica. As we study the book of Acts it is interesting to compare the various geographical references with a map of the ancient Roman Empire. In this instance it would be seen that Amphipolis and Apollonia were on the high road from Philippi east and south toward Athens and Corinth. Passing through these two cities, the apostle and his company went on to Thessalonica, which we know today as Salonica, located on the shores of a bay and inlet of the Aegean Sea. Here, as in place after place, Paul found a synagogue of the Jews, and in accordance with his regular custom, to the Jew first, he entered into the synagogue and, as opportunity was given him, presented his message there. We are told that three sabbath days he reasoned with them out of the scriptures.
Using the Old Testament with which the Jews were familiar, he showed how it had been predicted by the prophets that the Messiah for whom they waited must suffer even unto death and be raised again in order to accomplish the redemption of His people. We can imagine him turning from passage to passage to prove these great facts. Then having laid the foundation, he built the superstructure of his discourse, the story of the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, showing that this Jesus whom he preached was indeed Messiah.
The result of his ministry was that a number of the Jews believed and sought further fellowship with Paul and Silas. Also a great number of Gentile proselytes or seekers after the truth accepted the testimony. Of these, quite a few were well-known women who had doubtless wearied of the unsatisfactory character of paganism. Having learned from the Jews something of the one true and living God, they were now ready to accept the Savior He had provided.
This, however, stirred the unbelieving Jews with indignation and envy. They did not want to appear openly as persecutors, but we are told they gathered a group of rabble-rousers. By artfully arousing their prejudices, they moved them to make an assault on the house of Jason where the preachers of the new message were being entertained. The mob created such an uproar that the whole city was moved. Paul and Silas however were not found, but the rash leaders of the mob took Jason and several other adherents of the Way of Life, and dragged them before the rulers of the city. They accused them by saying, These that have turned the world upside down are come hither also; Whom Jason hath received: and these all do contrary to the decrees of Caesar, saying that there is another king, one Jesus.
Their accusation was in measure true. The apostle and his companion were indeed engaged in the business of turning the world upside down, but the reason for this was that through sin the world had been turned wrongside up. So when the gospel was preached and men believed it, things were completely reversed. But the charge that the new doctrine contained anything contrary to the decrees of Caesar was false. The king proclaimed by Paul was not one who was to contend with the Roman emperor for world dominion, though He shall indeed reign in due time. He had already declared in Pilates judgment hall, My kingdom is not of this world; if my kingdom, were of this world, then would my servants fight. The kingdom of which He is Head is not meat or drink, but righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost. In other words, Christ had not come to establish a kingdom in the world order, but to call on men to recognize and bow to Heavens authority in their lives.
It is evident that the rulers of Thessalonica and those associated with them were perplexed when they heard these things. Not knowing just what action to take, they placed Jason and the other brethren under obligation to keep the peace, and let them go.
Doubtless recalling the instructions of the Lord Jesus, If they persecute you in this city, flee ye into another, the believers arranged secretly to send Paul and Silas to the next city along the highway-Berea.
A very graphic account of the entrance of the gospel into Thessalonica is given in Pauls First Epistle to the church in that city. From that Epistle we gather that he remained there considerably longer than the three sabbath days mentioned by Luke in this chapter of Acts, but just how long we do not know. At any rate, the result was that many of the Thessalonians were turned from idols to the living and true God to serve and to wait for His Son from Heaven. A careful reading of the two Epistles to the Thessalonians in connection with Act 17:1-9 will throw a great deal of light on both the entrance of the gospel into that city and the attitude of the new converts afterwards.
Going on to Berea, Paul and Silas again first sought the synagogue of the Jews, and there found the same liberty they had enjoyed in many other places. The fact is, as already noted, the Jewish synagogues of the first century of the Christian era were much more open than many Christian churches today. When teachers came from distant places, they were recognized and accorded an opportunity to present their views. Paul always took advantage of this in order that he might bring the gospel message to his own brethren after the flesh first.
It is refreshing to note the fine attitude of these Berean Jews and proselytes. We are told that these were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so. Somebody has well said that prejudice closes the door of the mind to any truth not already known. Paul wrote to the Thessalonians, Prove all things (1Th 5:21). The only way to test any system of doctrine is by the Word of God itself. Isaiah warned Gods people: Should not a people seekTo the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them (8:19-20).
Bearing this in mind, these Berean Jews examined the Scriptures carefully as they listened to the teaching of Paul One can see them sitting in the synagogue with the sacred scrolls in their hands, leaning forward, listening eagerly, wonder and surprise often expressed on their faces as they looked inquiringly at each other. Unrolling the great vellum volumes, they turned from one passage to another, comparing Scripture with Scripture, until they were finally convinced that what Paul proclaimed was the truth. Then they aligned themselves definitely on the side of Christ, receiving the message in faith and acknowledging the Lord Jesus as the sent One of God.
We are not surprised to read in Act 17:12, Therefore many of them believed, and we have the additional words, Also of honourable women which were Greeks, and of men, not a few. This must have been one of the most encouraging experiences that Paul ever had. We do not read of any other city wherein he was given so fair a hearing, wherein people were so honest in seeking to know whether the message preached was really in accordance with Scripture or not. How blessed it would be to find more people today characterized by the same nobility as that which distinguished these Bereans. They possessed a nobility of mind that led them to put away all prejudice and preconceived notions and to examine fairly the matters to which their attention was called, testing everything by Scripture!
But this happy state of affairs was soon brought to an end, for Satan cannot long endure the uninterrupted reception of the gospel. And so after some days-we do not know how many-certain of the unbelieving Jews of Thessalonica, having learned that Paul was preaching the Word in Berea, hurried down the highway and arrived there also. By their misrepresentations, they stirred up many of the people who had not yet been brought to know the Lord. Once more there was an uproar and an effort made to apprehend the messenger of the cross. Again the brethren had to take steps to safeguard the life of the apostle. As he was the outstanding exponent of the new faith, the indignation of the unbelievers was directed against him particularly, so the believers sent him away, we are told, to go as it were to the sea. This would suggest a stratagem in order to throw his persecutors off his trail. Silas and Timothy remained to help the young believers and encourage them in their faith.
The last part of Acts 17 brings us with Paul to Athens, that great cultural center of ancient Greece. The men who conducted Paul to Athens returned to Berea with a message from him to Silas and Timothy urging them to rejoin him as soon as possible. Meanwhile Paul waited for them at Athens. As he went about day after day, his spirit was moved to its deepest depths as he saw the evidences of the gross idolatry to which the city was devoted. An old Greek philosopher wrote some time before Pauls day, In Athens it is easier to find a god than a man. Images were everywhere; not only representations of all the gods of the various countries that made up what we call Greece, but the gods adored by Asiatics, Egyptians, Romans, and peoples from far-distant lands. Practically every false deity worshiped on earth could be found in Athens, and yet this was the educational center of the world. There were different schools of philosophy where great teachers lectured on the folly of idolatry and taught their adherents to scorn the superstitions of the less cultured strata of society. But these philosophers had nothing to offer in the place of the idolatry they scorned. They were simply theorists philosophizing as to the nature of the universe and man, but with no certainty of anything because they were without any divine revelation.
As Paul had opportunity, he disputed in the synagogue with the Jews and talked with the devout persons-that is, Greeks who were influenced by Judaism. As he went about in the streets and in the markets he lost no opportunity to converse with any who were ready to listen. Paul was an outstanding personal worker who did not feel that he must have a pulpit in order to disseminate the truth God had sent him to proclaim.
Information regarding his teaching soon came to the ears of some of the philosophers of both epicurean and stoic schools. Contemptuously they asked, What will this babbler say? The Greek word translated babbler means seed-picker. It was an ironical expression implying that he was like a bird picking up odd seeds here and there, yet had no definite philosophical system behind his teaching. Others who heard him preach of Jesus and the resurrection thought that he spoke of two new gods of whom they had never previously heard, for they took the expression resurrection, which in Greek is Anastasis, to be the name of a god! Therefore, they invited him to go up to Mars Hill, or the Areopagus, where the philosophers were accustomed to presenting their teachings, and there tell them what the new doctrine was of which he had been speaking. There was no evidence of a working in the consciences of these men. It was characteristic of the Athenians to delight in anything new or novel. So they evidently gave Paul the opportunity of presenting his doctrine simply for their personal gratification.
Ever ready to seize any opportunity to preach the truth of God, Paul presented what is perhaps one of the finest specimens of pulpit oratory extant (Act 17:22-31). It helps us to understand what Paul meant when he said that he was made all things to all men (1Co 9:22). We have listened to him before as he preached the gospel to the Jews, and we have seen how he based everything on the testimony of Holy Scripture. Here we are privileged to listen in as he speaks to a Gentile company who knew nothing of the Jewish Scriptures. To them he appealed to the testimony of creation as suggested in the first chapter of his letter to the Romans.
He certainly did not begin his discourse as the King James version has him saying in verse 22: Ye men of Athens, I perceive that in all things you are too superstitious. Had he begun by calling his audience too superstitious, he would probably have closed the door of their minds effectually against his message. The word translated superstitious really means given to the worship of the gods and is better translated religious. That is, he began by saying, I see that you as a people are very religious. The evidence of this was that as he moved around the city he not only saw many images of different gods, but he found an altar with the inscription, To the Unknown God. Evidently, some pious soul, afraid that some god might be left out of the pantheon, had erected this altar. Paul took the inscription from this altar as his text, saying, Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you.
In an eloquent and masterly way he set forth the truth of the one God by whom the world and all in it had been created. This God,{215} Paul said, is too great to be confined in any temples men might build. He is omnipresent, omnipotent, and omniscient. He has no need of anything that men could offer to Him. Therefore, it was absurd to think that they could purchase His favor by any of their gifts. He Himself is the great giver, bestowing all good things on the creatures He has made. He it was who had formed all the nations from one man. All the various races and tribes had sprung from the first original pair that God created, and He who knows the end from the beginning had determined their times and appointed them the lands in which they dwelt. In all these things God was giving evidence of His interest in mankind, desiring that they might seek after Him and find Him, though He be not far from us.
It is an interesting fact that the only time the word feel is found in the New Testament is in Act 17:27 (kjv). It has to do with the heathen. It was the desire of God that they, though ignorant of His Word, might feel after him. When men receive His Word, then they are not dependent on their feelings, but are asked to believe. Nor was it suggested by Paul that God was far from anyone. So close is He to all of us that it can be truly said, In him we live, and move, and have our being.
Paul quoted an expression found in the writings of two Greek poets, Aratus and Cleanthes, For we are also his offspring. This he fully accepted and he appealed to these men as the offspring of God. He showed how foolish it is that those who have been created by this omnipresent God should ever liken Him to images made of metal or stone by art or mans device. This was not the same appeal as that some teachers proclaim today, namely the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man. By this teaching they mean that men are already Gods children and hence brothers in Christ apart from regeneration. God is the Father of spirits, and in that sense we are all His offspring, but man has fallen. Sin has come in to alienate man from God; hence the need of a second birth.
Verse 30 suggests something that may be of great comfort to those who are troubled when they think of a world left for many centuries without the knowledge of the one true and living God. Paul said, the times of this ignorance God winked at, or overlooked. God deals with men according to the light they have. He{216} does not hold them responsible for light that has not yet been revealed. But now, since Christ has come and the gospel is being preached, God commands all men everywhere to repent; that is, to change their attitude and turn to Him for that deliverance which they can find nowhere else.
He has appointed a day, in which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained. Paul was doubtless about to mention the name of Jesus when his address was interrupted. He was in the midst of declaring that the resurrection of Christ from the dead was the pledge both of Gods grace and His judgment. That resurrection assures all men that salvation has been provided for them. It also gives assurance that He who died and rose again will some day judge the living and the dead.
What a pity his hearers did not permit Paul to finish this magnificent discourse! On the contrary, we are told that when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, which to them seemed utterly absurd, some mocked and others said, We will hear thee again of this matter. So Paul departed from among them.
At first sight it may have seemed as though his effort to interest these philosophers in the great message he had for the world was in vain. On the other hand, we learn from the closing verse that there were a few who profited by it. Howbeit certain men clave unto him, and believed: among the which was Dionysius the Areopagite, and a woman named Damaris, and others with them.
Fuente: Commentaries on the New Testament and Prophets
Act 17:2-4
Consorting with Paul and Silas.
I. Here is the chief object of Christian faith-the Lord Jesus carrying on in His very name the assurance of the things that are necessary for our life and salvation.
II. The means used to produce faith or persuasion are now almost the same as those employed at first-at least in Thessalonica and many other places. To preach Christ is to reason out of the Scriptures, to lay out the matter as it seems to ourselves, to press it home upon all whom it concerns; to remonstrate, expostulate, entreat and then to leave the issue with God.
III. The passage shows us along what line the reasoning usually went. It went towards proving out of the Scriptures that Jesus is Christ. We do not now need to pursue formally the same line of argument, unless as against Jews, who hold to their own Scriptures and reject our Christian conclusion. Substantially, however, our course is the same; our reasonings, our openings of Scripture, our allegations all tend Christwards.
IV. The faith is the same now as then: faith in Christ-in Christ the sufferer, the death-destroyer, the life-giver, the Redeemer of all trusting men.
V. The outward result of this faith or persuasion is, to some extent, the same as at first, and ought to be much more so than it is. They consorted with Paul and Silas. (1) It must always be good to consort with good men. (2) It must always be good to be associated as closely as possible with a good cause. (3) It must be good to escape from an equivocal position. (4) It must be good to remove farther from danger. (5) It must be good to obey Divine commandment.
A. Raleigh, The Way to the City, p. 284.
References: Act 17:5.-Preacher’s Monthly, vol. ii., p. 250. Act 17:6.-Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. iv., No. 193; J. S. Pearsall, Christian World Pulpit, vol. vi., p. 193. Act 17:10.-Spurgeon, Morning by Morning, p. 339. Act 17:10, Act 17:11.-H. W. Beecher, Ibid., vol. xiii., p. 12. Act 17:11.-J. Rawlinson, Ibid., vol. x., p. 78; G. Dawson, Sermons on Disputed Points, p. 209; G. Brooks, Five Hundred Outlines, p. 29. Act 17:11, Act 17:12.-J. Burton, Christian Life and Truth, p. 196. Act 17:12.-Preacher’s Monthly, vol. iii., pp. 36, 37; vol. vi., p. 182. Act 17:15.-Ibid., vol. v., p. 60.
Act 17:16-17
Observe Three Things in this Passage.
I. What St. Paul saw at Athens. He saw a city wholly given to idolatry. Idols met his eye in every street. The temples of idol gods and goddesses occupied every prominent position. And yet this city, be it remembered, was probably the most favourable specimen of a heathen city which St. Paul could have seen. In proportion to its size it very likely contained the most learned, civilised, philosophical, highly educated, artistic, intellectual population on the face of the globe. But what was it in a religious point of view? The city of Socrates and Plato, the city of Solon and Pericles and Demosthenes, the city of mind and intellect, was wholly given to idolatry. If the true God was unknown at Athens, what must He have been in the darker places of the earth! We learn from the idolatry of Athens (1) the absolute need of a Divine revelation and of teaching from heaven; (2) that the highest intellectual training is no security against utter darkness in religion; (3) that the highest excellence in the material arts is no preservative against the grossest superstition. The men who conceived the sculptured friezes, which we know as the Elgin marbles, were trained and intellectual to the highest degree. And yet in religion these men were darkness itself. The sight which St. Paul saw at Athens is an unanswerable proof that man knows nothing which can do his soul good without a Divine revelation.
II. What St. Paul felt at Athens. (1) He was stirred with holy compassion. It moved his heart to see so many myriads perishing for lack of knowledge, without God, without Christ, having no hope, travelling in the broad road which leadeth to destruction. (2) He was stirred with holy sorrow. (3) He was stirred with holy indignation against sin and the devil. (4) He was stirred with holy zeal for his Master’s glory. These feelings which stirred the Apostle are a leading characteristic of men born of the Spirit. Where there is true grace there will always be tender concern for the souls of others. Where there is true sonship to God there will always be zeal for the Father’s glory.
III. What St. Paul did at Athens. He was not the man to stand still and confer with flesh and blood in the face of a city full of idols. He might have reasoned with himself that he stood alone, that he was a Jew by birth, that he was a stranger in a strange land, that he had to oppose the rooted prejudices and associations of learned men, that to attack the old religion of a whole city was to beard the lion in his den, that the doctrines of the gospel were little likely to be effective on minds steeped in Greek philosophy. But none of these thoughts seems to have crossed the mind of St. Paul. He saw souls perishing, he felt that life was short and time passing away, he had confidence in the power of his Master’s message to meet every man’s soul, he had received mercy himself, and knew not how to hold his peace. He acted at once, and what his hand found to do he did with his might. From St. Paul’s behaviour at Athens we learn (1) that the grand subject of our teaching in every place ought to be Jesus Christ; (2) that we must never be afraid to stand alone and be solitary witnesses for Christ; (3) that we must boldly assert the supernatural element as an essential part of the Christian religion; (4) if we preach the gospel we may preach with perfect confidence that it will do good.
Bishop Ryle, Oxford and Cambridge Journal, Nov. 18th, 1880.
References: Act 17:18.-J. Edmunds, Sixty Sermons, p. 173; Christian World Pulpit, vol. vi., p. 145; G. B. Johnson, Ibid., vol. ix., p. 264; Preacher’s Monthly, vol. i., p. 341.
Act 17:19
I. It may throw a fresh light on the study of the Bible if you look at it with this thought of the contrast and contest between religion and revelation. The Old Testament is not chiefly a record of the Divine origin and establishment and sanctions of a religion. To represent it as this is to lose sight of its most instructive aspect. The Jewish nation, when first they appear in the dawn of history, already were possessed of strong religious traditions and instincts, inherited from their less-enlightened far-off ancestors, and modified by the people with whom they had been brought in contact. The Old Testament must be studied as the record of a contest between the unenlightened religious instincts of the Jews and what for the present we may call the revelation of God made through the hearts and voices of men. Here lies the unending value of the Book, and the record terminates when the contest terminated-when religion was stereotyped and revelation was hushed. The natural growth of thought and revelation was strangled by the grasp of “religion.”
II. Then after four centuries Christ came. And what did He come to do? To found a new religion? Surely not. He came to renew and continue the long-lost revelation. He came not to destroy, but to fulfil. He came as one of the prophets, though far greater than any prophet. And He came as the great revealer of God.
The revelation of God in Christ was preached to nations that had gone through very different discipline, and the seed fell on very different soils. But one experience that it met with was universal-it found everywhere the religious instinct developed. And therefore everywhere the old contest was renewed between revelation and religion; the records of ecclesiastical history are the records of the contest between the higher light and the lower instinct in the Christian centuries, just as the Old Testament is the record of a similar contest in the pre-Christian centuries. Religion is multiform, transient, external; revelation is one, progressive and spiritual. The Christian religion is allervernderlichste, the most mutable of all things, as has well been said by Rothe, and almost the same thing has been said by Newman. The Christian revelation is the most indestructible of things: it is light, it is life, it is growth, it is , it is spirit.
J. M. Wilson, Contributions to Religious Thought, p. 82.
References: Act 17:19.-Preacher’s Monthly, vol. xxv., p. 216; P. Brooks, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxvii., p. 14; G. Brooks, Five Hundred Outlines, p. 310; Church of England Pulpit, vol. xviii., p. 133.
Act 17:20
God of the Times of Ignorance.
Notice three general principles which we shall do well to have clearly in mind always when we read our Bibles.
I. There is a progress in the Divine revelation in the Bible,-a progress from limited to fuller revelation, from smaller to larger knowledge, from more contracted to expanded views of God and truth. The Bible is the record of a revelation given, as we are told in the Epistle to the Hebrews, “at sundry times and in divers manners.” There is a progress from the morality which must be held in leading strings, kept to duty by specific rules and minute precepts, to the freedom with which Christ makes His disciples free, throwing them upon the guidance of the conscience, enlightened by the Spirit. The revelation of God and the unfolding of character in Scripture are as the progress from starlight to the brightness of noon.
II. The principle of accommodation. We must never forget that we as Christians read the Bible from the New Testament standpoint, and that consequently, if we read the Old Testament expecting to find New Testament standards and principles in operation there, we shall be constantly disappointed and puzzled. For reasons of His own God adapted His revelations to men as they were. And we ourselves stand upon the same basis. There is more in revelation than we have yet seen, there is a glory to be revealed; we might as properly ask why God does not fit us at once to receive the full weight of glory as it comes down upon a heavenly nature. We know simply that this is not His way, that we could not bear it if it were revealed.
III. Through this partial, growing, and accommodated revelation God is continually working toward His own perfect ideal.
M. R. Vincent, God and Bread, p. 323.
References: Act 17:22.-G. Martin, Christian World Pulpit, vol. vi., p. 270; Preacher’s Monthly, vol. ii., p. 95; G. Brooks, Five Hundred Outlines, p. 265. Act 17:23.-J. M. Neale, Sermons in a Religious House, 2nd series, vol. i., p. 27; Three Hundred Outlines on the New Testament, p. 116; J. Legge, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxvi., p. 76; E. Medley, Ibid., vol. xxvii., p. 295; R. Duckworth, Ibid., vol. xxxii., p. 145. Act 17:26.-J. Greenhough, Ibid., p. 246; Preacher’s Monthly, vol. vi., p. 6; Ibid., vol. x., p. 99. Act 17:26, Act 17:27.-A. M. Fairbairn, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xv., p. 321; H. W. Beecher, Ibid., vol. xxvi., p. 405; T. S. Bonney, Church of England Pulpit, vol. xix., p. 27.
Act 17:23
Paul declared to the Athenians the unknown God: (1) in His relation to nature, (2) in His relation to man.
I. God in relation to nature. (1) The Apostle begins by affirming that God made the world and all things therein-that He was the Creator of the universe. (2) This idea means that God made the world in relation to its matter. (3) God made the world, not only in its matter, but also in its laws. (4) Having created the world God is still present in it as its sovereign Lord and Director.
From these truths two valuable lessons are deduced: (a) God dwelleth not in temples made with hands, (b) He is not worshipped or served with men’s hands as though He needed anything.
II. God in His relation to man. (1) Paul begins here again by affirming that God made man, and he proclaims the unity of the human race. (2) Having made men, the Divine Being continues to rule them. He did not heartlessly fling them upon the world to be the sport of chance, but determined the times before appointed and the bounds of their habitation. (3) The Apostle announces a nearer relation still: he declares God to be the Father of men. “We are also His offspring.”
J. C. Jones, Studies in the Acts, p. 303.
References: Act 16:24-34.-Homiletic Quarterly, vol. ii., p. 152; Act 16:25-27.-Ibid., vol. i., p. 80. Act 16:25-40.-Homilist, 2nd series, vol. i., p. 198.
Act 17:26-31
St. Paul at Athens.
I. The Jewish nation had existed to be a witness for this universal fellowship among the nations. It had existed as a witness against that which tended to divide them and set them at war. It existed to say, “The living and true God has created you all to be one.” No one thought has been awakened in your minds without His teaching and guidance. I, the Jew, the child of Abraham, stand forth to make that claim on behalf of the God whom I worship. I, the Jew, the child of Abraham, stand forth to declare that you, the men of Athens, have had a Divine vocation, that the God of all has appointed you to play a distinct and a very remarkable part in His great drama.”
II. But why has God chosen out the particular nations? Why has He ordered the times before appointed and the bounds of their habitation? Here is St. Paul’s answer: “That they may seek the Lord, if haply they may feel after Him and find Him.” According to this explanation of an inspired apostle, it was God Himself who stirred up the thoughts and inquiries of men about His Being and nature. Without His first word they could not have been; without His continual presence and inspiration they must have ceased altogether.
III. Bold as this statement is, it is less startling than the words which follow. We are so familiar with them, they have so leavened the dialect of Christendom, that we do not consider how awful they are in themselves, how much more remarkable they are for the place in which they were uttered, how they contradict some of our most approved religious and philosophical maxims. “Though He be not far from every one of us: for in Him we live, and move, and have our being.” St. Paul regarded this statement as the one great protest against Pantheism, and all other evil tendencies, to which the Athenian was liable; He shows the Athenians that God was their Father. It was because He was the Father of their spirits-because they were spiritual beings created in His spiritual likeness, created to feel after Him and find Him-it was therefore that the conceiving Him under any of these notions of theirs, the casting Him in any material shape, was so degrading and abominable. The whole burning indignation of the Jew against the gods of the hills and groves comes forth in this assertion, which is nevertheless so full of tenderness for every heathen, and which could only have been uttered by one who believed that God had loved the whole world, and had sent His Son to take upon Him the nature of the dweller in Athens as much as of the dweller in Jerusalem.
F. D. Maurice, Sermons, vol. v., p. 111.
Act 17:27
The Voice of History.
I. History is the preacher of God. We may learn from it just the refutation of the fool when he hath said in his heart “There is no God.” The blind man might as well assert that there is no sun. All history, all Scripture, all nature, all experience, refutes him. Well might the baffled and dying Julian exclaim, “O Galilean, thou hast conquered!” Could there be two more stupendous proofs of the presence of God in history than Christianity and Christendom? What can account for so superb a triumph of the merest weakness? One fact, and one fact only-the power of Christ’s resurrection.
II. And history, which is the preacher of God, is also a preacher of judgment. How often has God confounded the Babels and dashed in pieces the invincible despotisms of the world! God is not, as Napoleon said, on the side of the biggest battalions. Alexander, the Czar of Russia, understood the truth if Napoleon did not, and on his commemorative medal were carved the words, “Not to me, not to us, but unto Thy name.”
III. History is the preacher of great moral verities. A nation morally corrupt is invariably a nation physically weak. History is a voice ever sounding across the centuries the eternal distinctions of right and wrong. Opinions alter, manners change, creeds rise and fall, but the moral law is written on the tablets of eternity. For every false word and unrighteous deed, for cruelty or oppression, for lust or vanity, the price has to be paid to the end. Justice and truth alone endure and live; injustice and falsehood may be long-lived, but doomsday comes to them at last.
F. W. Farrar, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxix., p. 353.
References: Act 17:27.-G. Gilfillan, Christian World Pulpit, vol. viii., p. 257; Homilist, 2nd series, vol. i., p. 589; Preacher’s Monthly, vol. ix., p. 84.
Act 17:28
I. Since God is everywhere, we move, speak, act, think in God. We rise up, we lie down, we eat, we drink, we work, we rest, we speak, in God, we pray to God, or-men forget God; not only with God’s eye ever upon us, as much upon us as if in the whole circuit of created beings there were, besides God, no other living being but our one self; not only with that all-beholding Eye resting upon us, seeing every motion of our frames, every emotion of our hearts, every thought before it is yet framed, every word when as yet unspoken; but all we do, think, speak, by night or by day, we do, think, speak in God, encompassed by God. “In God we live and move.” This might be very blessed, the bliss almost of the blessed in heaven. But it has its awful sides also. Since we think, speak, act in God, then every sin which men commit-the foulest, most cruel, most loathsome, most contrary to the nature which God formed-is committed in God. It cannot be otherwise. God not only sees through the darkness, He is in it. There He is, where thou turnest. Thou canst not turn away from God except to meet God. Thou canst turn away from His love, yet only to meet Him in His displeasure. Turn, then, in sorrow from thy sin, and thou wilt meet Him and see Him forgiving thee.
II. Since, then, all is of God and in God, since we ourselves, if our souls are alive, are in Christ and through Christ in God, there is no room to claim anything as our own. To claim any gift of God as our own is to rob God. But who could wish to hold anything of his own? How much holier, deeper, more blessed, more full of love, is it to draw every breath of our lives in Him, as supplying it; to move around Him as the centre of our being, and who gives us power to move. As in nature even the strength which men abuse against God is, in every separate act, still continued to them by God whom they offend, so in grace, not only the general power to do acts well-pleasing to God is given and upheld by God, but each act wherewith, from the sacrifice of Abel until now, God has been well-pleased, has been done through the power of His grace put forth in men by Him, and by Him perfected in them.
E. B. Pusey, Sermons, vol. ii., p. 372.
References: Act 17:28-30.-R. S. Candlish, Scripture Characters and Miscellanies, p. 493. Act 17:29.-J. Fraser, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xv., p. 230. Act 17:30.-Three Hundred Outlines on the New Testament, p. 117; G. Brooks, Five Hundred Outlines, p. 26. Act 17:30, Act 17:31.-J. Natt, Posthumous Sermons, p. 124; E. White, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xviii., p. 344; Homilist, 3rd series, vol. x., p. 104. Act 17:31.-G. Brooks, Five Hundred Outlines, p. 33.
Act 17:32
The Resurrection of the Dead.
Observe:-
I. That the resurrection is exhibited in the Bible, not as the speculative truth which must be believed because taught, but with which otherwise we have no close concern: it is rather set forth as so intimately bound up with our salvation, that to prove it false were to prove the human race unredeemed. I look on the wondrous exhibitions of creative wisdom and might, and I gather from the magnificent spectacle witness in abundance that a resurrection is possible.
II. Consider the evidence which we have of the resurrection of Christ. When we show that the chosen witnesses proved by their endurances that they were not deceivers and that they enjoyed such opportunities of assurance that they could not themselves have been deceived, we seem to place the resurrection of our Lord, so far as testimony is concerned, beyond the reach of cavil. We feel that it was a scorn which nothing could justify and a hesitation which must yield so soon as evidence was examined, when we find it expressed in the words of the text, “When they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked: and others said, We will hear thee again of this matter.”
III. The grand characteristic of our resurrection bodies is to be the likeness of the glorified body of Christ. Whilst yet a wrestler with principalities and powers the believer in Christ is opposed by his own flesh, and all his corporeal senses take part with the foes who would withstand him as he presses on to immortality. But when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, the body will be spiritual, not natural; regenerated flesh, sanctified matter; its every organ a minister of righteousness, its every sense an inlet for the majesty of God. Matter shall rival spirit in consecration to the Lord, and the very walls of the temple be instinct with holiness and breathe of duty.
H. Melvill, Penny Pulpit, No. 2553.
References: Act 17:32-34.-Homilist, vol. v., p. 369. Act 18:3.-J. Thain Davidson, Talks with Young Men, p. 47. Act 18:9, Act 18:10.-Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxvi., No. 1566; W. Braden, Christian World Pulpit, vol. ix., p. 68. Act 18:9-11.-Preacher’s Monthly, vol. vii., p. 315. Act 18:10.-W. Baird, The Hallowing of our Common Life, p. 62.
Fuente: The Sermon Bible
CHAPTER 17
1. The Gospel in Thessalonica (Act 17:1-9).
2. The Gospel in Beroea (Act 17:10-14).
3. Paul in Athens (Act 17:15-34).
Three cities in which the Gospel is next preached are before us in this chapter. But there is a marked difference between these three places. In Thessalonica there was much hostility, the result of the success of the Gospel. In Beroea a more noble class of Jews were found. Their nobility consisted in submission to the Scriptures, the oracles of God, and in a ready mind. There was a still greater blessing among the Jews and the Gentiles. In Athens the Apostle Paul met idolatry, indifference and ridicule.
An interesting fact is learned concerning the activity of the apostle in Thessalonica from the two Epistles, which he addressed some time after to the Thessalonians. These were the first Epistles Paul wrote. From these we learn that the Apostle not only preached the Gospel, but also taught the Thessalonian believers prophetic Truths and emphasized the Second Coming of Christ and the events connected with it. In the Second Epistle he reminds them of his oral teaching (2Th 2:5).
The address Paul gave in Athens has three sections: 1. The Introduction (Act 17:22-23) in which he refers to the altar with the strange inscription to the unknown God. Then he uttered the words, Him I declare unto you. 2. Who the unknown God is (Act 17:24-29). He is a personal God who made the world and all that is in it. He answered the Epicurean and Stoic schools of philosophy. Materialism and Pantheism were thus swept aside. 3. He closes with the message from God (Act 17:30-31).
He aims at their conscience to awaken them to the sense of need to turn away from idols to the true God. God sends to all One message, be they Jew or Gentiles, Greeks or Barbarians, to repent. And then he states the reason. A day is appointed in which He will judge the world in righteousness. The one through whom God will judge is a Man ordained by Him; then follows the declaration of the resurrection of this Man. The day of judgment here does not mean a universal judgment (a term not known in Scripture) nor the great white throne judgment. The judgment here does not concern the dead at all, but it is the judgment of the habitable world. It is the judgment which will take place when the Man whom God raised from the dead, our Lord Jesus Christ, comes the second time. His resurrection is the assurance of it.
Fuente: Gaebelein’s Annotated Bible (Commentary)
49. THREE WEEKS IN THESSALONICA
Act 17:1-10
Acts 16 closes with Paul and Silas quietly departing from Philippi. The magistrates there were politically embarrassed when they found out that Paul and Silas, whom they had beaten and imprisoned, were Roman citizens. Had they chosen to do so, Paul and Silas could have caused them much trouble legally and politically. But after receiving public apology they left town quietly, once they had visited and comforted Lydia, the first European convert, and the brethren (Act 16:39-40). Philippi would never be the same. God had graciously saved two households in that city. The households of Lydia and the jailor formed the gospel church at Philippi. They had the responsibility now of continuing and propagating the faith of Christ. They must have assumed their responsibility with great zeal, because soon there was a strong, flourishing church there.
The missionary trio (Paul, Silas, and Timothy) walked through Amphipolis and Apollonia to Thessalonica, one of Macedonia’s most populous and important cities. In all they walked about 100 miles to get to Thessalonica, apparently spending two nights on the road (Act 17:1). When they got to Thessalonica they engaged in intensive evangelism, preaching in the Jewish synagogue there for three weeks in a row, every sabbath day (Act 17:2). Traditionally, travelling rabbis were invited to speak at local synagogues as a matter of courtesy when visiting an area. Apparently, Paul was asked to speak for that reason. He was obviously well received.
PAUL’S METHOD OF PREACHING WAS BOTH INTERESTING AND INSTRUCTIVE (Act 17:2-3). Paul was wise enough to adapt himself to his circumstances and to the needs of the hour. Sometimes he stood before an assembly and preached lengthy discourses (Act 13:16-41). But there are other methods of preaching. At Thessalonica we are told that his preaching included three things: (1) He reasoned with them out of the Scriptures; (2) He opened, or explained the message of the Scriptures; and (3) He alleged that Christ had to suffer and rise from the dead. Paul’s first technique in preaching was REASONING. The word translated “reason” here is the word from which we get the English word “dialog”. It has the idea of give and take conversation. The sense of Luke’s words is – Using the Old Testament, with which the Jews were thoroughly familiar, Paul reasoned with them. He listened to their arguments and patiently refuted them by the Word of God. His second tactic was OPENING, or explaining the Word of God. The word that is translated “opening” is very strong. It means “to expand” or “to force open”. When the Scriptures were read, Paul opened up and explained their meaning. That is what preaching is. It is opening the Scriptures, and thus opening the understanding of one’s hearers to see that all the Scriptures speak of Christ’s sufferings, death, and resurrection glory (Luk 24:27; Luk 24:44-47). Thirdly, the apostle’s method in preaching was ALLEGING. He alleged, or proved from the Old Testament Scriptures the necessity of Christ’s sin-atoning death and triumphant resurrection. This word, “allege” means “to put along side”. In preaching at Thessalonica Paul compared spiritual things with spiritual (1Co 2:13). He took a text from Isaiah and compared it with a text from Daniel, and put alongside of them some passages from the Psalms or one of the other prophets. Thus alleging, or proving from the Word of God the necessity of Christ’s redemptive work.
SOME BELIEVED AND SOME BELIEVED NOT (Act 17:4-9). Wherever Christ comes, and wherever he is faithfully preached there is a division because of him (Joh 7:43). The preaching of the gospel humbles some and brings them to repentance and hardens others (2Co 2:14-16). The difference between those who believe and those who believe not is the distinguishing grace of God (1Co 4:7). Some of the Jews, many of the Gentiles, and several women, being chosen, redeemed, and called by the grace of God were persuaded by Paul’s doctrine and identified themselves with Christ and his servants (Act 17:4). However, those who believed not were by no means indifferent. Not only did they not believe the gospel, they set themselves in opposition to it. How often this is repeated! Unbelief hardens into resentment, and resentment breaks out in malicious abuse. The unbelieving Jews apparently had connections with the criminal element in the city. They hired some street thugs to stir up trouble and assault the house of Jason, where Paul, Silas, and Timothy were staying (Act 17:5). This stirring of violence and slander was caused by religious, churchgoing people. When they could not refute the doctrine of Christ and would not give up their false religion, their hearts, filled with hatred for God and his gospel, erupted in cruel and vicious attacks upon God’s messengers. Any preacher who has preached free grace to a congregation of freewill, works religionists, knows exactly what happened at Thessalonica! The malicious mob did not find the preachers at home, so they arrested Jason and some of the brethren because of their association with God’s servants. Deliberately twisting Paul’s words and his doctrines, they accused the saints of God of insurrection and riotousness, as promoters of evil things (Act 17:6-8). Since the days of our Lord, this has been the common tactic of religious men against Christ and the gospel of his grace (Luk 23:2; Joh 19:12; Rom 3:8). Jason and the brethren were released after making bail (Act 17:9). To avoid further trouble for Jason and the young believers at Thessalonica, Paul, Silas, and Timothy slipped out of town undercover of darkness and went to Berea (Act 17:10).
THE CHARGE MADE AGAINST GOD’S CHURCH BY HER ENEMIES WAS A CHARGE THAT GREATLY HONORED IT. The mob cried out against Paul, Silas, Timothy, and the believing men and women at Thessalonica, “These have turned the world upside down” (Act 17:6). Would to God the church today had a reputation for turning the world upside down! Instead, the church today has made peace with the world, walks hand in hand with the world, and has married the world. Fire and zeal for the glory of God have been drowned in the flood of compromise and conciliation. Instead of setting the world on fire with the truth of God, the church today warms itself with the fires of the world, fires fueled by burning God’s truth! The church of our day has betrayed Christ, betrayed the souls of men, and betrayed the gospel of the grace of God. All has been sold for the silver of praise, popularity, and worldly recognition!
THE CHURCH TODAY NEEDS SOME MEN WHO WILL, WITH THE REASON, FORCE, AND PERSUASION OF HOLY SCRIPTURE, PREACH THE GOSPEL OF CHRIST, AS PAUL DID IN THE SYNAGOGUE AT THESSALONICA. The basis of Paul’s appeal to men was the Word of God alone. He reasoned with his hearers out of the Scriptures (Act 17:2). The Bible is the only source of divine truth in this world. God’s preachers appeal to no other authority (Isa 8:20; 2Ti 3:16-17). The message Paul preached was Jesus Christ and him crucified (Act 17:3; 1Co 2:2). He showed from the Word of God the necessity of Christ’s substitutionary death. According to the Word of God four things necessitated Christ’s death on the cross: (1) God’s Decree (1Pe 1:18-20; Act 2:23); (2) Christ’s Voluntary, Suretyship Engagements (Isa 50:5-7; Joh 10:16-18; Joh 12:27-28); (3) The Old Testament Prophets (Mar 14:49; Luk 24:44); and (4) The Justice of God (Rom 3:24-26; Gal 3:21). Paul boldly pressed upon his hearers the claims of Christ the King, demanding immediate and total surrender to him as Lord. Blessed are the people to whom God sends such a preacher!
Fuente: Discovering Christ In Selected Books of the Bible
Thessalonica: Act 20:4, Act 27:2, Phi 4:16, 1Th 1:1, 2Th 1:1, 2Ti 4:10
where: Act 14:1, Act 15:21, Act 16:13
Reciprocal: Luk 4:31 – taught Act 13:5 – in the Act 18:4 – he Act 19:8 – disputing Act 20:2 – those 1Co 2:3 – General 1Co 14:36 – came Phi 4:15 – I 1Th 2:14 – ye also 1Th 3:4 – even
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
LUKE GIVES US no details as to what transpired in Amphipolis and Apollonia, but passes on to the happenings in Thessalonica. In this chapter, we notice, the pronoun we is not used, so possibly Luke, not being as much involved as Paul and Silas were in the disturbances at Philippi, stayed on there to help the converts further.
Paul first addressed the Jews in their synagogue, as was his custom. Verse Act 17:3 gives us the line on which he approached them. He proved from their own Scriptures that the Messiah, when He came, must suffer death and rise from the dead. This established, it was simple to point to Jesus as unquestionably being the Messiah. So in one verse we are given the whole thing in a nut-shell. However long the discourses lasted, the whole point is summed up in these few words, and they stand as guidance for all who would approach the Jew today. Not all believed, but some did, and also many Greek proselytes, and some of the chief women.
At Philippi the riotous proceedings originated with disappointed, moneymaking Gentiles; at Thessalonica unbelieving Jews were at the bottom of even worse opposition and disorder. In stigmatizing Paul and Silas as, These that have turned the world upside down, they rendered involuntary tribute to the mighty power of the Gospel, preached with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven. They might oppose, but they could not stop its advance.
Pauls service in Thessalonica was cut short by this riot, for he served in the spirit of the Lords instruction recorded in Mat 10:23. Hence a move was now made to Berea, where the Jews showed a very different spirit. They had an openness of mind, that is characterized as more noble, and when Paul showed them what the Scriptures had foretold, they searched them diligently, and thereby many believed. A mind that is ready and free from prejudice, and that gladly bows to Scripture, is indeed a noble thing.
Such hostility to the Word of God marked the Thessalonian Jews however that they pursued Paul to Berea, and in the face of further trouble, Paul slipped away to Athens, outwitting his pursuers by a simple ruse. Silas and Timothy remained at Berea, for evidently the animosity was now specially directed against Paul. Hence it came to pass that in his visit to Athens, the great centre of Greek culture and wisdom, Paul was solitary and alone, as far as his service was concerned.
Athens was the great centre of Greek learning and philosophy; it was also full of idols. The highest human culture and the grossest idolatry can exist quite amicably side by side. Into the midst of this state of things Paul stepped, and the sight of it painfully excited his spirit. Though still without his companions he could not rest in the presence of it, and so began to testify to both Jews and Gentiles. In this way certain philosophers had their attention drawn to him, and these men, though belonging to opposing schools and treating him with contempt, had their curiosity sufficiently aroused to desire to hear more. Thus it came to pass that the opportunity was given to him to speak before an assemblage of the most cultured intellects of that time.
We are given a glimpse, in verses Act 17:18-21, of the conditions that prevailed in Athens. There was immense mental activity, and an insatiable enquiry into new ideas. They spent their time either in telling or hearing some new thing; not, of course, just gossip or little-tattle but the newest philosophic notions. Hence Pauls preaching of Jesus and the resurrection struck them as a great novelty connected with some deities to which hitherto they had been strangers. The Epicureans believed that the highest good was to be found in gratifying ones desires, and the Stoics that it was in repressing them, but what were these new ideas?
Paul opened his address on Mars hill by telling them that they were too superstitious or given up to demon worship. Amongst their many shrines they even had an altar dedicated to The unknown god, lest there should be some demon, unknown to them, that needed to be propitiated. He seized upon this and made it the theme of his discourse, for it was perfectly true that the living God was utterly unknown to them. Paul announced to them the God that they knew not; and if we examine the brief report of his discourse we can see how he set God before them. As regards the things of God these cultured Athenians were simply pagans; so here we are instructed how the Gospel should be presented to the heathen.
Paul began by presenting Him as the God of creation. This lies at the foundation of everything. If we do not know Him thus, we do not know Him at all. That is why the evolutionary theory works so disastrously. Its chief attraction to so many is that it enables one to dispense with God altogether, or at least to push Him so far into a remote background as to make Him not worth thinking about. Paul brought Him right into the forefront of the picture he presented, He not only made the world but all things in it. He cannot be contained in mens buildings, nor worshipped as though He needed anything from mens hands. He is Himself the Giver of Life and all things. All men are His creatures, made of one blood, and their times and boundaries determined by Him.
There had remained some glimmerings of light as to this amongst them, and Paul was able to quote some of their own poets as having spoken of mankind as being the offspring of God. In this they were right. Only by faith in Christ Jesus do we become children of God, but all men are His offspring as His creatures. This being so we ought not to conceive of God as something less than ourselves or as the work of our own hands; and we should be those who seek after Him. His immanence is recognized in the words that In Him we live, and move, and have our being; yet Paul preached Him as the transcendent One, who is Lord of heaven and earth.
But this God of creation is also a God of forbearance. Men had not liked to retain God in their knowledge, and so the nations had fallen into ignorance of God. For some centuries the Athenians had been priding themselves on their culture and learning, yet all through they had been in the times of this ignorance,-this ignorance of God-and Paul told them so plainly. Yet God had winked at, or overlooked this ignorance, acting in forbearance, in view of that which He was going to do through Christ.
But now Christ is come, and God proclaims Himself as a God of righteous judgment. He has appointed the day when He will take up the reins of government by the Man of His choice, and the whole earth shall be judged and administered in righteousness. In view of this repentance is the only seemly thing for unrighteous men wherever they may be. It is the only right thing, and God commands it.
The pledge of the coming of this day of righteous judgment has been given in the resurrection of the Man of Gods choice. Thus finally Paul set God forth as the God of resurrection. Something entirely outside all human calculations had taken place. Jesus had been raised from the death into which man consigned Him! Paul started his work in Athens by announcing Jesus and the resurrection amongst the workers in the market place; he ended on the same theme when speaking to the thinkers on Mars hill.
Their busy brains were revolving in mans world, and hence resurrection lay right outside their field of view. To many of them it seemed an absurdity, and they mocked. Others manifested some interest yet deferred further consideration, as seeing no urgency in the matter. Some however believed, both men and women, and these threw in their lot with Paul. These three classes usually appear when the Gospel reaches any given place: there are the mockers, the procrastinators and the believers.
Pauls stay in Athens was a short one: he did not wait longer there for his companions but went on to Corinth. So it is probable that those who said, We will hear thee again of this matter, had no opportunity of doing so.
Fuente: F. B. Hole’s Old and New Testaments Commentary
1
Act 17:1. Amphipolis and Apollonia were cities in Macedonia, but Paul did not pause for any work until he reached Thessalonica, another Macedonian city. The existence of a synagogue made it desirable to stop in this place.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
Paul at Thessalonica and Berea, 1-14.
Act 17:1. Through Amphipolis and Apollonia. From Philippi to Amphipolis, some thirty-three miles along the great Egnatian Way, which was a continuation of the Appian Way. Amphipolis was an important military station in the days of Paul; its former name was The Nine Ways, from the number of roads which met at this point. The missionary apostle appears to have merely passed through this place and also Apollonia, an unimportant town thirty miles from Amphipolis, and only to have preached at the great maritime city of Thessalonica, which he reached probably on the third day after his departure from Philippi. Thessalonica is thirty-seven miles from Apollonia.
They came to Thessalonica. From very early times this city was famed as a commercial centre. Under its old name, Therma, we read of it in Herodotus and Thucydides. It was rebuilt by Cassander, and renamed after his wife Thessalonica, sister to Alexander the Great. This princess received her name to commemorate a victory won by her father, Philip of Macedon, on the day he received the news of her birth. In the Middle Ages it is celebrated in German poetry under the name of Salneck, an abbreviation of Thessalonica which, with a very slight change, has remained to the present day. Before the building of Constantinople, it was really the capital of Greece and Illyricum, and even now Saloniki is the second city of European Turkey. In the mediaeval chronicles it is known as the orthodox city; and during those dark ages when the Barbarians were fast spreading over the provinces of the decaying Empire, this brave merchant city held its own and contributed greatly to the spread of Christianity among the swarms of invading Goths and Slaves who were gradually making permanent settlements in the neighbouring districts. Saloniki, though now a Turkish city, among its 70,000 inhabitants reckons 35,000 Jews and 10,000 Christians! The chief trade is in the hands of its Jewish population, and thirty-six synagogues are said to exist at the present time.
Where was a synagogue of the Jews. The more literal translation would be here the synagogue, signifying that the chief not the only synagogue of the district, was placed in this great sea city.
Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament
Section 3. (Act 17:1-34.)
Renewals.
The three narratives following unite together to show the renewal in different ways accomplished by Christianity. At Thessalonica the charge brought against it is in one sense true, and its glory, that there is another King -Jesus. At Berea the movement is peaceful and not revolutionary, though a great advance; the new revelation borne witness to by the old, which it fulfils and justifies. At Athens, at the highest point of civilization in the Gentile world, the need is deepest and most fundamental: it is the unknown God, once known, but from whom they have turned, who has afresh to be revealed in the blessed gospel of Jesus and the resurrection.
1. Thessalonica was the chief city of Macedonia; and here was the synagogue of the Jews -the only one which, apparently they possessed in those parts. Accordingly we find Paul here in the synagogue, and reasoning from the Scriptures. A suffering Messiah was always the offence to the Jew; and the necessity for this suffering, as well as the fact of the resurrection of the Lord, becomes therefore the apostle’s theme. The effect among the Jews themselves, however, is not so great as among the proselytes, of whom a great multitude, and among them many women of chief rank, believe. This as usual arouses the jealousy of the unbelieving Jews, who are not ashamed to associate themselves with the rabble of the market-place to accomplish their ends, and drive the unwelcome strangers from the place. A tumult is raised and they beset the house of Jason,* where they were lodging, but do not find them; and failing in this, drag off Jason and certain of the brethren before the city-rulers. The charge is disregarding the decrees of Caesar for the commandments of a new King, Jesus. And, though this is, of course, their malice -a repetition of the old attack upon the Lord Himself -yet it is striking to note how constantly in the epistles to the Thessalonians afterwards the coming of the Lord is spoken of. The Kingdom itself is only twice actually mentioned in the two epistles; but that the coming was to introduce this could not fail to have been a part of the teaching in the synagogue. That they were a company waiting for God’s Son from heaven was soon known throughout Macedonia and Achaia; and Jews could not be ignorant of what this would mean in connection with Messiah’s reign. The attack for the present, ends without serious consequences. The rulers only take security of Jason and the others, and let them go. Paul and Silas are sent away by the brethren under cover of the night, and escape to Berea; although it could not be long, with such a testimony as that given by the newly gathered assembly, before persecution would revive, as in fact we know it did (1Th 2:14; 2Th 1:4); and this through the rancor still of those who should have been the first to welcome the announcement.
{*Jason means apparently “healer.” Doubtless he was a Christian, as he is spoken of in Rom 16:21. How like the Jews it was to refuse their own mercies. Christianity was the “healing” they needed individually and nationally, but in their mad hatred of Jesus they would forfeit every blessing. “When I would have healed Israel, then the iniquity of Ephraim was discovered.” “I taught Ephraim also to go, taking them by the arms; but they knew not that I healed them.” However, a true pledge has been given by the true Jason, and one day, for Israel and Judah both, it will be said, “I will heal their backsliding, I will love them freely” (Hos 7:1; Hos 11:3; Hos 14:4). -S.R.}
Brief as is the whole account here, it is evident that this is what the work in Thessalonica is intended to be associated with, -the coming of a kingdom such as the world has never seen, but which alone will give it the peace it craves. Peace can only be the effect of righteousness, and this not simply in the supreme head, but also in each subordinate authority, -when “the mountains shall bring peace unto the people, and the hills, by righteousness” (Psa 72:3). Christ is in this way “the Desire of the nations,” even although the nations with one consent united against Him, and a Christian nation is still little more than a convenient phrase. Nothing but judgment will put the world at the feet of Christ, and the “Great Shepherd of the sheep” must yet shepherd the nations with an iron rod (Psa 2:9). Even for their own blessing -and it is in fact the, history of every converted soul -men must be warred upon and overcome.
Yet what a hope it is -the only possible one, as the history of the world bears) witness -the Patient Sufferer of the Cross the fulfilment of David’s picture of
“A righteous Ruler over men,
A Ruler in the fear of God!
Even as the morning-light when the sun ariseth,
A morning without clouds:
From the brightness after rain
The herb springeth from the earth” (2Sa 23:3-4),
But if thus the King cometh, the Kingdom, in a true and blessed sense, is here already. Already is He Lord and Christ, and all authority in heaven and earth is given to Him. He is on the Father’s throne, and we are “translated into the Kingdom of the Son of His love” (Col 1:13). It is a Kingdom faith indeed alone can recognize, and yet for faith with glorious meaning. His subjects suffer, and the truest most; yet still it is “the Kingdom,” if also “the patience, of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Rev 1:9). And while this does not set aside the subordinate authority of Caesar, but makes us subject to every ordinance of man for the Lord’s sake (1Pe 2:13), it turns these “powers that be” into “ministers of God for good” (Rom 13:4), and for faith produces a marvelous change. For even a wrong done to me in intent on the part of man, if I realize His intent in it, becomes the wholesome discipline of love, if not more unveiled blessing. How resentment is quieted, the fretted heart tranquilized, the soul encouraged, wisdom is given to us, as we are kept in the power of a truth like this! Paul and Silas may sing in their Philippian dungeon, before the earthquake executes its beneficent mission, and frees them from their shackles. Christ is on the throne; and while still we are to keep the word of His patience (Rev 3:10), that too is blessing, and fellowship with Him is perfected in it.
2. In Berea we find, as in the case of the eunuch, the old dispensation leading on its disciples to the new. Revelation has always been progressive; and even now that it is complete, there is, in its gradual opening up under the guidance of the Spirit, something that seems analogous to this. Faith is in this way ever being tested, while also the new approves itself as of God by the firm hold which it retains of the past, in which it roots itself, and upon which it throws fresh light. The new truth cannot be in contradiction to the old, which in fact has led on towards and prepared the way for it. Nothing could seem more contradictory than the law and the gospel; and yet the latter is the necessary complement of the former. Legalism is the contradiction, and not the law.
The Jews at Berea are more noble than those at Thessalonica, the gospel commending itself to them by its own inherent credibility, its witness to the conscience and the heart. They were predisposed, therefore, to receive it, while yet they waited till Moses should be heard in testimony. With disciples such as these, miracles are not needed and would rather distract than help. The Word is itself the greatest of miracles -the voice of the Living God, which has sounded on through the ages, never silent, wherever there was an ear to hear. Thus the predisposition to receive the gospel ripens into faith with these Bereans as they search the Scriptures, with vigorous determination day by day. Many believe; and the Grecian women that were honorable (or of the higher class), and of men, not a few. The tidings of it soon reached Thessalonica, only forty-five miles away, and answer comes in the shape of angry emissaries from the unbelievers there, who stir up the multitudes. Again Paul has to flee, though Silas and Timothy, less important in the eyes of the persecutors, are able to remain; and thus the gospel of Christ makes its way to Athens.
3. At Athens Paul is roused by the obtrusive idolatry, nowhere more obtrusive than there, to earnest discussion in the market-place with any whom he meets. In the synagogue he seems to have found nothing; the Athenian spirit may well have had its effect here also, even in a reaction against the new things after which the busy idlers of the city sought, and with which their scorn could confound the good news of salvation by a dying and risen Saviour. As for the Greeks it is the Epicureans and Stoics who assail the preacher, as they think, of new divinities; themselves either sceptic as to any true God whatever, -the world being neither His creation nor His care, -or else on the other side making man independent of Him, and mere fate the real governor both of God and man. The Epicurean sought his end in pleasure; the Stoic stiffened himself in self-righteousness and pride. To the latter indifference was a positive duty; in both were the sure signs of that break-down of the purer philosophy which they followed which showed itself in the open scepticism in turn following them: all showing the consciousness of the failure of philosophy in every form, and the need of that revelation against which it nevertheless so eagerly contended.
After all, in the heart of man lay needs unsatisfied, which could not accept a stone for bread; and the restless questioning of the Athenian spirit bore witness to this also. Babbler as they might think Paul was, they still would hear him; and with courteous phrase they invite him to the Areopagus, where the supreme court of Athens commonly held its sittings. But there was now neither thought of judgment nor a true judicial spirit in the crowd that assembled there. The old world had largely with the Roman come to ask after the truth itself with little thought of finding it. Still, for the moment they listened; and he to whom truth was no question but a joyous and deep conviction, took advantage of the occasion offered to press upon them his one remedy for the common need of man -Jesus and the resurrection.
Everywhere around there were tokens, the speaker said, of their great reverence for divinities. It was easier, according to the satirist, to find a god than a man in Athens. Yet this reverence, misplaced and perverted as it was, had its touching side of appeal as witness to the cry of humanity after God. If they know not the One true God, they must invent one; or, perhaps, as with the Athenians, many; though this is but the testimony that the many cannot fill the place of the One.
Thus man’s heart craves for a god; alas, one cannot say, for God: that is another matter. In Israel the true God was known, -had declared Himself, and in such a way as one would have thought would have won their hearts for ever to Himself. What was the answer which in fact they gave to Him? It was for long but the setting up of the idols of their defeated enemies, for whose sins God had cast them out before them! He Himself puts the question which reveals man’s conduct in this respect (Jer 2:11): “Hath a nation changed their gods, which are yet no gods? but My people have changed their glory for that which doth not profit.” This does not make Israel an exception among the nations: man everywhere is man; when Pharisaism suited the prince of this world better than idolatry, the people became zealous monotheists and keepers of the law; and their own words, “Which of the Pharisees have believed on Him?” show the success of the scheme. The question of monotheism is not the question now, and the cross is not for the monotheist, but for the Christian.
Among the heathen also, at this time, change was in the air. The reverence for divinities yet outwardly remained, but Epicureans and Stoics were eating out the heart of it. The “unknown God,” upon which Paul with divine sagacity had fixed his eyes, was now really characteristic of the condition, rather than even the goddess who had given her name and wisdom to the city. God was indeed more and more confessedly unknown; and great must have been the wonder, if not scorn, that met the apostle’s bold declaration, -“Whom therefore ye ignorantly reverence, Him I proclaim unto you.”
He goes on immediately to do this, -to set Him in His place in relation to the creature as the Maker of all, therefore the Lord of all, -a place that heathenism never truly gave Him. For the Epicurean, as for the modern scientific heathen, the world was a fortuitous collection of atoms, coming together according to laws of its own, -of the matter which it all was. For the Stoic also, God was but the force in matter, -not existent apart from it. The Platonist also believed matter to be eternal, although he attributed to God the soul which animated it and produced the actually existent world. But as a consequence God is in a continual struggle with that matter which He did not create, and by which He is limited. He can neither conquer it, nor withdraw Himself from it; He is not the absolute Creator and Lord of all whom the apostle announces -the Almighty, in whose control of all the soul of man can find its rest.
Supreme above all, it is thus alone He can be near to all; not dwelling in temples made with hands, which isolate and shut Him up; nor served by human hands, as if He were in need. Sufficient to Himself, He is the Source and Centre of all; life and breath and all things but His gift. None then can make Him his debtor, nor give Him, save of what is but His own.
Such is He then whom this preacher declares to the Athenians: a God who is really God. He proceeds to put man in his place with Him, leveling all distinctions upon which Jew and Greek alike prided themselves, in the assurance of that one blood in which all men participated. Nay, their times and the very bounds of their habitations had been alike fixed by. Him who withdrew not His care from any creature He had made, and who had appointed all these, that in the sense of their limitation and dependence, as well as of the divine ordering of things amid which they moved, men might in their need feel after Him and find Him. Nor is He far from any one: for indeed we are encompassed by Him, -in Him we live and move and are! The last is the full generalization: we are sustained by Him, we are carried by Him, -more completely than the infant in its mother’s arms; for His arms never unclose, -in Him at all times we are: words which he caps with a quotation from their own poets, recognizing the true creative link with God of a spiritual being such as man is, “For we are also His offspring.” He is not here considering the effect of the fall, nor as yet man’s responsibility, but the place given him in God’s design, from which he will be better able to estimate his own departure.
But alas, how far he had got! Was man indeed the offspring of God? and did he think that gold and silver and stone, -dead matter, graven by human skill into some resemblance of himself, could be a worthy representation of the divine? Could the eyes and ears and bodies of men, -things of which God could have no possible need for seeing or hearing -represent that in which they were “in His image”? The spiritual they could not represent! they could only degrade it by such similitudes.
Alas, it was indeed the unknown God they worshiped! And these things characterized times of ignorance which He from whom they had turned had patiently gone on with. God had ignored, as they had. If He had now come in to make Himself known afresh, there ensued for men the necessity of repentance. Judgment was decreed for the whole habitable earth in righteousness, and that by a Man to whom God had testified so as to give full assurance to all by having raised Him from among the dead.
It is of the judgment of the living, not of the dead, that the apostle speaks here, and with the evident intention of announcing the coming of the Lord and the introduction of His Kingdom. Of salvation He had yet said nothing; for his hearers are philosophers, and not the conscience-struck and weary. But of the world’s need and its remedy they might still be ready to hear, who were ignorant of their own; and their hearts be stirred by the prospect of a reign of righteousness, in contrast with the hard Caesarism under which they were pressed down. They have had enough, however; and the mention of resurrection brings their patience to an end. Some mock; while others courteously defer the matter to another time; it is not serious enough to rouse them to hostility. Nothing was to be expected from an audience like this, and even Paul could only turn away and leave them. We hear of no such poverty of result in any other place, but with the wise of this world the wisdom of God is foolishness. Yet here also God could not allow His word to be absolutely barren. “Certain men clave to him and believed, among whom also was Dionysius* the Areopagite, and a woman named Damaris.” Though tradition has manufactured for the former a bishopric of Athens, and the martyr’s crown, these are at present to us names only: the history connected with them remains for disclosure at a future time.
{*”Dionysius” is naturally connected with Dionysus or Bacchus, implying one dedicated to him. Etymologically it may mean “divinely, pricked” or “spurred.” Damar” is in Greek “one subdued, tamed, broken in to the yoke,” and so “a bride.”}
Fuente: Grant’s Numerical Bible Notes and Commentary
This chapter begins with St. Paul’s travels to Thessalonica, the chief city of Macedonia, where this apostle gathered a famous church, unto which he wrote two excellent epistles. Coming to Thessalonica at this time, he went (as his manner was) into the synagogue, not into a private house. As Christ taught daily in the temple, so did his apostles teach in the synagogues: it was the false apostles that crept into houses, and led captive silly women, as St. Paul complains, 2Ti 3:6 Truth seeks no corners, but rejoices to be publicly seen; besides, the gospel was first to be preached to the Jews, and, upon their rejection, to the Gentiles.
Accordingly the apostle takes the advantage of the synagogue, where all the Jews were gathered together, and preaches to them Jesus and the resurrection.
Where observe, The first grand point which the apostle insisted upon, was to demonstrate, that this Jesus, whom he preached, was the long expected Messias. Now to prove this, he produces the prophecies of the Old Testament, and compares them with what was both done and suffered by Christ, making all things as plain and obvious to the eye of their understanding, as if they had been seen with bodily eyes; satisfactorily demonstrating to their judgments, that Jesus is the Christ.
Observe, lastly, How the gospel is like the sea; what is lost in one place, is gained in another; St. Paul is sent away from Philippi, but by that means the gospel was preached at Thessalonica. God overrules the motions of his ministers, and the madness and malice of their persecutors, for the furtherance and spreading of the gospel.
Fuente: Expository Notes with Practical Observations on the New Testament
Preaching in Thessalonica
Luke did not tell Theophilus why Paul passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia. He did explain that the next stop on this second missionary tour was Thessalonica, where there was a synagogue of the Jews. As was his habit, Paul went to the synagogue for three consecutive Sabbath days to reason with the Jews. The very idea of a crucified Messiah was a stumbling block to the Jews ( 1Co 1:23 ), but Paul argued from the prophets that such was precisely what God had foretold ( Isa 53:1-12 ). He further established that God had planned and accomplished Jesus’ resurrection from the dead and made Him King over His people ( Act 2:22-36 ; 1Co 15:1-4 ). The scriptural evidence was supported by the miracles worked by the power of the Holy Spirit ( 1Th 1:5 ).
During Paul’s three weeks teaching in the synagogue, he and Silas worked with their own hands to support themselves ( 1Th 2:9 ). Php 4:16 also tells us the apostle received support from the brethren in Philippi on at least two occasions. The combination of scriptural preaching, miracles and the apostle’s obvious commitment to reach the lost had its desired effect as some Jews, Greeks who worshipped God and prominent women from the community obeyed the gospel ( Act 17:1-4 ; 1Th 1:9 ).
These events, somewhat naturally, moved the unbelieving Jews to jealousy. They enlisted the aid of some “vile fellows of the rabble” and stirred up a mob to go to Jason’s house and bring Paul and Silas out. When they could not find the two missionaries, the mob dragged Jason and some brethren before the rulers of the city. They accused Paul and Silas of being part of the number who turned the world upside down and teaching that Jesus was King. The rulers thought the matter serious enough to require security, perhaps like a property bond, of Jason and the others, warning them that it would be forfeited if any further disturbance occurred. Under these difficult conditions, Paul and Silas were sent away by night to Berea, some 60 miles away ( Act 17:5-10 a).
Fuente: Gary Hampton Commentary on Selected Books
Act 17:1. Now when they, &c. It appears by Lukes phraseology here, that he was left at Philippi; for here he ceases to speak of himself as one of Pauls company, saying, not when WE, but when they had passed, &c. Nor does he resume his former manner of writing until Act 20:5-6. It is therefore more than probable, that when Paul, Silas, and Timothy departed from Philippi, after having gathered a church there, Luke remained with the new converts until the apostle, in his way from Corinth to Syria the second time, came to Philippi and took him with them. Had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia The apostle having, as we have seen, successfully planted the gospel in Philippi, departed with his assistants, Silas and Timothy; and passing first through Amphipolis, a city built in an island formed by two branches of the river Strymon, (from whence it had its name,) and a colony of the Athenians, and then through Apollonia, a colony of the Corinthians and Corcyreans, near the sea-side; they came to Thessalonica Now the metropolis of all the countries comprehended in the Roman province of Macedonia. For it was the residence both of the proconsul and questor; so that, being the seat of government, it was constantly filled with strangers, who attended the courts of judicature, or who solicited offices. And as most of the Greeks about this time were extremely addicted to philosophy, so great a city as Thessalonica could not be destitute of men of learning, who were well qualified to judge of the gospel and its evidences. Moreover, its situation, at the bottom of the Thermaic gulf, rendering it fit for commerce, many of its inhabitants were merchants, who carried on an extensive trade with foreign countries; and who, as the apostle observes, (1Th 1:9,) published in these distant countries the conversion of the Thessalonians, and the miracles by which they had been converted. The Jews, likewise, resorted to this city in such numbers as to form a numerous congregation, and had, as we here read, a synagogue; whereas, it does not appear that they had one in any other city of Macedonia. And, probably, the reason why the apostle made no stay at the two fore-mentioned cities was, that there was no synagogue in either of them, and perhaps even no Jews, whom he was wont first to address wherever he came. It appears, therefore, from the above account of Thessalonica, that it was a very proper theatre whereon to display the light of the gospel. Through the advantages of its situation this city still subsists under the name of Salonichi, and is a place of great resort and trade, but it is in the possession of the Turks.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
XVII: 1. Luke now drops the pronoun of the first person, in which he has spoken of the apostolic company since they left Troas, and resumes the third person, which shows that he remained in Philippi after the departure of Paul and Silas. He also speaks of the these two brethren as if they constituted the whole company, until they are about to leave Berea, when Timothy is again mentioned. This leads to the presumption that Timothy remained with Luke, to still further instruct and organize the infant congregation in Philippi. Leaving the cause thus guarded behind them, Paul and Silas seek another field of labor. (1) And having passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they went into Thessalonica, where was the synagogue of the Jews. The distance from Philippi to Amphipolis was thirty-three miles; from Amphipolis to Apollonia, thirty miles; and from Apollonia to Thessalonica, thirty-seven miles; making just one hundred miles to the next city which the apostles undertook to evangelize. The whole of this distance was over one of those celebrated military roads built by the Romans, and elegantly paved with flag-stones.
At Philippi there was no synagogue, and the swift passage of Paul and Silas through Amphipolis and Apollonia indicates that there was none in either of those cities; hence the synagogue in Thessalonica was the only one in a large district of the country, for which reason it is styled the synagogue of the Jews. The existence of a synagogue in a Gentile city was always an indication of a considerable Jewish population. Thessalonica, on account of its commercial importance, was then, and continues to be, under its modern name Salonica, a great resort for Jews. It was a knowledge of this fact, no doubt, which hastened Paul to this city, anticipating, through the synagogue, a more favorable introduction to the people than he had enjoyed at Philippi.
Fuente: McGarvey and Pendleton Commentaries (New Testament)
Acts Chapter 17
In the last case it was the power exercised by the enemy over the passions of the Gentiles that caused the persecution of the apostles: at Thessalonica we again find the old and universal enmity of the Jews. Nevertheless many Jews and proselytes received the gospel. After a tumult there also, the apostles go away to Berea. There the Jews are more noble; what they hear, they examine by the word of God. Through this a great number among them believed. Nevertheless the Jews of Thessalonica, jealous of the progress the gospel made, go over to Berea. Paul leaves the city and passes on to Athens. Silas and Timothy remain for the moment at Berea, Paul being the special object of the Jews pursuit. At Athens, although he resorted to the synagogue, yet, his spirit stirred at the sight of the universal idolatry in that idle city, he disputes daily in public with their philosophers; consequent on these interviews, he proclaims the true God to the chief men of that intellectual capital. He had sent word to Silas and Timothy to join him there.
With a people like the Athenians-such is the effect of intellectual cultivation without God-he has to come down to the lowest step in the ladder of truth. He sets forth the oneness of God, the Creator, and the relationship of man to Him, declaring also that Jesus will judge the world, of which God had given proof by raising Him up from the dead. With the exception of the judgment of this world being put in place of the promises respecting the return of Jesus, we might think it was Peter addressing the Jews. We must not imagine that the historian relates everything that Paul said. What is given is his defence, not his preaching. The Holy Ghost gives us that which characterised the manner in which the apostle met the circumstances of those he addressed. That which remained on the minds of his first hearers was that he preached Jesus and the resurrection. It appears even that some took the resurrection, as well as Jesus, to be a God. It is, indeed, the basis of Christianity, which is founded on Jesus personally, and the fact of His resurrection; but it is only the basis.
I have said that we are reminded here of Peters preaching. I mean as to the degree of height in his doctrine with regard to Christ. We shall observe, at the same time, the appropriateness of the application of facts in either case to the persons addressed. Peter set forth the rejected Christ ascended on high, ready to return on the repentance of the Jews, and who would establish at His coming all things of which the prophets had spoken. Here the judgment of the world-sanction of the truth to the natural conscience-is presented to the learned men, and to the inquisitive people; nothing that could interest their philosophic minds, but a plain and convincing testimony to the folly of their idolatry, according even to that which the natural conscience of their own poets had acknowledged.
The dishonest gain, to which Satan ministered opportunity, met the gospel at Philippi; the hardness and moral indifference of knowledge that flattered human vanity, at Athens; at Thessalonica, the efforts of Jewish jealousy. The gospel goes on its way, victorious over the one, yielding to the effect of another, and, after laying bare to the learned Athenians all that their condition tolerated, leaving them, and finding, amid the luxury and the depraved manners of the wealthy city of Corinth, a numerous people to bring into the assembly. Such are the ways of God, and the exercises of His devoted servant led by the Holy Ghost.
We may notice, that this energy, which seeks the Gentiles, never loses sight of the favour of God towards His elect people-a favour that sought them until they rejected it.
Fuente: John Darby’s Synopsis of the New Testament
1. The four evangelists bid adieu to the sorrowing saints at the house of Lydia, travel southward, thirty-three miles to Amphipolis, where they do not tarry because there is no Jewish synagogue. Judgment begins at the house of God. Hence they give the preference to the Jews constituting the popular church of their day, always preaching to them first, thus making their start in every city. So the four pedestrians travel on south thirty miles to Apollonia, which they pass for the above reason, arriving at Thessalonica, thirty-seven miles farther south, one hundred from Philippi, where they find a Jewish synagogue.
Fuente: William Godbey’s Commentary on the New Testament
Act 17:1. When they had passed through Amphipolis. Boiste adds the Roman name Emboli. It was built by Simon, the Athenian commander. It stood on an island formed in the river Strymon, and was called Amphipolis because the river runs on both sides of the city. It was the chief city of Lower Macedonia; and by some called Chrysopolis. Apollonia was taken in their journey.
They came to Thessalonica, where was a synagogue of the jews. The ancient name was Therma, from which the bay took its name. Salonica is the abbreviate of its ancient name. See the introduction to the first epistle addressed to this church.
Act 17:3. Opening and alleging that Christ must needs have suffered. The order of the remaining words in the Greek is hyperbatic: and that this same is the Christ, even Jesus whom we preach to you, Addressing the jews, who had the oracles of God, and rested all their hopes on the promises of the Messiah, they proved that Jesus was the Christ by the literal accomplishment of prophecy. In numerous circumstances he suffered what the prophets had foretold. Equal emphasis is laid on the time of his appearing. The sceptre was departed from Judah; the weeks of Daniel were accomplished. Yea, the Lord himself had said, The time is fulfilled, the kingdom of God is at hand. To which Paul accedes by saying, when the fulness of time was come, God sent forth his Son. Above all, the glory of his resurrection, of which Paul himself by vision was made a witness, and an apostle of the Lord. With great power, the grace and unction of the Holy Spirit, those things were attested, and the fruit followed in the calling and conversion of the gentiles.
Act 17:4. And of the chief women not a few believed in the Lord. The Greek is, the first women, that is, as Jerome reads, mulieres nobiles, noble women; for during the Macedonian empire innumerable families had been ennobled. Tronto, in his letter to the bishop of Rhone, says of the Grecian converts, that ladies in whose veins the noblest blood did run, would not disdain to visit the poor and afflicted sisters. Dr. Caves Primitive Christianity.
Act 17:6. These that have turned the world upside down, are come hither also. All the outrages of mobs and tumults were laid at the christians door: and yet in a better sense the charge was true. They had illuminated the public mind, they had persuaded men to leave their sins, to forsake the temples of idolatry, and seek their happiness in God alone. What a revolution!
Act 17:10-11. At Berea they were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in searching the scriptures; for all divines have encouraged their hearers to read the bible. Antichristian Rome forbade the holy scriptures to the laity, lest their images and priestly domination should become exposed to vulgar contempt. The word noble, used to designate noble birth, means here nobility and enlargedness of mind.
Act 17:18. Certain philosophers of the Epicureans. Epicurus, from whom this sect claimed patronage, lived in Athens three hundred years before Christ. He is said to have been a man of temperance, who died at the age of ninety two. It was otherwise with this sect. Horace the poet calls them Epicuruss hogs. He taught the materiality of the soul, and by consequence denied its immortality. He also denied a providence, which is in fact to deny the being of a God. He recommended in secular affairs, moderation of the passions, and a degree of abstemiousness in order to enjoy pleasure with the greater zest. If those doctrines were true, St. Paul says, Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die. Plutarch wrote against them.
The Stoics encountered him. They are so called from stoa, a porch, or portico, in which Zeno their founder held his academy. They ascribed all secondary causes to the great first cause, that is, God. They held that all occurrences were necessitated events; they were ordained so to occur, and could not occur otherwise. All things were therefore a concatenation, which could not be broken or changed, no not even by the supreme Being himself. This they called fate, equally binding on Jupiter, as on man. They equalized all vices and all virtues, in such sort that to kill an ox, or to kill a man, were actions in themselves morally the same.
Act 17:19. They brought him unto Areopagus, the senate house, which stood above the city on Mars hill.
Act 17:23. I found an altar with this inscription, , to the unknown God. How this would rivet their attention, and touch their pride of science. What, with all their philosophy, ignorant of the God that made them; who had corrected their sins with afflictions, and given them abundant harvests! The inscription was in the plural number, but Paul turns it to the singular. Diis Asi, et Europ, et Afric, Diis ignotis et peregrinis: gods of Asia, and Europe, and Africa, gods of unknown and strange nations. Laertius reports, and no one discredits him, that once when the Athenians were afflicted with a plague, and when all the gods of the country were fatigued with sacrifices, that Epimenides persuaded them to erect this altar to the unknown gods, who had visited them with this pestilence, praying that they would accept their sacrifices, and avert the calamity. This was a happy exordium for Paul: he had not been idle at Athens. This God, being the Maker of all worlds, and the giver of all good, expects a higher worship than that of gifts, and gifts which he himself has first given. He expects us to seek him with our whole heart, and feel after him; feel, as Paul says, the mighty working of his power; the peace, the joy, the love of God shed abroad in the heart.
Act 17:28. For we are also his offspring. The apostle not only disavows the charge of being a setter-forth of strange gods, but also of strange doctrine, for he here literally quotes the words of Aratus, their own poet. I give this from Dr. Cudworths true intellectual system, with the old English version, which how uncouth soever the verse may be, will please, as giving the true sense of the Greek.
, , . .
Let us begin our work with Jove, of whom We men are never silent, and of whom All things are full, he passing through, and being In every place, whose kind and bounteous hand We all make use of, and enjoy, for we His offspring also are.
This Aratus the poet was a native of Solene, not far from Tarsus. He flourished in the year of Rome 472. His poem, The Phnomena, was translated into Latin by many of the learned Romans.
Act 17:30. The times of this ignorance God winked at. The period of that judicial blindness mentioned by the apostle, Rom 1:24-28, during which the gentile nations, however enlightened as to sciences, were awfully ignorant of God, and worshipped they knew not what. During this period the Lord had been instructing the world by his wonderful displays of judgment and mercy to the jewish nation. The gentiles were in this respect left to themselves. They had neither prophets, nor revelations, nor judgments, corresponding with their state of ignorance and crime. Yet they were favoured with all the blessings of nature and of providence, as if the God of nature were not aware of their wickedness. St. Paul seems to have in view the words of Solomon: Wis 11:23. Thou lookest another way, and beholdest not the sins of men that they may repent.
Act 17:34. Dionysius the Areopagite, one of the senators or judges. He was made bishop of the little flock in Athens, for the apostles often ordained the firstfruits of their ministry to the pastoral office, that the flock might not be dispersed. He is thought to have suffered martyrdom in the year 95, when Trajan persecuted the church.
Of this illustrious man antiquity has left us some notices. He is named by Suidas, Syncellus, Nicephorus, and others. He went from Athens to Heliopolis in Egypt, to complete his studies. He heard Paul about the year 50 in the Areopagus, and was ordained with the apostles own hands. By the persuasion of St. Clement he left Athens, and travelled into Gaul. He finally preached the gospel in Paris; from him St. Dennis, a town near Paris, derives its name. The Celestial Hierarchy, and other writings ascribed to him, are by many accounted spurious. Baronius, Annal. Ecclesiastes page 109. Against these records of the cardinal, our Dr. Cave opposes, that the Dennis of Paris was a later Dionysius, whose writings were of the fourth century. To this opinion the Catholics will by no means accede, as the south of France and Spain received the gospel from the christians dispersed when Stephen was stoned.
Our venerable Bede, in his commentary on the Acts, says that he was made bishop of Corinth, as Eusebius affirms: book 6. Report, he adds, constantly affirms that he came to Paris, and received the crown of martyrdom. But as to the books ascribed to him by Jerome, in his catalogue of illustrious men, Cajetan thinks that they were the production of a later Dionysius.
REFLECTIONS.
Pursuing the glorious career of the gospel in Greece, we find the apostles went forth in the spirit of their mission, and lived and acted like men who had seen the Lord, and who were commissioned to manifest his glory to the world. They had no barren sermons, no strokes of truth without effect; and the glory of conversions, and the formation of churches followed in their train. We may also remark, the great prudence of the holy apostles. They went into the synagogues and published the glory of their Master, because it was meet that the gospel should be preached first to the jews, if occasion offered. But the chief harvest laid among the greek proselytes, who excelled the jews in piety, in liberality of sentiment, and in excellence of temper.
Paul while at Athens sets a fine example to christians whose lot may be cast among the wicked. He went not to that city to acquaint himself with its literature, and antique curiosities, but to help them out of their ignorance and misery. He investigated their manners, their morals, and superstition; and his spirit was stirred within him when he saw the city wholly given to idolatry. Hence all alone, and singlehanded, he stood for God, and dared to attack the powers of darkness in their ancient seat. His wisdom and learning were so great, and his arguments so strong, that the principal citizens requested to hear this doctor of Asia in the Areopagus. It had probably reached their ears that he had embarassed and defeated the Epicureans and the Stoics; for Paul was no friend of the stoical doctrines of fate and necessity.
Preaching before the judges, the learned sects, and citizens of Athens, was to Paul and his mission a high and happy day. He had found an altar inscribed to the unknown God. Hence he took occasion to set before them the being and perfections of the true God, which are the basis of all faith, of all worship, and of all hope.
St. Paul next asserts that God created the world, and all things therein; a most revolting assertion to the gentile philosophy, which maintained the world to be eternal; and equally revolting to gentile superstition, which worshipped gods without number.
From this position, St. Paul deduces two most clear and convincing inferences. First, that God dwelleth not in temples made with hands; an assertion for which St. Stephen was stoned in Jerusalem; scarcely had he uttered the word before the jews stopped their ears. The second inference is, that God is not worshipped with the gifts of mens hands, as though he needed any thing. Simple sacrifices were types of the Messiah, and gentile holocausts were obtruded into their rituals. Besides, men might pay all their exterior homage, and yet withhold their hearts.
From the perfections and worship of God St. Paul proceeds to his providence. Having created, he still preserves the world by a paternal care. The human kind are all his offspring, made of one blood, and the constant objects of their Fathers care. For their good he has determined the times and seasons of summer and winter, seedtime and harvest: he has determined the bounds of their habitation, by indenting the continents with oceans, seas, lakes, and rivers. This grand display of the wisdom and goodness of God most happily waters the earth with clouds, and affords the nations a cheap and speedy passage to one another.
The apostle hence infers the necessity of repentance and reformation; for holy ministers will always aim at sanctifying improvements. If God be good to all, we ought, as his offspring, to resemble him. If he bless, we ought not to curse. What then remains for a wicked man but to seek the Lord by genuine repentance, if haply he may find him. Who can tell, said the Ninevites, if God will repent of the menaced destruction. Thus St. Paul diversifies his ministry by a plenitude of argument. When preaching to the jews, he builds his doctrine on the prophets; but when addressing the gentiles, he enforces the dictates of natural religion with all the powers of argument and force of application.
The necessity of repentance, a repentance now commanded of God, is farther enforced by the consideration of a future judgment. The sinner has no hope of secresy, nor possibility of escape. While men had not a pure knowledge of God, he had winked at their imperfect worship; but he never winks at crimes. The apostle was next about to open the fine scheme of the glorious gospel, but the vanquished philosophers lost patience, and stumbled at the resurrection. One of the judges was however converted, as well as some others, by the powerful arguments and excellent spirit of St. Pauls discourse.
Fuente: Sutcliffe’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Act 17:1-9. Thessalonica (cf. 1Th 2:2).From Philippi to Amphipolis is a distance of 30 miles, from Amphipolis to Apollonia 29, from Apollonia to Thessalonica 35 miles, all on the Via Egnatia which connected the Adriatic and the Hellespont. Why there was no preaching at Amphipolis and Apollonia, we cannot tell; probably there was no synagogue at either place.
Thessalonica (p. 876), on the Thermaic Gulf, made the capital of Macedonia by the Romans 146 B.C., and a free city after the Second Civil War, had a parliament (the people; demos, Act 17:5) and magistrates (politarchs, 6) of its own. That it had a Jewish population the text shows. Salonika is still a populous city. [Since this was written it has again become famous.A. S. P.]
Act 17:2. Sabbaths: read weeks (mg.). Pauls own description (1Th 1:5 to 1Th 2:12) points to a longer stay, and shows him labouring with his hands to support himself amid the manifold efforts and cares the budding church imposed on him. The account here given of his preaching (read he preached to them from the Scriptures, i.e. the OT) is inadequate, as 1 Th. shows. There is no advance on Peters sermon in ch. 2. His success (Act 17:4) is immediate, but only some Jews adhered to him; of the Greek frequenters of the synagogue, on the contrary, a large number, and not a few of the leading women. The change to Act 17:5 is abrupt; nothing is said of the withdrawal of the believers from the synagogue or of the first members of the church. It is the Jews, members of the synagogue where the preaching began, who set up an attack on the missionaries, enlisting a body of loafers and producing an uproar. Paul and others of the preachers are in the house of Jason, and an attempt is made to get them out and place them before the assembly of the citizens. Failing in this they turn to the magistrates; Jason and some of the brethren are produced to them with a vague accusation that they go about the world creating disturbance and that they had another kingJesus. The latter charge was true; the Christians did refuse to call the Emperor their Lord. The charge that they do contrary to the decrees of Csar means this. It is this that appeals to the minds of the magistrates, and makes them take bail from Jason and the others before letting the missionaries go.
Fuente: Peake’s Commentary on the Bible
From Philippi Paul and his company travelled westward in Greece to Thessalonica (also in Macedonia). A Jewish synagogue being there, they attended this for three sabbath days, reasoning with the Jews from their own scriptures, showing from these that the Messiah promised of God must necessarily first be a sufferer before He could reign; in fact must suffer death and be raised again. The scriptures were definitely clear about this matter; and Paul goes further to declare that Jesus was this Messiah (Christ), for certainly His history fulfilled the Jewish scriptures in perfection.
Some of the Jews believed, but also a great number of devout Greeks, for these did not have the same preconceived misconceptions as did the Jews generally. Not a few women of prominence are specifically mentioned.
The unbelieving Jews, however, not only refused the message, but through envy enlisted the help of the lowest type of ruffians to incite a virtual riot. They made the house of Jason their target, for Paul and Silas had been welcomed there. Not finding them there, they arrested Jason and other believers with him and took them to the rulers of the city. Their accusation is that Jason has received the men who had turned the world upside down. As to their accusation against Paul and Silas, they claim they were contravening Caesar’s decrees (not that the accusers had any regard for Caesar, but they adopted the same contemptible tactics that the Pharisees had in accusing the Lord Jesus). Their only specific charge is that that these men say there is another king, Jesus.
When the Jews bring Jason before the rulers charging him with harboring Paul and Silas in his home, the rulers were troubled, but not so cruelly unjust as the Philippian rulers were in having Paul and Silas beaten. They only take security from Jason and the others and release them. The Lord had seen fit that Paul and Silas were not found by their persecutors. The brethren considered it unwise that Paul and Silas should remain at the time, however, and sent them away by night to avoid further trouble. We know from Paul’s first epistle to the Thessalonians that the assembly left in Thessalonica suffered serious persecution after this; but though so young in the faith, they maintained an exemplary witness to Christ and the gospel apart from the presence of Paul and Silas to encourage them (1Th 1:1-10).
Traveling westward they came to Berea, and again entered the synagogue to teach. The Jews in this case were more honorable than those in Thessalonica, for rather than rejecting the message out-of hand, they listened to the word spoken, and searched the Old Testament scriptures daily to find Out if the message was substantiated by God’s Word. Therefore many of them believed. Here again women of prominence are mentioned (Greeks) and men also, not a few. In this case, as in Thessalonica, though the work began in the synagogue, it was by no means confined to Jews. The Spirit of God has not deemed it necessary to inform us, however, as to how the work progressed in Berea later.
How long they were there we are not told, but it was evidently only a short time before the militant Jews of Thessalonica, hearing of the Word preached in Berea, came there to stir up the people against the Lord’s servants. They not only rejected the message of grace themselves, but were determined that others must not even hear it.
Again wisdom dictates that Paul should leave Berea: he went toward the sea with others who evidently knew the territory, but left Silas and Timothy behind. It may be that they considered it best to go by way of the seacoast to Athens, some distance south of Berea. Paul’s guides, however, returned back to Athens, with instructions from Paul for Silas and Timothy to come soon to Athens.
Alone in this idolatrous city, Paul’s spirit was profoundly stirred by the sight of people’s devotion to Satanic delusions. Therefore, he disputed with Jews in the synagogue: evidently they were guilty of entertaining idolatry; but he also disputed with others of a devout character in the markets, anyone who would be willing to meet with him. His message concerning Christ was so strange and new to the learned philosophers who encountered him that they wanted to find out more of what he was talking about. Epicureans were followers of Epicrus, who taught that the object of men should be happiness and pleasure, and forget about absolute truth. They are the hedonists of our own day. Stoicks, on the other hand, were at the opposite pole, fatalists who say that what is to be will come, and therefore we should just grit our teeth and take it. They recognize there is a God, but have no knowledge whatever of His love.
Paul’s preaching Jesus and the resurrection was therefore totally strange to them, so novel that they asked him to address them at Areopagus, the highest court in Athens. Athens prided itself on its philosophy, with people spending all their time in telling or hearing something new. Their condition is aptly described in 2Ti 3:7 : “Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.” At least on this occasion they were willing to listen to truth that is absolute, which calls for the full submission of faith on the part of all people.
Paul’s opening words are not however as weak as the King James version translates them. Rather, he says, “I perceive that in all things ye are given up to demon worship” (v.22–J.N.D.). This is the very essence of idolatry. They knew they had many gods, and Paul knew that behind all of these so-called “divinities” was demon influence. He made use then of an inscription on one of their altars, “To the Unknown God.” How pathetic is the gross ignorance of intellectual men! Admittedly not knowing God, they invent fictitious gods of every kind! They did give the unknown God the honor of an altar, but they did the same for idols too. The One they ignorantly worship Paul boldly declares to them. Some would say that He is not only unknown, but unknowable; but sober, thinking people would surely have their interest awakened.
The God unknown to the Athenians is the Creator of all things, the Lord of heaven and earth. Men’s temples are nothing to Him: He is certainly not confined in them. Nor is He worshiped by means of the works of men’s hands, as though He depended on man for His sustenance. On the contrary, He is the great Giver, not only of material things such as engage people’s most serious attention, but of life and breath, the fundamental entities of our very existence.
More than this, He has made of one blood all nations of mankind, though He has distributed the nations in different quarters of the earth according to the times and boundaries He has before appointed. Jews and Gentiles are fundamentally the same, all nations on the same level; but human blood is totally different than that of other creatures, as their flesh is different (1Co 15:39). But God has dealt as He has with men that they might seek the Lord, if it may happen that they will feel after Him and find Him. Paul adds that He is not far from every one of us, indicating that if one honestly seeks God, God will reveal Himself.
In fact, man’s very existence is bound up with God, however little he realizes it. “In Him we live:” He is the source of our life; “and move:” He sustains all of our activities; “and have our being:” our existence is totally dependent upon Him. Paul quotes a Greek poet as saying, “For we are also His offspring.”
From the viewpoint of creation, this is true: therefore it was foolish to think of God as compared to gold, silver or stone images, the work of human artistry. If men — living, animate, intelligent beings — are God’s offspring, then certainly God is at least as living and intelligent as they!
Yet for centuries God has, in wonderful patience, overlooked human ignorance in worshiping idols. Now, however, He is dealing in a direct and serious way with mankind, commanding all everywhere to repent. For He has manifested His truth and justice toward man in the Man whom He has ordained. Paul does not speak of the atoning death of the Lord Jesus here, but of the startling fact of His resurrection from among the dead. This stands as a striking proof of the fact that this same Jesus is the One by whom God will judge the world in righteousness. More than this, God had already appointed the day.
Paul does not speak of salvation, but of repentance, for it was this message that the Athenians manifestly needed. The repentant jailor in Chapter 16:30 was concerned about how to be saved, and received his answer; but these in Athens must be awakened to a serious sense of their need: otherwise salvation would have no meaning to them.
Some mocked at the report of the resurrection of Christ; yet others delayed their decision, indicating they would hear Paul again. There was no direct persecution at Athens, however, for the city was tolerant of everything as a rule, and Paul had evidently not had any Jewish audience. The grace of God did nevertheless work in some hearts, both a man and a woman mentioned by name, and others too believing, though not named. Yet we do not read of any further work at Athens or of any assembly being established there. Thessalonica stands in refreshing contrast to Athens, a devoted persecuted assembly being sustained of God there.
Fuente: Grant’s Commentary on the Bible
Verse 1
Thessalonica; a large city of Macedonia.–Where was a synagogue, &c. Few places so remote from Jerusalem had a synagogue for the Jews.
Fuente: Abbott’s Illustrated New Testament
17:1 Now {1} when they had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where was a synagogue of the Jews:
(1) The casting out of Silas and Paul was the saving of many others.
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
Ministry in Thessalonica 17:1-9
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
Paul, Silas, Timothy, and perhaps others left Philippi and headed southwest on the Egnatian Road. Luke evidently stayed in Philippi since he again described Paul’s party as "they" instead of "we" (cf. Act 20:5-6). Paul and Silas probably stayed overnight in Amphipolis, which is 33 miles (a day’s journey by horse) along the Egnatian Way. It stood at the mouth of the Strymon River. The next day they travelled another 27 miles farther west-southwest to Apollonia. Another 35 mile day of travel farther west on the Via Egnatia took them to Thessalonica (modern Salonika) on the Thermaic Gulf of the Aegean Sea. The text does not state that Paul’s party stayed only overnight in Amphipolis and Apollonia, but most interpreters have inferred this from the narrative. Luke recorded more information concerning the apostles’ ministry in Thessalonica, where they stayed for some time. Thessalonica was the chief city and capital of Macedonia, about 100 miles from Philippi. As such it was a strategic center for the evangelization of its region (cf. 1Th 1:7-8).
"Thessalonica was a ’free city,’ which meant that it had an elected citizens’ assembly, it could mint its own coins, and it had no Roman garrison within its walls." [Note: Wiersbe, 1:470.]
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
31
Chapter 12
ST. PAUL IN MACEDONIA.
Act 16:29-31; Act 17:1-2; Act 17:10
TROAS was at this time the termination of St. Pauls Asiatic travels. He had passed diagonally right through Asia Minor, following the great Roman roads which determined his line of march. From Troas he proceeded to Philippi, and for exactly the same reason. All the great roads formed under the emperors down to the time of Constantine the Great led to Rome. When the seat of empire was moved to Constantinople, all the Asiatic roads converged upon that city; but in St. Pauls day Rome was the worlds centre of attraction, and thither the highways all tended. This fact explains St. Pauls movements. The Egnatian road was one of the great channels of communication established for State purposes by Rome, and this road ran from Neapolis, where St. Paul landed, through Philippi on to Dyrrachium, a port on the Adriatic, whence the traveller took ship to Brundusium, the modern Brindisi, and thence reached Rome. What a striking commentary we find in this simple fact upon the words of St. Paul Gal 4:4 : “When the fulness of the time came God sent forth His Son.” Roman dominion involved much suffering and war and bloodshed, but it secured the network of communication, the internal peace, and the steady, regular government which now covered Europe as well as Asia, and thus for the first time in the worlds history rendered the diffusion of the Gospel possible, as St. Pauls example here shows. The voyage from Troas to Neapolis was taken by the Apostle after the usual fashion of the time. Neapolis was the port of Philippi, whence it is distant some eight miles. Travellers from the East to Rome always landed there, and then took the Egnatian Road which started from Neapolis. If they were official persons they could use the public postal service, post-houses being established at a distance of six miles from one another, where relays of horses were kept at the public expense, to carry persons travelling on the imperial service. Paul and Silas, Timothy and Luke, must, however, have travelled on foot along the Egnatian Road from Neapolis to Philippi, which was their first objective point, according to St. Pauls usual policy, of attacking large and important centres of population, and then leaving the sacred leaven to work out into the surrounding mass of paganism. Philippi amply rewarded the wisdom of his plan, and the Philippian Church became noted for its zeal, its faith, its activity, among the Churches which owed their origin to the Apostle, as we learn from the Epistles addressed to the Corinthians and to the Philippians themselves a short time after the foundation of the Philippian Church.
Now let us look at the circumstances under which that foundation was laid. To understand them we must go back upon the course of history. Philippi was a city built by King Philip, the father of Alexander the Great. After the conquest of Macedonia by the Romans, it became famous as the scene of the great battle between Brutus and Cassius on the one hand, and Mark Antony and Augustus on the other, which decided the fate of the empire and influenced the course of the worlds history as few other battles have done. At the time of St. Pauls visit the memory of that battle was fresh, and the outward and visible signs thereof were to be seen on every side, as indeed some of them are still to be seen, the triumphal arches, for instance, erected in memory of the victory and the mound or rampart of earth raised by Brutus to hinder the advance of the opposing forces. But these things had for the holy travellers a very slight interest, as their hearts were set upon a mightier conflict and a nobler war far than any ever before waged upon earths surface. There is no mention made in the sacred narrative of the memories connected with the place, and yet St. Luke, as an honest writer setting down facts of which he had formed an important part, lets slip some expressions which involve and throw us back upon the history of the place for an, explanation, showing how impossible it is to grasp the full force and meaning of the sacred writers unless we strive to read the Bible with the eyes of the people who lived at the time and for whom it was written. St. Luke calls Philippi “a city of Macedonia, the first of the district, a colony.” Now this means that in that time it was situated in the Roman province of Macedonia, that it was either the capital of the division of Macedonia, in which it was situated, Macedonia being subdivided into four distinct divisions which were kept perfectly separate, or else that it was the first city the traveller met upon entering Macedonia from Asia, and further that it was a Roman colony, and thus possessed peculiar privileges. When we read in the Bible of colonies we must not understand the word in our modern sense. Colonies were then simply transcripts of the original city whence they had come. Roman colonies were miniatures or copies of Rome itself transplanted into the provinces, and ruling as such amid the conquered races where they were placed. They served a twofold purpose. They acted as garrisons to restrain the turbulence of the neighbouring tribes; and if we study Roman geography carefully we shall find that they were always placed in neighbourhoods where their military importance is plainly manifest; and further still, they were used as convenient places to locate the veteran soldiers of Italy who had served their time, where they were rewarded with grants of land, and were utilising at the same time the skill and experience in military matters which they had gained, for the general benefit of the State.
Augustus made Philippi into a colony, erecting a triumphal arch to celebrate his victory over Brutus, and placing there a large settlement of his veterans who secured for him this important outpost. The colonies which were thus dispersed along the military frontier, as we should put it in modern language, were specially privileged. All the settlers were Roman citizens, and the government of the colony was like that of the mother city itself, in the hands of two magistrates, called in Greek Strategoi, or in Latin Praetors, who ruled according to the laws of the Twelve Tables and after Roman methods, though perhaps all the neighbouring cities were still using their ancient laws and customs handed down from times long prior to the Roman Conquest. The details given us by St. Luke are in the strictest accordance in all these respects with the facts which we know independently concerning the history and political status of Philippi.
St. Paul and his companions arrived in Philippi in the early part of the week. He was by this time a thoroughly experienced traveller. Five years later, when writing his Second Epistle to Corinth, he tells us that he had been already three times shipwrecked; so that, unless peculiarly unfortunate, he must have already made extended and repeated sea voyages, though up to the present we have only heard of the journeys from Antioch to Cyprus, from Cyprus to Perga, and from Attalia back to Antioch. A two days voyage across the fresh and rolling waters of the Mediterranean, followed by a steep climb over the mountain Pangaeus which intervenes between Philippi and its port Neapolis, made, however, a rest of a day or two very acceptable to the Apostle and his friends. St. Paul never expected too much from his own body, or from the bodies of his companions; and though he knew the work of a worlds salvation was pressing, yet he could take and enjoy a well-earned holiday from time to time. There was nothing in St. Paul of that eternal fussiness which we at times see in people of strong imaginations but weak self-control, who, realising the awful amount of woe and wickedness in the world, can never be at rest even for a little. The men of God remained quiet therefore {Act 16:12-13} till the Sabbath Day, when, after their usual custom, they sought out in the early morning the Jewish place of worship, where St. Paul always first proclaimed the gospel. The Jewish colony resident at Philippi must have been a very small one. The Rabbinical rule was that where ten wise men existed there a synagogue might be established. There cannot therefore have been ten learned, respectable, and substantial Jews in Philippi competent to act as a local sanhedrin or court. Where, however, the Jews could not establish a synagogue, they did not live without any external expression of religion. They knew how easily neglect of public worship is followed by practical atheism, as we often see. Men may say indeed that God can be realised, and can be worshipped anywhere, – a very great truth and a very precious one for those who are unavoidably cut off from the public worship of the Most High; but a truth which has no application to those who wilfully cut themselves off from that worship which has the covenanted promise of His presence. It is not a good sign for the young men of this generation that so many of them utterly neglect public worship; for as surely as men act so, then present neglect will be followed by a total forgetfulness of the Eternal, and by a disregard of the laws which He has established amongst men. The Jews at Philippi did not follow this example; when they could not establish a synagogue they set apart an oratory or Place of Prayer, whither they resorted on the Sabbath Day to honour the God of their fathers, and to keep alive in their childrens hearts the memory of His laws and doings.
The original name of Philippi was Crenides, or Place of Streams. Beside one of these streams the Jews had placed their oratory, and there St. Paul preached his first sermon in Europe and gained Lydia, his first European convert, a Jewess by blood, a woman of Thyatira in Asia Minor by birth, of Philippi in Macedonia by residence, and a dyer in purple by trade. The congregation of women assembled at that oratory must have been a very small one. When Philippi did not afford a sufficient Jewish population for the erection of a synagogue such as was found among the smaller towns of Asia Minor, and such as we shall in the course of the present tour find to have existed at towns and cities of no great size in Greece and Macedonia, then we may be sure that the female population, who assembled that Sabbath morning to pray and listen to the Scriptures, must have been a small one. But St. Paul and his companions had learned already one great secret of the true evangelists life. They never despised a congregation because of its smallness. I have read somewhere in the writings of St. Francis de Sales, Bishop of Geneva, a remark bearing on this point. De Sales was an extreme Roman Catholic, and his mind was injured and his mental views perverted in many respects by the peculiar training he thus received. But still he was in many respects a very saintly man, and his writings embody much that is good for every one. In one of his letters which I have read he deals with this very point, and speaks of the importance of small congregations, first, because they have no tendency to feed the preachers pride, but rather help to keep him humble; and secondly, because some of the most effective and fruitful sermons have been preached to extremely small congregations, two or three persons at most, some one of whom has afterwards turned out to be a most vigorous soldier of the Cross of Christ. The most effective sermon perhaps that ever was preached was that delivered to Saul of Tarsus when to him alone came the voice, “Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou Me?” And here again, in the Philippian Oratory, the congregation was but a small one, yet the Apostle despised it not. He and his companions bent all their powers to the work, threw their whole hearts into it, and as the result the Lord rewarded their earnest, thorough, faithful service as He rewards such service in every department of lifes action. The Lord opened the heart of Lydia so that she attended to the apostolic teaching, and she and all her household when duly instructed became baptised disciples of Jesus of Nazareth.
This was an important incident in the history of the Philippian Church, and was attended by far-reaching results. Lydia herself, like so many others of Gods most eminent saints, disappears at once and for ever from the scene. But her conversion was a fruitful one. St. Paul and his friends continued quietly but regularly working and teaching at the oratory. Lydia would seem to have been a widow, and must have been a woman of some position in the little community; for she was able to entertain the Apostle and his company as soon as she embraced the faith and felt its exceeding preciousness. When inviting them, too, she uses the language of a woman independent of all other control. “If ye have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come into my house and abide there,” are words with the tone of one who as a widow owned no superior, and whose will was law within her own household; as well as the language of a woman who felt that the gospel she had embraced demanded and deserved the consecration to its service of all her worldly possessions. Previously to this conversion St. Paul had lived in hired lodgings, but now he moved to Lydias residence, abiding there, and thence regularly worshipping at the Jewish oratory. The presence of these Jewish strangers soon attracted attention. Their teaching too got noised abroad, exaggerated doubtless and distorted after the manner of popular reports. And the crowd were ready to be suspicious of all Eastern foreigners. The settlers in the colony of Philippi belonged to the rural population of Italy, who, after the manner of countrified folk of every generation, were a good way behind, for good or ill, their city brethren. The excavations made at Philippi have brought to light the fact that the colonists there were worshippers of the primitive Italian rustic gods, specially of the god Silvanus, eschewing the fashionable Greek deities, Jupiter, Juno, Venus, Diana, Apollo, and such like. A temple of Silvanus was erected at Philippi for the hardy Italian veterans, and numerous inscriptions have been found and have been duly described by the French Mission in Macedonia to which we have already referred, telling of the building of the temple and of the persons who contributed towards it. These simple Western soldiers were easily prejudiced against the Eastern strangers by reports spread concerning their doctrines, and specially concerning the Jewish King, of whose kingdom they were the heralds. Political considerations were at once raised. We can scarcely now realise the suspicions which must have been roused against the early preachers of Christianity by the very language they used. Their sacramental language concerning the body and blood of Christ, the language of Christian love and union which they used, designating themselves brethren and sisters, caused for more than two centuries the dissemination of the most frightful rumours concerning the horrible nature of Christian love-feasts. They were accused of cannibalism and of the most degraded and immoral practices; and when we take up the Apologists of the second century, Justin Martyr and such like, we shall find that the efforts of these men are largely directed to the refutation of such dreadful charges. And as it was in morals so was it too in politics. The sacred and religious language of the Christians caused them to be suspected of designs hostile to the Roman Government. The apostles preached about a King who ruled the kingdom of God. Now the Romans abhorred the very name and title of king, which they associated with the cruel acts of the early tyrants who reigned in the times of Romes fabulous antiquity. The hostility to the title was so great that, though the Roman people endured a despotism worse and more crushing at the hands of the Caesars, they never would allow them to assume the title of kings, but simply called them emperors, imperators or commanders of the army, a name which to their ears connoted nothing savouring of the kingly office, though for moderns the title of emperor expresses the kingly office and much more. The colonists in Philippi, being Italians, would feel these prejudices in their full force. Easterns indeed would have had no objection to the title of king, as we see from the cry raised by the mob of Jerusalem when they cried in reference to Christs claim, “We have no king but Caesar.” But the rough and rude Roman veterans, when they heard vague reports of St. Pauls teaching to the Jews who met at the oratory by the river-side, quite naturally mistook the nature of his doctrine, and thought that he was simply a political agitator organising a revolt against imperial authority. An incident which then occurred fanned the sleeping embers into a flame. There was a female slave the property of some crafty men who by her means traded on the simplicity of the colonists. She was possessed with a spirit of divination. What the nature of this spirit was we have not the means of now determining. Some would resolve it into mere epilepsy, but such an explanation is not consistent with St. Pauls action and words. He addressed the spirit, “I charge thee in the name of Jesus Christ to Come out of her.” And the spirit, we are told, came out that very hour. The simple fact is that psychology is at the best a very obscure science, and the mysteries of the soul a very puzzling region, even under the Christian dispensation and surrounded by the spiritual blessings of the kingdom of God. But paganism was the kingdom of Satan, where he ruled with a power and freedom he no longer enjoys, and we can form no conception of the frightful disturbances Satanic agency may have raised amid the dark places of the human spirit. Without attempting explanations therefore, which must be insufficient, I am content to accept the statement of the sacred writer, who was an eye-witness of the cure, that the spirit of divination, the spirit of Python, as the original puts it, yielded obedience to the invocation of the sacred Name which is above every name, leaving the damsels inner nature once more calm and at union within itself. This was the signal for a riot. The slave-owners recognised that their hopes of gain had fled. They were not willing to confess that these despised Jews possessed a power transcending far that which dwelt in the human instrument who had served their covetous purposes. They may have heard, it may be, of the tumults excited about this same time by the Jews at Rome and of their expulsion from the capital by the decree of the Emperor, so the owners of the slave-girl and the mob of the city dragged the Apostles before the local Duumvirs and accused them of like disturbances: “These men, being Jews, do exceedingly trouble our city, and set forth customs which it is not lawful for us to receive or to observe, being Romans.” The accusation was sufficient. No proof was demanded, no time for protest allowed. The magistrates with their own hands dragged the clothes off the backs of the Apostles, and they were flogged at once by the lictors or sergeants, as our translation calls them, in attendance upon the Duumvirs, who then despatched their victims to the common prison. Here a question may be raised, Why did not St. Paul save himself by protesting that he was a Roman citizen, as he did subsequently at Jerusalem when he was about to be similarly treated? Several explanations occur. The colonists were Italians and spoke Latin. St. Paul spoke Hebrew and Greek, and though he may have known Latin too, his Latin may not have been understood by these rough Roman soldiers: The mob again was excited, and when a mob gets excited it is but very little its members attend to an unfortunate prisoners words. We know too, not only from St. Pauls own words, but from the testimony of Cicero himself, in his celebrated oration against Verres, that in remote districts this claim was often disregarded, even when urged by Italians, and much more when made by despised Jews. St. Paul tells us in 2Co 11:25, that he received three Roman floggings notwithstanding his Roman citizenship, and though the Philippian magistrates were afraid when they heard next day of the illegal violence of which they had been guilty, the mob, who could not be held accountable, probably took right good care that St. Pauls protest never reached the official ears to which it was addressed. These considerations sufficiently account for the omission of any notice of a protest on the Apostles part. He simply had not the opportunity, and then when the tumultuous scene was over Paul and Silas were hurried off to the common dungeon, where they were secured in the stocks and thrust into the innermost prison as notorious and scandalous offenders.
No ill-treatment could, however, destroy that secret source of joy and peace which St. Paul possessed in his loved Masters conscious presence. “I take pleasure in weaknesses, in injuries, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christs sake,” is his own triumphant expression when looking back a few years later over the way by which the Lord had led him, and therefore at midnight the astonished prisoners heard the inner dungeon ringing with unwonted songs of praise raised by the Jewish strangers. An earthquake, too, lent its terrors to the strange scene, shaking the prison to its foundations and loosing the staples to which the prisoners chains were fastened. The jailer, roused from sleep, and seeing the prison doors opened wide, would have committed suicide were it not for Pauls restraining and authoritative voice; and then the astonished official, who must have heard the strange rumours to which the words of the demoniac alluded-“These men are the servants of the Most High God, which proclaim unto you the way of salvation”-rushed into the presence of the Apostles, crying out in words which have ever since been famous, “Sirs, what must I do to be Saved?” to which the equally famous answer was given, ” Believe on the Lord Jesus, and thou shalt be saved, thou and thy house.” The jailor then took the Apostles, bathed their bruised bodies, set food before them, gathered his household to listen to the glad tidings, which they received so rapidly and grasped so thoroughly that they were at once baptised and enabled to rejoice with that deep spiritual joy which an experimental knowledge of God always confers. The jailor, feeling for the first time in his life the peace which passeth all understanding, realised the truth which St. Augustine afterwards embodied in the immortal words: “Thou, O God, hast formed us for Thyself, and our hearts are restless till they find rest in Thee.”
Let us look for a little at the question of the jailer and the answer of the Apostle. They are words very often used, and very often misused. The jailer, when he rushed into St. Pauls presence crying out “What must I do to be saved?” was certainly not the type of a conscience-stricken sinner, convinced of his own sin and spiritual danger, as men sometimes regard him. He was simply in a state of fright and astonishment. He had heard that these Jewish prisoners committed to him were preaching about some salvation which they had to offer. The earthquake seemed to him the expression of some deitys wrath at their harsh treatment, and so in his terror he desires to know what he must do to be saved from this wrath. His words were notable, but they were not Christian words, for he had yet much to learn of the nature of sin and the nature of the salvation from it which the Apostles were preaching. The Philippian jailor was a specimen of those who are saved violently and by fear. Terror forced him into communion with the Apostles, broke down the barriers which hindered the approach of the Word, and then the power of the Holy Ghost, working through St. Paul, effected the remainder, opening his eyes to the true character of salvation and his own profound need of it. St. Pauls words have been misunderstood. I have heard them addressed to a Christian congregation and explained as meaning that the jailor had nothing to do but just realise Christ Jesus as his Saviour, whereupon he was perfect and complete so far as the spiritual life was concerned; and then they were applied to the congregation present as teaching that, as it was with the jailor, so was it with all Christians; they have simply to believe as he did, and then they have nothing more to do-a kind of teaching which infallibly produces antinomian results. Such an explanation ignores the fact that there is a great difference between the jailor, who was not a Christian in any sense and knew nothing about Christ when he flung himself at St. Pauls feet, and a Christian congregation, who know about Christ and believe in Him. But this explanation is still more erroneous. It misrepresents what St. Paul meant and what his hearers understood him to mean. What did any ordinary Jew or any ordinary pagan with whom St. Paul came in contact understand him to mean when he said, “Believe on the Lord Jesus, and thou shalt be saved”? They first had to ask him who Jesus Christ was, whence He had come, what He had taught, what were the obligations of His religion. St. Paul had to open out to them the nature of sin and salvation, and to explain the obligation and blessing of the sacrament of baptism as well as the necessity of bodily holiness and purity. The initial sacrament of baptism must have held a foremost place in that midnight colloquy or conference concerning Christian truth. St. Paul was not the man to perform a rite of which his converts understood nothing, and to which they could attach no meaning. “Believe on the Lord Jesus” involved repentance and contrition and submission to Christian truth, and these things involved the exposition of Christian truth, history, doctrines, and duties.
This text, “Believe on the Lord Jesus, and thou shalt be saved,” is often quoted in one-sided and narrow teaching to show that man has nothing to do to be saved. Of course in one sense this is perfectly true. We can do nothing meritoriously towards salvation; from first to last our salvation is all of Gods free grace; but then, viewing the matter from the human side, we have much to do to be saved. We have to repent, to seek God for ourselves, to realise Christ and His laws in our life, to seek after that holiness without which no man shall see the Lord. There were two different types of men who at different times addressed practically the same inquiry to the Apostles. They were both outside the Church, and they were both seekers blindly after God. The Jews on the day of Pentecost said, “Brethren, what shall we do?” and Peter replied, “Repent ye, and be baptised, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ, unto the remission of your sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.” Such was apostolic teaching to the Jews of Jerusalem. The jailor demanded, “What must I do to be saved?” and St. Paul replied, “Believe on the Lord Jesus, and thou shalt be saved.” Such was apostolic teaching to an ignorant pagan at Philippi; more concise than the Jerusalem answer, but meaning the same thing, and involving precisely the same doctrines in the hands of such a great master of the spiritual life as was the Apostle of the Gentiles.
The remainder of the story is soon told. When the morning came there came quiet reflection with it as far as the magistrates were concerned. They became conscious of their illegal conduct, and they sent their lictors to order the release of the Apostles. St. Paul now stood upon his rights. His protest had been disregarded by the mob. He now claimed his rights as a Roman citizen. “They have beaten us publicly, uncondemned men, that are Romans, and have cast us into prison; and do they now cast us out privily? Nay, verily; but let them come themselves and bring us out.” These are St. Pauls words, and they are brave, and at the same time wise words. They were brave words because it took a strong man to send back such an answer to magistrates who had treated him so outrageously only the day before. They were wise words, for they give us an apostles interpretation of our Lords language in the Sermon upon the Mount concerning the nonresistance of evil, and shows us that in St. Pauls estimation Christs law did not bind a man to tolerate foul injustice. Such toleration, in fact, is very wrong if it can be helped; because it is simply an encouragement to the wicked doers to treat others in the same scandalous manner. Toleration of outrage and injustice is unfair and uncharitable towards others, if they can be lawfully redressed or at least apologised for. It is a Christian mans duty to bring public evil-doers and tyrants, instruments of unrighteousness like these Duumvirs of Philippi, to their senses, not for his own sake, but in order that he may prevent the exercise of similar cruelties against he weaker brethren. We may be sure that the spirited action of St. Paul, compelling these provincial magnates to humble themselves before the despised strangers, must have had a very wholesome effect in restraining them from similar violence during the rest of their term of office.
Such was St. Pauls stay at Philippi. It lasted a considerable time, and made its mark, as a flourishing Church was established there, to which he addressed an Epistle when he lay the first time a captive at Rome. This Epistle naturally forms a most interesting commentary on the notices of the Philippian visit in the Acts of the Apostles, a point which is worked out at large in Bishop Lightfoots Commentary on Philippians and in Paleys “Horae Paulinae.” The careful student of Holy Writ will find that St. Pauls letter and St. Lukes narrative when compared illuminate one another in a wondrous manner. We cannot afford space to draw out this comparison in detail, and it is the less necessary to do so as Dr. Lightfoots writings are so generally accessible. Let us, however, notice one point in this Epistle to the Philippians, which was written about the same time (a few months previously, in fact) as the Acts of the Apostles. It corroborates the Acts as to the circumstances under which the Church of Philippi was founded. St. Paul in the Epistle refers again and again to the persecutions and afflictions of the Philippian Church, and implies that he was a fellow-sufferer with them. St. Paul dwells on this in the beginning of the Epistle in words whose force cannot be understood unless we grasp this fact. In the sixth verse of the first chapter he expresses himself as “Confident of this very thing, that He which began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Jesus Christ: even as it is right for me to be thus minded on behalf of you all, because I have you in my heart, inasmuch as, both in my bonds and in the defence and confirmation, of the gospel, ye all are partakers with me of grace.” St. Paul speaks of the Philippians as personally acquainted with chains and sufferings and prison-houses for Christs sake, and regards these things as a proof of Gods grace vouchsafed not only to the Apostle, but also to the Philippians; for St. Paul was living at that high level when he could view bonds and trials and persecutions as marks of the Divine love. In the twenty-eighth verse of the same chapter he exhorts them to be in no wise “affrighted by the adversaries,” and in the next two describes them as persons to whom “it hath been granted in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe on Him, but also to suffer in His behalf: having the same conflict which ye saw in me, and now hear to be in me,” words which can only refer to the violence and afflictions which they witnessed as practised against himself, and which they were now themselves suffering in turn. While to complete St. Pauls references we notice that in an Epistle written some five years later than his first visit to Philippi he expressly refers to the persecutions which the Philippian Church in common with all the Macedonian Churches seems to have suffered from the Very beginning. In 2Co 8:1-2, he writes: “Moreover, brethren, we make known to you the grace of God which hath been given in the Churches of Macedonia; how that in much proof of affliction the abundance of their joy and their deep poverty abounded unto the riches of their liberality.” Now all these passages put together confirm for us what the Acts expressly affirms, that from the very outset of their Christian career the Philippian Church had endured the greatest trials, and experienced a fellowship in the Apostles sufferings. And surely we may see in the character of the Philippian Epistle something eminently characteristic of this experience! It has been remarked that the Philippian Epistle is the only Epistle addressed to a Church in which there is no trace of blame or reproof. Temptation and trial and chastisement had there worked their appointed purpose. The Philippian Church had been baptised in blood, and grounded in afflictions, and purified by the cleansing fires of persecution, and consequently the tried Church gathered itself closer to its Divine Lord, and was perfected above all others in His likeness, and profited above all others in the Divine life.
After the terrible experience of Philippi Paul and Silas passed on to other towns of the same province of Macedonia. The Apostle, however, when quitting Philippi to do the same evangelistic work, breaking up the ground in other towns after the manner of a pioneer, did not leave the Church of Philippi devoid of wisest pastoral care. It is most likely, as Dr. Lightfoot points out in the Introduction to his Commentary on Philippians, that St. Luke was left behind to consolidate the work which had been thus begun by such a noble company. Then Paul and Silas and Timotheus proceeded to Thessalonica, one hundred miles west, the capital of the province, where the proconsul resided, and where was a considerable Jewish population, as we see, not only from the fact that a synagogue is expressly said to have existed there, but also because the Jews were able to excite the city pagan mob against the Apostles and drag them before the local magistrates. St. Paul at Philippi had for the first time experienced a purely pagan persecution. He had indeed previously suffered at the hands of the heathen at Lystra, but they were urged on by the Jews. At Philippi he gained his first glimpse of that long vista of purely Gentile persecution through which the Church had to pass till Christianity seated itself in the person of Constantine on the throne of the Caesars. But as soon as he got to Thessalonica he again experienced the undying hostility of his Jewish fellow-country-men using for their wicked purposes the baser portion of the city rabble. St. Paul remained three weeks in Thessalonica teaching privately and publicly the gospel message, without experiencing any Jewish opposition. It is an interesting fact that to this day St. Pauls visit to Thessalonica is remembered, and in one of the local mosques, which was formerly the Church of Sancta Sophia, a marble pulpit is shown, said to have been the very one occupied by the Apostle, while in the surrounding plains trees and groves are pointed out as marking spots where he tarried for a time. The Jews were at last, however, roused to opposition, possibly because of St. Pauls success among the Gentiles, who received his doctrines with such avidity that there believed “of the devout Greeks a great multitude, and of the chief women not a few.” In Thessalonica, as elsewhere, the spirit of religions selfishness, desiring to have gospel promises and a Messiah all to themselves, was the ruin of the Jewish people. The Jews therefore, assisted by the pagans, assaulted the residence of Jason, with whom St. Paul and his friends were staying. They missed the Apostles themselves, but they seized Jason and some of the apostolic band, or at least some of their converts whom they found in Jasons house, and brought them before the town magistrates, who, acting under the eye of the resident proconsul, did not lend themselves to any irregular proceedings like the Philippian praetors. A charge of treason was formally brought against the prisoners: “These all act contrary to the decrees of Caesar, saying that there is another King, one Jesus”; in the words of which charge we get a glimpse of the leading topic upon which the Apostles insisted. Jesus Christ, the crucified, risen, glorified King and Head of His people, was the great subject of St. Pauls teaching as it struck the heathen. The Thessalonian magistrates acted very fairly. They. entered the charge, which was a serious one m the eye of Roman law. Bail was then taken for the accused and they were set free. The Apostles, however, escaped arrest, and the local brethren determined that they should incur no danger; so while the accused remained to stand their trial, Paul and Silas and Timotheus were despatched to Beroea, where they were for a time welcomed, and free discussion permitted in the synagogue concerning the truths taught by the Evangelists. After a time, however, tidings having reached Thessalonica, agents were despatched to Beroea, who stirring up the Jewish residents, St. Paul was despatched in charge of some trusty messengers, who guided the steps of the hunted servant of God to the city of Athens. We see the physical infirmities of St. Paul, the difficulties he had to contend with, hinted at in the fourteenth and fifteenth verses of the seventeenth chapter. “Then immediately the brethren sent forth Paul,” and “They that conducted Paul brought him to Athens,” words which give us a glimpse of his fearfully defective eyesight. His enemies might be pressing upon him and danger might be imminent, but he could make no unaided effort to save himself. He depended upon the kindly help of others that he might escape his untiring foes and find his way to a place of safety.
Thus ended St. Pauls first visit to Thessalonica so far as the Acts of the Apostles is concerned; but we have interesting light thrown upon it from an Epistle which St. Paul himself wrote to the Thessalonians soon after his departure from amongst them. A comparison of First Thessalonians with the text of the Acts will furnish the careful student with much information concerning the circumstances of that notable visit, just as we have seen that the text of the Philippian Epistle throws light upon his doings at Philippi. The Thessalonian Epistles are more helpful even than the Philippians in this respect, because they were written only a few months after St. Pauls visit to Thessalonica, while years elapsed, eight or ten at least, before the Philippian Epistle was indited. First Thessalonians shows us, for instance, that St. Pauls visit to Thessalonica lasted a considerable time. In the Acts we read of his discussing in the synagogue three Sabbath days, and then it would appear as if the riot was raised which drove him to Beroea and Athens. The impression left on our minds by St. Lukes narrative is that St. Pauls labours were almost entirely concentrated upon the Jews in Thessalonica, and that he bestowed very little attention indeed upon the pagans. The Epistle corrects this impression. When we read the first chapter of First Thessalonians we see that it was almost altogether a Church of converted idolaters, not of converted Jews. St. Paul speaks of the Thessalonians as having turned from idols to serve the living God; he refers to the instructions on various points like the resurrection, the ascension, the second coming of Christ, which he had imparted, and describes their faith and works as celebrated throughout all Macedonia and Achaia. A large and flourishing church like that, composed of former pagans, could not have been founded in the course of three weeks, during which time St. Pauls attention was principally bestowed on the Jewish residents. Then too, when we turn to Php 4:16, we find that St. Paul stayed long enough in Thessalonica to receive no less than two remittances of money from the brethren at Philippi to sustain himself and his brethren. His whole attention too was not bestowed upon mission work; he spent his days and nights in manual labour. In the ninth verse of the second chapter of First Thessalonians he reminds them of the fact that he supported himself in their city, “For ye remember, brethren, our labour and travail: working night and day, that we might not burden any of you, we preached unto you the Gospel of God.” When we realise these things we shall feel that the Apostle must have spent at least a couple of months in Thessalonica. It was perhaps his tremendous success among the heathen which so stirred up the passions of the town mob as enabled the Jews to instigate them to raise the riot, they themselves keeping all the while in the background. St. Paul, in First Thessalonians, describes the riots raised against the Christians as being the immediate work of the pagans: “Ye, brethren, became imitators of the Churches of God which are in Judaea in Christ Jesus. For ye also suffered the same things of your own countrymen as they did of the Jews”; a statement which is quite consistent with the theory that the persecution was originally inspired by the Jews. But we cannot further pursue this interesting line of inquiry which has been thoroughly worked out by Mr. Lewin in vol. 2Ch 11:1-23, by Conybeare and Howson in ch. 9, and by Archdeacon Farrar, as well as by Dr. Salmon in his “Introduction to the New Testament,” ch. 20. The careful student will find in all these works most interesting light reflected back upon the Acts from the apostolic letters, and will see how thoroughly the Epistles, which were much the earlier documents, confirm the independent account of St. Luke, writing at a subsequent period.
Before we terminate this chapter we desire to call attention to one other point where the investigations of modern travel have helped to illustrate the genuineness of the Acts of the Apostles. It has been the contention of the rationalistic party that the Acts was a composition of the second century, worked up by a clever forger out of the materials at his command. There are various lines of proof by which this theory can be refuted, but none appeal so forcibly to ordinary men as the minute accuracy which marks it when describing the towns of Asia Minor and Macedonia. Macedonia is a notable case. We have already pointed out how the Acts gives their proper title to the magistrates of Philippi and recognises its peculiar constitution as a colony. Thessalonica forms an interesting contrast to Philippi. Thessalonica was a free city like Antioch in Syria, Tarsus, and Athens, and therefore, though the residence of the proconsul who ruled the province of Macedonia, was governed by its own ancient magistrates and its own ancient laws without any interference on the part of the proconsul. St. Luke makes a marked distinction between Philippi and Thessalonica. At Philippi the Apostles were brought before the praetors, at Thessalonica they were brought before the politarchs, a title strange to classical antiquity, but which has been found upon a triumphal arch which existed till a few years ago across the main street of the modern city of Thessalonica. That arch has now disappeared; but the fragments containing the inscription were fortunately preserved and have been now placed in the British Museum, where they form a precious relic proving the genuineness of the sacred narrative.