Acts 17

STUDY TWENTY-ONE: THE SECOND MISSION TRIP – ACTS 17

Paul and his companions continued their journey through Macedonia and Achaia, territory that is now known as Greece.

A. THESSALONICA

Passing through the cities of Amphipolis and Apollonia they arrived in Thessalonica and stayed there for a few weeks until opposition to the gospel forced them to leave.

Read Acts 17:1 – 4. Answer these questions:
What was Paul’s usual custom when arriving in a new location?

What two truths did he explain from the Old Testament Scriptures?

How is this similar to what Jesus taught about himself? Read these verses:
Matthew 16:21

Mark 10:45

Luke 17:25

Luke 24:25 – 27

Luke 24:44 – 47

What do these Old Testament Scriptures say about the suffering of Christ?
Psalm 2

Isaiah 53

How did this disagree with Jewish expectations of the Messiah (the Christ) at that time?

Suggest other Old Testament verses that speak of the suffering of Christ?

Who did Paul say that Jesus was?

Who were persuaded by Paul’s message?

A.1 The reaction – Acts 17:5 – 9
Did you notice the details of the positive response to Paul’s message about Jesus Christ and his suffering – some of the Jews, a large number of God-fearing Greeks, and not a few prominent women.

It is no wonder that ‘the Jews’ were ‘jealous’!

Think about these questions:
How do their actions in verse 5a parallel what was done …
To Jesus …

And to Paul elsewhere …

How do their actions actually violate the law of Moses, which they were so eager to uphold?

How are the tactics used in verse 7 similar to those used against Jesus? (John 19:12 – 15)

Luke used quite powerful words – ‘formed a mob’, ‘started a riot’, ‘dragged’, ‘shouting’, ‘thrown into turmoil’. What impression does this give you about what happened?

How would you feel, and what would you do, if a similar thing happened when someone preached the gospel in your town?

Although it was Paul and Silas whom the Jews were against, why did they grab Jason?

What did Luke report that indicates that Paul’s reputation had gone ahead of him?

Describe any situation where you have experienced antagonism because of your association with another Christian:

Some time later, Paul wrote two letters to the believers at Thessalonica. From them we learn that the church became strong and active, despite the opposition and suffering that continued. We also learn that the group of believers contained not only the people described in Acts 17:4, but also a significant number who had, by believing in Jesus Christ, ‘turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God.’

What did Paul write about the Thessalonian believers?
1Thessalonians 1:3

1Thessalonians 1:6

1Thessalonians 1:7

1Thessalonians 1:8

1Thessalonians 1:9

1Thessalonians 1:13

2Thessalonians 1:3, 4

B. BEREA – ACTS 17:10 – 15

As we read Luke’s brief account of Paul’s time in Berea, we realise that the Jews in the synagogue there were quite different from those in Thessalonica.

Read 17:10 – 15. What did the Jews there do when Paul preached?

In Berea, the Jews received Paul’s message ‘with great eagerness’ and ‘examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.’ Can you sense their keenness? They heard what Paul said, and it sounded so good! But, was it true? Was it what the Scriptures said? They really wanted it to be true, so every day, whatever Paul said, they went to the Scriptures and checked it out. And ‘many of them’ believed the message about the crucified and risen Christ.

A reflective question:
There are many voices preaching to us today – from the pulpits in our churches, from supposedly Christian books, from social media – on our phones and computers, and from multiple online preachers. How often do you follow the example of the Bereans and ‘examine the Scriptures every day’ to see if what is said is true? If you don’t, how willing are you to test the truth of what you hear and view by comparing it to the Scripture? [Note: this question assumes you believe the Bible is God’s authentic, authoritative word.]

In verses 13 – 15 Luke reports that the antagonistic Jews in Thessalonica came to Berea with the deliberate purpose of stirring up trouble for Paul. Note again the strong words – ‘agitating the crowds’ and ‘stirring them up’. So dangerous was the situation that the new believers immediately sent Paul away.

C. ATHENS – ACTS 17:16 – 34

Luke gives us a long report about Paul’s time in Athens, including quite a long ‘sermon’. We learn that Paul ‘reasoned’ in the synagogue with the Jews and God-fearing Greeks, and in the marketplace daily with anyone who happened to be there. He found that people were very happy to discuss or debate religious ideas with him, because that it what they liked to spend their time doing.

C.1 The people of Athens

What do you learn about Athens and its people from these verses?
17:16

17:18a

17:21

17:22

Notes:
Epicureans: ‘Disciples of Epicurus …They acknowledged God in words, but denied his providence and superintendence over the world. According to them, the soul was material and annihilated at death. Pleasure was their chief good; and whatever higher sense their founder might have attached to this doctrine, his followers, in the apostle's day, were given to gross sensualism.’ [From Vincent’s Word Studies.]

Stoics: ‘Pantheists. God was the soul of the world, or the world was God. Everything was governed by fate, to which God himself was subject. They denied the universal and perpetual immortality of the soul; some supposing that it was swallowed up in deity; others, that it survived only till the final conflagration; others, that immortality was restricted to the wise and good. Virtue was its own reward, and vice its own punishment. Pleasure was no good, and pain no evil.’ (From Vincent’s Word Studies)

From these brief descriptions of the beliefs of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers, it is easy to see how different their beliefs are from the gospel that Paul preached.

What did these men think about Paul’s teaching prior to his sermon:
17:18

17:19

17:20

FF Bruce comments:

‘Stoicism and Epicureanism represented alternative attempts in pre-Christian paganism to come to terms with life, especially in times of uncertainty and hardship; post-Christian paganism has never been able to devise anything appreciably better. But Stoics and Epicureans alike, much as they might differ from each other, agreed at least on this: that the new-fangled message brought by this Jew of Tarsus, was not one that could appeal to reasonable people. They looked on him as a retailer of secondhand scraps of philosophy, “a picker-up of learning crumbs” … a type of itinerant peddler of religion not unknown in the Agora, and they used a term of disparaging Athenian slang to describe him. Others preferred to class him as a propagandist for foreign divinities …’ (p 331, FF Bruce, The Book of the Acts, Eerdmans, 1988).

C.2 Before the Areopagus – Acts 17:19 – 22
There was in Athens a granite hill called ‘Mar’s Hill’ (or ‘Hill of Ares’). [Mars was the Roman god of war; Ares was the Greek god of war.] This hill was the venue of ‘the Areopagus’, which was a highly respected and ancient Greek court, the highest court in Athens, that met to decide the fate of the worst criminals and to adjudicate on significant religious questions. This was an appropriate place, and before highly significant people, for Paul to explain the message of Jesus Christ and his resurrection. [There was no building; the Council met in the open air.]

Notice that Luke wrote ‘they took him and brought him to a meeting of the Areopagus’ and asked him to explain the new teaching that he was presenting – verse 19. It was not just before the Stoics and Epicurean philosophers whose interest he had caught, but before the highest court of the city. [Note: some older Bible translations and some teachers assume that it was just the hill called Areopagus, not the meeting of the council called Areopagus, that Paul was taken to.]

Despite all that FF Bruce has said (see above), there were some of these Stoics and Epicureans who sound like they really wanted to understand what Paul had been talking about. Look at what they said when they brought him to the meeting of the Areopagus:

‘May we know what this teaching is that you are presenting …’

‘You are bringing some strange ideas to our ears, and we want to know what they mean.’

The first request is more like ‘Is it possible for us to know …’ Their question is about their being able to understand; it is not just a request for Paul to teach. At this point, they want to be able to understand what he is teaching. Whether or not they would believe him is another matter altogether.

C.3 Paul’s sermon – Acts 17:22 – 32
In the synagogues Paul based his teaching on the Old Testament Scriptures, just as Peter did, in Acts 2 to the crowds of Jews in Jerusalem, and as Stephen did to the Jews who were attacking him. But here Paul is speaking to people who were ignorant of the Scriptures and whose existing beliefs were very, very different – like the non-involved ‘god’ of the Epicureans and the pantheism of the Stoics. There was no common starting point, for the Epicureans did not believe there was any god who was involved with humans, and the pantheists believed everything was god. And Paul - well, Paul believed Jesus Christ was God.

But there, among the many physical Greek gods (and probably Romans gods as well), Paul found his starting point … ‘an altar with this inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD.’ And that ‘god’, unknown to them, but known to Paul, became the focus of his sermon.

Read Paul’s sermon (Acts 17:24 – 31). What did Paul say about:
God as the Creator:

God as the Sustainer of all things:

God as Sovereign over all things:

Our human origin:

God’s purpose for humans:

The difference between God and the gods that surrounded them on Mar’s Hill:

The present urgency for all people to repent:

The role of Jesus Christ on the day of judgement:

If we assessed Paul’s sermon in terms of present day concepts of ‘evangelism’ we would probably not consider it a gospel presentation. But the gospel of Jesus Christ is meaningless unless a person knows that there actually is a personal, all-powerful God, by whom all people everywhere were created, against whom all people everywhere have sinned, to whom all people everywhere are accountable, and by whom all people everywhere will be judged.

For the Epicureans, with their ideas of ‘god’ as totally absent and uninvolved, there was no need for repentance, no accountability, no sin, no judgement. For the Stoics, with their pantheistic ‘everything is god’ concepts, the idea of a personal, divine being, who is distinct from me, and who will judge me, makes no sense.

To come anywhere near preaching what we would call ‘the gospel’, Paul had first to let these people know that there actually is a ‘God’, not a stone god like the many idols surrounding them all on Mar’s Hill, (which the Epicureans and Stoics among them had already rejected), but a powerful, living, active, involved God who held them all accountable, and on whom they were all, whether they knew it or not, utterly dependent for everything.

Paul, in preaching this sermon, effectively told them they were all wrong – the practical atheists (Epicureans), the pantheists (Stoics) and the idol-worshippers. They all needed to repent – to change their minds about ‘god’ – because God had already appointed a Judge – a man whom he had raised from the dead. Some of them would have heard him speak about Jesus and the resurrection previously (see verse 18). Others would not.

Paul's ending was a teaser – provoking his audience with two important questions: who is this ‘man’ appointed by God to judge all men? And what is meant by this ‘resurrection’ of the dead? He left some questions unanswered, leaving the door open for further discussion and preaching.

C.4 The response – Acts 17:32 – 34
It seems that Paul’s mention of ‘the resurrection of the dead’ was the one thing that caught people’s immediate attention. Some sneered. Others said they wanted to hear more about it.

In terms of ‘souls saved’ what was the result?

It seems that Paul didn’t stay on in Athens after a small handful of people believed. The next thing we read is ‘After this, Paul left Athens …’ – 18:1.

We do not read anything further about the new believers named in verse 34. The only other New Testament reference to Athens is in 1Thessalonians 3:1, where Paul speaks of being ‘left by ourselves in Athens’. However, the Roman province of Achaia (southern Greece) is mentioned several times, and Athens was a significant city in Achaia.

What do you learn about Achaia from these verses?
Acts 18:27, 28

Acts 19:21

Romans 15:26; 2Corinthians 9:2

2Corinthians 1:1

Reflection questions on the mission to Thessalonica, Berea and Athens:
[1] Which of these three cities do you think was the most difficult to evangelize? Explain.

[2] Paul’s method and approach to the Areopagus was different from his method and approach in the synagogues. In what ways is a similar flexibility needed in different settings today? Explain.

[3] Acts 17:16 says that ‘Paul …was greatly distressed to see that the city was full of idols.’ To what extent do you feel similar distress when you observe people today living with false concepts of God? Give examples of current beliefs that distress you.