Acts 17
1 Now when they had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where there was a synagogue of the Jews. 2 And Paul went in, as was his custom, and on three Sabbath days he reasoned with them from the Scriptures, 3 explaining and proving that it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead, and saying, “This Jesus, whom I proclaim to you, is the Christ.” 4 And some of them were persuaded and joined Paul and Silas, as did a great many of the devout Greeks and not a few of the leading women. 5 But the Jews were jealous, and taking some wicked men of the rabble, they formed a mob, set the city in an uproar, and attacked the house of Jason, seeking to bring them out to the crowd. 6 And when they could not find them, they dragged Jason and some of the brothers before the city authorities, shouting, “These men who have turned the world upside down have come here also, 7 and Jason has received them, and they are all acting against the decrees of Caesar, saying that there is another king, Jesus.” 8 And the people and the city authorities were disturbed when they heard these things. 9 And when they had taken money as security from Jason and the rest, they let them go. 10 The brothers immediately sent Paul and Silas away by night to Berea, and when they arrived they went into the Jewish synagogue. 11 Now these Jews were more noble than those in Thessalonica; they received the word with all eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so. 12 Many of them therefore believed, with not a few Greek women of high standing as well as men. 13 But when the Jews from Thessalonica learned that the word of God was proclaimed by Paul at Berea also, they came there too, agitating and stirring up the crowds. 14 Then the brothers immediately sent Paul off on his way to the sea, but Silas and Timothy remained there. 15 Those who conducted Paul brought him as far as Athens, and after receiving a command for Silas and Timothy to come to him as soon as possible, they departed. 16 Now while Paul was waiting for them at Athens, his spirit was provoked within him as he saw that the city was full of idols. 17 So he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the devout persons, and in the marketplace every day with those who happened to be there. 18 Some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers also conversed with him. And some said, “What does this babbler wish to say?” Others said, “He seems to be a preacher of foreign divinities”—because he was preaching Jesus and the resurrection. 19 And they took him and brought him to the Areopagus, saying, “May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? 20 For you bring some strange things to our ears. We wish to know therefore what these things mean.” 21 Now all the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there would spend their time in nothing except telling or hearing something new. 22 So Paul, standing in the midst of the Areopagus, said: “Men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious. 23 For as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription: ‘To the unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. 24 The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, 25 nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. 26 And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, 27 that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us, 28 for “‘In him we live and move and have our being’; as even some of your own poets have said, “‘For we are indeed his offspring.’ 29 Being then God’s offspring, we ought not to think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of man. 30 The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, 31 because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.” 32 Now when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked. But others said, “We will hear you again about this.” 33 So Paul went out from their midst. 34 But some men joined him and believed, among whom also were Dionysius the Areopagite and a woman named Damaris and others with them. (Acts 17, ESV Bible)
1 Now when they had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where there was a synagogue of the Jews. (Acts 17:1, ESV Bible)
At Work in Tasloniki
Following the Via Egnatia out of Philippi, the apostles made straight for Thessalonica, "where there was a synagogue of the Jews." The wealthy and successful city of Thessalonica prospered as an important trade hub at the junction of the Via Egnatia and the route between the Aegean and the Danube. The city was then (as it is today) the capital of the region and the largest city in Macedonia.
After their experience in Philippi, the apostles felt relieved to find the Jewish community in Thessalonica intact. They spent three consecutive Sabbaths in the synagogue of Thessalonica "according to Paul's custom." Utilizing his credentials as a visiting rabbi, Paul presented his case for the Master and the kingdom. He reasoned with them from the Torah, the Prophets, and the Writings. Some of the Jewish members of the synagogue found Paul's arguments convincing. They "joined Paul and Silas, along with a large number of the God-fearing Greeks and a number of the leading women." The God-fearing Greeks and prominent women were already part of the synagogue community. They already practiced monotheism and, to some extent, knew the Scriptures and a few things about Jewish practice.
Our Master instructed His apostles, "The worker is worthy of his support. Whatever city or village you enter, inquire who is worthy in it, and stay at his house until you leave that city" (Matthew 10:10-11). Paul, Silas, and company lodged in the house of a Jewish believer named Jason. (Jews named Joseph often selected Jason for their Diaspora name.) Despite the Master's rule, the apostles did not accept Jason's hospitality without compensating him. They worked their trades to pay for their expenses. In his letters to the Thessalonians, Paul reminded them:
As apostles of the Messiah we might have asserted our authority. But we proved to be gentle among you ... For you recall, brethren, our labor and hardship, how working night and day so as not to be a burden to any of you, we proclaimed to you the gospel of God. (I Thessalonians 2:6-9)
Nor did we eat anyone's bread without paying for it, but with labor and hardship we kept working night and day so that we would not be a burden to any of you; not because we do not have the right to this, but in order to offer ourselves as a model for you, so that you would follow our example. (2 Thessalonians 3:8-9)
The believers back in Philippi also remembered the apostles and sent regular contributions to support their work in Thessalonica. Paul recalled, "Even in Thessalonica [the Philippians] sent a gift more than once for my needs" (Philippians 4:16). The money probably came from the wealthy household of Lydia. The believers in Thessalonica "became imitators of the assemblies of God in Messiah Yeshua that are in Judea" (I Thessalonians 2:14). Paul and Silas taught the Jerusalem community's principles of sharing all things in common and caring for one another's needs, but they also laid down the rule, "If anyone is not willing to work, then he is not to eat, either" (2 Thessalonians 3:10).
The apostles nurtured the new believers "as a nursing mother tenderly cares for her own children" (I Thessalonians 2:7). Paul and Silas felt a fond affection for the new believers, and they were pleased to impart to them not only the gospel but also their own lives, "because you had become very dear to us" (I Thessalonians 2:8). They formed deep friendships with the Jewish believers like "Aristarchus and Secundus of the Thessalonians" (Acts 20:4). Aristarchus later accompanied Paul all the way to Rome.
References
This lesson is adapted from Daniel Lancaster's teachings in The Sent Ones, as presented by First Fruits of Zion for the Torah Club.
5 But the Jews were jealous, and taking some wicked men of the rabble, they formed a mob, set the city in an uproar, and attacked the house of Jason, seeking to bring them out to the crowd. 6 And when they could not find them, they dragged Jason and some of the brothers before the city authorities, shouting, “These men who have turned the world upside down have come here also, (Acts 17:5-6, ESV Bible)
Trouble in Tasloniki
The synagogue in Thessalonica gave Paul the privilege of addressing the congregation for only three Sabbaths. After that, the apostles and their disciples continued to attend the synagogue, but they quickly wore out their welcome. The apostle's message about the death, resurrection, and messiahship of Yeshua did not raise the ire of the Jewish community, but their presence in the community compromised the authority of the synagogue leadership, who did not subscribe to their messianic claims. Worse yet, the apostles' message of Gentile inclusion created serious problems. The Jewish community did not approve of the large number of God-fearers congregating in their midst. The matter began to alarm the synagogue members. Paul and Silas were drawing more and more Gentiles, not just God-fearers but neophyte converts, fresh from the Greek temples. Reports about Gentile idolaters in Thessalonica renouncing polytheism and embracing the Jewish religion began to spread through the region:
You became an example to all the believers in Macedonia and in Achaia. For the word of the Lord has sounded forth from you, not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but also in every place your faith toward God has gone forth, so that we have no need to say anything. For they themselves report about us what kind of a reception we had with you, and how you turned to God from idols to serve a living and true God. (I Thessalonians 1:7-9)
Luke says that the Jews became jealous. They were not jealous of the apostles' successful efforts to reach out to Gentile idolaters; they were jealous of the intrusion into Jewish space. The apostles' converts crowded into the synagogues. The apostles publicly declared that they wanted the Gentiles to remain Gentile, yet, at the same time, occupy a place within the Jewish community and synagogue. That policy eroded the boundaries between Jew and non-Jew that had insulated Jewish identity in the Diaspora.
In his first epistle to the Thessalonians, Paul complained about his theological opponents in the Jewish community of Thessalonica: "They are not pleasing to God, but hostile to all men, hindering us from speaking to the Gentiles so that they may be saved; with the result that they always fill up the measure of their sins" (I Thessalonians 2:15-16).
The Jewish community in Thessalonica had legitimate concerns about the new teaching. They had to think about the recent events in Rome. They knew that the same teachings created disturbances in Rome that led to the expulsion of nearly the entire Jewish community. What was to prevent the same thing from happening in Thessalonica?
Paul and Silas warned the small community of believers that they could expect persecution:
After we had already suffered and been mistreated in Philippi, as you know, we had the boldness in our God to speak to you the gospel of God amid much opposition. (I Thessalonians 2:2)
Indeed when we were with you, we kept telling you in advance that we were going to suffer affliction; and so it came to pass, as you know. (I Thessalonians 3:4)
Here's how "it came to pass." A few members of the Jewish community went to the city's large forum and hired some day laborers to act as a mob. The hired men began to loudly denounce the apostles for teaching treason and inciting blasphemy against the gods. They quickly set the city into an uproar. The hired men stormed the house of Jason, but they did not find the apostles. They settled for seizing Jason and several other disciples. They dragged them back to the forum.
Shoving them before the Roman officials and city authorities, they shouted, "These men who have upset the world have come here also; and Jason has welcomed them." The reference to upsetting the world referred to the recent disturbances in Rome. They alluded to "Caesar's decree" expelling the Jews from Rome. "We don't need that kind of trouble here in Thessalonica."
They accused the apostles of teaching treason: "They all act contrary to the decrees of Caesar, saying that there is another king, Jesus." These charges had plausible grounds. Paul and Silas came to town, urging Gentiles to turn from idols, including worship of emperors, to the one true God. Paul warned against reverencing an emperor "who opposes and exalts himself above every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, displaying himself as being God. Do you not remember that while I was still with you, I was telling you these things?" (2 Thessalonians 2:4-5). Finally, they proclaimed a coming kingdom that would unseat the current Roman rule and replace it with the kingdom of the Jewish king "Jesus."
The charges stirred up the crowd and alarmed the city authorities. They sternly warned Jason and the other disciples with him against showing the apostles any further hospitality, and they demanded a pledge of money before releasing them. The money placed legal liability for Paul and Silas on Jason and his friends. Any further assistance to Paul and Silas would result in forfeiture of the whole amount. Having settled the matter, the city officials allowed Jason and the disciples to return home. The incident made the Yeshua sect public and politically unpopular in Thessalonica. Thereafter, the believers in Thessalonica suffered persecution from their own countrymen. Paul observed, "You also endured the same sufferings at the hands of your own countrymen, even as [the Jewish believers in Judea] did from the Jews" (I Thessalonians 2:14).
References
This lesson is adapted from Daniel Lancaster's teachings in The Sent Ones, as presented by First Fruits of Zion for the Torah Club.
11 Now these Jews were more noble than those in Thessalonica; they received the word with all eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so. 12 Many of them therefore believed, with not a few Greek women of high standing as well as men. (Acts 17:11-12, ESV Bible)
Noble-Minded Bereans
As soon as darkness settled over the city, the disciples in Thessalonica helped the apostles escape from the city. The believers in Thessalonica told the apostles about a Jewish community in the nearby city of Berea (modern Veria). Berea was off the beaten track. The apostles had to leave the Via Egnatia and travel fifty miles to the foot of the Vermion Mountains. Later, Paul wrote to the community from which he had fled, "Brethren, having been taken away from you for a short while- in person, not in spirit-we were all the more eager with great desire to see your face" (I Thessalonians 2:17).
The small Jewish community of Berea had a synagogue, possibly marked by the location of the abandoned synagogue in Veria today. Paul, Silas, and company followed their usual procedure, entered the synagogue, and with the permission of the leadership, they began to expound the good news about Messiah and the kingdom. Luke considered the Jews of Berea to be "more noble-minded than those in Thessalonica" because they eagerly received the message and carefully compared the claims of the apostles with the Scriptures "to see whether these things were so." The gospel took root quickly in the Berean Jewish community. As always, the apostles also found success among the God-fearers associated with the community, "prominent Greek women and men." Luke mentions the women ahead of the men to indicate that they outnumbered the men.
Paul hoped to stay in Berea until things in Thessalonica calmed down and then return there. He was not able. "For we wanted to come to you -I, Paul, more than once-and yet Satan hindered us" (I Thessalonians 2:18). After a few weeks, word reached the Jewish community in Thessalonica that Paul of Tarsus now sold his wares in Berea and drew his beloved Gentiles into the synagogue there. The Thessalonican synagogue sent a delegation to Berea to make trouble for the apostles. They tried to employ the same strategy of agitating a crowd and stirring up the population. The apostles had not been working long in Berea, but they had a stronger base of support in the Jewish community than they had achieved in Thessalonica. They did not want to be driven out so soon.
In order to avoid completely abandoning the new believers as they had done in Thessalonica (and Philippi), Paul chose to leave town while the lower-profile Silas and Timothy remained with the Bereans. He and a small escort of disciples set out for Athens.
Silas and Timothy stayed behind.
References
This lesson is adapted from Daniel Lancaster's teachings in The Sent Ones, as presented by First Fruits of Zion for the Torah Club.
16 Now while Paul was waiting for them at Athens, his spirit was provoked within him as he saw that the city was full of idols. (Acts 17:16, ESV Bible)
City of Gods
In winter of the year 49/50 CE, Paul arrived in Athens, center of the Hellenistic world. During the Roman Era, the famous Greek city of Athens had acquired renown (along with Tarsus and Alexandria) as one of the three university cities of the Roman Empire. Athens traded in the commodities of science, mathematics, art, poetry, history, eloquence, rhetoric, culture, and philosophy. As people in university climates always do, "the Athenians and the strangers visiting there used to spend their time in nothing other than telling or hearing something new" (Acts 17:21).
The disciples from Berea stayed with Paul until he had settled into the Athenian Jewish community. Then he dismissed them and sent a message for Silas and Timothy, instructing them to leave Berea and join him in Athens as soon as possible.
Paul took in the sights, passing through the city and examining the objects of worship. The world's finest architecture decorated Athens, including the famous Acropolis, Parthenon, Erectheion, Odeion, Tower of the Winds, Eleusinion, Metroon, Bouleuterion, temples to Ares, Apollo, Patroos, Zeus, Phratrios, Athena, Hephaistos, Roma, Augustus, and many others. The visitor to Athens could see the stadium, a gymnasium dedicated to Hermes, a house of Dionysus, and an array of altars and sanctuaries for votives and tributes. Seven pillared stoas framed the city center. Paintings depicting great scenes of mythology and Greek history adorned the public porticoes.
To the northwest of the city rose the Areopagus (Mars Hill), where, according to Greek myth, the gods once gathered to pass judgment on Ares (Mars), the god of war. The Athens city council of politicians, orators, philosophers, and judges used to convene on the hill. In Paul's day, they met in the Stoa Basileios, just off the agora, but the council still bore the name Areopagus. The world's best sculptures of men and gods filled the streets and public squares.
Despite the religious cynicism that tends to characterize academia, Athenians remained deeply religious as a matter of pride in their history. The men of Athens worshiped the Olympian gods since ancient times. They adopted the gods of many other nations and crowded them all into the city. The city contained a forest of statues of gods, demigods, and heroes. According to Pliny, Athens had more than three thousand statues: "What living mortal could enumerate them all? Of what value would be such information?" (Natural History 34.I7). Petronius said that Athens "is so well stocked with deities, you will easier meet with a god than a man" (Satyricon 3/xvii).
Many sages and devout Jewish holy men from the land of Israel would not even walk in the shadow of an idol or carry a coin with an idolatrous image on its face. They refused to pass through city gates bearing idolatrous images, and they refrained from speaking aloud the names of cities named after pagan gods. Paul was not that rigid. He had lived in Tarsus, Antioch, and other pagan cities. He was no stranger to the Gentile world, and he disdained superstitious paranoia. Nevertheless, the sheer scope of the idolatry in Athens stunned him. "His spirit was being provoked within him as he was observing the city full of idols."
As Paul wandered the city agora, he encountered an altar with the inscription, "To an unknown god." Maintaining altars to unnamed gods was simply prudent in polytheism. In Greek religious literature, forgetting to mention a certain god or omitting sacrifice to a particular god during a religious festival brought the wrath of that deity. So as not to inadvertently offend a deity, the Athenians offered non-designated sacrifices to unknown gods. During a plague in the sixth century BCE, the Cretan poet Epimenides attempted to appease the gods by letting a flock of white sheep and black sheep wander the Aeropagus. He ordered that, wherever one of the sheep laid down, an altar should be built to an appropriate god and the sheep sacrificed. For that reason, many of the altars in Athens did not have specific names designated to them.
References
This lesson is adapted from Daniel Lancaster's teachings in The Sent Ones, as presented by First Fruits of Zion for the Torah Club.
17 So he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the devout persons, and in the marketplace every day with those who happened to be there. (Acts 17:17, ESV Bible)
In the Synagogue and Agora
Athens had a Jewish community. Philo lists Attica among the lands filled with Jewish colonies. The community in Athens was large enough to support at least one synagogue. Paul found people willing to listen to his message. He reasoned with them daily and worked with them through the Scriptures. As in other Diaspora synagogues, both "the Jews and the God-fearing Gentiles" attended the synagogue in Athens.
The philosophical erudition of Athens was partially responsible for the large number of God-fearing Gentiles in the Diaspora synagogues. Although Athens was devoutly polytheistic, the philosophical ideas of Hellenist sophists (Platonists) pointed toward a higher, essential power and unity behind the universe. Many God-fearers arrived at monotheism through the logic and deduction of Greek philosophy, then started looking for a religion that supported their conclusions.
Paul had several weeks to spend in Athens before his colleagues could arrive. As he did in other cities, he may have set up shop as a tentmaker in the city market (agora). He used the opportunity to try to sell Jewish monotheism and the message of the kingdom. For the first time since the disaster in Lystra, he decided to take the gospel message directly to the Gentiles. He began to teach anyone who would engage him.
References
This lesson is adapted from Daniel Lancaster's teachings in The Sent Ones, as presented by First Fruits of Zion for the Torah Club.
18 Some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers also conversed with him. And some said, “What does this babbler wish to say?” Others said, “He seems to be a preacher of foreign divinities”—because he was preaching Jesus and the resurrection. (Acts 17:18, ESV Bible)
Epicureans and Stoics
As Paul discoursed in the marketplace, small groups of two and three, sometimes more, stopped briefly to listen. Paul did not speak the refined Greek of classical oratory. He did not have the rhetorical skills or flourishes characteristic of a philosopher, and his accent sounded decidedly Syrian. He found himself out of his element among the elitist intellectuals of Athens. Nevertheless, he managed to engage some Athenian philosophers, both Epicureans and Stoics, in a discussion.
Epicureans followed the teaching of Epicurus (300 BCE), an early materialist who dismissed the supernatural, divine revelation, and divine intervention. Epicureans were apolitical and philosophically irreligious. They believed that the gods were blissful, material beings that remained dispassionate and uninvolved with human affairs. Epicurus prescribed a moderate hedonism, teaching that pleasure and the absence of pain constitute life's greatest good. The Epicureans discouraged vice or overindulgence in sensual pleasures, not because such things were wrong, but because these things could lead to later suffering. Likewise, they recommended obeying civil laws only to avoid the discomfort and shame of punishment. They did not believe in good and evil or intrinsic virtue. They emphasized simple pleasures and intellectual satisfaction over physical pleasures. Epicureans advocated a thin veneer of pleasantry and pursuit of the path of least resistance. They did not encourage marriage because living with a spouse can destroy peace of mind. Epicureanism rejected all forms of life after death and all mysticism.
They taught that a man must shed his fear of death and his fear of the gods. He need not fear the gods because they are irrelevant to human existence, and he need not fear death because, once dead, man ceases to feel.
The Mishnah states that Epicureans have no share in the World to Come:
These are the ones who do not have a portion in the world to come: He who maintains that the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead is not derived from the Torah, [He who maintains] that the Torah was not divinely revealed, and an Epicurean. (m. Sanhedrin II:1)
Stoicism was the most popular philosophical school of the Roman Era. It was named after the Stoa Poikile, a painted portico in Athens where the philosophy first took shape. The Stoics taught that man needed to rise above his destructive passions and emotions in order to bring himself into harmony with the natural order of the universe. They believed in a grand pantheism where the universe itself unites into one God-a divine, universal and ethereal, rational Logos.
Everyone and everything is part of God. Unhappiness, human evil, and moral depravity result from man's ignorance of that sublime truth. Perfection and virtue can be obtained by a man who lives in oneness with the natural order and recognizes his part in the divine whole. The Stoics especially prized self-control, discipline, and asceticism as tools toward that end. The Stoic sage sought to free himself from base ambition, passion, and unruly emotions. He prized wisdom, courage, justice, and temperance.
Since ignorance was the source of evil, the Stoics were eager to overcome it. They taught that knowledge comes through human reason, and the truth can be discerned by logic and deduction.
Stoics believed that the divine Logos acts on matter and determines the fate of all things. All things are part of the universe, belonging to the cosmic, divine oneness, and the oneness acts only according to its own nature. The souls of human beings are emanations of the ethereal Logos and therefore neither die nor live after death but continue as threads in the web of the divine universe.
References
This lesson is adapted from Daniel Lancaster's teachings in The Sent Ones, as presented by First Fruits of Zion for the Torah Club.
22 So Paul, standing in the midst of the Areopagus, said: “Men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious. 23 For as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription: ‘To the unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. 24 The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, 25 nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. 26 And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, 27 that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us, 28 for “‘In him we live and move and have our being’; as even some of your own poets have said, “‘For we are indeed his offspring.’ 29 Being then God’s offspring, we ought not to think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of man. 30 The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, 31 because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.” (Acts 17:22-31, ESV Bible)
The Seed-Picker
Paul attempted to frame his message in philosophical terminology and language, borrowing concepts from Plato to argue for monotheism and the existence of the soul, borrowing from Stoicism to argue for personal ethics, self-control, and personal responsibility, borrowing from Epicurean thought to argue against the popular notions of the Greco-Roman gods. He patched together one concept with another to try to introduce Jewish monotheism and the gospel of the kingdom in terms familiar to the intellectuals of Athens: "I have become all things to all men, so that I may by all means save some" (I Corinthians 9:22).
The philosophy students in the Athens market laughed at his efforts. They referred to him as a "seed-picker" (spermologos, orepolóyos). They laughed, "What is this seed-picker trying to say?" The term ordinarily referred to freeloaders who hung around open markets living off scraps. In this case, they used the term to denigrate Paul's rhetorical skills. They ridiculed his attempt to sound like a philosopher. He had picked up a few scraps of Greek philosophy, but he clearly did not know what he was talking about.
Others took Paul more seriously and expressed concern. They remarked, "He seems to be a proclaimer of strange deities." This was a serious charge, one that could result in punishment or a death sentence. Although Judaism was a legal religion, Paul's ideas did not sound like conventional Judaism. He spoke about a universal message for all men, a divine man named "lyesous (Insouc)," and outlandish concepts like a resurrected man. The philosophers of Athens suspected that he might be trying to introduce a new god, and that was against the law. The men of Athens had charged Socrates with a similar crime: corrupting the minds of Athenians and proclaiming strange or new divinities.
They invited the seed-picker to present his ideas in the Areopagus, the same forum in which the men of Athens had once condemned Socrates to death for his ideas.
After some days, "they took him and brought him" across the agora to the Areopagus, where the governing council of the city met (Acts 17:19). The governing council was called the Areopagus because they originally met on the hill of Ares (Areopagus/Mars Hill). In Paul's day, the council met in the Stoa Basileios, a colonnade just off the agora. When the council was not in session, Athenians used the location for rhetoric, debate, and the exchange of ideas. The council did not formally put Paul on trial, but they requested an initial hearing on the basis that he promoted foreign gods and sought to introduce them to the Athenian pantheon. They told Paul, "You are bringing some strange things to our ears; so we want to know what these things mean" (Acts 17:20). Luke comments, "Now all the Athenians and the strangers visiting there used to spend their time in nothing other than telling or hearing something new" (Acts 17:21).
References
This lesson is adapted from Daniel Lancaster's teachings in The Sent Ones, as presented by First Fruits of Zion for the Torah Club.
Discourse in the Areopagus
Paul assumed the position of a Greek orator and delivered a short discourse on monotheism, the good news, and the kingdom. He tried to make his argument more persuasive to the Athenian, intellectual elite by invoking familiar philosophical concepts and short quotations from Greek sources. He reserved the more difficult-to-sell concepts of repentance, judgment, resurrection, and Messiah for his conclusion. Luke provides a summary of Paul's discourse:
PAUL'S DISCOURSE IN ATHENS
The unknown God (17:22-24)
Transcendence and self-sufficiency of God (17:25)
Providence of God over humanity (17:26)
Natural revelation of God (17:27)
Immanence of God (17:27-28)
Men are God's offspring
Support from Epimenides and Aratus
The folly of idolatry (17:29)
The call to repentance (17:30)
Warning of judgment (I7:31)
The evidence of the resurrection of Yeshua (17:31)
As in Lystra, Paul found himself struggling to communicate the gospel to people outside of the context of Judaism. He began his argument for monotheism by referencing an Athenian altar dedicated "to an unknown god." This allowed him to deflect the charge of introducing "strange deities" into Athens. The altar already existed in the city, and the city already reverenced the unknown deity. Paul was only revealing the identity of the unknown God. He said, "What you worship in ignorance, this I proclaim to you."
Paul introduced the unknown deity of Athens as "the God who made the world and all things in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth" (Acts 17:24, cf. Psalm 146:6). He avoided referring to Him as the God of Israel. He did not want the Athenians to quickly categorize him and dismiss him as merely a Hellenist Jew propagating Jewish ideas. He described the unknown Creator as transcendent and self-sufficient. The Creator's utter transcendence precludes the possibility that He resides within temples like the idols of the other gods (Isaiah 66:1). As the creator and author of life, He does not require anything from His creations. He does not need human beings to worship Him and bring Him sacrifices (Psalm 50:12). On the contrary, He provides the needs of human beings and all creatures: "He Himself gives to all life and breath and all things" (Genesis 2:7; Job 12:10; Psalm 104:27-30).
The Athenian philosophers were already acquainted with such exalted concepts of deity. Paul had not yet asked them to make a great leap. He might have been describing Plato's concept of divinity. Josephus notes that many Greek philosophers arrived naturally at a type of monotheism:
God is unbegotten and unchanging through all eternity. He is far above all human concepts in beauty; and, though he is known to us by his power, yet his essence is unknown to us. These notions of God are the sentiments of the wisest among the Greeks ... for Pythagoras, and Anaxagoras, and Plato, and the Stoic philosophers that succeeded them, and almost all the rest shared the same opinions and arrived at the same conclusions about the nature of God. (Against Apion 2:167-168/xvii)
Paul explained that God formed all human beings from one. Paul did not say "one man," he left the origin ambiguous. It might have been one man, one substance, or one soul. The Stoics agreed that all human beings share a common origin in the ether of the universe. They taught a common fraternity of all men.
Paul declared that God had determined the appointed times and boundaries of the nations. He alluded to the story of Babel when God divided humanity and scattered men across the earth:
When the Most High gave the nations their inheritance, when He separated the sons of man, He set the boundaries of the peoples according to the number of the sons of Israel. For the LORD's portion is His people; Jacob is the allotment of His inheritance. (Deuteronomy 32:8-9)
Paul explained that the one true God had created all humanity from one source (one man), and now He was drawing humanity back together into one people in one man (Messiah). At the same time, He was now drawing humanity's fractured image of deity back into the true revelation of the One God. This was Paul's oblique way of introducing the concepts of monotheism and the coming kingdom of heaven.
References
This lesson is adapted from Daniel Lancaster's teachings in The Sent Ones, as presented by First Fruits of Zion for the Torah Club.
Natural Revelation and the Gospel
Paul declared that the one true God made humanity from one man "that they would seek God." Humans are created to seek their creator. Without revelation, that seeking is, at best, a blind groping in the darkness of total ignorance, as it says in Deuteronomy 28:29, "You will grope at noon, as the blind man gropes in darkness."
At this point in his discourse, Paul probably presented his theory of natural revelation (cf. Romans 1:19-20; Acts I4:17). He allowed that those seeking truth could find God through observation of the created order, but he compared that type of apprehension of the divine with a blind man groping about in the darkness and laying his hands on an object by chance.
Ironically, the invisible and largely unknown God is "not far from each one of us" but very near to every human being (Acts 17:27). The concept of God's immanence resonated with the Stoics, who taught that God indwells all things and all persons and that human beings are components of God.
Paul quoted two Greek odes to Zeus to make his point: "For in Him we live and move and exist, as even some of your own poets have said, 'For we also are His children." The words "for in him we live and move and exist" come from the poet Epimenides, the same hero who saved Athens from the plague and established the altars to unknown gods. The words, "we also are his children," seem to come from the poet Aratus.
Why did Paul cite pagan Greek literature? He could not appeal to the Jewish Scriptures for authority. The men of Athens would not have accepted proof texts from the Torah and Prophets. By citing literature familiar to his audience, Paul employed good rhetorical techniques. He explained to the Corinthians, "To those who are without Torah, [I became] as without Torah, though not being without the Torah of God but under the Torah of Messiah, so that I might win those who are without Torah" (I Corinthians 9:21).
Paul declared that the natural revelation of God and the fact that human beings are "God's offspring" both argue against idolatry. The Stoics already believed in an ethereal, non-corporeal notion of God. As explained above, many of the thinkers in that day philosophically dismissed the polytheism and idol worship of classical religion, even though they continued to practice it and observe it. Man is the creature, not the creator.
After establishing some common ground with the philosophical schools, Paul brought home the message of the gospel. He explained that, in the past, God separated the nations, "determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their habitation" (Acts 17:26) and "overlooked the times of ignorance." As Paul said at Lystra, "In the generations gone by He permitted all the nations to go their own ways" (Acts 14:I6).
Now God declared to all men that they should repent in preparation for an impending day of judgment: the Day of the LORD. Paul explained that God has appointed a day for judging humanity. Moreover, God appointed a single man to serve as the judge. God provided evidence that these things were true by raising that man from the dead.
Without mentioning Israel, the Jewish people, or the Messianic Kingdom, Paul hit the essential points of the gospel message, "Repent, the kingdom of heaven is at hand." It was his best attempt to communicate the gospel outside of a Jewish context.
References
This lesson is adapted from Daniel Lancaster's teachings in The Sent Ones, as presented by First Fruits of Zion for the Torah Club.
32 Now when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked. But others said, “We will hear you again about this.” 33 So Paul went out from their midst. 34 But some men joined him and believed, among whom also were Dionysius the Areopagite and a woman named Damaris and others with them. (Acts 17:32-34, ESV Bible)
Difficult Concepts
If the Athenians had been tracking with Paul at all, he lost them when he began to talk about repentance, final judgment, and a man who had been raised from the dead.
Most of the Athenians found the concept of a resurrection from the dead laughable. The wisdom of the Areopagus stated that there is no returning from death. The Epicureans jeered at the ideas of repentance, final judgment, and life after death. The Stoics found the idea that the universe (God) would judge itself to be absurd. Paul's repackaged gospel still contained far too many Jewish ideas. The good news of the kingdom sounded like primitive superstitions to the sophisticated new-age minds of the Athenians. Their laughter and derision made it clear to Paul that his presentation was over.
Some of the members of the Areopagus offered to let Paul return and speak again at a later time. They said, "We shall hear you again concerning this." He did not return, and they did not hear him again. Paul recognized that his attempt to communicate the God of the Hebrews in the language of Greek worldviews had failed.
Paul probably had better results in the Athens synagogue. "Some men joined him and believed." His efforts in the Areopagus did not fail completely. An Areopagite named Dionysius joined him and became a disciple along with a woman named Damaris. Paul introduced the new believers to the synagogue community of God-fearing Gentiles and did his best to teach them while he waited for Silas and Timothy to arrive.
Silas and Timothy did arrive, but they did not stay long. Paul and Silas felt concerned about the new believers they had left behind in Thessalonica and Philippi. They elected to send Timothy back to Thessalonica:
When we could endure it no longer, we thought it best to be left behind at Athens alone, and we sent Timothy, our brother and God's fellow worker in the gospel of Messiah, to strengthen and encourage you as to your faith. (I Thessalonians 3:I-2)
Paul later wrote to the Thessalonians, explaining that he sent Timothy "to find out about your faith, for fear that the tempter might have tempted you, and our labor would be in vain" (I Thessalonians 3:5). Shortly after Timothy's departure, Silas left for Philippi, and Paul set out for Corinth.
References
This lesson is adapted from Daniel Lancaster's teachings in The Sent Ones, as presented by First Fruits of Zion for the Torah Club.