Part 23

017:012 As the result many of them became believers, and so did not a few of the Greeks--gentlewomen of good position, and men.

017:013 As soon, however, as the Jews of Thessalonica learnt that God's Message had been proclaimed by Paul at Beroea, they came there also, and incited the mob to a riot.

017:014 Then the brethren promptly sent Paul down to the sea-coast, but Silas and Timothy remained behind.

017:015 Those who were caring for Paul's safety went with him as far as Athens, and then left him, taking a message from him to Silas and Timothy, asking them to join him as speedily as possible.

017:016 While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, his spirit was stirred within him when he noticed that the city was full of idols.

017:017 So he had discussions in the synagogue with the Jews and the other worshippers, and in the market place, day after day, with those whom he happened to meet.

017:018 A few of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers also encountered him. Some of them asked, "What has this beggarly babbler to say?" "His business," said others, "seems to be to cry up some foreign gods." This was because he had been telling the Good News of Jesus and the Resurrection.

017:019 Then they took him and brought him up to the Areopagus, asking him, "May we be told what this new teaching of yours is?

017:020 For the things you are saying sound strange to us. We should therefore like to be told exactly what they mean."

017:021 (For all the Athenians and their foreign visitors used to devote their whole leisure to telling or hearing about something new.)

017:022 So Paul, taking his stand in the centre of the Areopagus, spoke as follows: "Men of Athens, I perceive that you are in every respect remarkably religious.

017:023 For as I passed along and observed the things you worship, I found also an altar bearing the inscription, `TO AN UNKNOWN GOD.' "The Being, therefore, whom you, without knowing Him, revere, Him I now proclaim to you.

017:024 GOD who made the universe and everything in it--He, being Lord of Heaven and earth, does not dwell in sanctuaries built by men.

017:025 Nor is He ministered to by human hands, as though He needed anything-- but He Himself gives to all men life and breath and all things.

017:026 He caused to spring from one forefather people of every race, for them to live on the whole surface of the earth, and marked out for them an appointed span of life and the boundaries of their homes;

017:027 that they might seek God, if perhaps they could grope for Him and find Him. Yes, though He is not far from any one of us.

017:028 For it is in closest union with Him that we live and move and have our being; as in fact some of the poets in repute among yourselves have said, `For we are also His offspring.'

017:029 Since then we are God's offspring, we ought not to imagine that His nature resembles gold or silver or marble, or anything sculptured by the art and inventive faculty of man.

017:030 Those times of ignorance God viewed with indulgence. But now He commands all men everywhere to repent,

017:031 seeing that He has appointed a day on which, before long, He will judge the world in righteousness, through the instrumentality of a man whom He has pre-destined to this work, and has made the fact certain to every one by raising Him from the dead."

017:032 When they heard Paul speak of a resurrection of dead men, some began to scoff. But others said, "We will hear you again on that subject."

017:033 So Paul went away from them.

017:034 A few, however, attached themselves to him and believed, among them being Dionysius a member of the Council, a gentlewoman named Damaris, and some others.

018:001 After this he left Athens and came to Corinth.

018:002 Here he found a Jew, a native of Pontus, of the name of Aquila. He and his wife Priscilla had recently come from Italy because of Claudius's edict expelling all the Jews from Rome. So Paul paid them a visit;

018:003 and because he was of the same trade--that of tent-maker-- he lodged with them and worked with them.

018:004 But, Sabbath after Sabbath, he preached in the synagogue and tried to win over both Jews and Greeks.

018:005 Now at the time when Silas and Timothy came down from Macedonia, Paul was preaching fervently and was solemnly telling the Jews that Jesus is the Christ.