Acts
Chapter 17: 16-34
In Athens
16While
Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he was greatly distressed to see that the city was
full of idols. 17So he reasoned in the synagogue with the
Jews and the Godfearing Greeks, as well as in the marketplace day by day with those who
happened to be there. 18A group of Epicurean and Stoic
philosophers began to dispute with him. Some of them asked, “What is this babbler
trying to say?” Others remarked, “He seems to be advocating foreign gods.”
They said this because Paul was preaching the good news about Jesus and the resurrection. 19Then they took him and brought him to a meeting of the
Areopagus, where they said to him, “May we know what this new teaching is that you
are presenting? 20You are bringing some strange ideas to our
ears, and we want to know what they mean.” 21(All the
Athenians and the foreigners who lived there spent their time doing nothing but talking
about and listening to the latest ideas.)
22Paul then
stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: “Men of Athens! I see that in
every way you are very religious. 23For as I walked around
and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this
inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. Now what you worship as something unknown I am going to
proclaim to you.
24“The
God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not
live in temples built by hands. 25And he is not served by
human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath
and everything else. 26From one man he made every nation of
men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them
and the exact places where they should live. 27God did this
so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not
far from each one of us. 28‘For in him we live and move
and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his
offspring.’
29“Therefore
since we are God's offspring, we should not think that the divine being is like gold or
silver or stone–an image made by man's design and skill. 30In
the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to
repent. 31For he has set a day when he will judge the world
with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to all men by raising
him from the dead.”
32When they
heard about the resurrection of the dead, some of them sneered, but others said, “We
want to hear you again on this subject.” 33At that, Paul
left the Council. 34A few men became followers of Paul and
believed. Among them was Dionysius, a member of the Areopagus, also a woman named Damaris,
and a number of others.
