In the first two parts of this new series, we discussed the apostle Paul’s first missionary journey which is described in Acts 13 and Acts 14. We also started discussing Paul’s second missionary journey, beginning in Acts 15. We addressed his and the other disciples’ experiences in Philippi and their departure from that unfriendly and hostile city.
From Philippi, they passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia and came to Thessalonica (Acts 17:1). That city was about 100 miles away from Philippi. The city of Thessalonica was Greek, but Romans and Jews lived there as well. We read that “as his custom was,” he went to a Jewish synagogue and “for three Sabbaths reasoned with them from the Scriptures” (verse 2).
Paul made it clear again that he kept the Sabbath, as he had always done. In this, he followed the example of Jesus Christ (1 Corinthians 11:1). After all, Christ, “as His custom was,” “went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day and stood up to read” (Luke 4:16). As true Christians and followers of Christ, we must keep the Sabbath day as well, on which we study the Scriptures and worship God.
When Paul explained that the Old Testament Scriptures showed that the Savior or Messiah had to suffer and to be raised again from the dead, and when he showed that Jesus Christ was the Messiah, some Jews were persuaded, and a “great multitude of the devout Greeks, and not a few of the leading women, joined Paul and Silas” (verse 4).
But as it had happened before, the Jews who did not believe instigated an uproar by using evil men, and they dragged Jason and some brethren to the rulers of the city, claiming that Jason had harbored Paul and his companions. Their accusation was telling: “These who have turned the world upside down have come here too” (verse 6). It shows that Paul and his companions had already made quite an impact on the “civilized” world.
We read in verse 10:
“Then the brethren immediately sent Paul and Silas away by night to Berea. When they arrived, they went into the synagogue of the Jews.”
Berea was 60 miles west of Thessalonica. One sentence about the people of Berea stands out: “These were more fair-minded than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness, and searched the Scriptures daily to find out whether these things were so” (verse 11).
They had a finer character than the hostile people of Thessalonica; they received Paul’s teaching with all readiness or eagerness; and they examined the Scriptures daily to see whether Paul’s teaching was true.
They did not believe Paul blindly, but they did not reject him, as the people of Thessalonica had done; rather, they looked for proof in the Bible. They did not have the attitude that so many have today, to disprove what the Bible and God’s ministers say, but they wanted to confirm Paul’s message, based on proof. As Mr. Armstrong has declared so many times. “Don’t believe me, believe the Bible.”
Note what happened as a consequence: “Therefore many of them believed, and also not a few of the Greeks, prominent women as well as men” (verse 12). Because of their fair-mindedness, they believed. Their heart was open to the Truth, because God, willing to call them, had given them a receptive heart.
The envious and evil-minded Jews from Thessalonica heard about what was happening in Berea; so they went there to stir up the crowds against Paul and his companions (verse 13). Immediately, the brethren sent Paul away to travel by sea to protect him, while Silas and Timothy remained there, but Paul commanded them to come to him with all speed (verses 14-15).
It is not wrong to flee from danger. Christ escaped the crowds on several occasions (John 8:59; 12:36). We need to behave in the same way when this is called for (Proverbs 22:3). But neither Christ nor Paul ever thought of giving up, even though the constant opposition would ultimately lead to the end of their lives, as both well knew. We must have the same attitude.
Paul arrived in Athens (verse 15) which was full of idols (verse 16). We read that Paul’s spirit “was provoked within him when he saw that the city was given over to idols” (verse 16). He was outraged. We are told that 600 years ago, pestilence had struck the city. Black and white sheep had been set free, and each sheep which settled near an idolatrous statue of a god was sacrificed to that god. It has been said that there were more statues of gods in the city of Athens than in all the rest of Greece put together.
Verses 17-21 inform us:
“Therefore he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and with the Gentile worshipers, and in the marketplace daily with those who happened to be there. Then certain Epicurean and Stoic philosophers encountered him. And some said, ‘What does this babbler want to say?’ Others said, ‘He seems to be a proclaimer of foreign gods,’ because he preached to them Jesus and the resurrection. And they took him and brought him to the Areopagus, saying, ‘May we know what this new doctrine is of which you speak? For you are bringing some strange things to our ears. Therefore we want to know what these things mean.’ For all the Athenians and the foreigners who were there spent their time in nothing else but either to tell or to hear some new thing.”
The Epicureans believed in time and chance; they did not believe in life after death. The Stoics believed that everything was God and that His Spirit was in everything. They also believed that everything was the Will of God.
They brought Paul to the Areopagus— the Hill of Ares of the Acropolis [also called Mars Hill]. The Greek council met there, having charge of religious and educational matters. Paul responded to the challenge and gave one of the most extraordinary and timeless messages. We read verses 22-31:
“Then Paul stood in the midst of the Areopagus and said, ‘Men of Athens, I perceive that in all things you are very religious [or superstitious]; for as I was passing through and considering the objects of your worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO THE UNKNOWN GOD. Therefore, the One whom you worship without knowing, Him I proclaim to you: God, who made the world and everything in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands. Nor is He worshiped with men’s hands, as though He needed anything, since He gives to all life, breath, and all things. And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings, so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; for in Him we live and move and have our being, as also some of your own poets have said, “For we are also His offspring.” Therefore, since we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold or silver or stone, something shaped by art and man’s devising. Truly, these times of ignorance God overlooked, but now commands all men everywhere to repent, because He has appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by the Man whom He has ordained. He has given assurance of this to all by raising Him from the dead.’”
Inasmuch as some had wondered whether Paul was proclaiming foreign gods, Paul indeed addressed this question by saying that he was proclaiming the “unknown God”—unknown to them and frankly, to almost everyone in the world today. Most in Athens had never heard of the true God before Paul spoke to them in the marketplace (see again verse 17). Most “Christians” don’t know the real Jesus either, believing instead in “another Jesus” (2 Corinthians 11:4) who had come to do away with the commandments of His Father—a blatantly blasphemous idea.
Paul continued that the people were worshipping this true God without knowing it. He was thereby referring to the fact that they had erected an altar to “the unknown God.” They must have thought that there could be a God whom they did not know, so they dedicated an altar to Him, just in case.
Paul proceeded to tell them more about the “unknown God,” stating that He was Creator and Sustainer of all, but that He was not living in a temple or to be worshipped “with hands” or as “a carved image of gold or silver or stone” (compare Exodus 20:4-5). He made clear that this “unknown God” was the only God (compare Exodus 20:2-3: “I am the LORD your God… You shall have no other gods before [or beside] Me”).
Paul explained that this “unknown” God had made man, and that all human beings descended from the first human. He also stated that God had determined the preappointed times and the boundaries of the dwellings of the nations. This is a remarkable revelation. It is God who determines where and how long a particular nation would live and exist. This had been preordained.
For instance, God had told Abraham that his descendants would not possess Canaan for four generations (approx. 400 years) because the iniquity of the Amorites was “not yet complete” (Genesis 15:16). We also read in Deuteronomy 32:8: “When the Most High divided their inheritance to the nations, When He separated the sons of Adam, He set the boundaries of the peoples According to the number of the children of Israel.”
Paul also said that people could find Him to a certain extent (not for the purpose of obtaining salvation, as this is dependent on God’s preordination of those whom He would call), in order to have a physical relationship with Him, as the nation of Israel had with God. Still, man has a desire for eternity or everlasting life which God “has put in their hearts” (Ecclesiastes 3:11).
As this was so, Paul explained that we are all the “offspring of God.” The Neue Lutherbibel 2009 translates: “We are of the kind of God.” This is interesting, as Mr. Armstrong taught us tirelessly that God made animals after the animal kind, like cattle after the cattle kind, but that He made man after the God kind, with the potential of BECOMING God in the resurrection.
Paul continued that God had overlooked the time of ignorance, but commanded man now to repent. This reflects the fulfillment of Christ’s command in Luke 24:46-47: “Then He said to them, ‘Thus it is written, and thus it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day, and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.’”
Paul also made clear why repentance was necessary: God’s judgment would be coming, and God would judge the world by a Man who was ordained for this purpose—a Man who had been resurrected from the dead. He repeated what Christ Himself had said, in John 5:22, 27:
“For the Father judges no one, but has committed all judgment to the Son… [The Father] has given Him authority to execute judgment also, because He is the Son of Man.”
That was too much for the leaders of Athens to swallow. We read in verses 32 and 33:
“And when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked, while others said, ‘We will hear you again [or: “some other time”] on this matter.’ So Paul departed from among them.”
Some, though, joined him and believed, but short of that, there was nothing more for Paul to do in Athens, and so “he departed from Athens and went to Corinth” (Acts 18:1).
(To be continued)
Lead Writer: Norbert Link