Acts 17: Summary, Key Verses and Study Questions

Paul and Silas pass through Amphipolis and Apollonia to Thessalonica, where Paul, as was his custom, goes to the synagogue and for three Sabbaths reasons with them from the Scriptures, explaining that the Christ had to suffer and rise, and that this Jesus is the Christ. Some Jews believe, together with many devout Greeks and several leading women. The jealous Jews gather a mob, attack Jason's house and drag him before the city authorities, accusing the missionaries of turning the world upside down and of saying there is another king, Jesus. The brothers send Paul and Silas away by night to Berea.

In Berea the Jews are more noble than those in Thessalonica: they receive the word with eagerness and examine the Scriptures daily to see if these things are so. Many believe. When Jews from Thessalonica come to stir up the crowds, the brothers send Paul to the coast.

In Athens, Paul is provoked at seeing the city full of idols. He argues in the synagogue and in the marketplace with Epicurean and Stoic philosophers, who call him a babbler. They bring him to the Areopagus, where he says he saw an altar inscribed To the unknown god, and that what they worship in ignorance he proclaims to them. God made the world and does not live in temples made by hands, nor is he served as though he needed anything; he gave life and breath to all, made from one man every nation and fixed their times and places so that they might seek him. In him we live and move and have our being, as some of their poets said. God overlooked the times of ignorance, but now commands all people to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world by a man whom he raised from the dead. At the mention of resurrection, some mock, others say they will hear him again, and some believe, among them Dionysius the Areopagite and a woman named Damaris.

The Bereans' example calls us to listen with openness and with the Bible in hand. In your group you can propose checking a topic of the week against Scripture, neither believing blindly nor dismissing with scorn.

Paul's speech teaches us to communicate the gospel with respect and clarity: start where people are, use their language and always end with Christ and the call to repent. Ask what point of contact your culture or your friends have with God's truth, and how you can speak of Jesus from there.