Bible Commentaries
Acts 17

Verses 1-34

XXIV

THE MINISTRY OF PAUL AND HIS COMPANIONS AT

THESSALONICA, BEREA, AND ATHENS

Acts 17:1-34.

Thessalonica is situated at the head of the gulf leading into the Aegean Sea and is on the great Ignatian Road. It was then, and has been ever since, a great city. It was not only important on account of its strategic position in the days of Paul, but continues so till this day. There are multitudes of both Jews and Christians in it now. About the middle of the tenth century, it was captured by the Saracens, or Mohammedans. Then it was rescued by the Crusaders, and then, finally, in about the middle of the fifteenth century, it was captured by the Turks and they hold it yet. It was a free city, not a colony. The Emperor Augustus made it a free city. The form of its government is indicated by a word that Luke uses, which occurs here only in all literature – "polytarchs" which means many chiefs. It was governed by men of its own selection. In the days of the Dutch towns and German free towns, we had something like its form of government – governed by the burgesses, or syndicates, elected by the people.

So far as the record goes, it seems that Paul was there three weeks. Anyhow, it says that he preached for three Sundays in the Jewish synagogue. As to the matter that he preached we gather something, but very little, from the record. The record tells us that he "went in unto them, and three sabbath days reasoned with them from the scriptures, opening and alleging that it behooved the Christ to suffer and to rise again from the dead; and that this Jesus whom, said he, I proclaim unto you, is the Christ." Another clause in the text shows that his enemies said that he taught that there was another king – one Jesus. That shows that the manner of his preaching to the Jews was to take the Old Testament and prove from it that the Messiah that was to come would be a sufferer; that he would be put to death; that he would rise again from the dead, and that, risen from the dead, he would become the exalted King of the universe. But that gives you but a faint conception of what Paul preached while he was there. I enjoin upon you, that you quietly sit down and read over the first and second letters to the Thessalonians, and learn from them what he says he preached while he was there with them. At least, you will find these matters were presented – especially eschatological matters – the doctrine of the last things. It has to do with what will take place at the last, at the end of the world, in connection with the coming of Christ. Very great stress was put upon that in Paul’s preaching, and the reason that he preached that particular thing was that both to him and to them the preaching was in great suffering and persecution, and he was pointing to the fact that, while we must have tribulation upon the earth, at last all will be well for the righteous and evil for the wicked. Another thing that he says that he preached day and night was that whoever professes to be a Christian must live a holy, godly life; that he must not steal; must not lie; must not wrong his neighbor; that he must be industrious; he must not be an idler, nor a busybody. In other words, as much there as anywhere else he ever preached it, he presented the practical side of Christianity. Read his letters where he says to those he is addressing, "You remember I told you this when I was with you." How thankful we ought to be that we have these two letters to the Thessalonians! We never would get upon our minds the right impression of that three weeks’ meeting if we did not have these letters to tell us how the meeting was carried on.

It is also very important to know how he preached, how he held a meeting, as well as the things he preached about. He presented Christ as prophet, sacrifice, priest, king, and judge, and he presented a holy life, but we want to know the manner in which he preached. It is important, not only to have something to say, but to say it so that it will stick. Note what he says: "Our exhortation is not of error, nor of uncleanness, nor in guile: but even as we have been approved of God to be entrusted with the gospel, so we speak; not as pleasing men, but God, who proveth our hearts. For neither at any time were we found using words of flattery, as ye know, nor a cloak of coveteousness [we didn’t have any financial ax to grind in that meeting], God is witness; nor seeking glory of men, neither from you nor from others" (1 Thessalonians 2:3-6). Then he continues, "When we might have claimed authority as apostles of Christ, we came among you as brethren; we were gentle in the midst of you, as when a nurse cherisheth her own children. So, being affectionately desirous of you, we were well pleased to impart to you not the gospel of God only, but also our own souls, for you were very dear to us. You remember, brethren, and are witnesses how holily and righteously and unblameably we behaved ourselves toward you that believe. You know that we dealt with you, every one of you, as a father with his own children, exhorting you and encouraging you and testifying unto you." That is a very fine manner. When you hold a meeting, remember how Paul preached in this great city the manner of it as well as the matter.

The manner of the reception of his preaching is found in 1 Thessalonians 2:13: "For this cause we also thank God without ceasing, that, when ye received from us the word of the message, even the word of God, ye accepted it not as the word of men, but, as it is in truth, the word of God, which also worketh in you that believe." It is a great thing when a man is holding a meeting, if he so conducts himself that people will think he is God’s messenger, and they will receive what he preaches, not as the word of men, but as the word of God.

The power of this preaching there is seen also from the letter. The text, 1 Thessalonians 2:6, taking the testimony of the enemies, says, "These that have turned the world upside down are come hither also." That is their testimony to the power. Let us see what the testimony to the power of that meeting is on the part of Paul. In 1 Thessalonians 1:5 he says: "Our gospel came not unto you in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Spirit, and in much assurance." The power was so great that the people who believed received assurance as they received faith. The evidences of the Spirit’s work were so marvelous, so manifest, that converts who believed, believed fully; they staggered not with any doubt, having a full assurance of faith. So that must have been indeed a great meeting in its power.

The cost of the meeting was borne in two ways. The first proof is 1 Thessalonians 2:9, "For ye remember, brethren, our labor and travail: working night and day that we might not burden any of you, we preached unto you the gospel of God." Paul paid his own expenses. He didn’t do it all the time, as I will prove to you. Toward the latter part of the meeting, that Philippian church that he had just established, sent him a big contribution, which he very gratefully acknowledges when he writes the letter to the Philippians. It was a mission church, hardly out of the cradle yet. He had just left it, and they remembered how poor he was, without money and without purse. They recalled how he had worked, and of their own volition, without a suggestion from him before he left Thessalonica, they took up a big collection and sent it to him. He states that they did it more than once. They sent him another one when he got to Corinth.

What a beautiful church was that Philippian church! Of all the churches that Paul ever established, he appreciated the church at Philippi most, and it loved him most. It not only sent funds to him here at Thessalonica, but at Corinth, and when they heard that he was long afterward arrested and taken to Rome as a prisoner, they sent their pastor with a big contribution to go and find him in the prison and give it to him. So I would call that a Missionary Baptist church.

In 1 Thessalonians 2:14-16 he refers thus to the character of the opposition: "For ye, brethren, became imitators of the churches of God which are in Judea in Christ Jesus: for ye also suffered the same things of your own countrymen, even as they did of the Jews; who both killed the Lord Jesus and the prophets, and drove out us, and please not God, and are contrary to all men; forbidding us to speak to the Gentiles that they may be saved; to fill up their sins always: but the wrath is come upon them to the uttermost." Then in the very beginning of the letter he refers to the opposition of the Jews, not the Jewish Christians, but the outside Jews. He held the synagogue for three sabbath days, but they fought him from the very start.

As to the result of that meeting, Acts 17:4 says, "And some of them [that is, the Jews, not many] were persuaded and consorted with Paul and Silas; and of the devout Greeks a great multitude, and of the chief women not a few." The Lord bless the women! And these were great women, rich women, influential women. So there the accessions to the church were just a few Jews, but a great multitude of the proselytes and of the outside Gentiles, and not a few good women. That church ought to have made a fine record.

But we also want to know what about the results afterward. So I cite another passage from the letter, written not long after the meeting. Paul is at Corinth when he writes it. He says, "And ye became imitators of us and of the Lord, having received the word in much affliction, with joy in the Holy Spirit; so that ye [the result] became an example to all that believe in Macedonia and Achaia. For from you hath sounded forth the word of the Lord, not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but in every place your faith to God-ward is gone forth; so that we need not to speak anything. [The report that goes on about the work in your place does the speaking.] For they themselves report concerning us what manner of entering in we had unto you; and how you turned unto God from idols, to serve the living and true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, even Jesus, who delivereth us from the wrath to come" (1 Thessalonians 1:6-10).

There is a certain expression there that I stress. When you talk about the results of that meeting, you have first the multitude; you have, second, the character, and if I had time, I would give you individuals that afterward became famous, who were converted in that meeting. Then we have the fact stated that so marvelous was that effect that the sound went forth, or it sounded forth, sounding all over Macedonia, all over Achaia and everywhere. Thessalonica was a seaport and the news of that meeting went out on every ship. Thessalonica was on the great Ignatian Way, and the travel was incessant ò east and west, away from Rome and toward Rome, and everybody carried the news of that meeting. It was on the by-way that went up into a high place of Macedonia, and even into Illyrica; they all heard about the meeting they had at Thessalonica, that is, this three weeks’ meeting. Thessalonica was a great city, and many people lived there.

The Jews, having found that they couldn’t stop this meeting by growling and standing out on the edges (you know how opponents do stand out on the fringe of the meeting and make fun and snarl), said that the meeting was overriding them and therefore they went before these polytarchs and preferred a charge – a charge of treason – Just exactly like the charge they preferred against Christ: that there was another king, and therefore it was against Caesar, saying, "They tell about another king – one Jesus." That is one point. The next point is sedition. They caused the disturbance. Nobody was disturbed but themselves, and they were doing it. If there was anything in the world that a Roman magistrate would become alarmed at, it was turbulences in the streets. The Roman power was very stern about any popular disturbance. They would hear a charge of that crime quicker than they would anything else. And the soldiers were ready to dash in among them at any time to put down any sort of a mob movement. You will see a sample of it, and how a Roman deals with it, when we get to Corinth.

They went to the house of Jason, the man with whom the preachers were staying. Jason was entertaining them. There are still a good many people left in the world like the women in the time of Elisha that built a prophet’s chamber. They are glad to have the preachers. They get benefit in the family. We learn from the letter to the Romans that Paul had a kinsman named Jason, but this one is in Thessalonica, and while it is hardly probable that that kinsman did move over to Rome, as it wasn’t very long till the letter to the Romans was written, I conclude that this Jason was not a kinsman of Paul, but Just one of the brethren, one of the converts. They rushed up to the house, but Paul and Silas were not there, and they captured Jason and others, and brought them up before the magistrates, and put them under bond that there should be no more disturbances, very much like people giving bond now to keep the peace.

I call attention to a word in the Authorized Version of Acts 17:5: "The Jews which believed not, moved with envy, took unto them certain lewd fellows." In our time that old Anglo Saxon word "lewd" has a meaning of sexual infamy attached to it. That is not the meaning here. Very recently one of the greatest writers on the use of words has published an article in a magazine on the change in the meaning of English words. "Lewd" originally meant the people. After a while it began to mean the common people, and finally it got to mean (and this is the meaning it has here) that part of the people we call loafers – people who hang around courthouses or stand and talk at the barroom doors. If you can just think of the word, "town loafer," you will have the right idea. So, on the whole, the meeting was not successful with the Jews.

Paul’s desire to continue his work at Thessalonica was evinced later. They shipped him off rapidly, leaving Silas and Timothy there, however. Some of the brethren took Paul and carried him down to the sea in order that he might go by sea to Athens. He couldn’t travel by himself, and those young converts were very kind to him. It is like the country brethren sending buggies to meet the preacher, and sending him back when he goes out to hold his meetings. They took Paul all the way down to the seacoast. In his feebleness he couldn’t go by himself. They went with him to Athens, and having domiciled him there, they went back home. When they went back they took a message from him to Timothy and to Silas to come to him at once. Here is what he says on that subject – 1 Thessalonians 2:17-18: "But we, brethren, being bereaved of you for a short season . . . because we would fain have come unto you, I Paul, once and again; and Satan hindered us." Then he goes on to say why he wanted to come – that he counted that great multitude his hope, his crown of rejoicing; that that would be enough for him when he got to heaven, bringing his sheaves and saying, "Lord, these are from Thessalonica." And in 1 Thessalonians 3:2 he refers to it again: "And sent Timothy, our brother and God’s minister in the gospel of Christ, to establish you, and to comfort you concerning your faith." We see he had sent word to Timothy to join him at Athens. Timothy came, and as soon as he got there, Paul sent him back to Thessalonica: "I can’t bear to think of what would become of that crowd of people; I want to know how they are getting along," says Paul. "I go to Corinth from Athens, and you can join me there, and tell me about the Thessalonians." We find after a while that Timothy did come to him at Corinth, and this called forth those letters to the Thessalonians.

Berea was not a place of the importance that Thessalonica was. It was like holding a meeting in the country, and the Jews there being far out of touch with the travel of Jews and the Jerusalem news, liked the preacher that would get up and tell them about the Old Testament. These were more noble than the Jews at Thessalonica. They not only received the word gladly, but they took up their Old Testaments and examined them to see if what Paul preached was true. You have a people in a good fix when you make them pull their Bibles out and brush the dust off and verify what you preach. That is a fine spirit. The character of the work done here at Berea was fine, but there was a distinction in its result from that done in Thessalonica. At Berea a multitude of the Jews were converted, and only a few at Thessalonica.

The work was interrupted when that same Jew crowd of devils at Thessalonica heard he was there holding another meeting and followed him and brought the case up before the officers of the law. If they could have just held the meeting there a while longer with that spiritual force of the Berean Jews, without being interrupted, and with everybody getting out their Bibles as the preacher preached, all the Jews in that country might have been converted. But Paul left Silas and Timothy, while the Berean brethren took him on to Athens.

We are not to think of the Athens of the days of Pericles, the greatest city in the world for its power in art, painting, sculpture, oratory, philosophy, literature, and so great that it has affected the world ever since. We are not even to think of the Athens of the days of Demosthenes, though some of the characteristics were already developed that are now in full sway. Demosthenes, when he was trying to stir them up against Philip of Macedon, told them that Philip of Macedon was a man that was always doing something: "You don’t do anything but just go around and say, What is the news? How on earth are you going to stand before such a man as Philip of Macedon?" We will see that they are of that disposition when Paul reaches Athens. While not in its glory, it still has its Acropolis, high up over that city – that marvelous building – even today a wonder of the world, its Parthenon, and over on another hill stood a colossal statue of the goddess Minerva, and lower down on the hill was their celebrated court room, Mars’ Hill, the Areopagus (pagos meaning hill, and arcs meaning Mars – "Mars’ Hill"), and lower down still was what is called the "Agora," market place. It was a big market place, with rows and rows of the most beautifully sculptured pillars, and under the porticoes of that market place the philosophers would meet the people and teach. Socrates taught there. The market place was the daily newspaper of the day. It was the schoolhouse, where everybody met everybody and told everybody what everybody knew. It was full of sculptured idols. They were on every hilltop. They were on all the hillsides, and lined both sides of the streets clear down to the bay – the Pireus. They were in every house; they were in every garden, and as a writer once said, "It is easier to find a god in Athens than to find a man"; gods to the right of them, gods to the left of them, gods in front of them, and gods behind them, all around them and all over them, and yet the people had lost faith in all those gods.

I have already said that the brethren of Berea brought him overland to the seaport. There he took ship, came around to Athens, sailed through those rough waters of the Aegean – those islands of the Aegean about which Byron wrote, "The Islands of Greece, where Paphos and Sapho sang," said to be the most beautiful islands in the world except the Thousand Islands in one of the northern lakes. When Paul arrived he had no forward thoughts; they were all backward. He was distressed to be there by himself, and he says, "Tell Silas and Timothy to come forthwith." Then his mind was on that great meeting in Thessalonica and Berea and Philippi; there were two fires always burning in his heart, one pointing to the regions beyond, and one pointing back to the regions behind. But his mind was diverted and his spirit was stirred within him when he saw the city full of idols. Walking up and down the streets, he saw these idols, and reading the inscriptions on them, his spirit was stirred within him. This stirring of the Jew’s heart at beholding the idols in Greece was foretold by what prophet? I preached my educational sermon on that. It is from Zechariah: "I will stir up thy sons, O Zion, against thy sons, O Greece." He was grieved with its philosophy, and just as it is now, a man that believes in God, in the inspiration of the scriptures and in the integrity of the scriptures, comes, and there is the philosopher of the schools competing. I sent that address to Dr. Strong, at Rochester, and he wrote back and said, "I don’t fear the Greeks as much as you do," but now he fears the Greeks in his old age, when one of his own sons has gone off after them, and when he sees the whole North swept away with their philosophy, his old age is full of intense concern.

Paul first went into the synagogue and preached to the Jews. Then he went for that market place. That was the place to find the people, and he took them one at a time. He just had to preach. Then it is said that certain philosophers of the Epicureans and Stoics met him. Epicureanism is just exactly what modern evolutionists teach. They are the authors of it, and later, men borrowed from them. In other words, the Epicureans stole all their best ideas. They were materialists and atheists. They didn’t believe in God. They believed all things in the world came about by a fortuitous coming together of atoms. That the earth is governed by chance and not divinely, and that death is the end of man, therefore "Let us eat and drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die," was their motto. The Stoics were Pantheists and materialists. They believed that matter was eternal; that nothing happened by chance as the Epicureans taught, but that everything comes to pass by an inexorable fate. They beat the Hardshells, saying that "whatever is to be will be if it never happens." Their great fault was pride.

Mars’ Hill was a place where they held their courts. The Athenian ecclesia assembled there. Raphael’s cartoon of Paul in Mars’ Hill is a great work of art. Raphael was a great painter, one of the masters, and he has left an immortal painting of Paul here at Athens. You see a very imperfect copy of it in some of your Bibles; if you could study the great painting itself, it would evidently be a marvel to you.

Let us analyze Paul’s address on Mars’ Hill. He commences exactly as Demosthenes commenced, "Men of Athens [he knew about Demosthenes], I perceive that in all things ye are very religious. For as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship [objects of your worship: you carry your religion into worshiping a multiplicity of things; that is very religious], I found also an altar with this inscription, ’To an Unknown God.’ " Two classical writers declare that they have seen those altars with those inscriptions. Understand that Paul was carried to that courthouse practically unawares. He was not dragged there, but he was taken to the courthouse on this charge: "You seem to be a setter forth of strange gods." There was a law in Athens that no man must introduce another god. I sympathize with that law. They surely had enough.

Socrates was put to death on that very charge, that he said that a spirit which they called a demon, a supernatural being, instructed him, and as he didn’t call that spirit either Jupiter, Pluto, Saturn, Minerva, or Venus, or any of their so-called gods, that was teaching a strange god, and Socrates was put to death. That charge is brought against Paul. In analyzing his address, you see how adroit he is in evading that: "You accuse me of setting forth strange gods," and in using their very words, he says, "I set forth unto you a God that you ignorantly worship. I am introducing no new divinity. I am introducing a God that you confess you are ignorant of, for you have an altar on which you have inscribed, ’To the Unknown God.’ Now that God whom you do not know, I tell you about, and he is not at all like what the Epicureans or the Stoics teach; he created man and everything you see, and he does not need anything from us. We sprung from him, and he made of one blood all the nations that inhabit the earth."

The Athenians believed that their blood was "blue blood," and that no other people in the world had the same origin. They taught that they were indigenous – that they just came up right there, and that all the rest of the world were barbarians. Standing on Mars’ Hill, where they held such a belief, and such a contempt for the outside world, he made them see the unity of the race, and that they were not separate from the rest of the world in their derivation. And standing there, with a gesture he could point to the statue of the goddess Minerva, and then sweep his hand toward the Acropolis, where hundreds of gods were presented in statues, he says, "God dwelleth not in temples made with hands," thus quoting Stephen. How well he remembered what Stephen said!

Then he says, "And this God, of whom you have unjustifiable ignorance, not only appointed your nation its place and its season, but every other nation its place and its season, and has put in man a longing for God that they should seek after him. Though they grope in blindness, that he would reach out his hand and touch their hand, if haply they might find him. He is not far off. He is near." Then he said (the idea of going to the most cultivated place in the world, e. g., to Yale, Harvard, Oxford, and Cambridge combined, and saying to them, "The times of your ignorance God overlooked"), "You are great in a certain way. You know how to paint, and how to make speeches, how to carve in wood, and in stone; you know how to philosophize, but about God, about eternity, about the relation of man to heaven, and to his fellow man, you are just as ignorant as moles and bats."

And it is -true today, that the places of the greatest culture are the places of the greatest ignorance of God and the hardest places in which to preach.

Paul says, "God overlooked your ignorance, but now, as Christ has come, as life and immortality are brought to light, as the stream of life is brought to your very door, God now commandeth men everywhere to repent, because he hath appointed a day of judgment, and the judge will be this very man that I preach unto you, and the evidence he (God) has given to this man is that he raised him from the dead."

The Athenians stopped him right there, "Oh, if you are going to talk about the resurrection of the dead, why of course philosophers cannot believe that. If you are going to bring in a miracle like that, why, we can’t accept it." Paul quoted from two of their poets. Aratus, of Tarsus, Paul’s own city, was one of them, who wrote, With him, with Zeus are filled All paths we tread, and all the marts of men: Filled, too, the sea, and every creek and bay. And all in all things need we help of Zeus, For we, too, are his offspring.

And, second, Cleanthes, who wrote, Thee ‘Tis meet that mortals call with one accord, For we thine offspring are, and we alone Of all that live and move upon this earth Receive the gift of imitative speech.

This address of Paul proves him to have been a very learned man. The logic of his address, the connected chains of thought, prove it. He was acquainted with Demosthenes’ manner of commencing an address, and everything shows that he could speak to the most cultivated audience in the world. But this is the only time that he ever adopted the learned method of preaching, and it was the poorest preaching that he ever did, and had the poorest results. There was one man, Dionysius and one or two women converted. So when he got over to Corinth, the next place, he just got down on his knees and said, "I discard rhetoric; I discard all rounded periods; I lay aside the wisdom of words, and in fear and trembling I cling to the cross of Christ," and he had another big meeting, but he didn’t have it at Athens. If you were going to preach the commencement sermon at Yale or Harvard, I venture to say that unless somebody warned you, you would get on your stilts and scrape the sky with your rhetoric and oratory. They wouldn’t care anything about that. It is nothing more than the aurora borealis to them – nothing more than glowworms. The greatest crowd of intellectualists are like a lot of lightning bugs on a mullein leaf, with their tails together, and imagining that they are illumining the world.

Paul never did get from under the mighty impressions of the Thessalonians and the meeting in Philippi and Berea. Oh, that was a love feast! And he got up on the mountaintop. He saw the city of Jerusalem, the way opened up into heaven, and the power of the world to come got hold of him. But when he got down there at Athens to philosophizing, his heart grew cold. So every time he thought of that meeting, he was whipped. You had just as well try to feed your guests on a painted supper as to preach that way.

This question arises, Did Paul ordain elders in Thessalonica, and what is the proof? I say that he did, but the proof is found in one of his letters to them. That shows how many things Luke leaves out. If we had a letter of Paul about every place he held a meeting we would not be ignorant about what was done. The proof is that when he left Thessalonica he left preachers in charge of it, not only Silas and Timothy, but special men. He didn’t mark and brand cattle to turn them out on the range.

QUESTIONS

1. Where is Thessalonica situated, what its strategic position in the days of Paul and now, what of the Jews there, what its relation to the Mohammedans, and what kind of government did it have?

2. How long was Paul there, and what the proof?

3. What is the matter and what the manner of his preaching there?

4. What is the importance of his method of preaching there?

5. What is the manner of the reception of his preaching?

6. What is the power of his preaching there?

7. How was the cost of the meeting borne, and what church sent contributions to him at various times?

8. What was the character of the opposition at first in Thessalonica?

9. What was the result of the meeting then and thereafter?

10. What expression here stressed by the author, and why?

11. How did the persecution assume the Gentile form, and what the result?

12. What is the meaning of "lewd fellows" in this connection?

13. Who of the mission party had been left at Philippi?

14. On the whole, was the meeting successful with the Jews?

15. How was Paul’s desire to continue his work at Thessalonica evinced later?

16. Give an account of Berea, its importance, the Jews there, the character of the work done there, and the distinction between this result, and the result at Thessalonica.

17. How was the work interrupted?

18. Whom did Paul leave behind?

19. Give an account of Athena.

20. How did Paul reach Athens?

21. What was the state of Paul’s mind when he arrived there?

22. What diverted his mind, and put him to work there?

23. To whom did he first preach?

24. Then to whom did he preach?

25. Who were the Epicureans, and who now represent them?

26. Who were the Stoics, and what did they teach?

27. What was Mars’ Hill?

28. Describe Raphael’s cartoon of Paul on Mars’ Hill.

29. Analyze Paul’s address on Mars’ Hill.

30. What was the result of this effort of Paul?

31. Who were the poets from whom Paul quoted in this speech, and what were their words?

32. Who came to him here?

33. What does this address prove as to Paul’s learning?

34. What evidence have we that Paul discarded later this philosophical method of preaching, and why?

35. What was the respective impressions on Paul’s life about the work in Philippi, Thessalonica, Berea, and Athens?

36. Did Paul ordain elders in Thessalonica, and what the proof?