The Jewish Annotated New Testament (72 page)

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While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he was deeply distressed to see that the city was full of idols.
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So he argued in the synagogue with the Jews and the devout persons, and also in the marketplace
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every day with those who happened to be there.
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Also some Epicurean and Stoic philosophers debated with him. Some said, “What does this babbler want to say?” Others said, “He seems to be a proclaimer of foreign divinities.” (This was because he was telling the good news about Jesus and the resurrection.)
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So they took him and brought him to the Areopagus and asked him, “May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting?
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It sounds rather strange to us, so we would like to know what it means.”
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Now all the Athenians and the foreigners living there would spend their time in nothing but telling or hearing something new.

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Then Paul stood in front of the Areopagus and said, “Athenians, I see how extremely religious you are in every way.
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For as I went through the city and looked carefully at the objects of your worship, I found among them an altar with the inscription, ‘To an unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you.
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The God who made the world and everything in it, he who is Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in shrines made by human hands,
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nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mortals life and breath and all things.
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From one ancestor
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he made all nations to inhabit the whole earth, and he allotted the times of their existence and the boundaries of the places where they would live,
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so that they would search for God
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and perhaps grope for him and find him—though indeed he is not far from each one of us.
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For ‘In him we live and move and have our being’; as even some of your own poets have said,

‘For we too are his offspring.’

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Since we are God’s offspring, we ought not to think that the deity is like gold, or silver, or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of mortals.
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While God has overlooked the times of human ignorance, now he commands all people everywhere to repent,
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because he has fixed a day on which he will have the world judged in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed, and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.”

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When they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some scoffed; but others said, “We will hear you again about this.”
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At that point Paul left them.
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But some of them joined him and became believers, including Dionysius the Areopagite and a woman named Damaris, and others with them.

18
After this Paul
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left Athens and went to Corinth.
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There he found a Jew named Aquila, a native of Pontus, who had recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla, because Claudius had ordered all Jews to leave Rome. Paul
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went to see them,
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and, because he was of the same trade, he stayed with them, and they worked together—by trade they were tentmakers.
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Every sabbath he would argue in the synagogue and would try to convince Jews and Greeks.

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When Silas and Timothy arrived from Macedonia, Paul was occupied with proclaiming the word,
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testifying to the Jews that the Messiah
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was Jesus.
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When they opposed and reviled him, in protest he shook the dust from his clothes
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and said to them, “Your blood be on your own heads! I am innocent. From now on I will go to the Gentiles.”
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Then he left the synagogue
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and went to the house of a man named Titius
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Justus, a worshiper of God; his house was next door to the synagogue.
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Crispus, the official of the synagogue, became a believer in the Lord, together with all his household; and many of the Corinthians who heard Paul became believers and were baptized.
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One night the Lord said to Paul in a vision, “Do not be afraid, but speak and do not be silent;
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for I am with you, and no one will lay a hand on you to harm you, for there are many in this city who are my people.”
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He stayed there a year and six months, teaching the word of God among them.

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But when Gallio was proconsul of Achaia, the Jews made a united attack on Paul and brought him before the tribunal.
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They said, “This man is persuading people to worship God in ways that are contrary to the law.”
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Just as Paul was about to speak, Gallio said to the Jews, “If it were a matter of crime or serious villainy, I would be justified in accepting the complaint of you Jews;
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but since it is a matter of questions about words and names and your own law, see to it yourselves; I do not wish to be a judge of these matters.”
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And he dismissed them from the tribunal.
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Then all of them
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seized Sosthenes, the official of the synagogue, and beat him in front of the tribunal. But Gallio paid no attention to any of these things.

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After staying there for a considerable time, Paul said farewell to the believers
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and sailed for Syria, accompanied by Priscilla and Aquila. At Cenchreae he had his hair cut, for he was under a vow.
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When they reached Ephesus, he left them there, but first he himself went into the synagogue and had a discussion with the Jews.
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When they asked him to stay longer, he declined;
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but on taking leave of them, he said, “I
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will return to you, if God wills.” Then he set sail from Ephesus.

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When he had landed at Caesarea, he went up to Jerusalem
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and greeted the church, and then went down to Antioch.
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After spending some time there he departed and went from place to place through the region of Galatia
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and Phrygia, strengthening all the disciples.

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Now there came to Ephesus a Jew named Apollos, a native of Alexandria. He was an eloquent man, well-versed in the scriptures.
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He had been instructed in the Way of the Lord; and he spoke with burning enthusiasm and taught accurately the things concerning Jesus, though he knew only the baptism of John.
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He began to speak boldly in the synagogue; but when Priscilla and Aquila heard him, they took him aside and explained the Way of God to him more accurately.
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And when he wished to cross over to Achaia, the believers
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encouraged him and wrote to the disciples to welcome him. On his arrival he greatly helped those who through grace had become believers,
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for he powerfully refuted the Jews in public, showing by the scriptures that the Messiah
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is Jesus.

Chs 18–21: Third missionary journey of Paul.

19
While Apollos was in Corinth, Paul passed through the interior regions and came to Ephesus, where he found some disciples.
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He said to them, “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you became believers?” They replied, “No, we have not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit.”
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Then he said, “Into what then were you baptized?” They answered, “Into John’s baptism.”
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Paul said, “John baptized with the baptism of repentance, telling the people to believe in the one who was to come after him, that is, in Jesus.”
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On hearing this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.
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When Paul had laid his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came upon them, and they spoke in tongues and prophesied—
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altogether there were about twelve of them.

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He entered the synagogue and for three months spoke out boldly, and argued persuasively about the kingdom of God.
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When some stubbornly refused to believe and spoke evil of the Way before the congregation, he left them, taking the disciples with him, and argued daily in the lecture hall of Tyrannus.
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10
This continued for two years, so that all the residents of Asia, both Jews and Greeks, heard the word of the Lord.

¹¹
God did extraordinary miracles through Paul,
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so that when the handkerchiefs or aprons that had touched his skin were brought to the sick, their diseases left them, and the evil spirits came out of them.
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Then some itinerant Jewish exorcists tried to use the name of the Lord Jesus over those who had evil spirits, saying, “I adjure you by the Jesus whom Paul proclaims.”
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Seven sons of a Jewish high priest named Sceva were doing this.
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But the evil spirit said to them in reply, “Jesus I know, and Paul I know; but who are you?”
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Then the man with the evil spirit leaped on them, mastered them all, and so overpowered them that they fled out of the house naked and wounded.
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When this became known to all residents of Ephesus, both Jews and Greeks, everyone was awestruck; and the name of the Lord Jesus was praised.
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Also many of those who became believers confessed and disclosed their practices.
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A number of those who practiced magic collected their books and burned them publicly; when the value of these books
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was calculated, it was found to come to fifty thousand silver coins.
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So the word of the Lord grew mightily and prevailed.