17 So he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the devout persons, and in the marketplace every day with those who met him.
Wisdom calls aloud in the street. She utters her voice in the public squares. She calls at the head of noisy places. At the entrance of the city gates, she utters her words: "How long, you simple ones, will you love simplicity? How long will mockers delight themselves in mockery, And fools hate knowledge?
Doesn't wisdom cry out? Doesn't understanding raise her voice? On the top of high places by the way, Where the paths meet, she stands. Beside the gates, at the entry of the city, At the entry doors, she cries aloud: "To you men, I call! I send my voice to the sons of mankind.
Therefore I am full of the wrath of Yahweh; I am weary with holding in: pour it out on the children in the street, and on the assembly of young men together; for even the husband with the wife shall be taken, the aged with him who is full of days.
Seeing the multitudes, he went up onto the mountain. When he had sat down, his disciples came to him. He opened his mouth and taught them, saying,
Therefore whatever you have said in the darkness will be heard in the light. What you have spoken in the ear in the inner chambers will be proclaimed on the housetops.
a devout man, and one who feared God with all his house, who gave gifts for the needy generously to the people, and always prayed to God.
Paul stood up, and beckoning with his hand said, "Men of Israel, and you who fear God, listen.
It happened in Iconium that they entered together into the synagogue of the Jews, and so spoke that a great multitude both of Jews and of Greeks believed. But the disbelieving{or, disobedient} Jews stirred up and embittered the souls of the Gentiles against the brothers. Therefore they stayed there a long time, speaking boldly in the Lord, who testified to the word of his grace, granting signs and wonders to be done by their hands. But the multitude of the city was divided. Part sided with the Jews, and part with the apostles.
Paul, as was his custom, went in to them, and for three Sabbath days reasoned with them from the Scriptures, explaining and demonstrating that the Christ had to suffer and rise again from the dead, and saying, "This Jesus, whom I proclaim to you, is the Christ." Some of them were persuaded, and joined Paul and Silas, of the devout Greeks a great multitude, and not a few of the chief women.
For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy,
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on Acts 17
Commentary on Acts 17 Matthew Henry Commentary
Chapter 17
We have here a further account of the travels of Paul, and his services and sufferings for Christ. He was not like a candle upon a table, that gives light only to one room, but like the sun that goes its circuit to give light to many. He was called into Macedonia, a large kingdom, ch. 16:9. He began with Philippi, because it was the first city he came to; but he must not confine himself to this. We have him here,
Act 17:1-9
Paul's two epistles to the Thessalonians, the first two he wrote by inspiration, give such a shining character of that church, that we cannot but be glad here in the history to meet with an account of the first founding of the church there.
Act 17:10-15
In these verses we have,
Act 17:16-21
A scholar that has acquaintance, and is in love, with the learning of the ancients, would think he should be very happy if he were where Paul now was, at Athens, in the midst of the various sects of philosophers, and would have a great many curious questions to ask them, for the explication of the remains we have of the Athenian learning; but Paul, though bred a scholar, and an ingenious active man, does not make this any of his business at Athens. He has other work to mind: it is not the improving of himself in their philosophy that he aims at, he has learned to call it a vain thing, and is above it (Col. 2:8); his business is, in God's name, to correct their disorders in religion, and to turn them from the service of idols, and of Satan in them, to the service of the true and living God in Christ.
Act 17:22-31
We have here St. Paul's sermon at Athens. Divers sermons we have had, which the apostles preached to the Jews, or such Gentiles as had an acquaintance with and veneration for the Old Testament, and were worshippers of the true and living God; and all they had to do with them was to open and allege that Jesus is the Christ; but here we have a sermon to heathens, that worshipped false gods, and were without the true God in the world, and to them the scope of their discourse was quite different from what it was to the other. In the former case their business was to lead their hearers by prophecies and miracles to the knowledge of the Redeemer, and faith in him; in the latter it was to lead them by the common works of providence to the knowledge of the Creator, and the worship of him. One discourse of this kind we had before to the rude idolaters of Lystra that deified the apostles (ch. 14:15); this recorded here is to the more polite and refined idolaters at Athens, and an admirable discourse it is, and every way suited to his auditory and the design he had upon them.
Act 17:32-34
We have here a short account of the issue of Paul's preaching at Athens.