The Standard October 18, 2025
While preaching in Thessalonica, in ancient Macedonia and modern-day northern Greece, the Apostle Paul received a rather negative reception from many of the Jews. His next stop was approximately 45 miles away in Berea, where a good number of the Jews listened eagerly and checked Paul’s words against the Scriptures. Some Jewish men from Thessalonica went and infiltrated the crowds in Berea and tried to inflame them. Because of this, Paul was escorted to Athens by believers, with the plan for Silas and Timothy to join him as soon as possible.
In Athens Paul was “greatly distressed” to see the cultural and intellectual center of the ancient world crammed full of idols. He reasoned in the synagogue and marketplace with all kinds of people. A group of Epicurean and Stoic philosophers began to debate him and then took him to a meeting of the Areopagus in order for him to present this new teaching.
Paul stood up and said, “People of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: to an unknown god. So, you are ignorant of the very thing you worship—and this is what I am going to proclaim to you. The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands. And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else. From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us. ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’ Therefore, since we are God’s offspring, we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone—an image made by human design and skill. In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to everyone by raising him from the dead.” Acts 17:22b-31
Although some sneered at the idea of the resurrection of the dead, others believed. The Apostle Paul was adept at drawing in the audience as he preached and taught. Through the power of the Holy Spirit, Paul and the apostles spread the good news of the Gospel in an astonishing way throughout parts of the Middle East, Africa, Europe, and Asia.
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