Bible Verses About Religious Zeal

They replied, “Believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved, you and your household.”

Then Paul and Silas spoke the word of the Lord to him and to everyone in his house.

As was his custom, Paul went into the synagogue, and on three Sabbaths he reasoned with them from the Scriptures,

explaining and proving that the Christ had to suffer and rise from the dead. “This Jesus I am proclaiming to you is the Christ,” he declared.

While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he was deeply disturbed in his spirit to see that the city was full of idols.

So he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and God-fearing Gentiles, and in the marketplace with those he met each day.

Then Paul stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said, “Men of Athens, I see that in every way you are very religious.

For as I walked around and examined your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. Therefore what you worship as something unknown, I now 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 made by human hands.

Nor is He served by human hands, as if He needed anything, because He Himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else.

From one man He made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and He determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their lands.

God intended that they would seek Him and perhaps reach out for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each 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, being offspring of God, we should not think that the Divine Being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by man’s skill and imagination.

Although God overlooked the ignorance of earlier times, He now 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.”

Every Sabbath he reasoned in the synagogue, trying to persuade Jews and Greeks alike.

And when Silas and Timothy came down from Macedonia, Paul devoted himself fully to the word, testifying to the Jews that Jesus is the Christ.

But when they opposed and insulted him, he shook out his garments and told them, “Your blood be on your own heads! I am innocent of it. From now on I will go to the Gentiles.”

When they reached Ephesus, Paul parted ways with Priscilla and Aquila. He himself went into the synagogue there and reasoned with the Jews.

After Paul had spent some time in Antioch, he traveled from place to place throughout the region of Galatia and Phrygia, strengthening all the disciples.

Meanwhile a Jew named Apollos, a native of Alexandria, came to Ephesus. He was an eloquent man, well versed in the Scriptures.

He had been instructed in the way of the Lord and was fervent in spirit. He spoke and taught accurately about Jesus, though he knew only the baptism of John.

And he began to speak boldly in the synagogue. When Priscilla and Aquila heard him, they took him in and explained to him the way of God more accurately.

When Apollos resolved to cross over to Achaia, the brothers encouraged him and wrote to the disciples there to welcome him. On his arrival, he was a great help to those who by grace had believed.