The Early Church

Now when they had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where there was a Jewish synagogue.

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 Messiah had to suffer and rise again from the dead, and saying, “This Yeshua, whom I proclaim to you, is the Messiah.”

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.

But the unpersuaded Jews took along some wicked men from the marketplace, and gathering a crowd, set the city in an uproar. Assaulting the house of Jason, they sought to bring them out to the people.

When they didn’t find them, they dragged Jason and certain brothers before the rulers of the city, crying, “These who have turned the world upside down have come here also,

whom Jason has received. These all act contrary to the decrees of Caesar, saying that there is another king, Yeshua!”

The multitude and the rulers of the city were troubled when they heard these things.

When they had taken security from Jason and the rest, they let them go.

The brothers immediately sent Paul and Silas away by night to Beroea. When they arrived, they went into the Jewish synagogue.

Now these were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of the mind, examining the Scriptures daily to see whether these things were so.

Many of them therefore believed; also of the prominent Greek women, and not a few men.

But when the Jews of Thessalonica had knowledge that the word of God was proclaimed by Paul at Beroea also, they came there likewise, agitating the multitudes.

Then the brothers immediately sent out Paul to go as far as to the sea, and Silas and Timothy still stayed there.

But those who escorted Paul brought him as far as Athens. Receiving a commandment to Silas and Timothy that they should come to him very quickly, they departed.

Now while Paul waited for them at Athens, his spirit was provoked within him as he saw the city full of idols.

So he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the devout persons, and in the marketplace every day with those who met him.

Some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers also were conversing with him. Some said, “What does this babbler want to say?” Others said, “He seems to be advocating foreign deities,” because he preached Yeshua and the resurrection.

They took hold of him, and brought him to the Areopagus, saying, “May we know what this new teaching is, which is spoken by you?

For you bring certain strange things to our ears. We want to know therefore what these things mean.”

Now all the Athenians and the strangers living there spent their time in nothing else, but either to tell or to hear some new thing.

Paul stood in the middle of the Areopagus, and said, “You men of Athens, I perceive that you are very religious in all things.

For as I passed along, and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription: ‘TO AN UNKNOWN GOD.’ What therefore you worship in ignorance, this I announce to you.

The God who made the world and all things in it, he, being Lord of heaven and earth, doesn’t dwell in temples made with hands,

neither is he served by men’s hands, as though he needed anything, seeing he himself gives to all life and breath, and all things.