Paul in Thessalonica, Berea and Athens: the Creator, the risen Man and the judgment

Acts was written by Luke, the companion of Paul. Chapter 17 belongs to Paul's second missionary journey, usually dated about AD 49 to 52. From Philippi Paul, Silas and Timothy travel west along the Via Egnatia, the great Roman road, through Amphipolis and Apollonia to Thessalonica, the capital of the province of Macedonia. Luke calls its magistrates 'politarchs' (17:6), a title that is found in inscriptions from Macedonian cities, which fits his account. The church founded there is the audience of 1 Thessalonians, probably Paul's earliest surviving letter, which describes the converts as having turned from idols to serve the living and true God (1 Thessalonians 1:9-10).

Troubled by opposition, Paul moves on to Berea and then, alone, to Athens. Athens in the first century was no longer a political power but remained the intellectual centre of the Greek world, with its temples, statues and schools. The two philosophies Luke names are the Epicureans and the Stoics. Epicureans taught that the gods were remote and uninvolved, that death was the end, and that the aim of life was calm freedom from fear. Stoics believed in a rational divine principle pervading the universe, spoke of living according to nature, and expected the world to end in fire and begin again. Neither expected a bodily resurrection.

The Areopagus (17:19, 22) was the ancient council of Athens, named for the Hill of Ares. Scholars disagree whether Paul was taken to the hill itself or to the council that met elsewhere, perhaps in the marketplace area. In Paul's day it kept some oversight of religion and education in the city, so the question put to him, what this new teaching is, was a formal inquiry and not a hostile trial. Luke records its outcome without a verdict.

Acts is historical narrative that includes speeches, and the speech of 17:22-31 is the clearest example in Acts of how the gospel is put to a pagan audience with no Bible. Luke gives only a summary, probably a few minutes' worth of what was said. The reader must therefore judge the speech by what it says and by how it fits the rest of Paul's teaching, not by what it leaves out. Comparing it with Paul's preaching to Jews in Acts 13 and to the simple crowd at Lystra (14:15-17) shows a common pattern: when the audience knows Scripture, Paul begins with the promises; when it does not, he begins with the Creator.

The narrative is arranged to show a contrast. At Thessalonica Paul reasons from the Scriptures that the Christ must suffer and rise. At Berea the hearers check his words against the Scriptures. At Athens there is no Scripture in common, so Paul reasons from creation, from the Athenians' own religion and from their poets, and ends with the resurrection. Yet the content stays biblical throughout. The speech is a compressed survey of Genesis 1-11, Psalms and Isaiah, set in terms that Greeks could follow.

Two interpretive cautions apply. When Paul quotes pagan poets he does not endorse their theology; he uses a line that is true in his own sense. And the speech is not a template that makes the Christian message adapt to its hearers. Paul adapts the starting point and keeps the substance: judgment, repentance and the risen man. Some interpreters have claimed that Paul failed at Athens, because few believed and he moved quickly to Corinth. Luke reports no failure, and names converts.

Verses 1–9

Paul follows his custom and goes to the synagogue at Thessalonica. For three Sabbaths he reasons (dielexato) with the hearers from the Scriptures, explaining and demonstrating that the Christ had to suffer and rise from the dead, and that Jesus is that Christ. Some Jews believe, along with many God-fearing Greeks and several leading women. Jealousy stirs a mob that attacks the house of Jason, Paul's host. The charge before the politarchs is political: these men who have 'turned the world upside down' are acting against Caesar's decrees, 'saying that there is another king, named Jesus'. It echoes the charge against Jesus himself (Luke 23:2; John 19:12). Jason posts bond, and the missionaries leave by night.

Verses 10–15

At Berea the Jews are 'more noble-minded' (eugenesteroi) than the Thessalonians. They receive the word eagerly and examine (anakrinontes) the Scriptures daily to see whether these things are so. The word means careful investigation, as in a judicial inquiry. Many believe, including prominent Greek women and men. Agitators from Thessalonica follow, and Paul is sent off to the coast and to Athens while Silas and Timothy remain.

Verses 16–21

Waiting in Athens, Paul is deeply provoked (the verb is paroxyno) to see the city full of idols. He reasons in the synagogue and daily in the marketplace (agora). Epicurean and Stoic philosophers engage him. Some call him a 'babbler' (spermologos), literally a seed-picker, a word used of a bird that pecks up scraps and then of a person who picks up ideas at second hand. Others say he seems to preach foreign deities, because he speaks of Jesus and the resurrection (anastasis). They bring him to the Areopagus. Luke adds that Athenians and foreigners spent their time in nothing but telling or hearing something new.

Verses 22–23

Paul begins by acknowledging that the Athenians are very religious (deisidaimonesterous), a word that can be a compliment or a criticism, and Paul probably leaves it ambiguous. He has noticed an altar inscribed 'To an unknown god'. Ancient writers mention altars in Athens dedicated to unknown gods. Paul takes it as admitted ignorance and says he now declares what they worship without knowing.

Verses 24–25

The God who made the world and everything in it is Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples made by hands, nor is he served by human hands as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all life and breath and everything. This is the Old Testament doctrine of creation (Genesis 1-2; Isaiah 42:5) and its critique of temple-bound religion (1 Kings 8:27; Isaiah 66:1-2). Stoics and Epicureans each held part of it, but neither a Creator who gives nor a God who speaks.

Verses 26–28

From one man God made every nation to live on the whole earth, and fixed their appointed times and the boundaries of their lands (compare Deuteronomy 32:8). His purpose was that they should seek him, in the hope that they might reach out and find him, though he is not far from each of us. 'For in Him we live and move and have our being' is a line commonly thought to come from a Cretan poet, and 'we are his offspring' is from the Stoic poet Aratus, in agreement with similar lines in the hymn of Cleanthes. Paul uses them as pointers and not as authority.

Verses 29–31

If we are God's offspring, God cannot be like gold, silver or stone shaped by human skill. God overlooked the times of ignorance, but now commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed. He has given assurance (pistis) of this to all by raising him from the dead.

Verses 32–34

The mention of resurrection ends the hearing. Some mock; Greek thought valued the soul's release from the body, and a well-known line in Aeschylus, in a play set at this court, says there is no rising again for the dead. Others say they will hear him again. A few join him and believe, including Dionysius, a member of the Areopagus, and a woman named Damaris.

The Areopagus speech is a short theology of God, humanity and history. God is the Creator and the Lord of heaven and earth, self-sufficient, who gives life and breath to all. This teaches the doctrine of creation against idolatry, and it matches the Old Testament's attack on images (Psalm 115:4-8; Isaiah 44:9-20). Humanity is one family from one man (Genesis 1:26-28; 10), set in times and places by God so that they should seek him. This is the teaching of providence: God governs the rise and fall of nations (Daniel 2:21) and is near.

The speech also teaches human accountability. Idolatry is called ignorance, but not an excuse: God now commands all to repent. This parallels Romans 1:18-23, where Paul says that people who know God's power from creation turn to idols, and Romans 2:16, where God judges through Christ Jesus. The judgment is certain because it is set for a day. And the guarantee of it is the resurrection. Elsewhere Paul says that all must appear before the judgment seat of Christ (2 Corinthians 5:10).

Placed in the canon, the chapter shows that the one God of Israel is the God of all peoples and that the gospel addresses people in every culture. The Bereans stand for the principle that apostolic teaching is tested by Scripture. The relation of creation to knowing God has been debated in the church. What is clear from Acts 17 and Romans 1 is that creation bears witness to God but does not by itself bring salvation; the call to repent and the news of the resurrection are required.

In Thessalonica the Old Testament is read as pointing to a Messiah who suffers and rises. Luke has given Jesus' own teaching of this in Luke 24:25-27 and 24:44-47, and Paul's practice is to show the same from the Law, the Prophets and the Psalms; Isaiah 53 and Psalm 16:8-11, used in Acts 2 and 13, are typical texts. The statement that the Christ 'had to' suffer (dei) is fulfillment: it was God's plan in the Scriptures. The charge of another king named Jesus is true in a sense the accusers did not intend, since Jesus is the Davidic king (compare 2:30-36).

In Athens Paul names Jesus without using the title Christ, speaking of the man whom God has appointed. The man is the judge of the world, an echo of the Son of Man in Daniel 7:13-14, to whom dominion is given. Jesus said the Father gave him authority to judge because he is the Son of Man (John 5:27). The resurrection is God's public sign that Jesus is that man and that the judgment will be carried out by him. The chapter also joins creation and redemption. The God who gives life and breath is the one who raised the dead, and the Creator's Lordship (17:24) is the Lordship Jesus now exercises. Colossians 1:15-20 makes this link explicit; Acts 17 only implies it.

The chapter therefore presents Christ as the suffering and risen Messiah, the appointed judge, and the proof that the Creator will make all things right. Its aim is to bring hearers from ignorance of God to repentance in view of him.