32 Now on hearing about the coming back from death, some of them made sport of it, but others said, Let us go more fully into this another time.
And some of those who were supporters of the theories of the Epicureans and the Stoics, had a meeting with him. And some said, What is this talker of foolish words saying? And others, He seems to be a preacher of strange gods: because he was preaching of Jesus and his coming back from the dead.
Why, in your opinion, is it outside belief for God to make the dead come to life again?
But others, making sport of them, said, They are full of new wine.
And they all gave reasons why they were not able to come. The first said to him, I have got a new field, and it is necessary for me to go and see it: I am full of regret that I am unable to come.
(For he says, I have given ear to you at a good time, and I have been your helper in a day of salvation: see, now is the good time; now is the day of salvation):
We are made to seem foolish for Christ, but you are wise in Christ; we are feeble, but you are strong; you have glory, but we have shame.
But had certain questions against him in connection with their religion, and about one Jesus, now dead, who, Paul said, was living.
Because a day has been fixed in which all the world will be judged in righteousness by the man who has been marked out by him for this work; of which he has given a sign to all men by giving him back from the dead.
And Lot went out and said to his sons-in-law, who were married to his daughters, Come, let us go out of this place, for the Lord is about to send destruction on the town. But his sons-in-law did not take him seriously.
Let us then go out to him outside the circle of the tents, taking his shame on ourselves.
But we give the good news of Christ on the cross, a hard thing to the Jews, and a foolish thing to the Gentiles;
See, you doubters, have wonder and come to your end; for I will do a thing in your days to which you will not give belief, even if it is made clear to you.
And Herod, with the men of his army, put shame on him and made sport of him, and dressing him in shining robes, he sent him back to Pilate.
And the men in whose hands Jesus was, made sport of him and gave him blows.
For if you come back to the Lord, those who took away your brothers and your children will have pity on them, and let them come back to this land: for the Lord your God is full of grace and mercy, and his face will not be turned away from you if you come back to him. So the runners went from town to town through all the country of Ephraim and Manasseh as far as Zebulun: but they were laughed at and made sport of. However, some of Asher and Manasseh and Zebulun put away their pride and came to Jerusalem.
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.