17 He reasoned therefore in the synagogue with the Jews, and those who worshipped, and in the market-place every day with those he met with.
Wisdom crieth without; she raiseth her voice in the broadways; she calleth in the chief [place] of concourse, in the entry of the gates; in the city she uttereth her words: How long, simple ones, will ye love simpleness, and scorners take pleasure in their scorning, and the foolish hate knowledge?
Doth not wisdom cry? and understanding give forth her voice? On the top of high places by the way, at the cross-paths she taketh her stand. Beside the gates, at the entry of the city, at the coming in at the doors, she crieth aloud. Unto you, men, I call, and my voice is to the sons of man:
And I am full of the fury of Jehovah, I am weary with holding in. Pour it out upon the children in the street, and upon the assembly of young men together: for even the husband with the wife shall be taken; the aged with him [that is] full of days.
But seeing the crowds, he went up into the mountain, and having sat down, his disciples came to him; and, having opened his mouth, he taught them, saying,
therefore whatever ye have said in the darkness shall be heard in the light, and what ye have spoken in the ear in chambers shall be proclaimed upon the housetops.
And pious men buried Stephen and made great lamentation over him.
pious, and fearing God with all his house, [both] giving much alms to the people, and supplicating God continually,
And Paul, rising up and making a sign with the hand, said, Israelites, and ye that fear God, hearken.
And it came to pass in Iconium that they entered together into the synagogue of the Jews, and so spake that a great multitude of both Jews and Greeks believed. But the Jews who did not believe stirred up the minds of [those of] the nations and made [them] evil-affected against the brethren. They stayed therefore a good while, speaking boldly, [confiding] in the Lord, who gave witness to the word of his grace, giving signs and wonders to be done by their hands. And the multitude of the city was divided, and some were with the Jews and some with the apostles.
And according to Paul's custom he went in among them, and on three sabbaths reasoned with them from the scriptures, opening and laying down that the Christ must have suffered and risen up from among the dead, and that this is the Christ, Jesus whom *I* announce to you. And some of them believed, and joined themselves to Paul and Silas, and of the Greeks who worshipped, a great multitude, and of the chief women not a few.
for men shall be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, evil speakers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, profane,
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.