Bible Study Moment

In Acts 17 Paul and Silas get in trouble again. In Thessalonica those upset with them cause a riot by proclaiming that the ones who have turned the world upside down are here, proclaiming that someone other than Caesar is king – Jesus.

Eventually Paul ends up in Athens. He goes about the city seeing idols to various gods and goddesses, most likely including seeing the Parthenon. One idol he sees says “to an unknown god” which he uses to talk about the Jewish god and Jesus and the resurrection.

I’ve read some Bible teacher saying that Paul never preached this way again because it wasn’t effective enough. I wonder how closely this teacher has read Acts, because the results are the same as other places; some believe and accept his message, some reject it, and some want to learn more at a later time. And Paul may not have preached that same way again, although we don’t have all his sermons so we can’t say if he preached this way again or not, and I tend to go with what Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 9:22 “I become all things to all people in order to save some”.

Mark Phillips