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Acts 17:18
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The Philosophers at Athens

16 Now while Paul waited for them at Athens, ahis spirit was provoked within him when he saw that the city was1 given over to idols.  
17 Therefore he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and with the Gentile worshipers, and in the marketplace daily with those who happened to be there.
18 Then certain Epicurean and Stoic philosophers encountered him. And some said, “What does this2 babbler want to say?” Others said, “He seems to be a proclaimer of foreign gods,” because he preached to them aJesus and the resurrection.  
19 And they took him and brought him to the1 Areopagus, saying, “May we know what this new doctrine is of which you speak?  
20 For you are bringing some strange things to our ears. Therefore we want to know what these things mean.”
21 For all the Athenians and the foreigners who were there spent their time in nothing else but either to tell or to hear some new thing.

Addressing the Areopagus

22 Then Paul stood in the midst of the1 Areopagus and said, “Men of Athens, I perceive that in all things you are very religious;  
23 for as I was passing through and considering the objects of your worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO THE UNKNOWN GOD. Therefore, the One whom you worship without knowing, Him I proclaim to you:
Commentaries:
People's Commentary (NT)
<< Acts 17:17   Acts 17:19 >>


Acts 17:18

Acts 17:18 Of the Epicureans, and of the Stoicks. Two of the philosophical schools then prevalent in Athens. The first held that the gods were careless about human affairs, and that a man's best course was to get as much pleasure out of life as possible. With them pleasure was the chief good. The Stoics were fatalists, believers in a sort of pantheism, and insisted on self-righteousness. Epicurus was the founder of the first sect; Zeno, of the second. What will this babbler say? A contemptuous expression. A setter forth of strange gods. He spoke of God and the risen Jesus. Some have thought that they mistook "Anastasis", the Greek for "resurrection", for the name of a goddess.




Other People's Commentary (NT) entries containing Acts 17:18:

Acts 17:18
1 Corinthians 1:22

 

<< Acts 17:17   Acts 17:19 >>

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